rants & rambles

nota bene: All opinions expressed on this page are my opinions; they are not facts. You're allowed to disagree with me, it's just that I'm also allowed to disagree with you. :) If you don't like griping, then you don't have to read these. See? Easy.

oh, aren't you the clever one

"Do not frankendoll. Do not click on 'I agree', click on 'Screw you, I can do what I want!'. Do not alter my bases and offer them on your site. Do not this, that, and the other standard rule."

...

"You stupid moron! Go back and READ my rules! Neener!"

Oh bite me. Puh-leeeze. This might have been clever or even effective the first time someone did it. Now it's just an annoyance for the vast majority of us who do understand netiquette, and makes us fantasize about breaking your freaking terms just to piss you off right back. :P

The people who are going to rip off your stuff are going to do it anyway. Terms of use are mainly to give you a leg to stand on. If you really have something in there that reasonable people aren't likely to know and need to, then put it in boldface or something. Spare us the lame gotchas.

bases

A good base is hard to find, you know that? Especially when one's definition of "good" varies rather from the popular ideal.

"Good" for me means:

1. vaguely proportional. By which I mean no more unrealistic than, say, a Barbie. Heads a little too big, legs a little too long, that's one thing. Grotesquely deformed is another. Chibis just don't do it for me.
2. no faces or nice faces. I like anime as much as the next girl who hasn't actually watched any, but dude. After awhile all those big round eyes and perky smiles start to look alike. And I really don't care for cartoony faces with huge lips and eyelashes a mile long. I actually like drawing my own faces; they may not be fabulous, but at least they don't look totally out of place on the finished doll.
3. not too big. Honestly, a doll bigger than, say, 250 pixels stops being a doll and starts to become a major undertaking. I don't want to spend that long glued to Paint Shop, unless I'm getting paid. :P
4. smooth lines. I don't actually care much about the shading on a base. It's just a base. I'm going to cover most of it up anyway. The outline, though, needs to be fairly nice. I can't get inspired by something with jagged edges.

Why yes, I am picky. :)

drag 'n' drop blues

Everywhere I go I see vitriol heaped on these little doodads. People call them "boring" and "lame" and "unoriginal" and "ugly" and occasionally "the root of all evil". And woe betide the newbie to the doll world who asks where she can find one or if her favorite artist will put one up. Watch that innocent young fool get flamed to a crisp before you can say onClick().

I mean, geez, people. It's just a SCRIPT. It is not SATAN.

Now, I can see the line of reasoning. Playing with a drag'n'drop is to making dolls as coloring a coloring book is to fine art. All the heavy work has been done by someone else. It takes a certain brand of creativity to put the bits of a drag'n'drop together to create something aesthetically pleasing and marginally original, but not on the same level as building a doll from the skin up. I concede that readily.

However.

I like drag'n'drops. I like messing around with them. I like doing my own original dolls too, but you know, sometimes I don't want to do Art. Sometimes I just want to play with paper dolls, and that's not a crime. Some people are not Artists; and even those who are don't want to be Artistic 24/7. It would be exhausting.

Dollmaking -- say it with me now -- is a hobby. It's for FUN. And some hobbyists, especially young kids, just have more fun doing things the easy way.

Should they go entering their drag'n'drop creations in a contest for original dolls? No, of course not. Should they slap a bunch of props on a base and claim to have drawn the thing themselves? Certainly not. Should they, like one anonymous nitwit I noticed recently, slag off dollmakers because "hand-drawn dolls are soooo boring"? Hell no.

But all of those actions stem from ignorance or rudeness, not from drag'n'drops, for Pete's sake!

Ripping somebody a new one for asking if you have a drag'n'drop is just as obnoxious as the aforementioned nitwit's insults. There are plenty of polite ways to decline:

"I'd rather my dolls were unique."
"I don't have the time / inspiration / bandwidth."
"Why don't you look at my bases / tutorials and try drawing your own instead? It's quite easy to learn."
"I'm not into those, but you could visit *insert address of someone else's d'n'd*."

If you don't like drag'n'drops, that's fine, a lot of people don't. I myself don't like bases that are all eyelashes and boobs, but I don't froth at the mouth over 'em.

a fistful of dollers [sic]

Okay, I just have to get this off my chest.

Doll. Is. Not. A. Verb.

I am a dollmaker. I am not a "doller". (I'm worth at least ten, actually XD) Do we call people who make shoes "shoers"? Filmmakers "filmers"? Cabinetmakers "furniturers"? Okay then.

(We call quilters quilters, but that's because "quilt", the noun, is short for "quilted blanket". Smartypants.)

No, I don't really expect to change the popular jargon with this little spiel, but you know, sometimes a girl's got to vent.