Emoticon Monthly

ISSUE 2

Readers,
Welcome to the second 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:

Clear Eye For The Great Guy!

This month we received an article from ~mary-yasha (published below) talking about unnoticed emoticonists. Well, I feel it's my job this month to open your eyes and show you those people. And I don't mean, subtle hints, or a note in your breakfast cereal but a full on smacking of the face, "WAKE UP" kind of show you: a feature, in other words.

The first feature is a guy who is incredibly undervalued. His emoticons have fluent animation, beautiful shading and incredibly originality. It is not long before :dev23reasons: gets a Daily Deviation! My personal favourite is the incredible animation on his second Bertie entry!



The second choice is by no means unpopular. With five thousand pageviews he has a decent amount of watchers, but I feel that not enough of the emoticon community see the true incredibility of his emoticons. He has an incredibly unique style, topped off with beautiful pixilation and animation skills. Check out his NAUGHTY HANDS series.



The third and final choice is an avatarist-cum-emoticonist. This guy's emoticons are full of humour and good nature. It really isn’t long till he receives a Daily Deviation. He has an incredible shading and animating style and great ideas to boot. My favourite is his owerfail: featured below. Flawlessly shaded and animated, it's a piece o' genius.



I hope I've shed some light on a dark spot in the dA community. Good luck and happy browsing!

*FacetiousKellyAna

Random 'Moticonist

DeviantART is a great site, people can look at your art and you can learn from your experiences, unfortunately, everyone seems to watch the same people. What does this mean?
Basically, a lot of talented people miss out on the comments, favourites and watches, and many people new to art and drawing are missing out on the comments and critique they need.
Now, I’m not in anyway against the people who are watched by many, favourited by many, and commented by many - they have talent and it is nice they are recognised for it.
I am merely stating that many fantastic artists are being looked over, and that, my friends, is not right. Not only that but, people who need critique are being overlooked. It's these people who need comments - to improve confidence and skill. These people are overlooked for the professionals and their more advanced art - but remember people, these professionals started out the same way as the others, and without people commenting on their early works, they wouldn't be as good as they are now!

So, what do we do about this problem? Here are a few ideas:

1. When browsing Deviant-art, click on: "Newest" instead of "popular" and you may come across some undiscovered gems.

2. Every now and then, click ‘Random Deviant’ (see bottom of DeviantART page) – this way, you’ll meet people you never have before. When you do this, take a while to check them out, comment on their main page, give them some critique, and maybe even give a favourite! You’ll make someone glow inside.

3. Every time you go on Deviant-art, click on three new artworks. You can comment, critique or favourite – whichever you choose, if everyone who reads this does this every time they go on, imagine how benefiting it is for everyone! So many people will appreciate it and improve!

4. Critique! Everything! You’ll improve people so much – just make sure it’s constructive, or you’ll upset someone.

5. See those people watching the people you watch? Well, they’re obviously interested in the same art-styles as you, or at least fine them cute! Take some tome to look at their pages – you’ll enjoy it.

6. When you comment on a good and popular artists work (favourite it) try your best to find a new artwork and comment on that as well. It'll boost your memory, help your critique, and will stop the popular artists from being neglected (we don't want a cycle!)

Remember – what goes around comes around, one day, you might be someone else's random deviant!
There are a lot of talented and under appreciated artists out there – let's not let their talent go to waste! Follow these tips (And some more, if you can find some, if not then wing it) and in no time, those undiscovered deviants will be praising your name!
Always keep it sunny

~mary-yasha

Holy Crapinson!

Finding an interviewee for this issue was no challenge. I had my eyes set on one of the greatest pixel artists/emoticonists on dA: =Mrcrapinson.
MrCrapinson is not only one of the greatest sketchers and artists on dA but he has some absolutely incredible pieces of animation. For example his recent: :powerhi5: and :sh00pdawh00p: series.
So when MrCrapinson agreed to do the interview my heart jumped for joy. My fingers flew over the keys, typing questions for him to answer.
The first was probably the most obvious and necessary question:
"Where do you gather your inspiration?"
His answer is short and sweet:
"It all comes to me while I'm at school. I can't think of what to pixel unless I'm bored!"
Of course boredom and randomness are factors in every kind of art especially MrCrapinson's trend-setting deviations.
This leads me nicely onto my next question (almost planned!):
"How do you manage to start so many crazes?"
If there's one thing about MrCrapinson, he's probably the least modest, and most incredibly talented, deviant on the whole of the system, and he freely admits it.
"To be honest, I have no freaking clue! I don't think I start them, really, just give them more publicity!"
Another thing that deviants admire in MrCrapinson, just like in =sereneworx is that he is hilarious. So I am quick to ask him how he became so funny.
He replies:
"It's something I like to call the response cycle."
If you're confused right now, don't worry – he explained:
"I find some weird stuff whilst browsing deviantART and share them at school. The response I get at school seems pretty hilarious so I apply it on the internet. When I get that response – I generally have something that can be applied as art or a journal, so I share it with deviantART."
Let's wish that that makes things a little clearer for you, otherwise you're a no-hoper.
One thing I for one have always wanted to know is where MrCrapinson started so I ask him: "Do you have any idols?"
"Yes, and they affect two parts of my life.
When I was just a n00b in deviantART, *Dragon-sith was my inspiration, support and form of improvement, and he still is. Of course, now I see other people that affect me that way, but I appreciate him the most.
Stephen Colbert... gotta love him. He is the reason why I lack modesty, he is the reason why I'm not ashamed to do anything and he is the reason why I'm friends with almost every person in my school. He just kicks ass…"
A succinct answer! Exactly, what we set out to do. But more questions, and more answers are needed.
One of the biggest "crazes" that MrCrapinson aided on it's way was sh00pdawh00p. But who actually knows what it is? "IMMA CHARGING MY LASER". Priceless lines, plastered in MrCrapinson's deviant comments.
"I didn't know what sh00pdawh00p was until last week! It's a "meme" that was originated in 4chan that is constantly being used as a joke until it's not funny anymore, but it's been going around for so long, it's hard to tell when it will die.
Also, just to get it out there. No more shoop da whoop requests, PLEASE
That makes things a little clearer. But there's something I've always wanted to know, and I felt it was the right time to ask.
"Do you hand draw your pixel art?"
I believe that all artwork must be 100% the artist's product. I do all the pixel art by my self and sometimes it's so hard, I have to make a sketch on a piece of paper
The only occasions I use already-existing pixel art is when I'm modifying them for someone. Besides that I do it from scratch."
He gives a helpful link to a thumb:

Now I ask the, alas, final question in the interview. This is one that I will ask every week from last week onwards:
"Any tips on how to become popular?"
MrCrapinson is very quick to answer.
"I used to visit the thumbshare forum to expose my art to the public until I gathered a fair number of watchers. Then, I just commented on people's pages to be nice, participated in a few community events and helped people who needed it. Finally, I went to the "deviants forum" and started making friends and getting a clear view of how the people are around this website.
The combination of all of these brought me all the exposure I could ever need."
So, I think we've shed light on the complete genius of MrCrapinson. He not only is a trend setter, but an incredible guy. His new deviation should be out soon. And check out his incredible coffin robot animation piece.

*FacetiousKellyAna

Devious Dilemma!

There are many opinions on this. Can you say one shading style is yours? What about using another persons shading style? What’s the right way to shade and what’s not? I talked with two experienced emoticonists, *melonhead-emotion and =koffeeben and was very surprised to find two different opinions. However, I find that I can’t side with either one, because both of them have wonderful points. For those of you who don’t see any dilemma with the shading, let me fill you in.

Well folks, shading is something every emoticonist knows about. Whether you think it is a big part in an animation, or it is not very important, you each know about it. It comes up in your life sooner or later. What is happening, however, that some people are finding that their shading style is being ‘stolen.’ But the question is: can you really steal a shading style? I am very indifferent about this, because, lets face it folks, “there are only so many ways to shade a sphere.” _{as stated by *melonhead-emotion}

Please keep in mind as you read this article that some of the questions may be slightly different to what they were asked, but the same idea. Both of them were also asked some different things. Also, both of these emoticonists were interviewed at different times.

When being asked whether some people have their ‘own’ shading style,
=koffeeben said:

"People like =sereneworx have managed to make their styles uniquely their own, and you can usually tell a =sereneworx emote from a joeaverage emote…"

What do you think about people saying, “You stole my shading style.” Would those accusations be justified?
=koffeeben states:

“I'm not sure about that, I can see why someone would want to [say that someone stole their shading style], and I wouldn't want someone to start copying my emote shading style. Although that would be hard with my newest style, because its a combo of two styles, using opacity to show them both. However, as I said, there are only so many that can be made, and yet, there can be many ways to alter a style.”

*melonhead-emotion states:

“There's a lot more comes into it other than the shading style, although I feel it does play a part. "You stole my shading style" is a very childish accusation to make, whereas, if the animation and design of mouth/eyes have been clearly copied then its another story.”

More onto the actual shading, I asked both of these artists if they thought about using ‘gradients’ to shade your emote, or if they were to be considered lazy and such.
=koffeeben said:

“Not at all, *GirlFlash for instance has a really well made gradient shading style. However people with gradient styles need to make sure they understand the principals of shading, I see alot of badly made gradient shading.”

*melonhead-emotion said:

“It's easier to tell if an artist is less skilled, or just plain lazy, because they seem to favour the gradient shading method rather than the hand pixelling method; that is more commonly seen with the more experienced artists. In my older work, you can see I used gradients rather than hand pixelling the shading. I am happier with the look of my emotes now I use hand shading”

One thing that I thought was interesting, was how both the artists differed on whether they thought the shading style was important or not.
=koffeeben saying:

“Yes, definitely.”

*melonhead-emotion saying:

“If it's an animated emoticon, then the animation is the part that makes the emoticon. If its a static emoticon, then the depiction of said emotion is the main part, not how its shaded… the depiction of the emotion goes for both animated and static.. obviously. I think people get too involved in how their emoticon is shaded, and creating a unique identity for themselves here on dA rather than using their skills to create a finely tuned emoticon…Shading does indeed make an emoticon look nice or not look nice, thats part of the art though, its not something to worry about and use as a popularity catalyst.”

Also, differing opinions on whether emoticonists worry about shading styles too much.
*melonhead-emotion said that:

“One thing that annoys me is people worrying too much about their shading style, or saying that one is better than the other… especially those people who just submit a blank emote under the title "My new style" or a bunch of emotes, and ask people which they think is better… The art comes from the artist, not the viewer… if the artist is happy with the shading style, then that is the shading style they should use, deviantART sometimes turns into a popularity contest in that respect… It's true that certain shading styles look tidier, more refined than others.”

=koffeeben had a different opinion:

“You can never worry too much about shading style, it's a very important part of the emote. When I see an emote with bad shading, I usually pass it by, unless I see some amazing animation.”

Also, one thing is people using shading from tutorials. Not only making emotes with these, but making emote revisions, should that be allowed?

=koffeeben decided to pass this question, considering how he can see both sides of it.

*melonhead-emotion stated:

“I think it's fine if someone copies from a tutorial, because it shows their willingness to learn. Whether they like it or not, whilst doing the tutorial, they will pick up skills… [Using the shading from a tutorial for a revision] is another can of worms right there, making a revision that is fundamentally the exact same animation, but in a different style (i.e. that artist's style) is definitely not right.”

And there you are folks, excerpts from interviews I had with both of these emoticonists. Different opinions, yet each side is justified. For those of you who want to learn more about shading styles, here are some useful tutorials:

Shading Tutorial by *FacetiousKellyAna
Shiny Emote Shading by =bad-blood
Emotion Tutorial: Bases by =darkmoon3636
Complete Emoticon Guide by *LeoLeonardo.

=popcorn-pops

Daily Deviations

May 8 by ~Camikaze
May 10 by ~ChaosMole
May 11 by *Yoshizzer
May 14 by =Link3Kokiri
May 17 by ~ruloworld
May 23 by ~mahguru
May 27 by ~Arnos-Roth
May 28 by =brokenboulevard
May 31 by =ftpaddict

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!

Even though the spots are filled, go give *LeoLeonardo's Emoticon Chess Project lots of support!

Thanks again to =popcorn-pops for that!


_{Do you want to write an article for the next Issue? Or do you have an 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!}