h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

How do you become a community artist?

Hello Wotchit

At the moment there is just a pilot program and we were invited to join because we had previously done work for the Post. The scheme is going public soon - make sure you're subscribed to <./>Announcements</.>.

What sort of artwork do you do like doing?

Amy

Various stuff, I experiment with 3D modellers, haven't done anything spectacular, Can make quite good landscapes. Small things like smileys aren't too hard either.
Thanks,
Fellow - Wotchit

I think it depends on the smiley. was a bit of a challenge, for example .

Which graphics packages do you like to use? I mostly use Corel Painter.



Amy

I don't really have any packages because I can't affored anything like Corel. I've got bits and bobs of free stuff I find around the internet.
My favourite is Terragen (www.planetside.co.uk) it enables you to create realistic landscapes. I've used this just too create nice landscapes but I also use it to create backgrounds to more interesting pictures.
My modelling hasn't got very far, I use a combination of two shareware programs: Moray & POV-Ray.
I also paint and draw for fun (without a computer).

Wotchit

I use Bryce for landscapes. I make it do more than that though - nearly all the Post fishies started life in Bryce .

You will need a vector drawing program of some sort. DoctorMO uses GIMP. I think it's a free download. I'm Mac-based so I use GraphicConverter.

Wotchit, the community art pages have reappeared here: CommunityArtists



Amy

Thanks Amy, Bryce is well beyond my means though I'm playing around with GIMP right now. I've volunteered to become a Community Artist so that'll be fun.

Wotchit

Have you volunteered in the right place? I can't see your application.

Well.. There were two other applications in the same place and also I volunteered just after posting my last message.
No. It's definitely there.

I can see it now . There was some sort of temporal anomaly.

Good. GIMP's pretty weird I made a couple of things with it, one with h2g2 in mind. There's some pretty cool bits and bobs.
The Artist scheme should be good, hopefully I can produce some good stuff. I love your and smileys .

I think the were done by the italic artist, Spirit. That was some time ago now. The are mine though .

I ment your h2g2 Post Fish, the blobs, not the smileys. The mice are cool. Must have been pretty difficult to make. How did you compress the picture to a GIF without losing any picture quality?

Smileys are so small that the compression to gif format is never a problem. Reducing a large image to one so small would create problems so the trick is to draw them the right size in the first place if possible.

However, in the case of I already had an image I wanted to use. It was a picture of Nonnie I drew for the Fashion Show and, unfortunately, it was a bitmapped image rather than a vector graphic. So I took the image down in size in stages, refocusing, changing the contrast and redrawing where necessary. I finished up, as I often do, by pixel-wrangling using an airbrush set to one pixel.

Wow

Thanks Amy,
I got my test I've got to make two graphics for Guide entries. I sketched some ideas last night and am going to start work tonight.