X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: fbb9d,1e60bc5b6a5ab5a3 X-Google-Attributes: gidfbb9d,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1994-12-11 07:18:11 PST Path: bga.com!news.sprintlink.net!sashimi.wwa.com!not-for-mail From: dcau@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Daniel Au) Newsgroups: rec.arts.ascii Subject: Talk: STOP using gif2asc !!! Date: 11 Dec 1994 09:17:26 -0600 Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston IL Lines: 74 Sender: boba@gagme.wwa.com Approved: boba@wwa.com Message-ID: <3cf566$mem@gagme.wwa.com> References: <3cdl3h$167@gagme.wwa.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: gagme.wwa.com Summary: If you've read this in alt.ascii-art, please forgive me... Painting with electrons, Artistic Engineer wrote: > If you call yourself an ASCii ArTist, be original and creative! > Don't use tool like GIF to ASCii to convert drawings! The pictures > look unrealistic, [and other not nice things...] > > I hope I am not offending anybody, but I am really looking forward > to see real ASCii artists here, who knows how to imagine, how to > creat and how to DRAW!! e.g. SCARECROW is a real artist! :) > >Anyway, feel free to Respond, Attack or Second my opinion.. > Personally, I tend to agree with Ken on this. I'm not that great a fan of converted GIFs and of having people posting them and calling it creative. There's bound to be a long discussion about what exactly is 'art' but in this instance, I'm willing to call the GIF pix art. However, creative art it's not. Not much work involved by just grabbing a GIF, converting it, and posting it. I'm a bit more lenient if the person goes back and edits the picture before posting. Touch up does require some amount of skill and unfortunately not everyone does this. To sum up my thoughts: 1) I think it's ok to post converted GIF pix but not too many, and for heaven's sake if you do, please go back and touch it up before posting a blob of ascii charaters. Granted, some of the convert drawings do look nice, but for the most part I just skip to the next article if I see something is a convert, unless I'm interested on the topic. 2) I'm a big proponent of original ASCII art. I think it does require a lot of skill and talent because essentially one is working with a 'limited' palate - there's so many ASCII characters you can use. I find a lot of the fun in the challenge of working out how to create what I want with what's available. People who say they can't do it should just try a bit harder. Practice, practice... 3) Since I also keep the ASCII Chinese Characters list (which is a collection of characters made up of ASCII Characters, not an ASCII font per se) I find the more creative ones done by hand and not by simply scanning them and converting. The converts tend to be overly large, blobby, and hard to read. Most of the Chinese New Year stuff is like that which is why that list is less organized than the normal list which I enjoy more because of the original work that's included. Final words...Keep up with making original artwork and post them. I've been trying to answer some requests from time to time if I find the subject interesting. Let's see more original stuff and less requests. Those who request should at least attempt it themselves, post what they do, and THEN request if it really turns out badly... Ahem, Thanks for your attention. [steps off soapbox] Daniel -- @@@@@@@ @@@@@@ @@@@@@ @@@ @@@ ^ Daniel C. Au @!@ !@! !!@ @!@ !@@ @!! !@@ | dcau@casbah.acns.nwu.edu !!! !!! !!! !!!!!!!! !!! !!! ._|_. Northwestern Univeristy !:: :!! :!: ::! :!: :!: :!: = Medical School, Chicago IL . ..:: . : :. : . : :: . = Ace Ascii Detective Extraordinaire _ __________=__ _ ___ _ ___ _==\/==_ \\@([____]_____() BANG! |_| |___) (_| |___) /________\ _/\|-[____] _ ___ _ ___ _ ___ / 0 \ o b /____ /(( ) (_| |___) (_| |___) (_| |___) \___/' | \___|'----' H\__/' == Member of the ADA: Art Detective Agency == H