Emoticon Monthly

ISSUE 1

Readers,
Welcome to the first issue of emoticon monthly. We are here to bring you all the latest reviews and gossip from the world of emoticons, those little round balls of colour we all love so much.
We aim to keep you updated with weekly features chosen by emoticonists and a list of all daily deviations awarded to emoticons this month.
Without much further ado, I bring you emoticon monthly:

Where have all the statics gone?

Emoticons are some of the best loved pieces of art on deviantART. They are one of the only standalone pieces to receive a daily deviation almost everyday. But why, oh why, do we only find animated emoticons now?
Some of the greatest emoticons of all time have been static. For example the beautifully simple ohnoes emoticon by =camelhijackation, and of course the and from the dA legend.
Most emoticonists or deviants frown upon statics for being "far too simple" or "lazy", but they are not. Static emoticons are merely emoticons that are absoloutely perfect for conveying a single emotion or expression. But yet emoticonists thrive to think of animation for their emoticons, whether it be a blink or a wink – they must breathe life into their creations.
If you browse dA carefully you will find amazing animated pieces, but I would love to see a static revolution. Both =parliamentFunk and *LeoLeonardo released download packs with both animated and static pieces inside, but these are shunned to the side by hungry watchers whom prey out animated things. ~eburt's :cow: is a prime example of an almost static daily deviation. I am proud to these things and so should you.
Stand tall,
Stand proud,
Stand static.

=FacetiousKellyAna

Double "o" Cretin

I walk into an empty chatroom and am greeted by =sereneworx half of the infamous crime fighting duo *aristopus. Along with =koffeeben he has been bringing smiles to deviants for a while now, and when they morphed to form Aristopus, every emoticon villain came to a standstill.
"What's it like working with a baron like Ben?" I type quickly to =sereneworx.
He pauses a moment for thought and then quickly taps in his answer:
"Well…it's…like….working with a baron…named Ben," he muses, in his usual comic style. It puts a smile on my face. He continues: "Ben is very hard to explain."
My next question is to =koffeeben.
"How did you come up with an idea like Aristopus? It can't have happened overnight," I say.
As I wait for his reply I realise that there is more to this article than finding out about Aristopus. In a way, it's an insight into two of the members of dA who find ways to put smiles on people's faces. It's things like these lines: 'I'm a bookseller, I'm in your house, selling you books' that really show Ben's absolute master of comedy and emoticons like :sarcasm: and :superslap: that show Seren's utter genius too.
"Well, Seren and I decided to start a project (still to be revealed), we talked briefly about the idea of making another account for it, but at that point nothing had been decided. Then when we started writing The Adventures Of Ben And Seren: Detective For Hire we decided it was time to make the account. I came up with the name, as simple combination of the names of my character (Aristocrat) and his character (Hexopus). The choice was between Hexocrat, and Aristopus. We chose Aristopus."
This intrigues me. A recited project.
"Will it have anything to do with emoticons?" I say, hoping the answer is yes, "and will it be a project for everyone?"
"Yes and no," is his fluid answer. "But people will be involved somehow."
My next question finds its way to Ben and Seren easily:
"How exactly did you decide your character? I mean all aspects of it - its looks and how it talks in THE ADVENTURES OF BEN AND SEREN?"
Ben is the first to reply:
"My character came by accident, it started out as a reference to Zoidberg from futurama, as you can see in the first few lines from my character, but that quickly dissolved into what it now is."
Seren is not far to follow:
"Our characters are basically... us.. just with slightly exagerated charicteristics.. like me, I'm cynical.....kinda.. so my characters is a master of cynisism... of course.. all these traits have to fit into the time period and style of the adventures......"
They exchange a few lines of banter:
"Yes we are eccentric."
"Yes…"
"Yes…"
"So…yes!"
My next question is one that may cause "uproar":
"Who is meant to be the more intelligent?"
Ben replies first:
"We are equally intelligent."
Seren backs Ben up quickly:
"Well, I suppose we are both experts in our own way. I said it in an elaborated fashion and Ben…well he said it simply."
Ben admits the truth:
"And in my defense all that crappy writing was a result of lack of sleep."
They tell me of one of their escapades:
"That one time we had to work at a male strip club."
"Trios of serpents."
"EVERYWHERE!"
It's this kind of eccentric style that make Ben and Seren so popular. In their first day of a new account (Aristopus), they had gained 200 pageviews, something of a revelation for a newbie.
"Do you two support each other, or are you competitive?" I ask.
"I'll let Ben answer that one," Seren says, innocently.
Shortly, Ben's internet cuts out, leaving Seren to answer.
"Well.. we support each other. sort of.. but competiveness is in there two, competiveness helps in the whole crime business!"
The interview is drawing to a close so I finish off with one last question:
"You have incredible fame and talents, what one piece of advice would you give to budding emoticonists on how to get some exposure?"
Seren is quick to answer this and it cracks me up:
"Oh…er…furry artwork and…naruto fan pictures! It works! I SWEAR!"
So we've seen behind the crime fighting duo and into the minds of their creators, that's all for now, until next month, goodbye!

=FacetiousKellyAna

Holy Smokes, A Daily Deviation!

Waking up, my jaw dropped as I loaded dA. More than one hundred messages awaited me. I smashed the F5 button and starred at my homepage, but still I was being bombarded by a steady flow of messages all of which were showing in the top left of my browser. Trying to hide the truth, for a few seconds I thought that dA was going through tricky bug, but something told me it wasn't that. I began to read messages like, " congrats on your DD" on my deviation tower. One word was spinning through my mind, spurred on by adrenaline and an utter head rush: "Wow". I scrolled back up to read the little text that is placed under a DD, which I missed in my state of utter confusion. There it was, the honey sweet words written by livius. After starring at the page for a bit, I had the naive urge to thank the people who faved the deviation, but after 50 "thank you for the ", laziness won defeated gratefulness and I stopped thanking everybody, not that I wasn't grateful. You can't beat a DD. It seems to empower you by lifting you up on a virtual throne for just one day. And for the moments that I was away from the screen I felt oddly powerless. There's only one moral to this story: a DD is worth all the hard work.

*NerdXV

Pop-ularity Contest

So, as many of you may have noticed, there have been a lot of emoticonnists popping up lately! Aspiring new artists with ideas and their hopes. But a lot of us just like to look at their work, right? But what if you want to make them? If you don't know how, check out The Tutorial Master List written by the the lovely icons director, ^livius. But once you start making them, many of you might wonder, "How do I become popular?"

I wouldn't know much about popularity, but it is not hard to hazard a guess:

1. Join lots of projects, contests, and other community activities. People need to see your name.


2. Watch people! The only way people will start to watch you is if you start to watch people!


3. Submit things. Let's face it, if you have 1 deviation on your account, not too many people will know of your abilities.


4. Join clubs. Clubs are a fun way to learn and see other people's art, and you can even submit stuff to them! A good club I would recommend is the *Emote-Academy, which is so that you can learn more about your trade!


5. Read lots of tutorials. Get critique. The only way you'll get better is if you learn and learn, and there's no end to how far you can go!

I hope those help you. I can't really say what makes you "popular," as I don't know myself. Remember that you should always submit work that is your own, and only your own. Hopefully if you abide by these "rules" your page views will be up in minutes.


But now for you regular emoticonnists...
You should check out these two articles by *humpy77::

• An Article about Frame Delays. This will explain why sometimes things look slower than they should, and explain how you can fix this problem.


• Sign your GIF's. With this article you can learn and download a program which will allow you to leave comments on your GIF's, like if you want to credit yourself or something.

Don't forget to check out the winners to =parliamentFunk's Silver Screen Contest!

Ongoing projects::

• *Kermodog's :TardTime: Wallpaper. Get your tards onto this wallpaper!


• *AnimatedSuStenida's Boing Project. Start bouncing!


• *GirlFlash and =Solitude12's Pass Bertie Raymondo. A great animated project, go join it!


• *ChaosEmeraldHunter with the Great Emote Showdown.. Ninja's v.s. Pirates, who will win?


• *LeoLeonardo's Zombie Nation and The Emote Tower. Zombies, towers, and projects, oh my!


• =MrM4tty's Colors Project. Ooooh, Ahh, all the pretty colors!


• *Yoshizzer's Emoticon Diary Paper Project. Go ahead and make some stationary!

Those were all the projects I could find right now. If you have a project, be sure to let =popcorn-pops or =FacetiousKellyAna know, so it can be in the next issue.

Don't forget that *EmoticonHQ is up and running, so let's see some revamps!

=popcorn-pops

Daily Deviations

March 05, by =RJ815

March 06, by ~StillSleepless

March 08, by ~NaturallyPerfect

March 11, by ~fahrenheit19-7

March 14, by ~Ipnorospo

March 16, by ~sourcow

March 19, by ~aocom

March 20, by ~killbear

March 23, by ~tornadobeast

March 25, by *ShoneGold

March 27, by ~Taimotive



April 2, by =neek-zique

April 6, by =Reidyn

April 8, by *crula

April 9, by =FacetiousKellyAna

April 11, by ~scolz

April 21, by ~Dennosz

April 23, by ~toniworld

April 24, by =BobSmith006

April 26, by =Stream-Sun

April 29 by =Harry-B

Thanks to =popcorn-pops for that.


That’s all for this months EMOTICON MONTHLY. If you would like to write next month just read the contact us table below. Ciao!



_{Do you want to write a article for the next Issue? Or do you have a Idea for a theme? A suggestion for an Item? In that case you can contact at zuespower@hotmail.com, or catch a carrier pigeon and shoot it to the UK!}