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Information about dolling
The history of dolling
The roots of this phenomenon are in paperdaolls, which are paper figures with a base body to which clothes, hairstyles and accessories can be attached. The first digital version of this concept was the Kisekae Set System, invented in 1991. The first known instances of cartoon dolls used as online avatars were introduced in 1995 on a visual chat client called The Palace by a Palace user named artgrrl (later known as shattered innocents). The first dollz were simplistic, starting from a generic base consisting of 44 by 44-pixel "props" that were hand-drawn in the Editing palette of the Palace program. The first dollz were generally cartoon-like in appearance and restricted to only a small number of poses.
The original "prep" doll was created by a South Park Palace user which, at the time was known as "Starr" who created the very first base from an image of Madonna hitchhiking naked, from her since revoked "sex book". This doll made her very first appearance among the Sk8ers in the graveyard of the South Park chat, and was passed to a user who went by "ImpyVampire" something or rather, who made her into a goth. From there, the doll was passed along and along, sk8er faces were added to them, and make up, wigs, paper doll like clothing, as well. She soon became what you know today as the Preps.
At first, these doll-like avatars were called "little people," then "skaters" or "sk8ers." Another Palace user named Rainman was responsible for the proliferation of the skater dollz, editing and distributing them by the thousands. The Palace "dressup" script helped in distributing the dollz from user to user, with each user editing the props to customize their doll. Because dollz were generally worn by younger people, some Palaces started banning their use in an attempt to restrict membership to adults. Modifications to the dollz were called "editz" and contests were held daily on many of the Palaces, with competitions based on style of outfit, color schemes, music themes, or accessories. Eventually, there were entire Palaces devoted only to doll-based avatars.
People who weren't satisfied with the quality of the base and/or artwork began to expand and make their own. Early dolling sites began to develop around 1997, displaying people's work. With the popularity of graphics programs like Adobe Photoshop and Paint SHop Por growing, many dollers took advantage of it and expanded upon the cartoon-like images of the first Doll.
Doll-makers began to spread. Doll-makers are similar to the old method of paper dolls where a base and clothes were provided and the user just made combinations of clothes to create their doll. This became a trend in the community, and many people who did not want to create their own dollz utilised these "drag-n-drops" to make their own.
As the popularity began to grow, it soon expanded from a few fledgling people who regarded it as a hobby to a more accepted form of art. Graphic artists began to delve in and produced highly detailed dollz. Regular artists also followed the trend and created dolls that were less cartoon-like and more realistic. Forums began to sprout, bringing together a community of dollers. Soft shading, true human forms and realistic designs soon dominated the community, evolving from cartoon.
Some artists wished this method of graphic design to be recognised as a form of art rather than an Internet fad so they referred to their art as "Dolls". A recent survey at a popular dolling forum showed that many see "dollz" as referring to the earlier form of cartoon-esque images rather than the elaborate graphic artwork displayed now. Other artists continued to call their work "Dollz" to distinguish the graphic form from a doll that sits on a shelf, even though they too did elaborate artwork.
There are a large amount of websites, forums, communities and others of the sort that are dedicated to dolling and the art. It has been surmised that the popularity of dolling is due to the fact that anyone can do it. The current trend that seems most popular is the incorporation of anime style to the dolls, as well as getting back to the cartoon-like roots.
The dolling community expanded to include off shoot sites from forums dedicated to dolling such as The Gathering(led by Amy of Xandorra's Place) and The Dollhouse, to online dolling zines such The Doller Express(known as one of the first ones which had immense popularity) and Pixel Post.
Information taken from Wikipedia.
Pixel art
Pixel Art is a specialized subdivision of the world of Computer Graphics. Pixel Art can be a picture of anything, made with any form of paint program, and of any size. Usually, works of Pixel Art on the smaller side when compared to the majority of CGs. We define Pixel Art as Computer Graphics which were made using the simplest tools of raster graphics programs. As this technique originated in old video game graphics and monitors which did not have large color spectrums, purist Pixel Artists are very careful about the palettes they use. Pixel Art is often divided into two sub-groups: isometric and non-isometric. Isometric Pixel Art contains a 3D perspective while non-isometric tends to be drawn in a 2D perspective.
Information taken from The Muffin.
Dolling
Dolling is popularly known to be a subdivision of Pixel Art. Dolls (or Cartoon Dolls) are images of humanoid creatures in various outfits. The 'Doller' usually starts with a base (bases are the template upon which dolls are created - the naked human form with no hair.) and then draws the clothes, hair, and face onto the Doll to create a finished graphic.
The doll may be made on a base, or the doll may be baseless. If using a base, clothing, adornments, and decorations are drawn onto the base to create the doll. Baseless dolls are drawn freehand. the artist so desires, a background or props may be included, but the focus of the picture is the doll itself.
Information taken from The Muffin and Wikipedia.
Bases
Bases are the templates upon which dolls are drawn. They normally consist of the naked human form in a pose without hair. Bases come in many forms: one can be an outline of a human figure; it can come with or without faces; it can come with props or accessories; it can come in multiple skintones; or it can be partial or full form. Also, there are some bases which are not human-like. They may be deformed, exaggerated or cute, and may be in the anime style.
Not all dollers create their own bases. Many choose to use bases that others offer for free use (with certain terms) to draw their dolls upon. Stock bases are a popular option, as they give beginning dollers a chance to just draw clothes upon the base instead of creating a base from scratch.
Bases come in a range of styles, sizes and forms. Typically, they are arranged in a set, where all the bases in the set are created in the same size, style and form, just with different poses, skintones and facial expressions. These sets are generally given names to identify and distinguish them from other base sets that the doller may also offer. Some base sets have poses that number nearly 100 individual poses because of different arrangement of arms and legs.
Information taken from Wikipedia.
Shading
Pixel shading:
This method uses palettes, normally created by the artist showing the range of colours they will be working with. These palettes normally work from light to dark. These palettes are normally implemented to add shading (Shadows and Highlights) and dithering can be used to blend these tones for a more smooth look. Clothes, hair, skin, and anything else on the doll are shaded by the use of the artist chosen colours and palettes. How many shades make up a doller's palette is a matter of personal preference and style, but these palettes generally range from four to fifteen shades. Shadows and highlights are added gradually to create different textures within the piece. Pixel shaders pride themselves on the ability to create 'life-like' shading effects without the use of anti-aliasing tools.
Tool shading:
With this method, the artist employs a drawing program such as Adobe Photoshop, GIMP, or Paint Shop Pro to create their dolls.Tools within these programs, such as blur, blend, dodge and burn are used to create shading. The effects produced by this method are generally smoother and softer than pixel shading, but this can depend on the doller's abilities. Due the the tools manner, there is no set colour range as there is in pixel shaded pieces, the colour count can run into thousands depending on what tools are used. This can pose problems when the dolls are uploaded to the web, as most dolls are saved as GIFs which can only handle up to 256 colors. Because tool shaded dolls often have more than 256 colors, they are usually dithered and can change shade or appear grainy or noisy as a result. Dollers may refer to this as being "attacked by the GIF Monster," or being "GIF eaten".
Information taken from Wikipedia.
Frankendolling
Frankendolling is essentially the practice of combining elements of other dolls and claiming the product as one's own. Like the Frankenstein monster, an arm from one person's doll, clothing from another, and hair from another one may have been combined together to form a "new" doll. This is a form of plagiarism. An artist may obviously legally reuse parts of their own dolls to create a new one, and give permission to others if they so wish, of course.
Information taken from Wikipedia.
Drag-n-drops
Another popular tool is "drag-n-drop," applets which load bases and clothing, hair, and accessories onto a page, allowing the user to select and combine a base and various pre-drawn accouterments. Drag-and-drop applets are normally created by another doller, who may include his or her artwork as clipart.
Drag-n-drops are not considered original art work as you did not directly manipulate the image yourself and most dolling forms will not let you post dolls that have been created using drag-n-drops.
Information taken from The Muffin and Wikipedia.
Dolling Forms
'Dollers,' people who draw computer dolls, often join dolling forums in order to share their finished artwork or ask for help from more experienced dollers. These forums often run themed events in which the members participate in contests to create a doll with certain guidelines, for instance, using a picture as inspiration or with a particular range of colours. These contests are judged and winners are awarded plaques to be displayed on their websites. Individual sites often host contests as well. Currently, contest forums are becoming very popular. They are pages exclusively devoted to these competitions.
Information taken from Wikipedia.
Sibling Sites
When a doller joins a community, they often become very close with the other members and exchange gifts (often dolls or other pieces of pixel art) at holidays, birthdays, seasons, or on a whim. When two dollers become good friends, they sometimes join their websites by a mutual link. This is called becoming a 'sibling site.' Siblings are very good friends and exchange gifts, help each other, and sometimes produce collaborations together, with each sibling contributing parts of an image. Because most dollers are female, these are better known as 'sister sites.'
Information taken from Wikipedia.
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