PxT Magazine

[spirit_queen]

True, and those who trace the base (I did that once, on my very, very first doll).
Tool-shading can sometimes be a crutch, but it can also be hard; you still have to know how to shade. But, you also need to learn the tools and how to use them properly; it's more than the paint brush.

Though there are many bad toolshaders who seem to use the extra tools found in programs other than paint just to make themselves look better, some of them just might be newbies in general.

As fr male dolls, I've made several, and my most recent finshd piece in my thread has some major male editing in it. XD

[Silver_Wolf_Kitty]

Bringing discussion back to this month's articles

First off, they are having a cover doll contest! I want to encourage all of our handdrawn dollers to take a look. It would be amazing for someone on here to get on, definately a biggie. I'm considering entering, I hope to hear someone else is working on it so maybe we can offer critiques back and forth on it.

They also are looking for an author and an artist. Take a look here: PxT Wants You - PxT Magazine

I found their tutorial reviews interesting, especially for beginners, but a bit lacking. I'm not sure if they would really approve either one and they didn't really highlight much of the goods and the bads of them. A bit more attention to each one would've been great since I feel like they brushed over both.

I was definately interested in their article on personal doll sites(the cover story this month). It was helpful since I've been working on building the dollsters site and I keep finding myself lost in some ways.

I write for the PxT and made my way here from the our statistics page indicating that someone from the doll palace has linked to us. I gotta say, WOW! I didn't realize our readers extended outside of dA! Good to know

We're very interested in getting a diversified view of the community, so if anyone here is willing to contribute, critique, or what have you, please, do get in touch!

Like Silver_Wolf_Kitty, I also encourage anyone to come and enter anyone of our contests. It'll be great to have someone represent the doll palace and bring in some recognition around here

On tool-shading, I think Elanorea said it best. Tools AND pixel-shading can result in some really ugly things. The result really has less to do with the tools and more to do with the artist, right?

[Miranda_]

Like I said, I've seen some very good dolls done with toolshading; my main beef is with lazy people who use toolshading so they don't have to work on their doll. Same goes for pillow shading, which some pixel shaders use.

I'd enter the contests, but I'm not a good enough doller for that. XD

so it's just about lazy people then. I agree, they suck

And PFFFT, excuses! XD
I really hope to see some of you guys from here to enter in the future. I swear we don't bite! :3

[Silver_Wolf_Kitty]

I totally did not realize someone followed me here xD Welcome, dpdee. We're one of those fringe handdrawn communities, not much wonder there since its not like this site is known for it.

I'm seriously considering seeing what I can do tomorrow. I always get sidetracked doing my research though, like I did for Dollsters. You guys have no clue how many **** mafia info links I have saved and have deleted in the process because I wanted to get the authenticity down pat. I think I've spent more time on the research than on the coding

I agree its an issue with the artist when it comes to shading. It'd help more too if there were more understandable tutorials out there. I know what pixel tutorials I found sufficient weren't many, I can't imagine how much smaller the tool shading ones must be for beginners. On top of that, I somewhat consider tool shading a more advanced concept, for those who have a moderate to high grasp upon pixel shading to shading in general already. After all, you need the basics before building upon it and its difficult to truly tool shade without knowing how to shade to begin with.

I'm completely rambling. Its like 11 here and I've been ill most of the evening, so I'm a bit more off in my thinking than usual.

[Miranda_]

That's just it, really. The problem being that a lot of bone idle people get a programme and think, "Yay, I don't have to bother shading correctly now, I can just use the fancy tools instead!" and not realising that if they're still pillowshading when they pixel shade, they are not going to be able to toolshade correctly.

I might; as long as you don't laugh when I place dead last. XD

[Elanorea]

BTW, PxT is doing a survey about dolling demographics: Dolling Demographics Study « PxT Magazine

I advise everybody to fill it out, should be interesting to see the results.

[Silent_Wolf]

I took the survey. =D