Intro

Welcome to March's edition of So i herd u liek interviews??. This is the 5th volume in a series of interviews aimed at finding out about emoticonists from the deviantART community.

This series links with the weekly volumes of 'so i herd u liek emotes??' which have now been running since October.

The emoticonist

This edition’s featured emoticonist is =LeoLeonardo. Leo is one of the most experienced emoticonists on dA, after emoting for over 3 years and seeing several generations of emoticonists pass through the site. He is probably most well known for his amazing emoticon projects such as The Tower and the Emotikingdom Project. I managed to grab some time with him to fit in this interview.

The interview

How and when did you get into making emoticons?

Back in the days before joining DA, I was a member on a forum called Half-Life Fallout. It was through a member there that I found my way to DA and eventually created an account here. However, before "jumping ships", so to say, I tried my hand at making a simple smiley of a Combine security officer. Of course, back then, I didn't know the fine arts of pixel art at all, so it was basically just an anti-aliased blob on a white background. Later on, while on DA, I tried to make a second emote more like the ones seen on the actual site, but I still hadn't grasped that the circular marquee tool with anti-aliasing ticked as "on" wasn't a good tool to create emotes with, and it was also in the end quite poor. Then came the turning point in my emoticoning career, when Misteringo hosted an emoticon contest that I entered. I created my entry, featuring a crude depiction of Washington crossing the Delaware, on October 2nd, 2005, and this time I had understood what a DA emoticon really was: A 15x15 circle created with pixel art methods. Be gone, evil anti-aliasing! And the rest is history by now, I guess.



When you first started making emotes, did you use any tutorials?

I actually don't think I ever used a tutorial back when I started, unless my memory is completely failing on me here. Over the years, though, I've looked at nearly every emoticon tutorial submitted. Not because I needed to learn how to make emoticons, but because it's always very insightful to see how other emoticonists go about making their emoticons. You learn a lot from watching how other people work.

Are there any particular tutorials you have found that you would like to suggest?

Well, to start with, Darkmoons shading tutorial. It was probably the main thing that got me into hand-shading my emoticons rather than using the gradient-tool, which I think is really good.

While not necessarily completely emoticon related, it was one of the more helpful tutorials I've ever followed: Bad-blood's explosion tutorial:

And I think pimping out my own tutorials could also be good, cause they're fairly useful in my opinion. and

What methods have you used for shading? Do you have a preference?

I try a lof of different techniques when it comes to shading. When I started, I used the gradient tool to create the shading, simply putting a circle-based gradient from light to dark in the top corner of the emoticon, but for the last few years I've worked only by hand-shading. I try to not stick to one single technique when shading, but looking back at my emoticons, I guess there are some elements that have always stayed with me, like the fact that I've almost ALWAYS based my shading from the top-left, so to say. I think it's good to experiment with shading techniques. Try everything you can think of. I've gotten very comfortable with shading my emoticons because I've tried so many different ways, I think I've gotten very close to developing a final style. Even if I've been doing it for almost 4 years.

Are there any particular effects you've found difficult, or have been unable to create?

This is a very tough question for me to answer, cause when I think back, I can't really think of too many great difficulties I've run into. If I get stuck on a particular part in animation, or in the building of all the props, scenes and actors (lol, I make it sounds like a movie), I usually take a short break, and come back to it later and plough through the problem with new energy.

The one thing that has been difficult to develop that I can think of has to be the rotation of pixel-art-based objects. If you just turn the object with something like the Free Transformation tool in Photoshop, it will end up with the program trying to anti-alias the object when you click done. Whenever you need to turn, rotate, skew or tilt an object, it takes a LOT of time and a LOT of patience if you want it to end up looking good. What people often don't realise is that every angle of the object used in the animation requires a completely new layer. In the end, you get a lot of layers.

Which programs do you use to create your emoticons?

I've used multiple iterations of Photoshop over the years. In the "olden days", I had to jump back and forth between Photoshop and ImageReady. ImageReady was needed to actually animate the emoticon, but now I'm using Adobe Photoshop CS3, in which ImageReady has been completely integrated into Photoshop, which saves a lot of time and effort.

Roughly how long does it take you to go from concept to finished emoticon?

That completely depends on the complexity of the emoticon. I can spend anything from under an hour to hours and hours over multiple days.

Are there any particular qualities that you feel can make an emote stand out from any other?

The most important qualities in a GOOD emoticon to me are:
1) A good idea to begin with.
2) Smooth animation.
And even in the most serious of themes, a sprinkle of humor always helps.

Where do you get inspiration / ideas from?

I would say EVERYWHERE. Sometimes, random ideas just pop into my head. Sometimes, talking with friends and loved ones spawn ideas, and sometimes people do things that gives me ideas. But the best source of inspiration is the most obvious one: Cartoons. Cartoons are like the bible to me. Whether it be traditional cartoons or Japanese anime, I simply LOVE every aspect of animation and comics.

Which are 3 of your favourite emotes from your personal gallery?

Power-phonecall
This one was one of the random ideas that simply popped into my head, and I LOVE how dark it is. *insert evil laughter* This one was one of the random ideas that simply popped into my head, and I LOVE how dark it is. *insert evil laughter*

Pie
This is probably my all time favorite emoticon that I've made. Everything about it just... worked! I was very worried that the idea would look odd, and that the changes in perspective, and the sense of speed I tried to add, wouldn't work out. But in the end, it all did, and I'm still surprised at how well it worked!

Falling Pirateship
This one is in a lot of ways similar to the pie idea. It was one that I was very sceptical would turn out good in the first place, but then it kinda just solved itself and turned out great.

Are there any particular emoticonists you would like to see get more exposure?

I'm going to divide the answer into two parts here, first two rather unknown artists, and then 2 more well known ones. First off, ~BananaGeek and =TheRockster. They show a lot of potential, and could both turn into really amazing emoticonists with time, I'm sure. And for more well known emoticonists, but that could use a little more exposure in my opinion, I went with =Kermodog and =Droneguard

How did you come up with your emoticon character?

I basically got the idea when looking at the Wikipedia deffinition for "Emoticon." There was this list of example text-based emoticons, and one of them was: <[+]=^( described as "Sad Pope". I quickly jumped into photoshop and made an emoticon pack featuring a Pope emote And I guess it just kinda got stuck with me, I adopted it as my own character, just because it was such a funny and unique character It has absolutely NOTHiNG to do with religious beliefs.

Do you feel like the emoticon gallery has progressed during your time as an emoticonist?

When I started working with emoticons, it was really a rather unknown medium. I couldn't even imagine the size it's reached today. So many people have joined over the years, and so many people have tried their hand at emoticoning, even if only sparsly. Various projects, including my own, have inspired more and more people to give emoticoning a try, and with all the amazing tutorials available these days, learning the trade has become very approachable, so to say. I'm willing to guess hundreds of people that never thought they'd be making emoticons have become important members in the community over the last few years.

Where would you like to see emotes go in the future?

I'd love to see more people implementing pixel-art methods in a broader sense into their emoticons. These days, basically every simple emotion possibly imaginable has already been made in one way or another, so the classic emoticon has in a sense already been done. It's the more advanced animations, which cross the border separating emoticons from traditional animations, that are the true future in this media.

Are there any trends or styles you'd like to see less of in the gallery?

The thing that annoys me the most when looking through the emoticon gallery as a whole are the deviations that are poorly optimized. Like people who save their static emoticons as JPEG's, resulting in a lot of fuzz all over the image. And the abundant use of a completely white background, rather than a transparent one.

Is there any advice you would like to give to new emoticonists?

Take your time. Be patient. That's basically the most important thing. A beautiful flower takes time to bloom. Pour your soul into your work, and it will show!

Is there anything else you would like to say?

Never give up

If and got stuck in a lift together, what would happen?

First, there would be awkward silence. Then, there would be fire. Lots of fire. Only one of them would come out alive, and my bet is it WOULDN'T be Fella. Don't underestimate Blank! Behind that blank expression is DEATH!

Features


:weremote: is a purely stunning emoticon. The amount of detail packed in is astounding and the animation is top notch. The background is amazing and a brilliant example of combining pixel work with emoticons.


As glomps go, :skydive-glomp: is one of my favourites. The animation is smooth throughout and the turn in the air is a brilliant touch. The blurring effect on the building really helps give the illusion of speed and it’s generally a very unique, but cute glomp


:swing: is another brilliant emote from Leo’s gallery. The background is amazing and details such as the shadow is a great touch. The animation is smooth and the smile on the earth is a great touch.

Previous volumes

So I herd u liek emotes??

Volume 1 - 12th Oct
Volume 2 - 19th Oct
Volume 3 - 27th Oct
Volume 4 - 2nd Nov
Volume 5 - 9th Nov
Volume 6 - 16th Nov
Volume 7 - 23rd Nov
Volume 8 - 30th Nov
Volume 9 - 7th Dec
Volume 10 - 14th Dec
Volume 11 - 21st Dec
Volume 12 - 28th Dec
Volume 13 - 4th Jan
Volume 14 - 11th Jan
Volume 15 - 18th Jan
Volume 16 - 25th Jan
Volume 17 - 1st Feb
Volume 18 - 8th Feb
Volume 19 - 15th Feb
Volume 20 - 22nd Feb
Volume 21 - 1st March
Volume 22 - 8th March

So I herd u liek interviews??

Interview 1- =CookiemagiK - 15th January
Interview 2 - =Caeser1993 - 30th January
Interview 3 - =MenInASuitcase - 12th February
Interview 4 - =Red-Bananas - 27th February