Personal OOTS Avatars

[Orion_Silverhelm]

these are all Awesome

[Kabbageman]

So if I make a custom avatar, how do I get it on this site and use it as my avatar?

[pumpkinetics]

See previous posts on the matter. You can't get them hosted on the site, you just have to link to the picture and location under profile. (Above) If all goes well, it should show up clearly.

[Pax]

Well. I've gone and tried my own hand at it. The lines aren't as thick as I'd like, but all I have is MS Paint to draw with, and IrfanView to resize and convert to JPG format. Still, IMO it came out reasonably well - fear the dual-wielding Cyclops Ranger:



I may try drawing more of 'em - it's fun trying to come up with ideas that aren't already done, and then figuring outhow to do them, heh!

[Pax]

Yep, here's another one - a Pixie Sorceror:

[Orion_Silverhelm]

I finally did it!!! took me 8 hours but i did it.

original picture i had commissioned for me for my star wars online roleplaying game for my character Orion Silverhelm.
http://members.chello.at/nikolaus.kundi/orions2a.jpg

game is at http://www.swcombine.com

and here is my interpretation in stickdom in all its glory!!

[Pax]

........ and here's another one. All hail the mighty (?) Zombie Bard (Elan is pretty much proof, you apparently DON'T need to have an Intelligence score to be a bard! lol!). As a matter of fact, it is The Giant's own "eat, eat, eat the delicious sandwich" T-shirt that inspired it; in case it's not readable at the resolution you use, the Zombie is singing "Eat, eat, eat the tasty brains". ;D

[GeeVee]

That was just too good. Now I can never sleep. Your work is awesome, Pax.

"Eat, eat, eat the tasty brains"... ;D

[Zherog]

You need one more "eat" in there - it's always four.

"Eat, eat, eat, eat the delicious brains."

:)

[Adghar]

Well. I've gone and tried my own hand at it. The lines aren't as thick as I'd like, but all I have is MS Paint to draw with, and IrfanView to resize and convert to JPG format. Still, IMO it came out reasonably well - fear the dual-wielding Cyclops Ranger:



I may try drawing more of 'em - it's fun trying to come up with ideas that aren't already done, and then figuring outhow to do them, heh!

How do you make them so much better than me?! ???

[Pax]

You need one more "eat" in there - it's always four.

Yeah, I've noticed that, myself; I'll have to get anotehr "eat" in there. Maybe tighten up the text so it doesn't look quite so cramped to either side, too. :)

How do you make them so much better than me?! ???

[kidding]
I'm just better than you?
[/kidding]

Seriously? I really don't know. I think it's because I didn't try to MAKE them really good - they're stick figures, after all; how detailed and accurate can they GET?

A circle, part of a box, some curves for arms andhands, some lines for legs and feet. A face, usually consisting of some circles for eyes, and a simplistic mouth.

I just tried to follow the rule: "KISS" ("keep it simple, stupid!"), combined with "good enough for government work". If I tried to draw perfect figures, agonizing over every last detail ... they'd suck. If they ever got finished.

I also don't try to draw the whole figure at once. I draw the head, often sans face - them move it off to the side. I draw a box, nip th top off, then move it into position under the head (OOTS "stickies" don't have necks, how handy). Build a pair of arms, put 'em in position. If there're shoes instead of nekkid feet, draw one, then resize and mirror a copy. Move the body to it's final place, arrance the shoes below it draw in the legs (and feet, if there're no shoes). Assemble the face from seperately-drawn bits and pieces, moved onto the head seperately (the eyes go together, but the mouth is a seperate move). Save the whole thing. Start coloring. ^_^

And, probably the biggest trick is - I use MSPaint, but at 585x585. Thislets me draw in some fine details if I want, and not worry about perfection - a lot of detail is LOST when the image is shrunk down to 117x117. That shrinking also tends to cover up a LOT of sins, as well as smoothing out MSPaint's blocky-pixellated look. ^_^

Lastly, the same program that shrinks 'em, also converts to JPG.

Still - I'm no master ... it can take me an HOUR to make one of those. 8P And I've yet to try HATS, cloaks, or more-detailed clothing than a toga.

[Orion_Silverhelm]

I most wholeheartedly agree!!

Took me 8 hours to figure out Adobe illustrator and all the intracacies etc.

As you can see in my Sean Connery/countdooku/Jedi mix together, you lose alot of detail on the shrinkage. Even so, i stuck to much in my picture so the small one is a little too busy, but man i love how it turned out in the larger version. So cool. Ive never been impressed with my own artwork before, but now i look at that and go "wow, i made that?...awesome!!"

[Adghar]

Lastly, the same program that shrinks 'em, also converts to JPG.

No wonder, you use another program. The thing is, your lines are smooooth, and you did that in MS Paint. MS Paint doesn't do smooth.

With me, the problem is, I zoom in and make tiny edits too much. With an Adobe Photoshop line tool. Also, I made my avatar to "fit in" with any color background, which I thought was cool. It's not a white box with a person in it, it's a transparent box with a person in it. Orion's does that too, but... uh... LOOK BEHIND YOU! *Zoom!*

[Pax]

No wonder, you use another program. The thing is, your lines are smooooth, and you did that in MS Paint. MS Paint doesn't do smooth.

And the product of my efforts in MSPaint isn't smooth; it only APEARS smooth, because I reduce it to 1/25 it's original area (20% width and 20% height), using IrfanView. Conversion to JPG format also helps blur the pixellation a bit.

Here, look at the original-size Zombie BArd image (converted to JPG because apparently the OOTS board won't LET me link to the original bitmap, argh!):



Now, the reduced-size version again:



The big one clearly shows the typical MSPaint "ragged edge" pixelation; but, those are entirely hidden when theimage is reduced from 585x585 to 117x117. Basically, that's because the smaller image has only 4% as much area as the larger image, so there simply isn't enough resolution for the human eye to see the pixelation anymore.

;D So, just remember: draw it BIG, then make it get SMALL ... and a lot of low-end-program sins get covered up quite nicely. ;D

[Pax]

And now ... because no game is ever complete without them ... enter the [glow=red,2,300]Hawt Ninja Chix[/glow] ( ;D sort of ;D ):



My girlfriend is so going to beat me black and blue for this one ... ;D

[Pax]

Sharpened them all, and applied the "3D button" special effects option from Irfanview as a sort of "frame". Also added the missing "eat" to the Zombie Bard's song. All three earlier ones reposted below, for convenience's sake:

[glow=black,4,400]Zombie Bard[/glow]


[glow=blue,4,400]Pixie Sorceror[/glow]


[glow=orange,4,400]Cyclops Ranger[/glow]

[Pax]

Got four new ones - the four classic types of Elementals, this time:

[glow=teal,4,400]Air Elemental[/glow]


[glow=yellow,4,400]Earth Elemental[/glow]


[glow=orange,4,400]Fire Elemental[/glow]


[glow=blue,4,400]Water Elemental[/glow]

[Arian]

I like the elementals :-)

[Pax]

I like the elementals :-)

Thanks. I'm stillnot really happy with the way the Fire and Water elementals came out - I wanted to do a standing wave for Water, but couldn't get it to work right ... and Fire ended up looking like a drop of glowing, radioactive orange goo, rather than a spark of fire. *shrug* Oh, well - c'est la vie, right? :)

[Veera]

Shar's Marauders, the antiparty in my game. From left to right, there's Shar (Fighter), Melchor (Druid), Grug (Barbarian), Haengist (Ranger), Della (Rogue) and Della again (In one of her most common disguises, Elaine.)


Here is Chee-chan, an NPC Loremaster. This is a campaign specific Loremaster, not the version found in the DM's Guide. She has no magical abilities, nor any combat skills, nor social graces... But the party *still* had to bring her along with them on a few adventurers, since she was one of only a very few people that had the immense amount of ranks in Knowledge they needed to get through certain crypts and dungeons. And in addition to having to protect the rather haphazard scholar, they *also* had to protect the wagon full of books she insisted on bringing with her: she claims you never know when a book on the ritualistic dances of mountain goblin tribes could come in handy. In the entire time the party knew her, she only got into combat once: when their rooms were raided by a group of bandits, she managed to knock one of them out with a candlestick. ^_^

While we're at it, since I'm changing my personal avatar so much, here's all three of them that I've used so far. ^_^


And lastly, the Christmas card I printed out for my DnD group. The first image was on the front, while the second was on the back. I'll be linking to these, rather than posting them here: they're both large, and the second one is *vaguely* religious. Don't take offense please, it's poking fun at secular Christmas traditions rather than religion. ^_^ Even my Catholic friends thought it was funny.
http://students.uwf.edu/mfs10/holidaygreetings1.jpg
http://students.uwf.edu/mfs10/merincard.gif

Edit: I'm not very happy with the last panel in the comic... Any suggestions on a funnier ending? I'm not that great at humor really.

[Francois_C3PO]

<= here's my OOTS Avatar.

I made him with photoshop, but I guess that with a vector graphic tool it could look better.

I was nicknamed 'C3PO' (Z6PO in the french version, go figure !?) by friends of mine some years ago and the nicknamed stiked around (I do like it well).

[Circon]

Thanks. I'm stillnot really happy with the way the Fire and Water elementals came out - I wanted to do a standing wave for Water, but couldn't get it to work right ... and Fire ended up looking like a drop of glowing, radioactive orange goo, rather than a spark of fire. *shrug* Oh, well - c'est la vie, right? :)

Agreed that Water would be cooler as a standing wave. The drop does look nice, though.
The orange goo... I'd agree with you there. On a sunflower, too.
Suggest you add layers of dark red, red, orange and yellow, perhaps with a blue sheen somewhere near the bottom, and remove the yellow zig-zags.

[Freeman333]

Absolutely, totally off-topic, but...Veera, just noticed your sig comes from Ani DiFranco. My sister just introduced me to her--damn cool. Poetry set to music, along the lines of some of my favorite bands, like the Mountain Goats, the Weakerthans, and Soul Coughing.

And, just to bring it back on-topic, the stick-avatars you've made look great. If the Giant needs a back-up artist, you have my recommendation. (After this week of strips every day, we'll all be suffering massive withdrawal once we go back to two-per-week; maybe you could fill in on the off days and let us hopeless stick-addicts get our fix!)

(And, back off topic again, "stick-addict" is kind of a funny compound word. Stick Addicts might be a good name for a band.)

[Pax]

I'm really surprised noone commented on my "Hot Ninja Chicks" avatar. ;D

[Freeman333]

We're all waiting for your girlfriend to beat you black and blue, so we can stand around going "HA-ha!"

[DrSpoon]

This is gunna sound really lame but could someone make me an avatar seeing as how i have no artistic talent whatsoever, if u would i would be most grateful

[Pax]

This is gunna sound really lame but could someone make me an avatar seeing as how i have no artistic talent whatsoever, if u would i would be most grateful

What are you looking for? Anythign in particular in the way of race,c lass, gender, etc? I can'tmake anypromises, but if it's something I think I can pull off, I'm certainly willing to give it a try. :)

[DrSpoon]

Male Elven wizard with longsword preferrably ;D im a bladesinger in my current game and i really like elves. thanks dude

[Veera]

Hehee... I *love* Ani DiFranco, but the other bands you've mentioned don't really remind me of her style very much... When I think of Ani DiFranco, I usually lump her in with artists like Suzanne Vega, or Jill Sobule, or Aimee Mann. The Weakerthans are just kinda... Weird. Hehee. ^_^;

On-Topic: As fun as it is making these little stick figures, there is no way I could be even half as funny as Giant, even on a semi-regular basis. He brings the funny, and I just can't do that. :-) The occasional joke may pop into my head, usually inspired by something that happened in one of our sessions, but those are usually flukes.

Oh, and more pics: my new avatar, and Kell, the ex-Druid. Rather insane, he is.

[garand]

I made my avatar in an archaic version of Corel Photo-Paint (which was packaged with Corel Draw 6).

Its based on my character Gorm FireHand from the NWN campaign I play in. He's a dwarf ranger (or, as he prefers: Caver). Dual wields a Hand Axe and Light Hammer.

Anyhow, I avoided pixelation by using the AntiAliasing feature on the Shape Drawing tool from said program. I think you could achieve the same effect using PaintShop Pro which is a share-ware paint program you can download on the net. Its a large program file though so might not be an option for anyone on dial-up Check C-Net or just Google Paintshop Pro.

So yeah ... There you go ...

YARR!!!.