Doll Poll

[Peppermint Pig]

What do you think about the Doll scene and dolls in general?

[Scotteh]

To be honest i don't know what a pixel doll is 

[Dogmeat]

hate hate hate hate!!!

Except for the ones we did long ago for swoo.net

[Peppermint Pig]

Dolls are a template driven medium. Some people create nude or blank figures, and people customize them, mostly by coloring and adding accessories. It's similar to doing 'Edits', though Dolls are typically not ripping commercial game art in the process.

[Skull]

A huge dislike - I respect those who make their own bases and edit them, but people with just simple edits to other people's is what annoys me.

[Gunne]

No, I don't really like them but some of the "dolls" are actually funny, so I guess I'm not really fond of them

[Ryumaru]

i like the " dolls" where the figure and accesories were made by one artist. that scene has imo, created a style i dont think most of us could pull off, really.

[Helm]

I am 'not fond of them' officially. There's occasional artists that are quite good to actually brilliant, and most of them get that way by subtly or not-so-subtly breaking away from dolling, it seems. I don't enjoy the concept of using other people's bases both because it creates this odd 'respect-based' clique mob mentality and because it potentially propagates mistaken techniques. It's the same faults that make 'Advanced Sprite Art' tutorials out of pillowshading. Just too inbred, not looking enough at better art by better artists.

Which isn't to say that most other pixel art scenes don't have similar problems, but it's particularily visible in the doll stuff. Moreover I find a large section of the doll art I've seen extremely aesthetically displeasing for various personal reasons, but nobody asked about that so I'll keep quiet. That it's a scene mainly frequented by 12-15 year old girls also may be a nebulous factor determining stuff, though I hesitate to guess what and how. I'd like it if some of the resident were-once or still-are doll artists could paint a picture from their experience.

[Larwick]

Not fond of them. I dislike the way people use other people's bases. However i do appreciate the pieces by people who have done it all themselves, and if the way they made it is true to pixel-art. I think this answer would be pretty common.

[Dogmeat]

Thats probably #2 on my list why i like pixelation so much, the % of doll crap is very very low. The second this turns into a doll house I'm outta here.

[pkmays]

I've got no problems with the Doll communities social structure or willingness to share. Also, although the general level of quality is lower than I like, the quality seems persistant. Whereas on Pixelation you'll end up seeing everything from professional quality to absolute crap quality, Doll sites tend to have a pretty consistant middle ground in quality.

[Akira]

i don't mind it. as long as people are arting the way that they want to, then i'm happy. peace and love and all that. you can't really get mad at people who do stuff that isn't your idea of good and then get praise for it. well you can... but don't. cause its silly. and you'll just end up bitter.

[Cow]

I'm indifferent towards it.

I just hope people use it as a stepping stone to get into pixel art. 

[Player1]

Doll sites tend to have a pretty consistant middle ground in quality.

Whay is that a good thing?

[Wayuki]

Quake in your boots! I'm a DOLLERRRR! 

There are different groups of people within the dolling community. Some of them are actually serious pixel artists. They use proper pixel techniques, they make their own bases to doll on, or they make "baseless dolls" (IE scratch-made pixel characters). Most of them are also competent artists in other areas. Occasionally they will use another doller's base to doll on, often as a gift to said doller. And there's nothing wrong with that, as long as it's very clear who made what. Really, it's not that different from coloring someone else's line-art.

Within the dolling community, "simple edits" are also very much frowned upon. A doll is only considered good if it's severely (and competently) edited from it's base.

Unfortunately there's also a group of dollers that ONLY uses other people's bases and pre-made props, because they can't draw them on their own. They fool themselves into believing that they are artists by leaching off the work of someone else. The fact that there are bases for everyone to use, has attracted a lot of annoying little kiddies and uncreative people. Some of the more serious dollers are turned off by this, so they move on to the "general" pixel art community.

Usually though, they also keep posting in the doll forums, and by doing so they expose the less serious dollers to better pixel techniques (who do actually pick up on it eventually). As a result, the average skill level in the dolling community has increased significantly over the years.

If I have to be honest, I think the average doller is better at shading hair and elaborate cloth folds. I guess that's because "pretty hair" and "pretty clothes" are big themes in the dolling world. Overall though, the skill level is a lot lower in the dolling community. Still, the bright colors and cute themes appeal to the little girl in me.

I hope to incorporate the best of both worlds in my work. 

[Lawrence]

Helm took the words right out of my mouth.

I think the average doller is better at shading hair and elaborate cloth folds.

Better than whom?

[Wayuki]

Helm took the words right out of my mouth.

Better than whom?

Than the average person in the non-dolling pixel community.

[Peppermint Pig]

Doll sites tend to have a pretty consistant middle ground in quality.

I think the average doller is better at shading hair and elaborate cloth folds.

pkmays and Wayuki are correct. This proves to be true in my experience: Consistency can partly be chalked up as having the benefit of good parts: A good template can carry a work to an extent. But Dollers that are trying to develop their skill really do seem to have a faster learning curve than your average pixel artist: You can't really avoid learning to shade clothing due to the subject matter. That said, it's not as open-ended as pixeling in general and only the leaders of the medium are genuinely learning anatomy and proportion like a regular pixel artist by doing all of the work. I wish more pixel artists here who found themselves in a rut would do some doll work. It would seriously help you, rather than hatin' because some people in doll and edits communities spoil it for the others! I hope more Doll artists show up considering the trends.

[junkboy]

Can't wait for the Edit Poll...

[Keops]

I like them.

I've made a few dolls myself, I also once started a mini fad with the anime chibis (I think that even inspired the Wee! little pixel people to some extend) and those are doll like in the sense they use a standard template. What I don't like about much of the dolls community is that they sometimes don't try their hand at creating their own templates and just edit the others, and while this is not forbidden it thwarts creativity and make them all look the same. Also, some dollers don't use true pixel art, they use blur effects, anti aliased brushes and all that. This is not bad at all, because dolling and pixelling are two different activities.

My 2 pixels.

[Conzeit]

wow, amazing that there is so much hate for the Dollers. I dont know much about it because as I voted "I dont care", but from the few that get to the other side of the fence (here :p) it seems apparent that like in any other artistic comunity there are some very interesting people over there.

[Helm]

I dunno how I came off, but I'm not 'hatin' (whatever that is). I don't see anyone 'hatin' besides Dogmeat in this thread, really. And let it be known that my opinion isn't without the relative strength of that I have done some doll work to see what's up.

[Conzeit]

I'm talking about the polls :p
All this talk about how quality is more consistant in Doll comunites...well, it reminds me of the editing comunities.

It seems that any comunity in which there's a specific theme or basic goal in the pixelart, the minimum acceptable quality is clear and often people wait to reach it before they go and post anything. Maybe we should try something like that out?

if dolls are so efficient at giving incentive to make good folds and hairs maybe we could figure out some sort of template for the new people to use that would give them a good idea of what WE consider important........hm.

[Helm]

I don't think we need any fake way to maintain quality. The strength of this place is that people come here at any skill-level and if they're in the right mindset to work and better themselves, they will be given opinions and edits on how to do just that. This isn't a showcase forum, I don't give a shit if someone comes here by accident and clicks on a thread by someone that isn't good and goes 'oh, so this is the sort of thing that gets posted here'. We're not here to provide eye-candy, we're here to help each other become honestly better. 'consistent quality' is meaningless on a critique forum.

[Peppermint Pig]

Not everybody in the Dolling community is ready to separate their ego from their work, so we won't be seeing too many Dollers coming through here. One way to teach is through example, Conceit, so if you want to show how effective they are, it'd be good to start posting dolls of your own! Foogirl and I made templates for one another, and we did a doll activity where we take half a dozen random words and incorporate them into the design. One time it was... autumn, siamese, meteors, chains, pockets, sandals, parasols etc...

My color of Foogirl's template:


Foogirl's color of my template:


Tell me that's not a fun activity 

[goat]

Don't care, there are a lot of crappy dolls, but there are a lot of crappy scene pics, portraits, backgrounds, pinups, sprites, and tiles too :p if anything, props to dollers for establishing such a foothold in the pixel community.

[mizanyx]

I like them. I like cutie things, I don't know why but i do.

I've tried to create one:



For me its incredible that the dolling community have never created a standalone doll videogame...

[Meta|Fox]

Well, if we can look past the over generalization and stereotypes the fact is practically every one here has taken part in (and probably enjoyed) some form of dolling. I have seen this in Sedgemonkeys weemen project for example (which by definition can be classed as "dolling") and countless fad driven pixels.

I personally think we're being abit hypocritical about the whole thing.

[Ryona]

I myself like them. I've even had fun with those sites where you can make your own with all the peices they have.
I used to make dolls, but not so much anymore.
I once tried to make my own delux doll with a wide selection of clothes, but creating the base alone was so much bloody work, that I never did carry through with the idea. 

I like it, though its weakness is its symmetricalness...

[Silver]

Stiffness of the poses and the imagination destroyed by what they call "Base" are probably the only reason why I dislike dolls art.
Otherwise we all know it's the best way to stick girls near by pixel art field.

[Feron]

i cant i have ever really had contact with dollers or doll communities.  If its pixel-art then its pretty good.  nothing wrong with making clothes or items for eachothers work...

perhaps if pixelation had a doll thread - there might be some awesome dolls.  would be a cool way for artists to collaberate.  is everyone against the idea of dolls or just against the people?

[Ryan Cordel]

Myself, I never did feel too fond of 'Sprite Dolls' after a while, while it is an easy and somewhat practical method to test out designs and skills, I overall wouldn't really recommend it. I would in honesty prefer to do everything alone, by scratch and the likes, but while making the doll bases themselves takes effort, I wouldn't say I hate the authors or the doll-editors at all. They're trying to be good and that's alright in my opinion.

[gliding]

I've got no problems with the Doll communities social structure or willingness to share. Also, although the general level of quality is lower than I like, the quality seems persistant. Whereas on Pixelation you'll end up seeing everything from professional quality to absolute crap quality, Doll sites tend to have a pretty consistant middle ground in quality.

I prefer to be able to witness both, at least here you can gauge your talents against a variety of artists and styles. A doll hall full of mediocrities won't do you much good in said circumstances. I'm not fond of the doll scene today because i find many dolls to be aesthetically... scary!
Many blow basic anatomy out of proportion and have a lifeless, artificial look to them which i find especially creepy. Most of all its the way people worship dolls when there is so much more out there. I wish more dollers became more aware of pixel art. They could then use those skills in their own artistic endeavors- doll or not.

[leel]

I was a doller, and the reason I quit has more to do with the atmosphere of most dolling communities than the art itself.  Sure there are plenty of crappy dolls out there, but I've met way too many people who absolutely hate even the idea of dolls because they're stiff and uncreative and lacking effort/work, etc, and that's just generalizing too much IMO.  I was a doller for around two years and that's when I learned most pixel art techniques I know/use now, so as an art form it's really not as evil as most people would imagine.  There's crappy stuff in every kind of art community, like someone said earlier, so targetting this much hate toward dolls is unreasonable. 

I said I disliked them, but only because most dolling forums have so much drama involved, it's what turned me off in the first place.  Also there is a lack of serious cc in most places.  It's not ALL "omg kawaii" but a lot of it is compliments without any real feedback about the image.  A friend of mine who'd quit dolling for a while to do some 'staight' pixelling said she went back to dolling because she didn't like how on pixeljoint everyone went straight to whats wrong with her piece instead of sandwiching cc in compliments (goodbadgood).  And I personally don't see that as a problem, so that's why I stayed.  Many dollers, like someone mentioned, are really young and so are really sensitive about what you say, and also because they're so young, it's not a really great place to continue learning once you've reached a certain point.  At least that's how it was for me. 

[gliding]

I myself like them. I've even had fun with those sites where you can make your own with all the pieces they have.
I used to make dolls, but not so much anymore.
I once tried to make my own deluxe doll with a wide selection of clothes, but creating the base alone was so much bloody work, that I never did carry through with the idea. 

I like it, though its weakness is its symmetricalness...

Wow, I wish dolls came like that more often!

But seriously, that is totally different than what I'm talking about. It uses pixel techniques and uses those fundamentals and specializes them- rather than inventing anatomy and overusing colour. If I saw more of that, I really wouldn't mind the doll scene.

Lovely stuff Ryona

[AdamTierney]

I think it's boring, but fine if people enjoy it. Just don't refer to it as actual pixel art.

[AdamTierney]

I think it's boring, but fine if people enjoy it. Just don't put it on the same level as fully-original pixel art.

[Helm]

http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/2750.htm

thats not on the same level?

[Aleiav]

Within the dolling community, "simple edits" are also very much frowned upon. A doll is only considered good if it's severely (and competently) edited from it's base.

I would disagree. Why? Because 85% of "good dolls" are based on popularity, not skill. Case in Point, Tee. She does have talent but she uses the same pieces on many dolls over and over again and doesn't really do anything besides her basic witch type of scheme. She doesn't have all THAT much talent, but she'll get 10x more replies than most dollers when she posts something because she's the freakin' Whimsical Witch or whatever. Just my opinion.

My main issue with the dolling community is the extreme amount of bullshitting that goes on in place of constructive criticism. In my experience, when you post a doll you rarely, even when asked for, get CC. You just get pages and pages of "Tat's really cute!!!". That's my issue. And when you try and critique people and help them, you're labelled a bitch, insensitive, or harsh. Such has been my experience in trying to go back to the dolling community. I tried to give critique to people and was asked who died and mad me god, then was subsequently banned.

98% of dollers I've seen are not serious about improving on their art. They act like their so emotionally attatched to their work when a lot of them copy, mirror, paste. And god forbid somebody would frankendoll *LE GASP* then you've got a whole witch hunt on your hands because 98% of them also are immature in general.

I used to be a doller. I'm not anymore. I don't take issue with editing bases. I don't think that's unoriginal or not creative. What I take issue with is the entire maturity and bullshit atmosphere of the dolling community. It's just not my cup of tea AT ALL anymore.