Personal OOTS Avatars

[Nexus]

http://dude3523.tripod.com/stickfig/

[Gramorn]

Ok I understand that you have to go to something like Photoshop or something and I've gone there but there's nothing on the site that I can see that would let me draw. So once I go there what do I do next?

[Tharivol]

Photoshop is the name of a program. You need to draw the avatar yourself (either on your computer, on paper than scan it in, or take a picture with a digital camera), then upload it to the internet. If you don't have access to those things (I don't) you can usually get a free trial of an art program that expires after so many days, which should give you more than enough time. As for uploading it, you need somewhere to store the files. I use a geocities account to store files, and there are other free sites where you can do it as well. Does that help?

[Gramorn]

Yes thanks Tharivol. I used to use something like that in school but I don't know ow to get there anymore. Thanks though :)

[Nighthawk4]

I tried to use The Gimp to make an avatar.

Not very successful though - I have a small square transparent background. Unless I choose to make it a Shadow Dancer using HiPS, then I need a little more detail.

How do I add a circle and some lines please? I have no artistic skill whatsoever and have never used The Gimp for anything other than converting NWN screenshots from TGA to JPG.

If the answer doesn't occur to me spontaneously fairly soon, I may be tempted to RTFM >:(

[Arian]

Nighthawk, I don't know how to use the GIMP myself, but my in-house artist does. I'll ask her for advice when I see her five hours from now, if you haven't given up and read the manual first :)

[Nighthawk4]

Nighthawk, I don't know how to use the GIMP myself, but my in-house artist does. I'll ask her for advice when I see her five hours from now, if you haven't given up and read the manual first :)

Much appreciated - thanks.

*Shudders at the thought of reading the manual* ???

[Redmond]

Hello there, I have a suggestion for those who are having problems with making the stick avatars, try using a template such as this one:

just make some changes, add the eyes and clothing (the eyes must be really close to each other and one must be a little bigger than the other) and try changing the position of the arms and the legs, oh and dont forget to add the color. I made this hobbit with the template, and I believe its looking kinda good:

[da_blahza]

*gasp* those avatars are awesome! I want one! Can anyone make me one? Or at least help?

[Arian]

I tried to use The Gimp to make an avatar [...] How do I add a circle and some lines please?

The in-house artist replies:

"You use the Ellipse Selection tool and hold down Shift to make a perfect circle. You then go to Edit and click Stroke Selection.

To make lines, you go to 'Create and edit paths' (the icon with the pen and the dots) and you click Polygonal. On your image, you create the path you want by clicking on points, then click Stroke Path. All these points will join into one path.

If you want to make a new, separate path, either hold down Shift as you click, or click on another icon before returning to put new points on the image (as long as you've already done Stroke Path for your first path).

To prevent white bits round the image, make it in three layers. Make the first layer opaque by clicking the Background radio button when you create the new file and make the two new layers clear (they will be clear when you add them) by going to Dialog -> Layers and clicking the New Layer icon (single sheet of paper) twice.

Put outlines on the top layer, using the Paint tool not the Pencil tool, because Paint is less pixelly. Do the colour on the middle layer. Once you've finished, throw out the opaque bottom layer, which was there to hide the checks of the GIMP easel (which, if you only use clear layers, can be distracting while you're working.)

To do this, go to Dialogs -> Layers, and drag the bottom layer into the bin.

Then go to Image -> Flatten Image, which will combine the two layers that remain."

[Nighthawk4]

Thanks Arian. I will give that a try later.

I tried the Manual - I think you need a manual in order to understand the Gimp Manual >:(

Your instructions look much more understandable. :)

[Nighthawk4]

My first attempt - not very successful >:(

[GeekDaddy]

Also my first attempt. Using Illustrator 10 and copying to Photoshop 7 to save as a GIF, but the arms and legs are really thin. I need to play with it a little more, I think.

Any other suggestions and advice are MORE than welcome!

[ritzer]

For comic strip I've been working on. Made with Adobe Illustrator with small adjustments using Photoshop and ImageReady (all CS version). Enjoy.





when I get some webhosting I'll put some crap up :P

[Nikolai_II]

My first attempt - not very successful >:(

Well, feel free to compare with my first Gimp attempt ;D



And reading Arians post I realize I should try to spend a week (hour) or so reading the manual instead of just randomly trying to test stuff and see what happens ::)

[Nighthawk4]

Yours is still better than mine. :-[

How do you persuade the paintpot icon to fill the area with colour?

Also, why is mine so ragged-looking? I spoke nicely to Aunt Alias, but she didn't do a very good job >:(

[Nikolai_II]

Yours is still better than mine. :-[

How do you persuade the paintpot icon to fill the area with colour?

Also, why is mine so ragged-looking? I spoke nicely to Aunt Alias, but she didn't do a very good job >:(

Thank you for the compliment - my chest is bursting with joy :D

The chest and boots are actually filled with patterns, (paper boots, granite or amethyst chest) but what I did was that I fiddled with the checkboxes in the toolbox window until I got a setting where it stopped flooding the entire picture and settled with just filling out the bounded areas (made by shift-clicking while drawing lines)

Since I was unable to make curved lines (at least circles) at the moment I had to settle for using a really big pencil and make a single dot for the head ;D

And "alias"? I'm afraid you lost me - only Alias I know is from "Curse of the Azure Bonds" and that's only because adapting old adventures to 3ed is a cheap way of not doing as much work to keep a campaign going? What does Alias do - and isn't it "anti-Aliasing" that is the way to go (I have heard that word at least)

[Nighthawk4]

Hehe - anti-aliasing was what I meant when I spoke nicely to Aunt Alias :D

At least yours has features and colour. Mine is crap >:(

[Nighthawk4]

Second attempt:



This was done with Kolourpaint, in Linux. It seems a little more easy to use than The Gimp. :D

[Nikolai_II]

Second attempt:



This was done with Kolourpaint, in Linux. It seems a little more easy to use than The Gimp. :D

Ach - I have been vanquished, I must return to gimp in an attempt to trump that!

.

Nice work - much better than your first (if I'm allowed to say so) - and clearly better than mine too.

[Sojourner]

my avvie

now if i could only figure out nwhy i cant use it.

[Nighthawk4]

*Sigh*

I think the arms are too long:



I think Giant's job is pretty safe ;)

[Sojourner]

anyone know why it wont let me use a custom avatar?

[Nighthawk4]

My guess would be size, format or its location does not let you link from it.

The latter is clearly not true as you have already posted a link to it.

What size is it and what format? Mine (which I have not tried to use yet) are 117 * 117 and are in GIF format, iirc ;)

Edit: They need to be GIF or JPG and will be resized to 117 x 117.

You also need to check the little box alongside the URL or your image. It worked for me.

*Rushes off to change back to a decent avatar image*

[Nikolai_II]

anyone know why it wont let me use a custom avatar?

Hmm.. it posted with just a quote.

But it won't take bitmaps, convert to .jpg or .gif

And it will get slightly distorted when adapting to 117*117, but it might be too small to note since you are pretty close to that.

[Nikolai_II]

*Sigh*

I think the arms are too long:



I think Giant's job is pretty safe ;)

Those arms are bigger than the last ones it seems?

And yeah, this is difficult :P

Here's a new attempt at something half-baked or half-done (I have to go look at dinner opportunities and can't play around for a while)



edit: feh, they just keep getting smaller.

[Sojourner]

gah , it still dont work>.< 117 by 117 bitmap

[Nighthawk4]

You are getting better Nikolai II.

Who would have thought that this art stuff would require practice or skill or both? Why can't it be easy, so complete artistic dumbos like me can do it? >:(

:D

[Nighthawk4]

gah , it still dont work>.< 117 by 117 bitmap

Must be GIF or JPG, not Bitmap. ;)

[Nikolai_II]

Well - I am a dumbo, so it can't be that.. must be that the drawing programs are so hard to use - 75% of the time goes to figure what I did wrong and trying to do something right and the rest is actual artistic problems.

Like the one where I finally managed to realise that if I have 117*117 pixels it is pretty stupid to draw the picture in just 80*80 and leave humongous empty areas around it.. ;D