Information for newcomers / How to contribute with art / FAQ


Logo by Zracknel, colored by Bummer


Smogon can be seen as a big place, and the same can be said about the studio to a lesser extent, so hopefully, this thread should be able to pinpoint all of you artists in the right direction. Most of this information is available on our hub, but the more crucial information is emphasized down below. If there's something that isn't answered by the below list, feel free to shoot us a question right in this thread!

The rules of the studio

While there are global rules that applies everywhere in Smogon, there are of course certain things that only applies to Smeargle's Studio, so if you're planning on getting involved, checking out the rules are a good start. Some of it is obvious, but it also mentions some handy threads in the studio, so check it out.

Chat channels

The #smeargle Discord channel and the Art room on Pokémon Showdown! are the two places where our users can instantly exchange opinions and advice in real time, but some more in-depth information is available in the above link.

How do I contribute art to Smogon?

Arguably the most common question we get, but worry not, this page lists some of the options that's available to you.

What are Approved Artists and the Artist Badge?

Even though art can be quite the subjective topic, we do strive to uphold a certain level of quality when it comes to art contributed to Smogon, so the above two subjects can definitely shed some light on what we expect from our more serious contributors.

How can I improve the studio?

There are things that can be done to help our studio that doesn't even involve art skills, so anyone who'd like to help our cause can definitely check out the above link.

- - - - - - - - - - -

List of the studio's staff members

LifeisDANK
tiki
Cretacerus
leparagon

That should be the gist of it. If you have any questions about this forum, make a post right in this thread, or ask any of the users listed directly above. Thanks for reading!
 
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Bummer

Jamming to the beat
is a Top Artist Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
Info about Approved Artists

As of this year, I've introduced something relatively new to the artist community: to be an approved artist. This does not refer to artists that are already badged, but instead artists that have shown that they understand the basics and are well prepared to make adequate illustrations and images for various purposes around the site. This has technically already been around for some time, as the people we approved to illustrate for The Smog first needed to go through a quality check before they could enter the hidden workshop forum. But seeing how Smogon now has several outlets to distribute articles and information, it's a given that the images that goes along with them must be of good shape in order to make a good impression. Granted, we don't expect professional masterpieces here. As long as you can make decent images that well illustrates the point you were trying to make without containing too many distracting flaws, we're good for the most part.

If you're interested to contribute with your art to Smogon and would you like to see if your art is of good enough quality to warrant becoming approved, make a new thread in this subforum titled with your username, and tiki will have a look at your application and offer any advice if necessary. But if you have an art thread of your own and it's clear that your art is of good quality, they can choose to approve you directly!


But wait! I'm an approved artist! Does this mean you expect me to start making images on a regular basis?

Nope! Being an approved artist is a position, and not a commitment. If you want to contribute art to some of our more demanding areas of the site, you're now free to do so, but as we're all doing this for free, we simply cannot expect anyone to do this against their will. But we appreciate any help we can get, as we're pretty much always running short on artists.

So what are some of these new areas that open up for me?

Smogon's Flying Press -
This is a community project that's spanning several years (initially known as The Smog), where users from this very forum join together to write, check, code, and illustrate articles of various subjects. The artists obviously help out with the latter, so if you're interested, just contact Quite Quiet or The Dutch Plumberjack, and they'll be glad to set things up for you. Once you have access to the hidden workshop area, this thread will be of great importance for you in order to see what articles are in need of art.

Art for Articles - This thread is the Studio's portal to the magical world of Contributions and Corrections (C&C). This project is pretty self-explanatory: there are a multitude of articles that are already on-site, but plenty of them sure could use some improvement by having an illustration to go alongside them! If you want to contribute, just placehold an article in the thread, although do read the OP first to make sure you get a good idea of the project.

Facebook - Plenty of various site updates and analyses are featured on Smogon's Facebook page, and sometimes those updates could use some art to spice things up! If you would like to volunteer for such tasks, contact vzxt or Kalalokki, or check out the currently open requests that's posted in this thread!



If you're an artist that's been directed to this post to get a better idea of what being an approved artist means, then we thank you for becoming more involved with our community, and we hope that we'll see more of both you and your work around the place! If you choose to help, we'll greatly appreciate it, and we'll definitely seek for opportunities to reward you with an artist or community contributor badge whenever possible. If you have any further questions, just ask me. Have fun! :)




If approved artists receive an art badge, they're removed from this list, as the badge itself is proof of their skill. Users who haven't visited Smogon for two years are removed as well.
 
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Where am I supposed to go to get a logo made for my team in a premier league? I posted two weeks ago here, but no one responded. Is there a better place to go?
 

Bummer

Jamming to the beat
is a Top Artist Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
Where am I supposed to go to get a logo made for my team in a premier league? I posted two weeks ago here, but no one responded. Is there a better place to go?
Logos for teams are a delicate thing, so most people prefer to turn to certain artists personally and see if they're willing to help. Apart from the thread you linked, we also have The Workshop to put various requests in, where various users who are available may be able to create something, but it's no guarantee.
 

Bummer

Jamming to the beat
is a Top Artist Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
[16:56] The Two Uchihas: In the artwork for tournaments,
[16:56] The Two Uchihas: One can get community contributor by making art and being helpful
[16:56] The Two Uchihas: No one posts there.
[16:56] The Two Uchihas: How can i be helpful?

This has been adressed in our guide for new artists (Part II, second paragraph), but if you want to create banners and images for various forum threads, there's nothing stopping you. Find a thread or project you'd like to decorate with your art, check with the person responsible for that thread/project and offer your services, and then you can see if you can reach an agreement on what the image/banner should contain. Spread the love!
 

brightobject

there like moonlight
is a Top Artistis a Community Contributoris a Smogon Media Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnus
Would it be appropriate to post a new thread if you're working on a project and you feel said project might take up too much space in your general art thread?

e.g. a webcomic or fakedex
 

Bummer

Jamming to the beat
is a Top Artist Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
Would it be appropriate to post a new thread if you're working on a project and you feel said project might take up too much space in your general art thread?

e.g. a webcomic or fakedex
My gut feeling is to say no. Artists can have plenty of cool stuff going on, so if we greenlight keeping multiple art interests separated, we might be running the risk of having a few prominent artists dominating the top part of the forums while those with single threads struggle to make themselves noticed. If everyone have just their own threads, we're all on equal footing.

If you'd like to keep things more organised, the first posts of your thread can be prepared and placeholded to contain different stuff, if you want it to be organised. If you want to clear up some of the first replies so that you have some consecutive posts to sort stuff out, ask me or the mods for help and we'll clean stuff up. You may also consider making a new thread from scratch and keep things spacious from the beginning.

If there's conflicting feelings for this, I can see myself opening this up for discussion.
 
Another question xD
Does someone know how can I obtain the link my DA deviation to put it between the bb code terms?
 

Bummer

Jamming to the beat
is a Top Artist Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
Does someone know how can I obtain the link my DA deviation to put it between the bb code terms?
Right click, copy image url address, and then go from there. However, hotlinking from other sites is usually frowned upon, so see if you can use a more independent image host instead (like imgur or puush). You can also choose to put url tags around the image tags and then link to the page with your dA image, if you want a connection back there.
 
Not sure if this is the right place to ask anyways I've made a drawing of my team and it came out pretty well, I was wondering if someone could color it ( I have no idea how to use photoshop and stuff), here's what I've done
EPSON002.JPG
 
Just for clarification, I'm pretty sure but are Created Pokemon allowed? I don't really have any interest in the CAP project but I'd like to have my artwork seen. I have around 11 created ones and I'm getting a new scanner so I'll be able to post them soon, I'm just checking for the go-ahead.
 

Lemonade

WOOPAGGING
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Team Rater Alumnusis a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis an Artist Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
Just for clarification, I'm pretty sure but are Created Pokemon allowed? I don't really have any interest in the CAP project but I'd like to have my artwork seen. I have around 11 created ones and I'm getting a new scanner so I'll be able to post them soon, I'm just checking for the go-ahead.
Yeah, you can post your own "fakemons." The CAP project is more for getting the creation implemented on sim so you can battle with it and whatnot.
 
What are the picture file size restrictions? I have a couple drawings that are in wait because I keep getting the "Uploaded life size is too big". When I'm trying to upload a 2 MB picture :(
 

Pent

dumb broad
What are the picture file size restrictions? I have a couple drawings that are in wait because I keep getting the "Uploaded life size is too big". When I'm trying to upload a 2 MB picture :(
The maximum is 1 MB, I recommend using an image service such as Imgur to help out with your images when posting them in a thread.
 
Hi, I'm looking to get into doing digital art but I'm not sure what program to use. Are there any art programs out there that are free and still allow you to make good quality art?
 

Pent

dumb broad
Hi, I want to do digital art but I'm not sure what program to use. Are there any art programs out there that are free and still allow you to make good quality art?
It really depends on if you do mobile or computer. But, I recommend looking at Medibang Paint, it's good for beginners and keeps things simple when trying to learn.
 

Bummer

Jamming to the beat
is a Top Artist Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
Hi, I'm looking to get into doing digital art but I'm not sure what program to use. Are there any art programs out there that are free and still allow you to make good quality art?
GIMP and FireAlpaca are two programs that come to mind, the former a free imaged editor software that's been around for quite some time, while the later is a free program that shares plenty of similarities to Photoshop, both programs uses layers. Photoshop CS2 can also be downloaded free of charge, although it should be noted that this is a feature they offer to presumed previous owners of the same software, here's a link explaining more. I'm using PS CS2 myself, so I certainly don't find it to be an outdated software.
 

13ulbasaur

* It seems to be nervous about fighting.
is an Artist Alumnus
Hi, is there any chance someone could rename the title of my art thread here? It's a bit embarassing since it's obviously not a thread just about my umbrella (I misunderstood how the art threads worked at the time lol) and I couldn't find an option to rename it myself.

If it could just be renamed to "13ulb's art stuff" that'll be fantastic.
 

brightobject

there like moonlight
is a Top Artistis a Community Contributoris a Smogon Media Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnus
Hi, is there any chance someone could rename the title of my art thread here? It's a bit embarassing since it's obviously not a thread just about my umbrella (I misunderstood how the art threads worked at the time lol) and I couldn't find an option to rename it myself.

If it could just be renamed to "13ulb's art stuff" that'll be fantastic.
You can do that yourself using 'Thread Tools' in the upper-right corner of your thread's first page (near the OP). :)

EDIT: it actually appears on any page of the thread, not just the first, my bad. But yeah: upper right corner, beneath the forum news banner scrolly thing.
 
So, question. I'm getting back into writing and was considering making a thread. Is there a section of the forums dedicated to writing?

Also, was wondering. I know Smogon isn't exactly a fanfic site. Is there much of an audience for this kind of stuff?
 

Bummer

Jamming to the beat
is a Top Artist Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
So, question. I'm getting back into writing and was considering making a thread. Is there a section of the forums dedicated to writing?

Also, was wondering. I know Smogon isn't exactly a fanfic site. Is there much of an audience for this kind of stuff?
You can set up your thread here in the studio, as we currently don't have a specialised section for fictional writers since there simply aren't that many who choose to express themselves that way. I realise now that we don't have a minimum requirement for setting up a personal writing thread, but if you have at least three different written works to display, or one or two that together exceed ~1000 words (use wordcounter.net to help), you can set a thread up. If you just have a short story to share, it'd be more appropriate to post in the studio's General Writing thread.

As for the audience, I actually have no clue. We are a community that encourages creative writing, but I personally haven't seen many examples or original works with their own characters and plots, so this might be new areas to explore for you!
 
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Thanks a bunch! What I got is certainly enough to cover the minimum requirement, but needs rewriting (wrote it several years ago).

Is there a section on the site explaining how to do different things in posts? (Bold, spoilers, colors, etc. Don't even know the correct term for all that.) I have an idea for what I could do, but want to make sure I can format in a way that replies don't interrupt the story and I can put multiple works on the same thread. Also, is there a limit on characters per post?
 

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