Several people have commented that they'd like to make emotes but aren't sure where to start.  The following tutorials should help you get started and then some.

Static Emotes:

Paint

• Emoticon Tutorial 4 Paint by Spaarghy: how to create a hand-shaded static emote using MS Paint.

Paint.NET

• Emoticon Tutorial Part 1 by Jtcgh: how to create a hand-shaded static emote using the free software, Paint.NET

Adobe Photoshop

• Ultimate Emote Tutorial - P1 by eStunt: how to create a static emote using the gradient tool for shading.


• Reflective Emoticon Tutorial by ~emoticons: how to create a static using the airbrush tool for shading.


• Azundo's Emote Person Tutorial by ~Azundo: how to create a static emote using different colored layers and the gradient tool for shading, complete with description of all the tools that come in handy making emotes.


• How to make a emoticon by ~aiwebs2005: how to create a static emote using the gradient tool for shading, complete with detailed pixel count diagrams.


• Emoticon Tut by ~Ravmaster: how to create a static emote using gradients, complete with a section on creating some of the more commonly-used expressions


• Emoticon Tutorial 1: The Base by ~fl00fy: how to create a static emote using hand shading.


• How to make Emoticons Pt. 1 by !conorschild: how to make a static emote using hand shading and conor's sense of humor.


• Emote Tutorial Part 1 by ^ChaosEmeraldHunter: how to make a static emote using hand shading in Imageready.


• Complete Emoticon Guide part 1 by `LeoLeonardo: how to make a static emote using both gradients and hand shading (and some good background music).


• Emoticon Tutorial - The Basics by ~Spaarghy: how to make your basic static emote using hand shading.

Corel (formerly Jasc) PaintShopPro

• ++Emoticon Tutorial 1++ by ~aneikitsune how to create a static emote using the dodge tool for shading.

Adobe (formerly Macromedia) Fireworks

• How to make+colour an Emoticon by ~clairebearer: detailed instructions on making static emotes using hand-coloring and using gradients.


• Emote Tutorial 1 by `zikes: step by step instructions on making a static emote using gradients.

Once you've got the hang of the basics, you can move on to animation.

Animated Emotes:

Paint.NET

• Emoticon Tutorial Part 2 by Jtcgh: how to create an animated emote using the free software Paint.NET and Unfreez for animation.

Adobe Photoshop/ImageReady

• Azundo's Emoticon Tutorial by ~Azundo: how to animate an emote in Imageready once you've made the static emote in Photoshop.


• Animated emoticon_ImageReady by ~aiwebs2005:the follow-up to ~aiwebs2005's tutorial, explaining how to animate an emote.


• Emote Tutorial Part 2 by ^ChaosEmeraldHunter: the follow-up to her static emote tutorial, explaining how to animate emotes in Imageready.


• Animated Emoticons Tutorial by ~KeReN-R:how to create an animated blinking emote from beginning to end.


• Blinking.Emot.Tutorial by ~synaesthesia: how to create an animated blinking and smiling emote from beginning to end.


• emoticon tutorial by ~dutchie17: how to create an animated blinking emote from beginning to end using gradients for shading.


• Emoticon Tutorial 2: Animation by ~fl00fy: the follow-up to !floofy's static emote tutorial, explaining how to animate an emote.


• Complete Emoticon Guide part 2 by `LeoLeonardo: how to make an animated emote using both gradients and hand shading (and some good background music).

Adobe (formerly Macromedia) Fireworks

• Emote Tutorial 2 by `zikes: the follow-up to Zikes' first emote tutorial, explaining how to animate the emote.


• Animated Emotes In Fireworks by `blunaowl: how to animate an emote.

Ulead Gif Animator

• Emote Tutorial by `darkmoon3636: a Flash presentation on how to hand-shade and animate emoticons.

GIMP

• Basic dA Emote tute for GIMP by ~MissLittlewood: how to create an animated blinking emote from beginning to end using the blend tool for shading.


• More Advanced Emotes for GIMP by ~popcorn-pops: a follow-up to ~MissLittlewood's tutorial explaining how to animate a waving emote using the gradient tool.

Next up, focus on improving your shading techniques.

Advanced Shading and Coloring:

• Emoticon Tutorial : bases by `darkmoon3636: a detailed instructional on 3 different styles of hand shading.


• Emote Tutorial 3: Color Shifts by `zikes: how to change the color of an emote over the course of several frames using Macromedia Fireworks.


• How to: Shade emoticons by `arrioch: learn how arrioch creates his unique shading look using Adobe Photoshop.


• Wing - Tutorial by `koffeeben: a handy little guide to making emoticon wings which can also be helpful for general shading and highlighting.


• Solve the White Pixel Problem by ~BobSmith006: correct the annoying stray white pixels anti-aliasing causes using Fireworks and ImageReady.


• emote shading tutorial by *SophieHoulden: Combine gradients, hand-pixeling and semi-transparency for glossy shading in Fireworks.

Advanced Effects:

• A Guide to Pixel Particle Effects - Pt 1: Explosions by ~sereneworx: a detailed and versatile description of how to make an explosion that works in several contexts.


• Explosion Tutorial by `bad-blood: click the download link to learn how to make an explosive mushroom cloud.


• Hadoken Tutorial by `bad-blood: click the download link to learn how to make light balls shoot from an emote's hands.

And there you have it.  deviantART is like Emote University, I swear.  If anyone knows of a tutorial I haven't included on the list, please drop me a line and I'll add it toot sweet.

Hey guys!!! Here’s a list of several plz accounts you can use!! There are a lot more but I got tired of looking ^^

     

     

   



















































































































































































   



































































































You can find the entire alphabet here--> [link]

We've seen them, laughed at them, hated them and used them. But does anyone give them a second thought?  Our icons and emotes are an underappreciated art form and an overexploited resource, often with no thanks or for the creators.  

If you use it a lot,     it or leave a comment


Multiples
(these are 2 or more icons each ~ no space between them)
      

*your icon*   


  









Big ones
  


Regular ones
           

     

Odd ones


TV Themes




Food


Plz with no account
[They may only show up as thumbs for subscribers]

      :thumb42015855:    :thumb82122362:  



  
     

Icons DO have their own location here~
>Customization > Icons > Emoticons > Animated

Many of the Plz account have other icons on the page, the messages are a good source for some you havent seen yet.

If you know any good ones, please add a link, and thank you for reading

If you're a subscriber, then no doubt you know all too well what you can now do with your journals. The possibilities are almost endless, limited only by your imagination. And there are some great designs popping up, `lonelyarethebrave, =Nameless-Designer,  `depthskins to name a few. But surely there's more to CSS than just images and such? That's where this guide comes in.

Over a series of weeks, you'll see just what you can do with your CSS journal, from minor tweaks to full-blown redesigns. And you can help too! Just note your tweaks to ~Grayda and you can have your tweak included!

Let's begin!

Deviations Box

This is a commonly requested one. This snippet of code will let you display a column to the side of your journal, with some thumbs in there. Much like the little scrolling boxes you see on some people's eBay listing pages. It can display vertical scroll-bars if needed, or hide them completely. Here's the code:

HTML:

Insert your thumb codes in here!

CSS:

.deviationsbox {
height:400px;
width:200px;
overflow:auto;
}

To hide the scrollbars, change the height to auto (ie. height:auto and change the overflow to visible (ie. overflow:visible. You'll need to manually position it to the right of your journal, or wherever you want it. This code is just the foundation.

Hiding the date and time of your journal

Sometimes the date / time of your journal isn't necessary, or gets in the way of your awesome design. Because the date is contained within a DIV you can't hide (or else it hides the WHOLE journal title and icon and such), we need to make it *almost* invisible. We do this by this little bit of code:

.journalbox .journaltop {
font-size: 0px;
}

Note: This isn't totally perfect. In Internet Explorer, it displays the text, but it's VERY small

Menus

You can now have rollover menus in your journal without too much effort, and all without Javascript too!

HTML:

Hover here for menu!
[Insert your links here]
[Insert your links here]
[Insert your links here]

CSS:

div.links {
height:10px;
}

div.links a {
display:none;
background:none;
}

div.links:hover a {
display:block;
background-color:#0099FF;
}

div.links:hover {
display:block;
background-color:#FFFFFF;
height:auto;

}

Please note that this is a VERY simple way to do it. Expansion for this is a must!


That's it for this issue. I hope this is useful for some, and I hope to see more awesome CSS Journals in the future.

Remember, if you have a tip / tweak, note it to ~Grayda for inclusion next time.

So until next time, keep on themeing!

This article, is my attempt to help answer a lot of questions I get from people asking about various ways of customising your dA experience. I attempted numerous times to write out a tutorial with code specifics but then I thought, no, there are already enough tutorials out there that are probably more specific and accurate than me. What I thought would be best, would be to compile a bunch of resources in an organised and explained way, so that you can each learn for yourselves the best way to customise your dA.

Custom Module Backgrounds

Ok, this is definitely the most asked of all the questions . Rather than explain things to you myself, here are the tutorials that I have found most useful, as they provide exact code for you to copy and paste, and screenshots to show you how things should look when you do it yourself;

Custom Box Background Tutorial by
_{This explains things simply and visually and allows you use a custom background in custom modules (as well as explaining how to create your own custom background).}

by

However, in order to customise futher, outside of custom modules, there are other tutorials;

deviantID-box bckgrnd tutorial by
_{For changing the background of the DeviantID module specifically.}

Deviation-box backgrd tutorial by

This tutorial is the key to increasing your customising capabilities. With this code, you can place custom backgrounds in almost any module, although how convenient it may be to do so is debatable. This is due to the fact that you must first remember to make sure there is little or nothing in the module to begin with (since it will all be covered by the background) and secondly that you must create the image to go over the top of newly placed custom background (hosting it somewhere and direct linking to it). Thumbnail images and their nice shadows won't work straight over custom backgrounds (at least not that I know of thus far), and any content already in the module will cause the module to stretch the same length as if it were still there, even though you can't see it.

Custom Boxes

One method of easily over-coming this that I personally prefer, is to use any kind of custom box, which neatly fits all your content into a nice centred area automatically;



These give you a variety of box types to suit any content you want to present over the top of your custom backgrounds. They also look quite neat when used on plain modules.

Custom Buttons

Another element of customising your DA profile is to create your own links to areas like your gallery or facebook fan page etc. Any custom made image of your own can be used as a button however these ones here allow you to use deviantart buttons that utilise the rollover effect (when your mouse hovers over the button and clicks it, the button will change slightly to reflect each stage);



Extras

For profile customising.



Custom Icons

To even further customise things, you can edit the little icons within the custom boxes and buttons;



Journal Skins

Skins that are either automatically installable to your journal or require you to paste the CSS code into the correct journal boxes, in order to customise and make you journal entries pretty;

:thumb133088965:

Gallery and Favourites CSS

For customising your gallery and favourites sections;

How to Install a Gallery CSS by
_{Shows how to use the resources below}

GalleryCSS Reference Sheet by
_{A reference sheet for gallery CSS}



CSS and Scripts

For changing the layout of deviantart and other things using scripts and extensions, as well as explanations of how CSS works on deviantart;

deviantTIDY by
_{For changing the layout of DeviantArt through your browser.}

dA Piece by Piece : CSS + Box by
_{For understanding how CSS works in detail (includes diagram).}

Basic CSS Journal Template by
_{A simple template of journal CSS}

Not-So-Basic Journal Template by
_{A more advanced journal CSS template}

SuggestDD v0.7a - Update by
_{Script for making the suggestion of Daily Deviations simple}

SuperdAmn by
_{"SuperdAmn is a userscript that implements tons of fixes for dAmn, the deviantART Message Network. It replaces dAmn.extend by `siebenzehn, the most popular userscript for dAmn in more than 4 years, and thus implements the same features, but at the same time adds a lot more to make your dAmn experience even more exciting."}

dAmn Goodies by
_{Allows for various new commands}

deviantSkin by
_{"The purpose of this extension is to act as a skin manager/applier for deviantART."}

deviantMessage by
_{"The main purpose of this extension is to display your current deviantART "message centre" items/counts in your statusbar (lower-right corner of the browser)."}

ThumbTools by
_{"This script will add thumb code collecting capabilities to deviantArt. It is also capable, of sorting thumbs, and sending notes to deviants one has featured in a journal or news article. Use it to collect tons of thumbs for features and forum activities.}

Llama Button userscript by
_{"This little userscript adds a Llama button to the top of every profile page, so you can instantly see if you gave this user a llama badge already or not, without having to open the "Give" menu first."}

deviantAnywhere by :iconPostaL2600
_{"It's an extension for deviantArt & Mozilla Firefox users. It will show and notify you when new messages arrive for you on deviantArt."}

Journal Tutorial -copyable CSS by
_{Simple CSS codes}

[link] by :icondiado
_{"PlzMe adds a fully customisable graphical plz icon picker to the dAmn chat network - no need to mis-type iconcodes anymore or try and remember the name of an icon if you know what it looks like, just add your favourite plz account icons to PlzMe and they'll be there at the click of a button for you - just click the icon you want to use and PlzMe will insert it into the text entry box of your current chat room. "}

Comment Collector by
_{"Comment Collector is a userscript that lets you add comments to your collections just like deviations. We can already see your favourite art on deviantART, and now it's time you share your favourite slices of the community fun!"}

Watching you? v1.3 by
_{"A Greasemonkey (GM) script for Firefox (FF) to show if a deviant you visit is one of your watchers."}

Better gAteway by
_{"Better gAteway does what the title says — it takes deviantART's new outgoing link gateway and makes it better! But not only that, it adds new, exciting features related to the use of outgoing links in posts around dA!"}

DeviantArt Icons

Icons that are free for use as your own icon on DeviantArt;

:thumb177406372::thumb184989785::thumb159570066::thumb181693050::thumb171968306::thumb172870301::thumb185294196::thumb180659128::thumb179872493::thumb169047415::thumb162584326::thumb160462925::thumb160414914::thumb160335000:v:thumb158939989::thumb158838704::thumb152137536:v:thumb147062465:v:thumb142223919::thumb145858234::thumb145858234::thumb140508951::thumb139808241::thumb139871391::thumb139713069::thumb139713069::thumb137436862::thumb137530544::thumb137342198::thumb137304413::thumb74453731:

Summary

In conclusion, there are a lot of ways for you to customise your DeviantArt experience, and although you do not need to use every one of these, there are bound to be some that you find useful. Please be sure to give credit and love to the creators of these resources, who work hard to help out everyone on dA.

Please, if you have more questions on customisation, make sure you have read through the related tutorials here, and if these do not answer your questions, then try a search of your own; this article is by no means entirely comprehensive.

_{Hope this is in the right category, it said I don't have enough permissions to submit to help and faqs XD}

So, been wanting to write one of these for a long time, i have made journals regarding this subject before.

So, Basically what i want to say is that people should show more support to the people who upload free-to-use stuff on this site.
Icons, wallpapers, themes, stocks, all free to use, all they ask for is a thanks or a fav if you use it, and they hardly get any!

I am not sure why it is like this, but it seems to be a common thing, in all these customize sections.

Just now i saw a wallpaper with 2000 downloads and 28 faves, 10 comments.

I see icons with 70 000 views, thousands of downloads, and 80+- faves.

Many of them write in the artist comment; "please show your support"
and we should!

Why should people who work hard for others keep on doing it if we can`t take a few sec to write thanks or a half sec to fav if we use or like it.

You can find things, legal, free, all they ask is some sort of reply, show your support and change this.

Thank you for reading

*i don`t upload things to that section, so i am not writing this for me, but for the general irritation*

Proudly present...
Great artist with their awesome work from Indonesia



    



  



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Please this news article if you love it and help them spread their wings .

Hello, welcome to Dolling 101! We'll be going over all the basics that every beginner doller should know. There's a lot, so let's get to it!

Lesson 1: Terminology/Vocabulary

What is a Doll?

It might help to begin this article by telling you what you're reading about! A doll, or as we call them on DeviantArt, Digital Dolls, are small graphics, usually pixel-art, of people and characters. People create these by taking a base body another person has made, and creating art on it - designing clothes and hair, and turning the blank template into whatever kind of character they can imagine.

I will go over dolls more in detail, but that's the very basic description. Please, read on!

What is a Base?

Bases! You're probably familiar with this term. That's right, those pixel line-arts of bald/naked people that you draw on to create your own character. That's a base! A base can include hair, extra poses, or optional clothes to get you started.

But getting down to the basics, they're exactly what they are - a base! Think of the definition of 'base'. The base of the house is the bottom (the main support structure). The base of a doll is... the body! The base.



So, you've got your base, and you dressed it up using a program of your choice (like MSPaint or GIMP). What's that called? That's a doll, the term taken from the idea of what it all is.

When you're a kid, you take a naked Barbie doll and put clothes on it. Now, you take naked bases online and draw clothes on those. Once they're dressed up, they're dolls (like how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, where the caterpillar is a base and the butterfly is the doll, or the final product)! If you do this, that makes you a doller.

Have you wondered why you submit your works to the Customization > Digital Dolls category? (Hint - it's the 'dolls'! If you're not submitting your work to the Digital Dolls category, then you should start doing so!)

Welcome to the dolling community!





Dolls versus Base Edits

Now then. A few people seem to be a bit confused about what to call their works. When they doll up the base they used, they don't know what to call it. Some people submit them as 'used bases' (while this term is technically correct, it's not widely used/accepted). Other people call them 'base edits.' This is not right! A base edit is... again, just that! An edit of a base.

If you've put clothes/hair/etc on the base, then you've created a doll. It's okay if you edited the base in the progress (such as changing the position of an arm, or editing the eyes/nose/mouth) but if it's not a bald, naked pixel line-art anymore, it's a doll.

A base edit is something a little different. Usually you must ask permission from the base-maker, but once you have their permission, you take their base, edit it, and repost it. Change the position of the arm, edit the eyes and nose, or recolor it. It's still a base - a naked, bald pixel-lineart for people to dress up. But you've edited that base. And that's a base edit!


_{These two bases are base edits. You can see that the artists credit the original base-maker in their descriptions!}

Pop Quiz! Which of these are dolls, and which are bases?

A.
// B. // C. // D.
// E. // F.



Congrats! You've gotten through the basic terminology. Ready for a few that are a bit more complex?

Art Theft and Recoloring

First, and most important, is art theft. Yes, we all know... but a lot of people starting out dolling can get confused. Bases are for everyone to use. However, dolls that people have created are NOT for others to use and edit! They are complete artworks, and recoloring and submitting them is considered stealing, even if you credit the person who made the doll.

If you do an impressive edit of someone's doll, it is still stealing! So make sure that what you're starting to doll on is a base, and not a doll! Otherwise, you can get in big trouble, and that's never good

To make it even more confusing, there are some bases that include clothing and hair options. Make sure you read the description carefully on anything that already has clothing or hair so that you can be extra sure that it's a base and not a completed doll.


_{The first doll shown here is an edit of the second one. While this is usually a big no-no, you'll see in the description that she got permission to do it. Thank you, ~gauche0gallery and `FionaCreates!}



Frankendolling and Frankenbasing

Something similar is "frankendolling". It doesn't happen too often now, but in the past it was pretty common. Someone would take parts of different dolls people have made (usually from the same base) and edit the parts together. (Like Frankenstein! Euguhuuuh!)

They'd take the arms from one doll, the head and body from another, and the legs from a third.. or any different combination! Since they started with other people's dolls, and did not have permission, it is the same as stealing.


Here are a few examples of frankendolls, made by people using their own dolls simply to show what it means (don't yell at them for stealing! They're re-using their own art!)


Another term is "frankenbasing". The same concept, only they create a new base (either for their personal use or to submit as a base edit) from body parts of other bases. Remember the creepy toys in those movies that have different doll parts all connected to one doll body? Kind of like that.

This is a little more accepted in the community, however. I personally love it when people get creative with my bases, and make up something of their own. But a lot of base-makers frown upon it. If you are thinking of doing this, remember to read the base-makers rules, and if you can't find the answer you seek, ASK! If you don't get a response, assume you can't frankenbase.


_{Sadly, I couldn't find any more! This is a lovely frankenbase by ~foxlee, using the head of one base, and the body of another. She got permission from both artists, so this frankenbase is A-OK!}


Constructive Criticism and Works-In-Progress

CC is short for Constructive Criticism. This term is usually used when you're working on a doll, and the shading just doesn't look right! Or the hair you're dolling is a total mess. Or the leg looks broken!! You need help!

Some people will submit their dolls halfway through for help, or post their finished work, and ask for tips for improvement. That's what CC is! Other dollers will point out where you could have done things differently, and maybe even draw some guidelines on your doll to help you out. It's all in good fun, and you'll learn something and grow from it every time.


_{Though these aren't dolls, this is basically what it looks like when people red-line. Of course, CC doesn't mean red-lining, but it's the best way to get a visual on what someone is explaining to you!}

Alright, this one is simple! WIP. That stands for work-in-progress. Exactly what it means! A doll or a base that you haven't finished and are still working on, so it's not done! It's a work in progress! Sometimes people post them for CC, sometimes people post them when it's a big project. Sometimes they just post them for fun.





Pillowshading

Oh no! The term strikes fear into many. Many people start out shading this way, and many people have heard the term. But what exactly is pillow-shading? Well! There's a wonderful off-site description here that tells you all about it!

Basically, pillowshading is shading something like a pillow. It's height is in the middle and goes down around the edges. That means the light hits the middle, and the shadows are around the edges, giving it a weird spotlight look. This form of shading is frowned upon, because it's unrealistic (on things that aren't pillows!) and makes things look nasty!

Here's a few good examples and tutorials to help you out!

:thumb172981832:



Original Character/OpenCanvas

OC. This one confused me at first. OC normally means Original Character. A character that you've created! Or maybe your friend. Either way, you won't find them in any TV show, game, book, or anything else, because they're yours!

However, there's another term for OC you may find. It's a program called OpenCanvas. Typically for digital paintings, but some people sketch their dolls out with it before pixelling them, or if they do tooled dolls, then they might finish their whole doll in the program! OpenCanvas is similar to photoshop, only made by a different software company.

Tooled Dolls

So, most dolls you see are clean-cut, clear pixels. You can see exactly where one color ends, and one color begins. You can count the colors used in the doll. Typically, they're made with the pencil tool (in Photoshop), or in MSPaint. However! Some people create dolls in a completely different way.

Instead of the clean-cut pixels, they use the paint-brush in Photoshop, or other techniques to give the doll a soft, blended look. It's similar to what you see in digital drawings and art. They sure aren't pixel art, right? Exactly! Tooled dolls aren't pixel art, but they still start out with a base.


Here are some wonderful examples of tolled dolls!

Alright, thanks for sitting through all those new words. Now I can tell you a few of the basics.

Lesson 2: Courtesy

Haha... yes. A lot of the dolling community thrives on this. You'll be surprised, but being kind to your fellow dollers will get you very far. So let's go over the main things that the community follows.

First of all, let's say you're going to use a base to create a doll. You're wanting to make it a big, gory doll, and then sell it for some virtual money (like points on DeviantART or on Gaia.com). Wait! Does the base-maker allow this!? Most of the times, the base maker will have a link to their rules in the base description, right on the base image, or have them on their main page. Wherever they are, be sure to read them!

Some base-makers have silly rules, such as "Send me a link to the doll once you are done!", "Do not edit the base in any way", or "When you doll on this base, one of the colors must be bright orange!" Make sure you know their rules so that you can follow them, otherwise the base maker might get angry (and angry base makers often don't like making new bases if people don't follow their rules. They might even take their bases down, so no one can use them anymore!).


_{A few interesting ways people have made their rules easy to see!}

Lesson 3: Saving Your Doll

Now, let's assume you're done with a doll. Hooray, congrats! I'm sure it looks amazing. But now... now you have to save it. Since it's pixel art, the way you save it is very important.

You can't just save it as a .bmp (bitmap)! Assuming you'll upload it to DeviantArt, DA doesn't allow .bmp uploads, and will convert it to a .jpg. (You can save it as a .bmp while you work on it. It won't screw up the colors, as long as it's a 24-bit Bitmap. However, when you want to go and upload it to DA, you'll need to save it as something else before you upload it.)

.jpgs are just as bad, though! They make your doll blocky, with ugly ugly colors, like a blotchy computer man vomited all over your lovely doll. Oh no!

With a .gif it's hit or miss. Saving .gifs with MSPaint isn't a good idea, because it will mess up the colors, almost as bad as .jpgs. Colors are the whole point of your doll, so we can't have that! Unless you have a special program to save them as .gifs (I suggest BMPtoGIF ), I would advise against it. Saving things as .gifs in Photoshop works just as well, though!

So, what DO you save it as? A .png! It makes the disk-space size of the file smaller, like .jpg does, without messing up the colors. Also, if you use a program like Irfanview you can save a transparent color as well. Hooray!


_{A few dolls that have been saved improperly. Oh no!}

Lesson 4: Uploading

Crediting the Base Maker

Awesome! So now you've saved your doll or base. Let's upload it to DA. Assuming it's a doll, you've used someone's base. But whose!? It's proper etiquette to post a link to the person's base you used, or at least link to their gallery or main page, in the description of the doll.
They made the base for you after all, so it would only be rude to not mention them in the description. Also, if you don't credit them, it can be seen as theft (bleh, so confusing! Let's just credit always!).

That, and other people might want to use the base that you just used! Most of the time, base makers will put their name somewhere on the image. Usually what I do is move their name off to the side as I work on the doll. That way, I know who did it when I'm working on the doll, and delete their name off the doll as I'm finishing it.

Another way of remembering who made the base is favoriting the base on DeviantART. But... what if there was no name, and you found the base on your hard-drive? Uh oh. This can happen, and don't worry! Just let everyone know in your description that you've tried all you can, but you just can't find the artist. People will usually help out, and you'll have a link in no time. If no one can supply you with a link to the base maker, at least you've acknowledged that you didn't create the whole thing from scratch and that someone else helped to make this work of art!


Categories on DeviantArt

Okay, we're all set to upload this doll! Now... where do we put it? The Customization > Digital Dolls category, of course. But there are sub-sections...so let's clear up these subsections so you know where your doll should be submitted!

First we go over how you made the doll.

For the Pixel Dolls, they are made entirely pixel-by-pixel (line and curve tools in MSPaint are exceptions, as confirmed by ^Lyricanna) and the flood-fill tool. Usually they are smaller dolls, and have a limited color count. Though recently, bigger bases have become popular, and the use of the curve tool has made them very easy to do.

Tooled dolls! You remember me going over those, right? Dolls made in programs with lots of tools, like Gimp or Photoshop, using techniques to give them that soft and blurry look. Smudge, Dodge, Burn, Paintbrush, whichever tools are used. Most of the time, they look like a very small digital painting.

The Misc (miscellaneous) category is very touchy. It can range anywhere in between the pixel-by-pixel to the brushstroke style. Dolls with gradient, photo, or textures (or that's what you're using for the background) will fall under this category. Maybe you only tooled the hair? Or maybe you used photoshop layers to make that part of the dress a little transparent? If a tool was used, but it's still mostly pixel-looking, your doll will go here. Cell shaded dolls belong in Misc as well, even if they do have a hard pixel outline and limited colour count, since it's more floodfill tool than actual pixel by pixel work.

Pop Quiz! Can you categorize these? (Hint: Some of the artists have submitted these into the wrong categories, so cheating and looking there won't help!)

A. // B. // C.
D. // E. // F.


Yay! We got through how you made it. But now... what did you make?


Original Base is where you post dolls you've made on bases of your own. A doll you made on a base you made. So all the artwork belongs to you. That makes it yours! Originally yours! 100% yours! Get it?

Someone left their base somewhere. You brought it home, dolled it up, and now you want to post it. You've 'adopted' their base. Since you dolled on a base you have not created, the doll would go into Adopted Base. Most dolls would go into this section (unless, of course, you created the base on your own).

Next is the Bases category! This is pretty explanatory if you know what a base is, yeah? Ohh, it feels good to have knowledge. All your naked, bald girls/boys that are ready to be dressed up and dolled on go here.

But wait! What's this Traced Base category? Well, as of June 11, 2012, there's still no description for it. However, my assumption is that bases go here that are not 100% original artwork by you. If you made the base by tracing over an anime screenshot, a drawing that you haven't drawn, or even a photo, then that base you've made would go in the Traced Base category. Some dollers don't mind traced bases, but others have a burning hatred for them. They won't use anything unless it was completely original! Thus, this category was born. Help the mods on DeviantArt keep these categories organized!
Keep in mind that while the Traced Base category does exist, it is still common courtesy to get permission to trace! So many problems can arise if you do not get permission. Theft is still an issue, as well as having people angry at you, possibly being banned, or who knows what!! Stay careful, and make sure that you have permission before you trace.


With that said, you should have a good grip of the dolling world. Hopefully this wasn't too much for you. And remember, it's the basics! Each and every doller knows these rules, and if you plan on dolling, then it's a good idea that you know them too! Thanks for taking the time to read this, and good luck dolling!


<sub>Pop Quiz! Which of these are dolls, and which are bases? ANSWERS
A, C, D are Dolls
B, E, F are Bases

Pop Quiz! Can you categorize these? ANSWERS
A, E are Misc
B, F are Tooled
C, D are Pixel</sub>