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History of April Fool's dAy!This article is written for the #projecteducate's Community Week as well as #ArtHistoryProject's dA Related month.
Here is a brief history of April Fool's pranks deviantART has played on it's members. Please note that information is still missing (mostly older years) - this is because some April Fool's pranks were never recorded or are lost in the millions of journals on the site.
2001 - "°jark is Arrested"
°jark is arrested in Disneyland for cutting in line and refusing to move to the back.
[original article]
2004 - "British Takeover"
April Fool's Day 2004 marked the day the British took over deviantART. New rules were enforced on that day, including spelling "color", "colour" and saying "Cheers guv'nor" instead of "Thank You".
"Please note that any American who uses the term "socce

Critical Assessment and Aftermath of Art School
This is an updated account on how things are going years after having left art school, the effects it's had on me, and my personal thoughts on attending. My views here aren't wholly different than the few rants I've had on the subject in the past, but it's one I believe I have to continue talking about to assist others in making the right decisions for themselves and their future path. (I should also mention that this is the viewpoint of an american in America.)
It's become increasingly clear to me over the last year that out of my 25 years on this Earth, there's only one decision I ever truly regret: and that was going to art school. Now, there's a good chance that I may not be saying this had I attended a different school, but there's no way to ever know, so what I'm really saying is "I regret going to the school I chose, not school in general." I feel as though I was let down by my school. I held up my end of the bargain (some $80~$90

Six Word Stories and Other Flash FictionNot much is known about the history of six word stories, a literary form that has only cropped up recently in the global literature community. What we do know is that the first and original six word story was written by novelist Ernest Hemingway, a six word story that many of you have already heard of:
"For sale: baby shoes, never used."
It was not until November 2006, inspired by Hemingway's efforts, that Larry Smith made a challenge to anyone online to describe their life in six words for Smith Magazine, effectively making a 'Six Word Memoir'. From just this spark, the form of the six word story grew in popularity and success, evident in the publication of many editions containing these stories by Smith. It has since been used as a tool to express oneself, carrying many implications from educational use to therapeutic use.
Some awesome examples are illustrated below:
"From tor

Surprise! Let's talk about Feedback Taboos!Hello, everyone!

Surprise, surprise! I'm =fluf-studios, and I'm using this tasty article labeled as "Small Surprise #2" to cover an equally surprising topic. A topic so surprising yet so indulging, you'll have no idea why they let an insane person like me write it. Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce you to "Feedback Taboos"!
"What are these so called 'Feedback Taboos?" you are asking.
Giving Feedback on amazing artworks that don't need improvement
Giving Feedback on an art form you're not familiar with
Giving Feedback on Articles And Tutorials
Why are they considered taboos? Because they may seem 1. too hard to do, 2. too far-fetched, or 3. just outright pointless. Sure, not doing these taboos does not seem like a big deal, but it is. They are all helpful in a whole, yet rarely done, if not done at all. Feedback, as long as it's constructive and helpful, is good, regardless of the submission it was made on.

PE: Negative Feedback? Deal with it."To escape criticism - do nothing, say nothing, be nothing."
Elbert Hubbard
Everyone wants to be praised for their work. It's the extremely rare individual who creates things and doesn't care how they're received. Dealing with criticism can be painful, but at the same time enormously helpful.
Let's begin with understanding the function that positive and negative feedback serve. Positive feedback (pointing out things you did WELL) increases commitment to the work you do, by enhancing your experience and your confidence, white Negative feedback (pointing out things you did WRONG), on the other hand, is informative - it tells you where you need to spend your effort, and offers insight into how you might improve.
With that being said, positive and negative feedback are affective and motivate differently, their impact varies from different people at different times. For instance, when you really don't know what you're doing, positive feedback helps

Resources for Aspiring AuthorsWe're all writers here, and with nearly 50% of our members aiming to become fully published authors, we thought it would be beneficial to create a compilation of resources about what it takes to get your work on the shelves.
This isn't a definitive list, more of a work-in-progress. We're would be more than happy to add any suggestions – so if you know any good resources, on deviantART or off, link them in the comments! Feel free to discuss your goals and experiences here too.
And if you have had your writing published, or have any experience in this area, we'd love to hear from you. Leave a comment or send us a note

about it and we'll add any guidance/advice you have to the blog.

Guides and Information
On deviantART:
Tips for Editing

MMD In defense of rip artists ...

DeviantArts (DA) is probably unique in several ways, but the thing that I've found strangest and have had the most difficulty with grappling with is their tolerance(?) of "rips". Which is why I think this could be an interesting discussion.
"Rips" are models taken from commercial computer and video games and used for "something else". Make no mistakes about it, probably 99.99% of rips are illegal in the sense that they were "stolen" from something else. Which, given the existence of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), makes it kind of strange that DA tolerates any rips on their servers at all. May be they really do deserve the kind of reputation that they receive on other forums on the Internet, or they just aren't making enough money to be worth the bother to sue. Who knows? The fact remains is that at the moment DA seems to be a safe haven for rippers and nowhere are they perhaps more visible than in the MMD field.
Then again, there's ano

Trolls: A Field GuideTrolls: A Field Guide
Identify, avoid, and deal with various specimens of troll!
written by `miontre for #projecteducate's Community Week
Trolls are everywhere on deviantART. In the forums, telling you that your site suggestion sucks. In your gallery, saying that you're doing it wrong. In your journal, asking you if ur mad. And of course there are numerous lone trolls roaming around, looking for n00bs (such as yourself) to prey on. Naww, I'm just kidding! You're not a noob.

Trolls live to make you upset. They want to insult your ideas, artworks, interests, and so forth; because they love provoking people and getting a reaction out of them. It's important that you know how to identify, avoid, and deal with the many types of troll which roam and predate deviantART.
Identifying Trolls
There are a few different types of trolls, and it's important that you can identify and distinguish between them so that you know what you'r

So You Want to Self-Publish?

So you want to self publish, and you're not quite sure what you're about to get into. Or, perhaps you do, but you're not sure where to begin researching the things you need to know. If either describes you, then this document is for you. Self-publishing is easy with *merrak!
My aim is to produce a fairly comprehensive list of considerations. Like a Wikipedia article, it's meant to be a place to begin research, not a one-stop guide.
First, an important note. I'm a mathematician, not a publisher. Publishing is a hobby of mine. It's a hobby I take seriously, and as such, I've done the best research I can do. But I make my living teaching people how to put two and two together, and not helping them publish stories about funny things their cats do. Hence, this is a living document. Feel free to share your own thoughts and experiences. In fact, please do! Although I have things to share, I'm here to learn.
Now, let's begin!
0.
First and foremost, let's crash th

Canvas sizes - inches and dpi and pixelsThis is a sort of guide on canvas sizes, inches, dpi and pixel x pixels.
when it came to canvas sizes, I always kind of assumed that inches belonged with dpi and pixels were just pixels and that everyone knew that; but i read a whole bunch of comments on a tumblr blog where someone asked about canvas sizes, and SO MANY people were replying with things such as, "4000x4000 px at 300 dpi" or "2000x2000 px at 200dpi".
and I guess not everyone quite understands what dpi's really used for xD.
DPI = Dots per Inch. It means how many dots will be printed per inch.
DPI is actually used for printing purposes. It shows the printer how much pixels to print per inch, literally. A common printer (at home or even at a lot of printing stores) at best prints at 150dpi most of the time actually; there are some super duper great printers that can print REALLY fine that can go up to ...apparently a lot more xD; #dpi, so that's why everyone usually suggests saving your project at 300dpi; most printers are f

About the Accusation.So I woke up this morning, and found my DA page rather bombarded with accusing comments by a user named AetasSerenus.
Well, I've blocked him and deleted most of his comments since he basically wrote the same thing everywhere he could find in my page(what an annoying business it was to find all of them like tracking down cockroaches in your room). I've always simply ignored such a user, but this time I thought it was necessary to rebut what he said as I am quite offended.
Well, he argues that I'm a fraud,
that I somehow get the photograph from the Internet and tinker it with Photoshop and post it on DA as if I have painted it myself.
The 'evidence' he offers is even less creative.
1) He argues that the exif data(the data that was automatically stored with the image) states that Photoshop CS5 is used
- well, isn't this obvious? I use Photoshop for all my images. Photoshop is used to adjust the size and correct the colours of the image, after I've taken the photo of my work, so that the i

Charfade's Book List [Expanded Ed v1.1 ]

BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS!

So I've been on a art book buying spree. Each month I've been giving myself a allowance to order art books for study purposes. Many of these books were recommended to me by other artists, so I cant take full credit for the below list. Although I did add in a few personal favs. ^^

Please note, each image is linked up to a URL on Amazon.com where you can purchase the book. I know Amazon is picky about what country can view the materials, if you see a url not working for you let me know and I'll give you the direct title of the book. I didn't put all the titles here just because it would get a bit wordy and I wanted a cleaner format to present this information.
► Digital Painting Techniques

How to : Find Art ThievesPlease

this journal, so that a lot of people can read it.
I noticed that a lot of people don't know how to search for their photos on the internet, so here is a short tutorial. Unfortunately there isn't much you can do about art thieves, but i still think it is important to look out for them.
1. visit Google.com
2. Go to the page of the photo you want to search and click "show image"
3. Copy the Link and paste it into google.
4. This page should open, click "search by image".
5. Now you can browse trough the results.
6. The less results the happier you should be.
EDIT : You can also use websites like : tineye.com and iqdb.com
This was pointed out to me by some people, personally i have no experience with them, but i am sure that they work too.

The Rise Of The Artist, You Are The FutureFebruary 27, 2013/by $techgnotic
Watch #depthRADIUS →
You Are The Future
Forward by $techgnotic
Picasso seeing a seven as an upside down nose?
Right brain warriors in the new age will be the coveted candidates ordained to lead and guide us; lifting the torch to light the way forward into a brave new beautiful world.
Artists have always feared that they are unappreciated and that the march of progress comes only from business, science and their machines. 1984 was imagined by an artist projecting these exact fears. Our guest essayist suggests the computer will never be our master, but only the super high speed counting machine it was meant to be leaving humans with only one pure task— being creative.
The Right Brain Revolutionby

Thursday: Tree, Olive, Bottle Art Contest!I hope you all had a fantastic Valentine's Day last week! Well done spreading the love to all.

This week, we're continuing the love trend.

We're doing an art creation contest. However, there's a twist -- you must use three pre-determined items in your piece!
We want you to create a deviation including three specific items that revolves around our theme of love:
Your deviation must contain these images:

Tree

Olive

Bottle
How you incorporate these items around the theme of love is up to you!
Of course, you may use more than the objects above, but all three of those objects must appear. Feel free to create whatever inspires you! Maybe someone is creating a model tree with olive-colored leaves in a bottle to give to his love. Or, maybe two olives are sitting in a tree, sipping wine from a bottle. Whatever your mind creates, we want to see it!
You can draw, take a photograph, write a story, use

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A tumblr blog for those of you who wants critiqued

Journal Entry: Thu Mar 14, 2013, 10:49 PM

Gallery - CGhub - Tumblr - Facebook

Edit: alright, thanks guys so much for the great feedback

. we're slowly working our way through your critique-requests.
Critique submission is closed for the moment because there are so many requests coming at once and there's only like...9 of us critiquing and one of them is a writer. keep following us though, cause I'm sure as we finish critiquing them, we'll open it up again

here's the blog: [link]

This is a blog where a bunch of artists will be critiquing those who submit their work/projects in, so if you want your work critiqued, go on that blog : D

I'll be critiquing on it too

~~ Well, mostly the ones needing human anatomy help and asking for red-lining xDD;~ but there's peeps who can help with animals, composition, colours and stuff too

.

please note that it might take a bit of time for all of us to get through and critique it thoroughly, especially since we're all pretty busy people as well

.

ps. this isn't my tumblr, this is just a critique blog I help out with. My tumblr is this: [link]

EDIT/PS: This is from the blog founder; and I know it's probably some of my watchers who are doing this and aren't reading the submission guidelines properly

~

"PLEASE READ
Submissions that do not follow the submission guideline formula (picture/link to story and what you want help with), WILL NOT be processed! We have been getting several projects lately that lack a description of what you want us to do. A link to your project does not qualify as a submission. You MUST read our guidelines and provide an accurate description of what you want us to do (e.g Redline, paint over, general critique, written response…) If you believe that you did not adhere to our rules please resubmit your project WITH an explanation!

Sadly enough we cannot read your minds, so please remember to explain."

-Tina

and I just want to add that it'll also make stuff a lot easier for us if you actually uploaded your image somewhere rather than us having to go to your link on dA, save it, and then upload it for you, as well as make all the critiques as well. thanks~!

^{CSS Journal Coded by ~FleX177}

54 Comments

Mood: Love
Watching: Friends, season 8

A tumblr blog for those of you who wants critiquedby =Qinni

Journals / Culture / Art Blogs & Mags

love 1 1

joy 5 5

~~wow 0 0~~

~~mad 0 0~~

~~sad 0 0~~

~~fear 0 0~~

~~neutral 0 0~~

~preada58 Apr 23, 2013 Student General Artist

Awesome link

I follow you on tumblr but I haven't noticed you talking about this group

=Qinni Apr 23, 2013 Professional Digital Artist

Well, I mostly keep critiques to the critique group. I have promoted it on my tumblr a few times before though, although promoting on dA seems more effective; perhaps due to the way tumblr's set up so it's easy to miss people's stuff on dash if you follow a lot of people.

~Jenca Mar 19, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

Piddle~! I missed it. 3: Maybe I'll get it next time./ :3 I'll try and get back into my very dusty Twitter to get my stuff in there just in case. xD

*Irradiated-Resonance Mar 16, 2013 Student Traditional Artist

Awesome blog - I'm following it now :'D

~Chrisgil Mar 16, 2013 Student Digital Artist

Qinni, This is Tina. I want to thank you for all of your hard endeavors for putting us out there. You and the other artists (and writer) made this blog work and I really appreciate you being so on board with us! I also want to thank you for crediting me as the blog finder. It makes me so happy that you would help us out!

Thank you!

=Qinni Mar 16, 2013 Professional Digital Artist

no problem

~

you can probably tell by the amount of crits I was going around sticking it on, but I do like doing critiques xDDDD;;.

~Chrisgil Mar 16, 2013 Student Digital Artist

All I want is for you and the rest of the crew to have fun! :3

~turnipsss Mar 16, 2013 Student Digital Artist

Oh wow this journal is on the front page!! I was wondering why we got so many followers! (I'm Fud btw!)

=Qinni Mar 16, 2013 Professional Digital Artist

xDD; i think having a big amount of watchers helped too :333~ plus it helps that a lot of peeps on dA always complain about not getting enough feedback because dA's the place where feedbacks come to be burned by others and die.
i love your stuff

~ and your redlines are great~

~turnipsss Mar 16, 2013 Student Digital Artist

Yeah deviantart has a terrible mindset about critique in general whereas tumblr is more helpful.
Also thanks!! You have really awesome redlines yourself !!

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