Hello all! [Errant Data's Errant Database]

[Errant Data]

⌊Replying to this thread is fine.⌉

Alright, so I'm Errant Data! I just joined this guild and am excited to be here. I've completely forgotten the slightly lengthy answers I provided for the application so I can only paraphrase and talk a bit about who I am and how I got here.

I am currently a university student. I started on Gaia just over ten years ago now with the same account, but with a different username. After spending time on the site for around 3-4 years, I just stopped visiting our fine forums. Recently, some seven years later, I've returned and brought with me a desire to roleplay on the same site that I used to. However, I've found so many things different than I remember them. We've experienced what I estimate to be around fifty-thousand percent inflation, are bombarded with multiple notifications of new cash shop items daily and now have incredibly detailed, intricate, and beautiful roleplaying threads. Additionally, most of the other forums seem a little dead and everyone dresses their avatars differently than they did before.

My goal with joining the School of Dedicated Roleplayers is to find help navigating this unknown frontier. How, where and why did we develop these higher quality roleplaying thread formats? Where do people get their images for all of these gorgeous layered and blended headers? These are the kinds of questions I'm looking for help answering by coming here; I think I'll probably still primarily look to do my roleplaying in the Barton Town forum.

My skills include coding and image-editing/compositing competency. I'm not incredibly familiar with html nor cascading style sheets, but I am capable of working with them and figuring things out. I've got experience with photoshop as well as other free graphics programs and can make gifs for the highest of high quality images I've seen used in roleplaying threads. I think my writing isn't bad either, although I haven't done any written roleplaying in years and it may come off as a little stiff or rigid. Make no mistakes, I am attempting a triumphant return to roleplaying form and I want to do it right!

⌊I hope to clean this thread and post up a little later with some more graphical elements that I might make when learning about how things on Gaia have changed since I've been gone.⌉

 

[Kitsuneko Suzuki]

Hi and welcome. I use images from photobucket or save the photo to my computer and then save it in photobucket so that I can edit the photo and I have a link to the pic that I can use.  

[Errant Data]

Kitsuneko Suzuki

Hi and welcome. I use images from photobucket or save the photo to my computer and then save it in photobucket so that I can edit the photo and I have a link to the pic that I can use.

Ah, I was planning to use imgur. I know plenty of people use photobucket, but I have seen enough broken imageshack and photobucket icons on peoples' posts to be a little weary. I do remember using photobucket years ago though!

I had meant more along the lines of where people get their art from. I don't really believe that everyone has suddenly become an incredible artist or that so many great artists like roleplaying all of a sudden (though it has been years). Character art specifically! I guess people just borrow fan art of characters from different series that they want to use found on any number of websites. I haven't seen any roleplaying threads where users have used photographs for reference since I've been back and would be hesitant to do so myself anyway.  

[Kitsuneko Suzuki]

Errant Data

Kitsuneko Suzuki

Hi and welcome. I use images from photobucket or save the photo to my computer and then save it in photobucket so that I can edit the photo and I have a link to the pic that I can use.

Ah, I was planning to use imgur. I know plenty of people use photobucket, but I have seen enough broken imageshack and photobucket icons on peoples' posts to be a little weary. I do remember using photobucket years ago though!

I had meant more along the lines of where people get their art from. I don't really believe that everyone has suddenly become an incredible artist or that so many great artists like roleplaying all of a sudden (though it has been years). Character art specifically! I guess people just borrow fan art of characters from different series that they want to use found on any number of websites. I haven't seen any roleplaying threads where users have used photographs for reference since I've been back and would be hesitant to do so myself anyway.

Well I use pic smile as a reference you can take a look at my one on ones. I can't draw really well so I do a random image search for images.  

[Watervoir]

Welcome back to Gaia and Happy New Year. smile If you have any questions about the site or the SDRP guild (I'm a Vice Captain), my inbox is open.

One of your questions seems to be where people get the images and not how people come up with the final graphics for the work (you seem to have experience already with that field). There are several places you can go to get images, such as Google Images, DeviantArt, Photobucket (as mentioned earlier), and Zero-chan. Others (although few) draw their art.

For characters, it helps to have an idea in mind for what your character looks like. For roleplays with images of real people, those images are usually of models or celebs and once you have a model name in mind, then a Google search with that model's name can give you good pictures to work with. People in some roleplays make "face claims" to declare a model they'd be using so you don't get two characters with the same face. A similar process can be found for drawings and anime-based pictures. Google's search-by-image feature (where you put in a link to an image to search for visually similar image) also helps.

The thread formats came into play at around 2010. It started with individual character's posts and then some people started making entire thread layouts for them. They are also not necessarily unique to roleplaying -- you can find charity threads in the Charity/Quests forum with polished thread layouts. There are people who make thread layouts for gold in the Personalized Graphics forum. A roleplay does not need a fancy layout to run or be successful, but they do have a certain appeal to them and contributes to a roleplay's mood.  

[Errant Data]

Watervoir

The thread formats came into play at around 2010. It started with individual character's posts and then some people started making entire thread layouts for them.

Ah wow, I guess they must have just caught on a bit then. I'm a big fan of how some of those that I've seen look, though others not so much. My personal favorites are usually the ones that have multiple images seamlessly stitched together in the post.
I think you can make some pretty cool formatting and buttons for links like that so it's something I plan on trying out when I get the chance!  

[Errant Data]

Oh, thank you! It's interesting to be here~