Smilies Requests

[Buster's Uncle]

Well that sucks, @Aiken_Drumn.


-So have a couple stills from it:

Mic drop

And Talk To The Hand

 

[Buster's Uncle]

 

[Buster's Uncle]

-If you like The X-Files and late Roman history, I've got a treat for you:

The Hookah Smoking Man of 420 AD.

He's a widely-traveled investigator/operative for a clandestine department of the Vatican. -He also ain't quite right in the head.

Nobody tell Solver, ok?

 

[Buster's Uncle]

The Wizard of Oz

 

[Buster's Uncle]

Australian orientation corrected, better?

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

You wouldn't happen to have a 'ominously shaking fist at unspecified individuals' smilie, would you?

 

[Buster's Uncle]

I probably will tomorrow...

 

[Gori the Grey]

Slam dunk?

 

[Buster's Uncle]

Hmm. That would want to be tall....

I'll think about it.

 

[Buster's Uncle]

@Bonyduck Campersang

?

 

[Buster's Uncle]

-Wait; this is better, I think.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Those are nice, but they look too much like they're waving their hands in a handfan-like motion. I think if the fist were facing sideways, and the eyes of the smilie were similarly looking sideways? because the fist should be shaken at unspecified individuals elsewhere in the thread and not necessarily the person addressed in the text

 

[Buster's Uncle]

Okay - you're definitely not wrong. The tricky part is making something as small as that hand look like anything...

-I'll try again.

 

[Buster's Uncle]

@Bonyduck Campersang

I'll get you for being so demanding.

?

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

That's great. Not quite what I had in mind, but it'll do for me

 

[Buster's Uncle]

Slam dunk?

<-Kept it down to 26x tall...

 

[Gori the Grey]

It's fantastic! Can't wait until I deliver my first slam dunk on some poor poster so I can use it.

 

[Buster's Uncle]

This only needed to be x15 tall...

 

[Buster's Uncle]

Making a Samurai-Playing-a-Banjo Smilie: an Illustrated Tutorial​

Reading through an old thread of smilie requests, I saw someone wish for a samurai playing a banjo - what the heck; I thought I'd do it. Probably not serious, but what the heck.

I'll be concentrating on technique in these remarks. The step-by-step process is showable/teachable. Creativity/art, well, I can show you how easier/better than why, but why's in there, too. Helping an ESL Italian AC2 member quite a few years ago w/ modding taught me to screenshot heavily to help get past the language barrier.

So fire up GIMP -it's a free download; google it- and follow along.

---

I begin, as almost always, with opening my stock blank smilie, in this case, the 15x15 model:
View attachment 591290
-Skips a lot of time wasted drawing in the same shading over and over, to have some stock blanks...

Next, I made some room for details, the banjo and animation.
View attachment 591291 View attachment 591292 View attachment 591293
Image>Canvas Size...>20x20>Offset all 5 to the bottom, 2 for approximate centering - (I'll put the big end of the banjo on the 3 side). Thus:
View attachment 591294
-I'm trying to keep the smilies as small as possible; 20x20 is the ideal upper size. I'll end up revising this 2x wider; taking up extra width is less disruptive when mixed w/ text. Tall as x20 pixels spaces text a little extra, so it's worth going to some trouble to try not to exceed that.

Next, it's going to be an animation of at least two frames, so I'll need a Layers box. That's Windows>Dockable Dialogues>Layers:
View attachment 591295 Thus: View attachment 591296
View attachment 591299


Now to make a second layer:
View attachment 591297 View attachment 591298
Right-click on the thumbnail in the Layers Toolbar>New Layer>make sure the bottom, Transparency, is checked>Okay. (Clearly, I went back and took some screenies out of order afterward; no refunds.)

The image/layer(s) is in an invisible box that needs expanding. SO -
siiigh. -I've hit the attachment limit one pic too early.


Next time: I draw the various elements and, one certainly hopes, it gets a bit more interesting.

Making a Samurai-Playing-a-Banjo Smilie Pt. 2​

Continuing a prompt 2.5 years later....

See, as a memory-saving measure, each frame in an animated .gif is/should be invisibly cropped to include only actual pixels in that frame. -But at this stage, about to draw the bits that make a samurai face, I need room. Right-click on the new frame in the Layers box>Layer to Image Size. Now I can draw in the entire 20x20.

So teaching you to cartoon/draw w/ minimal pixels is too vast a subject to get into here, and only practice/experience will really do that, but here's the central element. Add hair w/ a topknot, flat eyes and a smile to the 15x smilie blank, and that's a serviceable samurai face. Not too difficult.

Next came the banjo:

(which was a pain, and doesn't look that great zoomed in - but will serve at actual size).

And the hands in both positions for his left - his right doesn't move.

So that's all the elements drawn - merging them into a two-frame strumming animation is fairly simple, coming next time.

---

HEY - if anyone's actually interested in learning how to do this, class is in session. I taught a 13 year-old to be a fairly good smilie artist several years ago at AC2. I'll be delighted to talk anyone and everyone through it, and make The_J miserable in the process.

Any takers?

 

[Buster's Uncle]

In fact, here's a more comprehensive tutorial: https://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=articles;cat=7 mostly animating a dancing panda I did to troll Apolyton.

If there's anything you need to know to hand-animate a smilie in GIMP that isn't explained there, it sure hasn't occurred to me...