File: academy/tutorials/tut_atkins.txt https://web.archive.org/web/20210226065248/https://vyznev.net/ascii/ada/aaatutorial.txt ,-,-,-. . `,| | | ,-. | , . ,-. ,-. . . ,-. . . ,-. ,-. . , , ,-. | ; | . ,-| |< | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |/|/ | | ' `-' `-^ ' ` ' ' ' `-| `-| `-' `-^ ' `-' ' ' ' ' ,| /| `' `-' ,. .---. ,--. ,-_/ ,-_/ ,. . / | \___ | `-' ' | ' | / | ,-. |- /~~|-. \ | . .^ | .^ | /~~|-. | | ,' `-' `---' `--' `--' `--' ,' `-' ' `' A short tutorial on making and posting ASCII Art By Martin Atkins (March 1999) This document was based on 'Make a Start in ASCII Art' by Daniel Au Stop before asking for an ascii picture of a whatever, or ascii for a logo... wouldn't it be more fun to make your own? Perhaps you could create a beautiful piece of ASCII Artwork and share it with us all at alt.ascii-art! If you would like to learn how to make ascii art, this tutorial should help you get started. -._.-> Quick Start """"""""""" You don't need a special program to make ASCII Art, you can make it in any text editor, or another program that allows you to type characters from the keyboard. You should, however, make sure that it is producing plain text (no colours, bold etc) and is set to a monospaced font. A monospaced (or fixed width) font is one where all of the characters are the same width. In a monospaced font, these two lines will be the same length: MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM| IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII| If they aren't, then you aren't using a monospaced font. Experiment with available fonts until you find one that makes those two lines match up. -._.-> Making a picture """""""""""""""" The best way to pick up ascii art is to try it. Find a nice text editor (most computers will have one, look for Notepad, Edit, Nisus, Ed...) and load it up. Just fiddle around a little to get a feel of what shapes each character makes, and then try to put them together to make a shape: o -|- ASCII Art Stickman! / \ Try making this stickman do things, like... o/ o '| Waving... -|- o or Kicking a ball! / \ |'. Now look around where you are now... can you see anything interesting to make an ascii art of? Computers make very good 'first pictures', because they are mostly rectangular and so easy to shape. Have a go at showing your computer in ASCII Art. Try not to produce *exactly* what you see, but enough detail that the eye assumes the extra detail. This takes some practice, but once you've mastered it you can make almost anything! How about a person? This is a good thing to do next. The best place to start is not a specific person, but a generic one ... that way you can concentrate on forming a person-shape without worrying about the exact details of a person and possibly offending them! I've gone for a cartoony sort of person, since less details are needed to produce it. Let's start with the head... /"""""\ | (o|o) | | _\ | | '---' | \_____/ mga | | See how you see a human face, but know that it's very unlikely you will ever meet anyone who looks like this? This is what I mean by not producing exactly what something looks like. Let's continue the picture... /"""""\ | (o|o) | | _\ | | '---' | \_____/ ___| |___ / '-' \ | . . | | | | | | | | | \_|_____|_/ /_| |_\ | .-. | | | | | '._| |_.' /__| |__\ mga Since it is a cartoon, I didn't worry too much about the proportions. If this was a serious picture, the legs would be far too short for the rest if the body, but you get the general idea. -._.-> Diagonal Lines """""""""""""" Notice on the bottom of the trousers I have used the full stop and apostrophe characters to produce I greater diagonal line than the slash offers. This is the basis for producing lines in ascii art. This one takes some time to master, but here are some lines to show you how to construct a few 'odd' angles... | | / ,' ,-' _,-' | .' / ,' ,-' _,-' | | / ,' ,-' _,-' __..--"" | .' / ,' ,-' _,-' __..--"" | | / ,' ,-' ,-' __..--"" _______________ -._.-> Adding more detail """""""""""""""""" We can make our picture more interesting by adding some extra details. Just add anything that makes the picture look more like what it's meant to be, or looks cool. I'll just make a minor adjustment... /"""""\ | (o|o) | | _\ | | '---' | \_____/ ___| |___ / '-' \ | . . | What young person would be seen | |Robik| | without his expensive brand-name | | './ | | sweatshirt? \_|_____|_/ /_| |_\ | .-. | | | | | '._| |_.' /__| |__\ mga -._.-> Background detail """"""""""""""""" At the moment, our person is standing in a blank void. Why don't we add some interesting backdrop to the picture? Since my picture is of a young man, where better to stand him than in front of a shop in town? -----------------------------------.---------.---------- .----------. | .-----. ||""""""""" .-------. .------ /"""""\ | | | || |FOREMEN| |..-.-.| (o|o) | _| | | || |WANTED | |_.=-.-| _\ | / | | | || '-------' '----- | '---' | |""| | | || .------. .-----. \_____/ | | '-. | || |.----.| |ASCII ___| |___ |""| | | ||_________ ||Sulk|| |MONTH / '-' \ | | .-' | |__________ ||Kit || ||""| | . . | |""| | | |__|___|___ _________________ | |Robik| | |__| | | ||___|___|_ ================= | | './ | | ===| |mga | |__|___|___ \_|_____|_/ | '-----' ||___|___|_ __________________ /_| |_\ ____|_________|__|___|___ / | .-. | | | | | / / '._| |_.' / / /__| |__\ ________________________________________________________ ___/_________/________/________/_______/_______/______/_ ___|_________|________|________|_______|_______|______|_ And here we have what is a pretty good ascii are picture! With more tweaking it can be made even better. -._.-> Finishing it off """""""""""""""" You may have noticed that in the example pictures above there are three letters floating about apparently for no reason... 'mga'. When you make ascii art, should put your name or initials somewhere on it to identify it as yours. My initials are mga, which is where the mga comes from! Try to find a place where the initials don't spoil the picture, like on a wall, or a screen... -._.-> Going public... releasing your picture to alt.ascii-art! """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Once you are happy with your picture, and have added your initials, you can post it to alt.ascii-art. Paste it into your newsreader's message composition window. Check that it is plain text (no colours or styles) and in a monospaced font before posting. You might want to mention that this is your first pic when you post it. Check back to alt.ascii-art a few days later, and you may find that some people have responded to your picture. They may have written a 'Cool pic!' type message, in which case you did it right! Do some more! The other possibility is that someone is offering a suggestion for improvement. This will come in one of two forms: * Diddling 'Diddling' is when someone takes your picture, and changes it a little. You shouldn't take offense at this (unless your pic has been made offensive of course), just take heed to the suggestions and bear them in mind for your future pictures. * Textual Suggestion Someone may make a suggestion like 'try to smooth out the corners with a full stop', or 'try using a | instead of a : for vertical lines'. These are just friendly suggestions, which you may choose to bear in mind when you create future pictures. Whether everyone loves your pic, or they offer suggestions, you should still continue to produce more pics. Remember practice makes, if not perfect, at least pretty good! -._.-> Learning from others """""""""""""""""""" The best way to learn is by example. Take a look at the ascii art in alt.ascii-art. Note how different artists have used certain characters to produce different shapes. You can try some of the techniques used by other artists, and will probably develop your own 'style' of ascii art. You can see differences between how each artists create ascii art, some are subtle while others are blatently obvious. Just practice and you'll get there! -._.-> In conclusion """"""""""""" Anyone can create ASCII Art with a little perseverance. If you find yourself bitten by the ASCII Art bug, please post your pictures to alt.ascii-art - we'd love to see them! File: academy/tutorials/tut_au.txt https://web.archive.org/web/19990427090024/http://users.inetw.net/~mullen/auteach.htm From: dcau@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Daniel Au) Date: 4 Oct 1995 15:47:46 -0500 I just wrote this now in response to an email sent to me asking how I did my ASCII artwork. I responded by writing a brief walkthrough of my thought processes (well, kind of) and just wanted to share them on the group. Let's see more people try to make create their own new artwork instead of requesting for the old stuff all the time. It'll make for a better newsgroup overall and everyone will benefit! -- Daniel = ASCII art tips and example == Try practicing to make your own artwork by just typing on the keyboard, which is what I do (I work just using the DOS text editor which comes along with any MSDOS machine. Any text editor will do.) Begin by basic shapes. For example, if you're making an animal - say a giraffe - let's start with the head: __.ii, (__," | | | basically simple shapes to make it look approximately like it does in real life (as best as you can, at least, in this case I've cartooned it a bit :-) The " is making up the eyes, the . and , the ears and a smile. The i i are those antennae like things on top of their heads (if I remember correctly). I usually like to keep my artwork within the size of a screen. Since a giraffe is a tall animal, I'm keeping the details smaller. Then continue on with the body and some legs. Try to do a rough outline. __.ii, (__," | | | | | | | | | | | | |------------, / \\ | |\ |,._ |,______\ ||| || //' || || | || (( || || | || `\\ || || M || \\ || || /_| /_| /_| /_| It's best to add some . and , in order to smooth out some of the edges. Then the tail is in the back. Then add the detail - hair on the neck and spots on the body. __.ii, (__," |% | #% | |% | #% # |% | |% | |%-----------, / ### ##### \\ |#### """" ### |\ |,._ |,_###__\ ||| || //' || || | || (( || || | || `\\ || || M || \\ || || /_| /_| /_| /_| dcau That's pretty much for a quick giraffe that I just did while writing this letter. You can add more stuff like a tree and a bird on a branch too: O ) __.ii, \ | / O ) (__," |% - (_) - O ) | #% / | \ ) | |% O ) | #% O ) # |% ,~ | |% -- ~| ~ `O> | |------------, | ||__/Q; _JNm`.._./, /%u_``Rq, _]\q,_^d: ( =`(!> Q4: ((u! _(| kP .j_,.. ` .J2% `(_. _._Jzz_._..r. _. _[, .x{..J: _%~ ..7x. (% `qu. .7=>`_J=` ([:no((. _. `d `_...__+r` .. (/vD6~;.+r .r `(:((() .{ /~(` j/G=:(4DJ, `` __% ```J` /(__%: . `~.`>:__?&.. .__/'` ]7>__. _:` ((:r>(~` `~. ^_: `_:` _` `:=_ .:{._>/J(=: : .; _: ` ` . ._``` %`._%`=~...>(` . ; r .._` _~J~((^`../^` _ (.) _(C``._^` ~ (/ ., . __|` { .` _, ( .` .: _J``() _ % /` `` ._} .] (; : _ (:`/~_ ~:~/:`J (; . .~ /(. `:` ``_:_: | ~ _ ` .S,``` _. ... .._: ; | . .%.` _;`:``` .`^^:(3~ : > ~ _| _; J`v.: > {_/` : .] .=| .: ( J % / _. . .% %_`/ .` ~ _~ ` .: .} _> .: .c .: .` /. ` : .` _, / ( ~ ~ _` .` . ; `. _(_` _^ ., .: `_J[{_(^ .: .. (.`_` _` : ` ; , . ~` .` .. J ~ ( _ _` : _ ` _. . .` ( . .` : ~` .. _ .` ; / _` ( ( ( _~ r ` ) .x. ; ; _3. .; ~ . . 2 % ~..`. : .~ :``(:_% .} `..` . _ ~((: c ( `. .~ ; /} : ( .` o ; ( _ ( .: _` ( ( .` _` ` ; _~ ( . .` .;` .; : ; v _` ~ .` _; r _ . v` .: .. .` (. _` , ( .: ( .: .] ) ; /. .; .: > /` 8 : r .` )` ( ( _` .; .: ._ .` ) _ ( _=/__` ) { ...__ .(c?!3/ (:(>`~w. `` `:``(: 2/ I saved the document and opened it in a text editor for hand made diddling where I worked on the top-half of the girl, keeping the legs for later. The diddling could have been made in JavE but I'm just used to my text editor. .-- .&dkl`,ivne._ | sRfkgvc+rsnmGBND. | aHBNLbni+.irumLGNMms | NRIr`'+dLKNMFb`'iNQr | `ANWM7 `+lM0. `'^Kl | iNWL*_;=e. Y._,_ ON | aRNm _.l, j^ _` Bq, | eNL:,l=N0`. ls`N0> ibK | XHZu! _(c kPBN | 'CD . ` tK7KX | 'f _&zrc_. .Y | , v, `ta.=" ,V | 7q. 6% ^l = .r | f'noib. + `d+ .._a7 t | k+RD6 L.dr h' `*+iPb .f adI` | dj+Ggr 4NJb .,dT `'KJc _ir+4b . | `cl^ ._ tk. .,&;:rf"t&; 'yIKbr;. dp` luhrZti | `~. ^_T `ysf' " n, 7 *lkr,. i7k._m.JKiV" | J .H dY `"- ._`` "VK,4= . Kdj` | K K B -s&. eJ+ .ys7^` | T lLj (C' .4 | P 'y ., . +j 7 | ,y b, l .` ,t Y` Y | 4` i J` g, ti .l k | Y G p" - - "i`J p | L .~ 74. `W` '`W 9+y b. | N .Y 6s, _. .. ;T; gl | A y *Yf+:'` `^*:pfjVK+i tb | Y. j" K .J`X.f ly | Tj V T. il .Vj .j' | +' fi J` L. y | 'y - .Y Yz,V | .7 . 'A + | .V ,i Tj | xY fG ki | tl K. | K Jb | ,I zH | T I | K N | iU .` P. | V `. _7_` _^ Rg | .B `dJNMHb^ dl | rG 'YKB` d' | ls `T; f '-- r '` il .. J ~ ( _ _` : _ ` _. . .` ( . .` : ~` .. _ .` ; / _` ( ( ( _~ r ` ) .x. ; ; _3. .; ~ . . 2 % ~..`. : .~ :``(:_% .} `..` . _ ~((: c ( `. .~ ; /} : ( .` o ; ( _ ( .: _` ( ( .` _` ` ; _~ ( . .` .;` .; : ; v _` ~ .` _; r _ . v` .: .. .` (. _` , ( .: ( .: .] ) ; /. .; .: > /` 8 : r .` )` ( ( _` .; .: ._ .` ) _ ( _=/__` ) { ...__ .(c?!3/ (:(>`~w. `` `:``(: 3/ I made a copy of the legs and pasted them in JavE .. J ~ ( _ _` : _ ` _. . .` ( . .` : ~` .. _ .` ; / _` ( ( ( _~ r ` ) .x. ; ; _3. .; ~ . . 2 % ~..`. : .~ :``(:_% .} `..` . _ ~((: c ( `. .~ ; /} : ( .` o ; ( _ ( .: _` ( ( .` _` ` ; _~ ( . .` .;` .; : ; v _` ~ .` _; r _ . v` .: .. .` (. _` , ( .: ( .: .] ) ; /. .; .: > /` 8 : r .` )` ( ( _` .; .: ._ .` ) _ ( _=/__` ) { ...__ .(c?!3/ (:(>`~w. `` `:``(: The idea was to use the gradient tool to fill the legs. To obtain a nice shading effect I had to fill them separately. So I erased one leg, closed the gaps and erased the shadows around the knees and toes. ..:'''''''''': ( ' : ' _. . ( . : : .. : ; : ( ( _~ r ) .x. ; _3 ~ 2 .~ _% _ c ; } .` o _ ( ( ( ` ; . .` : ; ~ .` _ . .. .` , ( .: .] /. .; /` 8 .` )` _` .; .` ) _ ) .(c?!3/ `` The next step was to make a custom gradient in the Fill Options panel. MNBtir+iB I entered the following settings in the Fill Options panel: - Linear - dither: enabeld - Any character + diagonal ... and filled the edges of the legs MMMMMMMMMMMMMM M N M M MN N M N N B NN N B t N B BB t B tBt B ti t t it it t t i i it i i r i i i r r rr + r r r+ + + r+ ++ + + +i +i i+ ii +i i iB Bi ii Bi iB B B B BBBBBBB BB Then I changed the last setting to: - Equal character ... ans filled the inside of the leg. MMMMMMMMMMMMMM MMMMNNBBttiirrN MMNNBBtBitiirM MNNBBtBitrirrN MNNBBttiirr+N NBBttiirr++B NNtBttiirr+N BBitiirr++t Nttiirr+riB BBiirr++i+t Btiirr++tBt Biirr++iti tiri+r++t itrr+ri+it tiirr++it iirr++iii itrirr++ii iri+r++iir iirr++iiBi irr++iiBBr rirr++iirr +r++iiBr r++i+Br+ ++iiBi+ r++ii++ +iiB+ +i+i+i i+Biii +iiBi iBiBBBi ii+iiBi iB+iiBBB B+iiBBBB BBBBBBB BB The left leg was made the same way. 4/ I opened the diddled drawing (step 2) in JavE and carefuly pasted the two legs in place. The setting I used in the Selection Options panel was: - Foreground 5/ I saved and closed the document, and opened again it in my text editor where the legs shading and edges were hand diddled. Tadaaaa... .&dkl`,ivne._ sRfkgvc+rsnmGBND. aHBNLbni+.irumLGNMms NRIr`'+dLKNMFb`'iNQr `ANWM7 `+lM0. `'^Kl iNWL*_;=e. Y._,_ ON aRNm _.l, j^ _` Bq, eNL:,l=N0`. ls`N0> ibK XHZu! _(c kPBN 'CD . ` tK7KX 'f _&zrc_. .Y , v, `ta.=" ,V 7q. 6% ^l = .r f'noib. + `d+ .._a7 t k+RD6 L.dr h' `*+iPb .f adI` dj+Ggr 4NJb .,dT `'KJc _ir+4b . `cl^ ._ tk. .,&;:rf"t&; 'yIKbr;. dp` luhrZti `~. ^_T `ysf' " n, 7 *lkr,. i7k._m.JKiV" J .H dY `"- ._`` "VK,4= . Kdj` K K B -s&. eJ+ .ys7^` T lLj (C' .4 P 'y ., . +j 7 ,y b, l .` ,t Y` Y 4` i J` g, ti .l k Y G p" - - "i`J p L .~ 74. `W` '`W 9+y b. N .Y 6s, _. .. ;T; gl A y *Yf+:'` `^*:pfjVK+i tb Y. j" K .J`X.f ly Tj V T. il .Vj .j' +' fi J` L. y 'y - .Y Yz,V .7 . 'A + .V ,i Tj xY fG ki tl K. K Jb ,I zH T I K N iU .` P. V `. _7_` _^ Rg .B `dJNMHb^ dl rG 'YKB` d' ls `T; f 'MWMNBKbri++ Y il VMWNRKtirdJNMWNZ _.++ttKRNNs VBKkrze+rdRBNMNkr++iittKKBNN `VRttii++rrddNMNBKii++ddZZYe Yttii+;rrddZBNNNttiirrddZl Kttii;+rrddNMNKKii++ddZV' `Vii+;rrddZBNNNttiirrddf ltii+;rrddNWNKKii++ddZ 'ii++;iddZBNNNttiirrd' tii+;;rddNMNKKii++dV 'i++r;ddZBNNNttiirrj ii++irddNMNKKii++dl i+:irddBNKNNtti+rri ii+,:rddN NKKb+,;dd ,i+.;iddMV VMNBb.ird li,;xdRMB XMBkrddZ. .ii+zBRMKX HSMBbrrd, ili+inGBKJ XKbm++ddZ rii++irdRZ ,GKtiirrdd. ltii++rzkd lKKii++ddZi tii++rrddZ BHttiirrdf' ttii++rxd' KRbii++dd7 tri:+rrdf 'Nbtii+rdl 'Yi;++rB' KKii++dd Bt:+rrf 'Rbii+rd 'ii++H` Kbi++dl V+irf "KiirP ,Zli7 `Yi+rd Z;bK tk;rl tii+K Xli+i si;+it AkirY. etritkl ;ffi+ds fltiielf Kbzrire HKltfdN' NBKlfBH b'ger NMBblB7 VMNKblKl dBMN9 VKBNM7 '` - That's it. :) File: academy/tutorials/tut_ceejay.txt "How to draw ASCII" by Christian 'CeeJay' Jensen Website at http://CeeJay.dk (practicly never updated - I'm lazy) [Lines] Lines in general are made by putting characters with different "height" next to each other in a way that simulates a line. Most characters suitable for creating a line fall in 4 heightcategories. For some heights there are a choice between different characters. It's important to choose a character for your height with a form and position that seems to match the line. Suitable characters are : High : ` ' " Middle : - = Low : . , Bottom : _ You might think that ~ would be a good character too, but since ~ can be displayed very differently from system to system it is best not to use it when drawing lines Some of theese are best for lines slanting .. .. right : _,.-'" and some for slanting .. .. left : "`-._ And then there are / and \ and | .. all characters which forms restrict their usability to lines that closely resembles their shape. The best characthers are entirely a personal preference. Here are some different types of lines.. which do you like the best ? | | / .' .-' _.-' | .' / .' .-' _.-' | | / .' .-' _.-' __..--"" | .' / .' .-' _.-' __..--"" | | / .' .-' .-' __..--"" _______________ | | / ,' _,' _,-' | ,' / ,' _,' _,-' | | / ,' _,' _,-' __..--'" | ,' / ,' _,' _,-' __..--'" | | / ,' ,' ,-' __..--'" _______________ | | ; ," ,-" _.-" | ; ; ," ,-" _.-" | | ; ," ,-" _.-" __..--'" | ; ; ," ,-" _.-" __..--'" | | ; ," ,-" .-" __..--'" _______________ Here are some people's favourite linestyles : 3/1 2/1 1/1 2/3 1/2 | | / / .' .' | | | / / .' | / / / .' .' 1/3 | | | / / .' .-' | | / / .' .' .-' | / | / / .' .-' 1/4 | | / / .' .' .-' _.-' | | | / / .' .-' _.-' 1/5 | / / / .' .' .-' _.-' _.--' | | | / / .' .-' _.-' _.--' 1/6 | | / / .' .' .-' _.-' _.--' __.--' 1/7 | | | / / .' .-' _.-' _.--' __.--' __..--' _.-' _.--' __.--' __..--' 1/8 _.--' __.--' __..--' __..--'' __.--' __..--' __..--'' __..--' __..--'' __..--'' [VK] -------------------------- 0 6/1 3/1 2/1 1/1 2/3 1/2 | J J J / .' .' | J | F / / .' | | F J / .' .' 1/3 | | J F / / .' .-' | F | J / .' .' .-' | F F F / / .' .-' 1/4 | J J J / .' .' .-' _.-' | J | F / / .' .-' _.-' 1/5 | | F J / .' .' .-' _.-' _.--' | | J F / / .' .-' _.-' _.--' 1/6 | F | J / .' .' .-' _.-' _.--' __.--' 1/7 | F F F / / .' .-' _.-' _.--' __.--' __..--' _.-' _.--' __.--' __..--' 1/8 _.--' __.--' __..--' __..--'' __.--' __..--' __..--'' __..--' __..--'' __..--'' [HS] -------------------------- 0 ...and if the line slopes the other way use L instead of F. 2\1 3\2 1\1 1\2 1\3 12infinity `. `. \ \ | | `. \ \ | | | 3\1 `. `. \ \ \ | `-. `. \ \ | | | `-. `. `. \ \ | | 4\1 `-. `. \ \ | \ | `-._ `-. `. `. \ \ | | 5\1 `-._ `-. `. \ \ | | | `--._ `-._ `-. `. `. \ \ \ | 6\1 `--._ `-._ `-. `. \ \ | || 7\1 `--.__ `--._ `-._ `-. `. `. \ \ || `--..__ `--.__ `--._ `-._ `-. `. \ \ | || 8\1 `--..__ `--.__ `--._ `-._ _=_ ``--..__ `--..__ `--.__ `--._ q(-_-)p ``--..__ `--..__ `--.__ '_) (_` ``--..__ `--..__ /__/ \ ``--..__ _(<_ _/)_ infinity21 ----------------------- (__\_\_|_/__) [mic] [Sun of directions] My "Sun of directions" It show my (CeeJay) favourite linestyles The first number is the change in the X value. The second number is the change in the Y value. Note that the lines in the upper half of the sun differs from the ones in the lower half. I prefer the ones in the upper half but there are different lines for different occasions. 1/3 | 1/3 1/2 | | | 1/2 1/1 | | | | | 1/1 3/2 \ `. `. | ,' ,' / 3/2 2/1 \ \ | | | | | / / 2/1 . `. \ `. | | | ,' / ,' , 3/1 `. \ \ | `. | ,' | / / ," 3/1 . `. `. \ `. | | | ,' / ,' ," , 4/1 `-. `. \ \ | | | | | / / ," ,-" 4/1 -._ `-. `. `. \ `. `.|,' ,' / ,' ," ,-" _.- 5/1 `-._ `-. `. \ \ | ||| | / / ," ,-" _.-" 5/1 `--._ `-._ `-. `. `. \ `. ||| ,' / ,' ," ,-" _.-" _.--" 6/1.__ `--._ `-._ `-. `. \ / ," ,-" _.-" _.--" __.6/1 `--.__ `--._ `-._` _____ "_.-" _.--" __.--" 7/1 `--..__ `--.__ `--._ .-' `-. _.--" __.--" __..--" 7/1 --..__ `--..__ `--.__ ,' `. __.--" __..--" __..-- 8/1 ``--..__ `--..__ / _ _ \ __..--" __..--'" 8/1 ``--..__ ; (_) (_) : __..--'" ----------------------- | | ------------------------ ..--''"" : | | ; ""``--.. 8/1 ..--''"" .--''"" \ `.___.' / ""``--. ""``--.. 8/1 --''"" .--''"" .--'"" `. ,' ""`--. ""``--. ""``-- 7/1 .--''"" .--'"" ,--' `-._____.-' CJ ``--. ""`--. ""``--. 7/1 .--'"" ,--'" _,-". . `-._ ``--. ""`--. 6/1'"" ,--'" _,-" .-' ,' / \ `. `-. `-._ ``--. ""`6/1 ,--'" _,-" .-' ,' .' / .' ||| `. \ `. `. `-. `-._ ``--. 5/1" _,-" .-' ,' / / | ||| | \ \ `. `-. `-._ 5/1 ,-" .-' ,' .' / .' .'|`. `. \ `. `. `-. `-. 4/1 .-' ,' / / | | | | | \ \ `. `-. 4/1 ' ,' .' / .' | | | `. \ `. `. ` 3/1 ,' / / | .' | `. | \ \ `. 3/1 ' .' / .' | | | `. \ `. ` 2/1 / / | | | | | \ \ 2/1 3/2 / .' .' | `. `. \ 3/2 1/1 | | | | | 1/1 1/2 | | | 1/2 1/3 | 1/3 [Special purpose lines & steps] ,8 ;" _| ,;' .oO | ,8' ;" _| ,;' .o0008 __| ,8' ;" _| ,;' .o0008888 | ,8' ;" | ,;' .o0008888888 | 98b 080 d8P .o0P' 98b 080 d8P .oOP' 98b 080 d8P .o0P' 98b 080 d8P .o0P' 98b 080 d8P .o0P' _|| _( _||" _( _||" _( ||" ( [Circular shapes] _____ __ .-' `-. ,dP""Yb, ,' `. ,d" "b, / \ d' _ `Y, __ ; : 8 8 `b __ ,'" "`. | | `b,_,aP P __ ,' `. / \ : ; """" d' ,' `. : | | | \ / ,P" _ | | | ; \ / `. ,' a,.__,aP" . o (_) `.__.' `.__.' `.____.' `-._____.-' `"""'' _______ .-'"" ""`-. .-' `-. ,' `. ,' `. / \ / \ ; : : : | | : : : ; \ / \ / `. ,' `. ,' `-. ,-' `-.,,_______,,.-' ( An example of what you can achive by using curves from ever smaller/bigger circles - A spiral ) _______ .-'"" ""`-. .-" `-. ," `. ," `. / \ / \ ; _ : : ,'" "`. ; | ( , \ | ; `' | ; \ / `. ," `-.,_____,.-" ( .. and in this case a seashell) _______ .-'"" ""`-. .-" `-. ," `. ," `. / \ / \ ; _ : : ,'" "`. : | ( , \ | ; `' | | \ / | `. ," : `-.,_____,.-" ; ,' `. / / \ / ; : / | | / | | ," | | ," : : ,-" \ / _,-" `. ," _.--" CJ `""---'" [Sentence drawing] - ( Drawing with characters aligned so they actually spell something! ) ught i ca n m a ' ... t I . . i ! m ! ! e p !pool l e h [Geometric figures] ( Mirrored cubes ) | _______ | _______ /\ \ | / /\ / \ \ | / / \ / \______\ | /______/ \ / / / | \ \ \ \ / / | \ \ / \ / / | \ \ / \/______/ | \______\/ _________________|___________________ _______ | _______ /\ \ | / /\ / \ \ | / / \ / \ \ | / / \ \ \______\ | /______/ / \ / / | \ \ / \ / / | \ \ / \/______/ | \______\/ | | CJ (Pyramid) ___________________________ /\__\/\__\/\__\/\__\/\__\\\\\ \/\__\/\__\/\__\/\__\/__/_\\\\ \/\__\/\__\/\__\/\__\__\__\\\\ \/\__\/\__\/\__\/__/__/__/_\\\ \/\__\/\__\/\__\__\__\__\__\\\ \/\__\/\__\/__/__/__/__/__/_\\ \/\__\/\__\__\__\__\__\__\__\\ \/\__\/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/_\ \/\__\__\__\__\__\__\__\__\__\ CJ \/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/ If you keep at it long enough you can create some pretty amazing and sometimes confusing stuff. ( Two very similar drawings with very different illusions of depth ) _________ / ___ /\ / /__/\ / \ / \__\/ / ___\ /________/ /__/\\ \ ___ \ \__\// \ /__/\ \ / \ \__\/ \ / \________\/ CJ _________ / ___ /\ / /\__\ / \ / \/__/ / ___\ /________/ /\__\\ \ ___ \ \/__// \ /\__\ \ / \ \/__/ \ / \________\/ CJ And sometimes ... REALLY confusing stuff. Here f.x is a Escher-style geometric form .. Dont look too long trying to figure it out. It's an impossible form .. it cannot not exist in RealLife(tm) ______________ /\ __________ \ / \ \______ /\ \ / /\ \ \ / / \ \ / / /\ \ \ / / /\ \ \ / / / \ \ \/ / / \ \ \ / / / \ \ \/_/____\_\ \ / / / \ \____________ \ / / /______/_\ ___________ / \ \ _________/ / / / / \ \ \_______ \ \ / / / \ \ \ / / /\ \ \ / / / \ \ / / / \ \ \ / / / \ V / /____\_\ / / / \ / /_________\/ / \______________/ lgbeard/KPB/ap Another variation .. an endless staircase "Slinky Heaven" _______ by CeeJay _\|/_____/\ \ ______=/\= \ \ ____\__ /\ =\ \ \ \/\ \ / \ = \ \______\/ \ ____\__ / \______\/ / \/\ \ / / _____/_ / / \ ____\__ / / /\ \ / / ___\/\_ \ / / / \ \ / __/__\_ \ \ \ / / \______\____\_ \ \_____\ \ / / / _____/_ \ \_____\ / \/_/ / /\ \ \_____\ / / / / / \ \_____\ / / / / / / \______\ / / / / \ / / / / / / / / \ / / / / / / / / \/_/ / / / / / / / / / / / /___/CJ / / / / /___/ \ / / /___/ \ / /___/ \/______/ File: academy/tutorials/tut_crawford.txt http://www.penceland.com/AsciiCrawford.html Date: 21 Apr 94 16:45:44 GMT --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ..ASCII GRAPHICAL TECHNIQUES V1.0.. By Rowan Crawford. All text and art copyright (c) 1994 Sumaleth Productions. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- CONTENTS: 1. Intro ____ _ .. 2. Line art dHHA /^ |T AHHHHHA (_) : . 3. Small/sig art dHPHH Y __jj HP" IH .-. I:: 4. Solid art dHP HH l__ \\ H HHHH | | HI: 5. 3 Dimensional art dHHHHHH | // Hb. IH | | HHI 6. Conclusion dHP HH l___// UHHHHHU l_j UHU 7. Quick plug 1. Intro Producing pictures from ascii is such a strange idea, and yet the results can sometimes be quite impressive. Although there are a many different forms of ascii art, they all use basically the same ideas to produce the end result. The techniques I use are based around a few simple rules. These rules help me make decisions about which character to use, and where to place it. Of course they aren't strict rules, but they make a good foundation upon which to build a picture. This is not intended as the "definitive" guide to ascii creation, but is instead simply an analysis of how I approach the subject. Back to Contents 2. Line Art Line art is where you represent a picture by just it's outlines and details. Comic art is good material for this type of work since you have a definite outline to work from. However, any picture can be reproduced just by defining it's various boundaries. There are many standard characters which can be applied to this form of ascii art. These are the most obvious ones: / \ | - _ + ( ) < > , . ~ ^ " V X T Y I l L : ` ' ! j J 7 Start by finding an area of the picture which is fairly simple. From there, work your way around the perimeter creating an outline using just these "basic" ascii characters: / \ | - _ ( ) Try to get proportions correct at this stage, because it IS important, and the later you leave it the harder it is to correct. You can also draw in some of the larger details at this stage, which may help get the proportions correct. Once you're happy with that, it's time to go over the whole thing and work on the anti-aliasing. I like to have *every* line connect up, leaving no large gaps such as: ~~~~~~~~________ If I come across an area which has no "ultimate" choice of characters, I may decide to add an extra detail there. For example, "near" vertical lines are virtually impossible in ascii. Here's some options: | | | | | | l l. \ l | I `| Y `L | | | | | START ^----------OPTIONS----------^ As you can see, none of them produce the "perfect" results I'd like. In this case, I would try adding some form of detail in there thus removing the problem. It doesn't always work, but it's worth a try. Near-horizontal lines are much easier (thankfully). Using these chars: ( ~"-.,_ ) you can quite easily produce a reasonably decent line. The previous (horizontal) example would become: __ "~~"----..,___ Or at least something to that effect. I usually get very "nit-picky" and arrange the comma just before an underscore since it sits down one pixel lower than the full-stop ("."). I also like to carefully select between the " and ~ since they each have their own distinct properties. Avoid using this technique at angles around 30 degrees (looks a bit odd), and very slight angles (because it results in a long line of dots, and that doesn't look good). Actually, the selection of the picture is very important in determining how the resulting pic will look. You also have the option of changing certain parts of the pic, so that they work better in the ascii format. For example, instead of trying to do a near-vertical line, just make it perfectly vertical. Curves also play an important role in ascii art. Although the standard ascii character set does not directly support curves (apart from "(" and ")" of course :), you can get some nice curves with a little bit of work. Here's the most often used chars for curve creation: / \ - _ ~ " . , ' ` ! I l Y And here's a couple of sample curves to demonstrate the idea: ___ .-~" "~-. / / \ _.-~ Y Y ,^ | | / l ! / \ / __.-~ "-.,___,.-" CIRCLE SUBTLE CURVATURES Some people wouldn't like the use of "Y" and "^", but to me, the advantages outweigh the negative aspects. Also note the use of "l" and "!" to make the transition from vertical to angled less pronounced. I also consider the choice between "." an "," important because it affects the smoothness of the line. For example, in the part on the above curve: _.- :it looks like a "," may have been a better choice: / But as you can see here, using the _,-~ comma has altered the flow of the ,^ line somewhat. It now appears as / more of a "step" rather than an / angled line. _,-~ CURVE USING COMMA Intersections require yet another strategy. Often you'll find that one line must join onto another at a place where the join isn't neat: "-._ / "-._ / Here the incoming line should join / 7 onto the main part halfway through / / a "/". That's where you can use some other chars. In this example, a "7" INTERSECTION FIX would work well, as seen in the example to the left. You could also try "Z" "X" "T" "Y" as a replacement, but it depends entirely on what is happening around that point as to which char works the best. Other chars which work well in these situations are "K" "<" ">" "r" "L" "j" "J" and "I" because they all point in at least 3 directions. After practice, the anti-aliasing can be done as you are drawing the main outline. Not that it really makes any difference. That basically covers the outline techniques. The smaller details are the next, and final, step. Adding details isn't always necessary, but it will be in most cases. Eyes, noses, finger nails, switches, knobs, handles, plus a host of other things are usually confined to just one or two character spaces, so the choice of chars is quite important. Eyes are a common example. You have quite a few different characters available which work well as eyes, but it's up to you to decide which work best. You need to decide what "emotion" you want to portray, and then find an appropriate character. As some examples, I have used two "6"'s for a kangaroo, a "bd" combo for a horse, a pair of "r"'s for a giraffe and: -=b- :as the eye of an eagle. In each case, I tried many different combinations until I was happy with the selection: . /\ /| . , ___,A.A_ __ _____ ((.Y(! |\/| \ , 7"_/ / ~"-. \ |/ bd "n. ~"T( r r) Y -=b-. _) / 6~6, / _,"n | \ Y l c"~o \ \ _ +-. '\ | ~\ .| \_.-~"~--. ) \`-=--^-' ~~ | |`-' )/ \ \ ' Other details are equally important, and the same technique is used. Just trying different combinations of characters until a "solution" is found. Sometimes there is no optimum arrangement, so you either have to live with it, or rearrange things just enough to give you a fresh angle of attack. ____ .-~. /_"-._ This T-Rex head demonstrates how you can use / /_ "~o\ :Y the character shapes to an advantage. The "L" / : \~x. ` ') at the bottom joins three connections together | Y< ~-.__j quite well, as does the "Y" at the back of the : l l< /.-~ mouth. These are things too look out for when l /~\ \<|Y creating a picture, and by using the chars in '.-~\ \L| such a fashion, you can usually get quite a lot "--' of detail into a small area. Back to Contents 3. Small/Signature Art Smaller artwork requires a slightly different approach than the large pieces. Due to the smaller area, you aren't always able to recreate a picture perfectly, so a different frame of mind is needed. Take, for example, the kangaroo head above. The back of the neck should of course be curved, but this was not possible with only two characters. In smaller pics however, it's not always necessary to be that detailed, it is more important to focus on making the object immediately identifiable. Small ascii pictures usually start from a simple motif or idea. The way certain characters fit together often creates the idea, and once an idea is found, you have a base to work from. ___ {~._.~} This little koala pic is a good example of how a ( Y ) relatively simple collection of characters can ()~*~() produce a very "familiar" result. Some experimenting (_)-(_) was done with the eyes, "bow tie" and the bottom "-", with these being chosen simply because they worked the best. Different "eye" characters produced different emotional feelings (which is how the "Koala Collection" came about), but the simple "." resulted in the most familiar appearance. Remember, shape is the most important aspect of small ascii art. There are so many different shaped ascii characters available that there is bound to be one which fits the needs _ . of the picture. This example is a "mini" __CL\H--. Millennium Falcon. Since I'd already L__/_\H' \\--_- drawn a bigger one, I knew exactly what __L_(=): ]-_ _-- - shape it needed to be, and what features T__\ /H. //---- - it needed to make it look like the Falcon. ~^-H--' " Picking out the main features is a good step, and then find chars which closely resemble them. The blasters on top of the Falcon were well emulated by the "=" for example. The combination of "CL" worked perfectly as the cockpit, as did a simple ":" for the distinctive markings on it's back. Simplicity is the key in small art, but that doesn't necessarily make things any easier. Many things simply cannot be successfully drawn in small sizes, so a touch of planning can sometimes help. Back to Contents 4. Solid Art Solid ascii art differs from line art in that the resulting image is more of a "silhouette" rather than an outline. By using a "heavy" character such as: W M H 8 :you build up a basic silhouette (filled in outline), and then use other characters to anti- alias (smoothen) the image. "W" and "M" are the darkest characters in most character sets, but they do vary quite a lot and are a bit too bottom/top heavy which ruins the effect somewhat. "H" and "8" also produce patterns of similar darkness, but result in two different "looks". The "H" is more stark and rigid, whereas the "8" produces a more "bubbly" appearance (which prints up quite well apparently). WWWWWWWW MMMMMMMM HHHHHHHH 88888888 WWWWWWWW MMMMMMMM HHHHHHHH 88888888 WWWWWWWW MMMMMMMM HHHHHHHH 88888888 WWWWWWWW MMMMMMMM HHHHHHHH 88888888 I originally used "M" and "W" since they worked well with the font I once used, but now I use "H" because I like its consistency. Other people prefer "8", so it's really just a matter of personal taste. Indeed, remapping an image from one type into another is quite simple, and should not affect the picture at all. Different effects can be created by varying the chosen texture over various sections of the picture (shading). The choice of character can also be based on the subject matter, for example, if money were involved the obvious choice would be a "$". Try to avoid using "*" though, as it looks a bit cheesy (imho). Once the basic shape is defined with the chosen character, the anti- aliasing process is next. The most used chars are: d b P F 9 V T Y A U _ , . - * ^ ~ " ` ' n a o l L j J k [ ] ( ) : \ / | ! Each character has a purpose based on its shape, although there are cases where no character will produce perfect results. In these cases, you either have to make do as best you can, or remodel that particular area of the picture, thus giving you a fresh approach. Going back to the earlier "curve" examples, here they are in solid form: .adAHHHAbn. JHH dHHHHHHHHHHHb _.adHHH dHHHHHHHHHHHHHb ,AHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHH dHHHHHHHHH VHHHHHHHHHHHHHP JHHHHHHHHHH YHHHHHHHHHHHP _.adHHHHHHHHHHH "^YUHHHUP^" HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH "~" SPHERE CURVED HILL It's important to get a good understanding of how best to use the characters. The basic forms are as follows: _,.aomdAHAbmon.,_ For the upper curves. "~^*YUHUP*^~" For the lower curves. The characters: d b P :are all extremely useful, but there is no equivalent character for bottom/left. There is, however, four chars available which do a decent job: T Y V 9 .The 9 works well for *some* char sets, but generally it has a big hook at the bottom so isn't quite so useful. Notice how I've used "A" and "U" to smoothen the transistion from "H" to "d"/"b" (and "Y"/"P" respectively) even though the effect is quite subliminal. A minor detail, but it does help. I don't often use "_" in these types of pics because of the way it touches the top of the "H". It does come in handy sometimes though. Side curves require more of an "on the spot" approach. The chars: l [ ] : j i :all come in handy when trying to smoothen out vertical curves, and I've also seen "(" and ")" used (although I wouldn't use them myself). Consistency in contrast is very important. Adding details using the solid ascii technique is a bit harder than in line art because there isn't the same number of possible choices for each position. The letters: a n o :are all very useful because they are nice "solid" chars which only occupy the bottom half of the character space, but there is no good alternative for the top half. dHF^^^ See how the bottom arm fits in with the solid dHP appearance of the main part, yet the "^" (which dHBooan is the closest char available) doesn't look so beefy. Even the "^" varies across different char sets, so that leaves just: " ~ : which are of no use at all. In that particular case, it is necessary to expand the picture by one line: anpoan Note the use of the "p" to make the effect just dHP that little bit more effective. An "r" could also dHP work well at the end of each arm. Purely cosmetic dHBooan though. Note that if you're using "M" or "W", then "m" and "w" can be used to keep it consistent. Details aren't always as simple as that example though (unfortunately). HHHH aann .aoon. HHHHHHHHHHHHH aanndHHHHHHP" "^vaondAHHHHHP" HHHHHHH "~^YHHHHH "~^SHHHHH HHHHHHHHHH dHHHHHHb .adHHHHHHh, HHHHHH ~^VHHHP ~^VHHHP HH YHP "VP START HALF WAY FINISHED The different steps can be seen here. Starting by roughing out the shape (a wizards head incidentally) using the chosen character. Next, go over all the edges making all the obvious replacements. That means using: d P b Y V a n :plus the occasional: " ~ :if there's an obvious place for it. Just enough to give it some shape. The final stage requires a bit more work. Start with "A" and "U"/"V", and then the rest is purely experimentation. The "S" was chosen because it seemed to have the right shape, although there are many chars which could really go there. The curve section at the back required quite a lot of work. An "a" seems to be the best opposite of "n", and for long stretches, I like to use some "o"'s in there just to mix it up a bit. The: "^ :piece at the end was an obvious combination, so it was just a matter of finding a char to connect the "a" to the "^". As it turned out, "v" was custom made for that position. WMHI: .:IHb. I Smooth shading can be created by using MH[: .adAHHHI:. :H different chars to fade out at the edges, HI: .:IHHHHHI:' .jIH instead of the anti-aliasing (which Y: `:YHHI:' .:|IHM produces hard edges). Good "outer" characters are: . , : ; ' ` For the transition from solid to outer edge: I H A U V T Y | i j d b n a o [ ] :or basically anything that produces the desired effect. Both line and solid techniques can be combined together, resulting in a "comic book" look and feel. Each form of ascii art works well in certain circumstances, so why not use this to your advantage. Line art for the various outlines and small details, and solid art for large dark areas. Back to Contents 5. 3 Dimensional Art 3D ascii art is basically an extension of SIRDS, where you can create the illusion of depth on a flat surface. This is achieved by producing two slightly different versions of the one picture, and placing them a certain distance apart. . . Focus Point / \ / \ x Where the image appears / x \ --- --- __ The original pictures on the screen / \ / \ /\ Where your eyes are looking / \ O O OO Your eyes PLAN VIEW Although the scale and angles are a bit off, the basic principle can be seen from the above diagram (seen looking down). The two versions of the picture are located on the screen, but you don't look there. You need to focus on a point *past* the screen which produces a third image at "x". This resulting image occurs because of the way eyes work. They can only focus on one "depth" at a time, and anything either further away or closer becomes blurred. These "blurs" are just two different views of the one object produced by the two eyes seeing different things. Try this: stand three feet from a wall. Now hold two fingers up about one foot from your face, and about 1.5 centimeters apart. Look between your fingers, and focus onto the wall. Keep focus on the wall, but look into the foreground at your fingers. You should see a ghost image from both fingers converging into the center. The trick is to make the two ghost images overlap each other resulting in (hopefully) one solid image. This image should appear at a different level than the originals: | | | | | | | | | | TWO FINGERS RESULTING IMAGE The results from this experiment won't be 100% perfect since your two fingers are likely to be different, but it is a good way to understand the concept. With a little practice, you should be able to focus on real 3D pictures without too much effort. --- --- Note that if you cross your eyes instead of using the \ / above technique, you actually see the picture in reverse. \/ This diagram shows the effect from above, and the resulting /\ image will appear where the lines cross over. Since most / \ stereograms (STARE-eograms?) are created to go into the / \ screen, looking at them this way will produce an incorrect O O vision (and is somewhat harder on the eyes). That's the hard part out of the way, now a bit about how to create them. Getting back to the little koala example (which is a perfect size for this type of work), lets bring him into 3 dimensions. X X Here I have placed two koalas 10 chars ___ ___ apart from each other. Generally, a good {~._.~} {~._.~} distance would be between 7 and 15 chars, ( Y ) ( Y ) although you can use any distance you like. ()~*~() ()~*~() Values outside those bounds tend to be (_)-(_) (_)-(_) difficult to focus on however. The distance determines how much the resulting image sits "into" the screen. If the distance is 0 (ie. no separation), the image is neutral which means it appears -at- the screen. As the distance is increased, the resulting image appears further -into- the screen. By having many koalas laid out across the screen (all separated by the same distance), the effect becomes slightly easier to focus on. Any extra layers should then be added across the whole picture, with the result being quite effective. The picture is quite boring so far, with just one layer of 3D being created, so the next thing to do is to add another layer or two. The "tried and tested" approach is to add a "pole" in front of him, and since we want it -in front- of the existing layer, each pole should be 9 chars apart: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ (_) (_) (_) (_) (_) (_) (_) (_) H___ H ___ H ___ H ___ H ___ H ___H __H {H._.~} H~._.~} H{~._.~} H {~._.~}H {~._.~H {~._.H} {~._H~} H Y ) H( Y ) H ( Y ) H ( Y ) H ( Y )H ( Y H ( YH) (H~*~() H)~*~() H()~*~() H ()~*~()H ()~*~(H ()~*~H) ()~*H() (H)-(_) H_)-(_) H(_)-(_) H (_)-(_)H (_)-(_H (_)-(H) (_)-H_) H H H H H H H H ~"~~~~~~~~"~~~~~~~~"~~~~~~~~"~~~~~~~~"~~~~~~~~"~~~~~~~~"~~~~~~~~"~~ Notice that since the pole is to appear in front of the koala, it actually replaces the koala where they overlap. Here's the same pic except the pole appears behind the koala: _ _ _ _ _ _ (_) (_) (_) (_) (_) (_) ___ H ___ H ___ H ___ H ___ H ___ H___ {~._.~} {~._.~}H {~._.~} H {~._.~} H{~._.~} {~._.~} {~._.~} ( Y )H ( Y ) H ( Y ) H ( Y ) H ( Y ) H( Y ) ( Y ) ()~*~() ()~*~()H ()~*~() H ()~*~() H()~*~() ()~*~() ()~*~() (_)-(_) (_)-(_)H (_)-(_) H (_)-(_) H(_)-(_) (_)-(_) (_)-(_) H H H H H H ~~~~~~"~~~~~~~~~~"~~~~~~~~~~"~~~~~~~~~~"~~~~~~~~~~"~~~~~~~~~~"~~~~~ Now, since the pole is to appear behind the koala, its chars do not write over the koala where they overlap. The poles here are 11 chars apart, so appear one "step" behind the koala. All layers are built like this, and of course I could have the poles both behind and in front of the koala in the same picture. Here's a multi-layer example: _ _ .-~ \ .-~ \ / \ _ / \ _ ~x .-~_)_ ~x .-~_)_ This picture has 3 distinct layers: ~>x".-~ ~-. ~x".-~ ~-. the hat, head and face. There are ( / \ ( / \ many other examples of 3D ascii T o o Y T o o Y around, plus there are programs l < ! l < ! available for the easy creation \ .__/ / \ ._/ / of SIRDS. "-.___.-' "-.___.-' A quick examination of the above picture shows that the head (circle), part of the hat and a part of the mouth are all 15 characters apart. The rest of the face is just 14 chars apart, and the top section of the hat is 16 chars apart. Note that all this information is from pure observation, so it may not be 100% accurate. Back to Contents 6. Conclusion Perhaps there's more to ascii art than meets the eye? Before writing this, I . had no idea just how much thought goes /\ /l into creating ascii pictures, and I ((.Y(! imagine that I haven't even begun to \ |/ cover it all. / 6~6, \ _ +-. Analyzing the work of other people is \`-=--^-' a great way to learn what works, and \ \ what doesn't. Analyzing "art" may seem _/ \ like a strange concept, but it does ( . Y open your awareness to the art form, and /"\ `--^--v--. it's a great way to learn the various / _ `--"T~\/~\/ techniques. I hope that you have found / " ~\. ! my ideas about ascii interesting. _ Y Y./' Y^| | |~~7 In the end however, it's up to the | l | / ./' individual artist to work the way they | `L | Y .^/~T want to, and not necessarily the way | l ! | |/| | -Row someone else would do it. Finding | .`\/' | Y | ! your own style is all part of the fun, l "~ j l j_L______ and perhaps this text will aid people \,____{ __"~ __ ,\_,\_ in finding that style. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ :D Back to Contents 7. Quick Plug Check out my ascii art collection v1.2 (it's on the various ascii FTP sites around). Collection 2 coming soon(ish). -------------------------[ Sumaleth Productions 1994 ]----------------------- File: academy/tutorials/tut_flump.txt https://web.archive.org/web/20071116040106/http://www.kersbergen.com/flump/howto.html ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Getting Started If you want to make ascii art the first thing you should know is that you don't need a special program, or special skills to make it with. All you need is somewhere to type text into - your e-mail program, notepad, wordpad, that sort of thing - and an idea of what you want to draw. There are no secrets or rules other than the following: 1.) Use a non-proportional or fixed width font. Click HERE for a page on this site that will tell you what they are, or ask me for the text version of the page via e-mail. 2.) Don't use tabs!! Always, but always use the space bar (or your cursor keys/ mouse if the program you're typing in supports that) for empty spaces. The reason for this is that different computers and programs interperet the size of a tab space differently, so although what you see on your screen looks fine, on someone else's your pic may look all split up. 3.) Only use the keyboard characters on an American standard keyboard. That means all the letters, numbers and punctuation that you can see printed on the keyboard keys. You can use the shift key, but don't use the alt key to make characters. The reason for this is similar to that for not using tabs - different computers interperet alternative characters in different ways. The idea behind ascii is that all computers can read it because it's made up of characters that all computers will recognise. 4.) Don't leave empty spaces at the end of each line. Make sure every line that you type ends on the last character, and not a few spaces after it. This can cause problems on other systems, with line wrapping and so on. Your First Ascii The best way to make a start is to take someone else's picture and see if you can copy it. That way you get a feel for how you can use different characters. We'll start easy. Try copying these shapes, which only use the characters: / \ | _ ___ ___ | | /\ / \ |___| /__\ \___/ Easy huh? Now try making the same shapes again using the characters: - " . , ` : > < This is what I came up with: .---. . .--. : : .' `. < > "---" "---" `--' Bit more tricky, and it doesn't look as neat, but some of these characters, and knowing how you can use them can come in very handy at times, which we'll see later. Have a go at copying these, just for practice. Change them if you like: _ _ __ _ _ .^._ __ | |_| |_.' `._| |_| | /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ / \| \ \ | _ _ _ _ | / \/ \/ \/ \ .' `. /_____V / / |_| |_| `.__.' |_| |_| / /\ /\ /\ /\ \ < > |[]_[]| \ \ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ `. .' | |+| | / / \/ `"""""' \_\ Curves It's handy to know where the characters 'sit' on each line. Are they at the top, in the middle or on the bottom of the line? A couple of ascii characters vary in their position from computer to computer, but mostly they all sit in the same place. Have a go yourself on your keyboard. Here are some examples. Top of line: " ` ' Top or middle of line: ^ * ~ = Middle of line: - + Bottom of line: _ . , You can use all these characters on one line to make a pattern, like these: _.,-=~+"^'`*`'^"+~=-,._.,-=~+"^'`*`'^"+~=-,._.,-=~+"^'`*`'^"+~=-,._ "^`'*-=~+,._.,+~=-*'`^"^`'*-=~+,._.,+~=-*'`^"^`'*-=~+,._.,+~=-*'`^" Now try making a simple sig with a decorative border, using all the characters we've met so far. This is what I came up with: _________________________ ..,,++~~--==**''``^^"" Hayley Jane wakenshaw ""^^``''**==--~~++,,.. /|\ flump@quadrant.xs4all.nl /|\ < : > Flump's Fantastic Ascii Collection http://www.xs4all.nl/~klr < : > \|/ "Daddy.. why doesn't the magnet pick up your floppy disks?..." \|/ ""^^''``**--==~~++,,.._________________________..,,++~~==--**``''^^"" Using The Other Characters The other ascii characters fall into three categories. Either they're the full height of the line or they're half height. Capitals and numbers are always full height. Compare them to some of the others - which are half height, and which are full height? Some examples: Full height: A 7 % @ ! # ) ; & $ ] } | / > l t f k h d ? Half height: a o v z And then there's the 3rd sort. The characters that look like half height, but sit a little lower on the line, like they would in handwriting. These are: j g y p q And all together they can make a slight curve, just like the others: pqyjgacoevA8!@)lf$%;$fl(@!8AveocagjypqacoevA8!@)lf$%;$fl(@!8Aveoc Lines and Diagonals There are three basic lines to any picture - straight (either horizontally, or vertically), diagonal, and the third is the curve, which includes circles. We'll look at straight and diagonal lines first. Horizontal and vertical lines are simple in ascii - here are some examples: Horizontal: 8888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888 """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" ---------------------------------------------------------- __________________________________________________________ .......................................................... Vertical: | 8 : ! 1 I | 8 : ! 1 I | 8 : ! 1 I | 8 : ! 1 I | 8 : ! 1 I | 8 : ! 1 I Diagonals are a bit more tricky. You can make simple ones using the / and \ keys. Diagonals with other gradients need a technique similar to that used to make slight curves. Experiment yourself to see how you can make different angles. Here are some examples to start you off: / .' _,-' __ / .' _,-' __..--'' / .' _,-' __..'' / .' _,-' __..--'' / .' _,-' __..--'' / .' _,-' __..--'' ____....----""" / .' _,-' __..--'' ____....----"""" / .' ,-' __..--'' ____....----"""" Circles By now we've looked at the basic characters, character height, slight curves, lines, and slopes. The last thing to look at is what many people who make ascii have trouble with: circles. You're half way there already, though, because ascii circles are basically a mix of vertical and horizontal lines, slopes or diagonals, and curves. After a little practice, you'll get a feel for making different sized circles - I have a basic set of circles in a file that I refer to when I need a circular or rounded shape in an ascii pic, so now I can make them easily in all sorts of sizes. Start making small circles - how many ways can you think of to make a circle in under 5 lines? The bigger the circle the more rounded it can be, but try making circles of different sizes and see what you come up with. These are mine: __ _ /""\ / \ 1 line: O () 2 lines: (_) \__/ 3 lines: \__/ ____ ___ .-''-. .' `. 4 lines: / \ 5 lines: / \ 6 lines: / \ | | | | | | \___/ \ / \ / `-..-' `.____.' _.-""""-._ 9 lines: .' `. / \ | | | | | | \ / `._ _.' `-....-' That's the basic characters, and what you can do with them. Play with them, see what patterns and ascii scribbles you can make. Have a go at taking one of my pics, or another ascii pic from some of the excellent sites around, and copy it. Then change it! See how you can use the characters to make the picture look different. Can you make the expression on a face change? Can you make an ascii person fatter, thinner, taller, shorter? Give Barney the dinosaur a moustache, or, much better, multiple wounds? :-) This is how I learned. Many of my first efforts were absolutely dreadful. So I looked at how someone else had made the same sort of picture and learned from it. And I still do - probably why people often say my style is very similar to Joan Stark's! To get you started, cut and paste this head into wherever you want to draw your ascii, and give it a face. Add a hat or a body. Or make the hair shorter or longer. Make it a clown or a devil! ,-.,~~. ,'///||\\`. ///(((||)))\\. ((( ))) _))) |(_ ._//\ /\\_. `-'_/`-._.-'\-`-' ' \/=._.=\/ hjw Moving Forward That's all the boring stuff about technique over. :-) What's coming up is a step by step demo of how I go about turning a picture into ascii. When you first start, it's always a good idea to try to draw something simple. Gromit the dog is made up of very simple shapes - just ovals and circles, so I'll use him as an example. [wallgromsm] To start a picture, I look for the simplest or most prominent feature of whatever I'm trying to draw. In Gromit's case, I reckon it's his nose. :-) I'll try the 2 line circle and see where that takes me. After I've drawn his nose I'll see if I can draw the shape of his head around it: ___ / \ | | / _ \ | (_) | \ / `---' Hmm.. don't like that - the top of his head isn't tall enough, but if I make it any longer it looks too narrow. If I make it wider, then the nose looks too small.... ____ / \ | | | | / _ \ | (_) | \ / `----' .... and to put the nose in the center, I'll have to make it yet another character wider....... _____ / \ | | | | / _ \ | (_) | \ / `-----' .. and though it looks like it would make a nice dog, it's not Gromit, really is it? So I'll make his nose a bit bigger; 3 lines this time, and try the face shape again. ____ ." ". / \ | | | | / __ \ | / \ | | \__/ | \ / `.____.' Yep - that's more like it. :-) Next I usually try to fit the eyes in. ____ ." ". / __ __ \ |/()\/()\| |\__/\__/| / __ \ | / \ | | \__/ | \ / `.____.' Nope. Don't like those. Normally I like to make eyes complete circles, or just use a couple of characters like "9 9" or "e e".But those would be too small. And these eyes are too big and don't look round enough. I'll try two lines instead. ____ ." ". / \ | _ _ | | (O)(O) | / __ \ | / \ | | \__/ | \ / `.____.' Much better.Now to add the ears. .-""-. .-""-. / -.`. ____ .' _ \ \ .' \ `" "' ,' \ / `-' / \ `-' | _ _ | | (O)(O) | / __ \ | / \ | | \__/ | \ / `.____.' hjw There are gaps left that look untidy though. This is where I couldn't get the characters to fit together. Often you can solve this by using a letter. This is about the only time I use letters and numbers apart from doing small details like eyes. I'll mess around with my favourite 'connecting' characters like: "j" "v" "V" "X" "x" "7" "i" "y" "Y". I'll use the "Y" I think, because it has the right angles in the right places to connect the ears to the head. :-) .-""-. .-""-. / -.`. ____ .' _ \ \ .' \ `" "' ,' \ / `-' Y Y `-' | _ _ | | (O)(O) | / __ \ | / \ | | \__/ | \ / `.____.' hjw Last stage is to add the little details, and tidy up any messy or unclear bits. I don't like that left ear at the minute, so I'll, change that. But in the final version that goes on the web site I might decide to change it back. ;-) Have a last check to make sure he actually looks like the picture I've been working on, ask Robbie my fiance if he can tell what it is. If the Robbie test succeeds, then I hit the save button, and start looking for something else to draw. :-) .-""-. .-""-. / ,.`. ____ .' _ \ \ / \ `" "' ,' \ / `-' Y Y `-' | _ _ | | (O)(O) | / __ \ [wallgromsm] | /# \ | | \__/ | \ / `.____.' --" "-- hjw These are only the basics. There are other techniques such as shading, making solid style ascii, anti-aliasing (making solid style ascii look smoother). But I don't use those much so I'm not qualified to explain them. But this info should be enough to get you started. :-) If all else fails, you can always have a look at some of the other ascii art tutorials and hints available. There are about 7 that I know of, but the following three are the ones that I found useful and not too technical: Daniel Au's Rowan Crawford's Joan Stark's ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ File: academy/tutorials/tut_haavisto.txt https://www.ludd.ltu.se/~vk/pics/ascii/junkyard/techstuff/tutorials/Maija_Haavisto.html This tutorial is written by Maija Haavisto (old homepage, and another homepage) DiamonDie's ASCII art tutorial Table of contents 1 Introduction 2 Types of ASCII art 2.1 Lineart 2.2 Solid 2.3 Grayscale 2.4 Camelized 2.5 Others 3 Drawing ASCII art 3.1 Starting out 3.2 Lineart 3.3 Solid art 3.4 Grayscale 3.5 Antialiasing 3.6 Tracing 3.7 Aspect ratio 3.8 Difficulties and limitations 3.9 Perspective, 3D and isometric ASCII 3.10 Textures and materials 3.11 Lighting and shadow 3.12 Uses for different characters 4 Fixed-width fonts 4.1 Courier New 4.2 DOS font 4.3 Topaz New 4.4 Lucida Console 4.5 Fixedsys 4.6 Arial Alternative 4.7 MS Gothic 4.8 Andale Mono (aka Monotype.com) 5 ASCII art software 5.1 JavE 5.2 FIGlet 5.3 TheDraw/Aciddraw 5.4 Acidview 5.5 PabloDraw 6 Other stuff 6.1 ASCII map 6.2 Displaying ASCII art on web pages 6.3 Coloring ASCII art 6.4 Demoscene ASCII art 6.5 ASCII art culture and etiquette 1 Introduction ASCII is an acronym of "American Standard Code for Information Interchange". ASCII art means art made out of different characters in the ASCII map and can thus be represented in plain text format. It cannot include extended characters or text formatting such as bold or italics. ASCII art is always done on a fixed-width font like Courier New or Fixedsys, never on a proportional font like Arial or Times New Roman. It can be made in Notepad or MS-DOS Edit, but there are also some specific programs for making ASCII art. And no, I'm not talking about ASCII converters. People often comment on ASCII art by saying "Wow, that is so amazing, I'd never have the patience to make something like that". I don't get it. Why do they think ASCII art requires so much patience? I can make a decent fullscreen ASCII in an hour (even if it sometimes takes ten hours). It takes me at least fifteen hours to draw a decent fullscreen CG picture. ASCII art isn't easy and it does require skill, but you don't have to care about things like brush strokes or colors and usually not about shading either. In a way it is a lot like pixel art. When I started pixeling it felt very familiar due to my ASCII and ANSI experience. Pixel artists will probably experience a similar reaction when they start drawing ASCII. You don't have to have great drawing skills to be a good ASCII artist. I, for instance, suck at drawing, I can paint but I can't do the sketch like thing at all. ASCII sketching is practically something non-existant, but if this interests you, nothing stops you from trying this new style. Some people wonder what's the point. What's the point in making art in general? I think limitations are what makes art interesting and feeds the creative mind. ASCII art probably isn't something that you encounter in an art museum (which is regrettable), it's more like everyday art. I guess it has something in common with pop art. ASCII art can be sent via email or to Usenet newsgroups, it can be used on IRC and many chatrooms (do that with caution, though). You can include ASCII art in your signature or login screen or print it out with your old matrix printer. It can be used for representing game situations, graphs or molecular models. I've heard opinions of ASCII art not being art but graphical design, but I disagree with that. Design is usually considered to be something functional, such as advertisements or interfaces, while visual art is something you can hang on your walls. ASCII art usually isn't functional but aesthetical. I know people who have ASCII pictures hanging on their walls. There are other ASCII tutorials, but I decided there's still room for another one. Many of the others are outdated, some are even more than 10 years old. They also feature slightly different techniques and lack some of the parts that my tutorial focuses on. This turned out perhaps more like a ASCII drawing/ culture FAQ than an actual tutorial, but I hope it will still be useful. 2 Types of ASCII art 2.1 Lineart Lineart is just what its name implies, things are represented with (usually thin) outlines, sometimes dotty, sometimes consisting mostly of slashes, underscores and pipes. Lineart also includes most FIGlet fonts and demoscene logos. Suitable for both huge images and tiny pictures. .-"""-. ' \ |,. ,-. | |()L( ()| | |,' `".| | |.___.',| ` .j `--"' ` `. / ' ' \ / / ` `. / / ` . / / l | . , | | ,"`. .| | _.' ``. | `..-'l | `.`, | `. | `. __.j ) |__ |--""___| ,-' `"--...,+"""" `._,.-' mh Penguin by DiamonDie (2002?) 2.2 Solid Solid art is the "opposite" of lineart, it's not outlined but filled and flat-shaded. It's often best fit on mid-sized and large pictures, though it can also work for small pieces, such as the heart here. Often it looks better than lineart, simply for the fact that it's not as "thin". Solid art is often used for logos, ornament designs and text, but it fits almost any kind of subject. It's not very well suited for faces though. ,o8o, ,o8o, ,888888,888888, 888888888888888 888888888888888 `8888888888888' `888888888' `88888' `8' Heart by DiamonDie (1997) 2.3 Grayscale Grayscale is like solid art, but it consists of many different characters that are used to portrays lighter and darker areas, making it the most suitable kind of ASCII for picturing faces. It is usually best viewed white on black, such as the example below (people using most graphical browsers can select it with a mouse or press Ctrl-A to see it in inverse color). Most converters create grayscale art, though rather messy kind with often no antialiasing. Grayscale could be considered the most difficult of all ASCII techniques. .,,,yyyy@@yyyyy,,, ,ytS$$CCCCCCCCCCCCCCC?III;,. .yt$$$$$$$$CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCIIIIII;. ,4$$$$$$$$$$$$$$SCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC?IIIII; y$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCIIII, ,$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$CCCCCCCCCCCCCCIIII: l$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$CCCCCCCCCCCCIIIIi t$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$CCCCCCCCCCCCIIII: .l$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$SCCCCCCCCCCCCCIIII, i d$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$SCCCCCCCCCCCCCIIIII. ;I, $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$SSCCCCCCCCCCCCCIIIIIII .III j$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$SSCCCCCCCCCCCCCCIIIIIIIi.II; ]$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$P"' `"^?CCCCCCCCCCIIIIIIIIIIIII l$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$P"'' .,.. `;?CCCCCCC?IIIIIIIIII; .y%* l$$$$$$$$$$$$SP" ,yS$$$$$$Shy..`"IICCCCCCII: :: 4C7; \ $$$$$$$$$$$SP. .;;$$$SCCCCCSSCCCCSb: ICCCCCCCII; '' liC$ClCC;;l $$$$$$$$$$$$I::lIIIICCSSSSSSCCCCCCCCCCIICCCCCCCI ICCC$lCC??;b P"^^^48$$$$$$SSIII' `Ii : y,"ICCCS$SCCCCCCCCCCI ICl"l "7SSbl. : l$$8888II66 ,?$b,yySIIICC$$$$$$$$SCCCCCCCI ?CCb l JCC$il : . ,$$$$$$CCCC$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$CCCCCCI ICS$li$$SCC?l `SS",+.$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$CCCCCCI !?S$ ;I$$SCCP "' : S$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$CCCCCCI ICSCS$$$$$I ;:6$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$CCCCCCI `?C$$$$P `$$$$$$$$$$S$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$CCCCCCI `""""' j$$$$$$$$$SCCS$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$CCCCCI $$$$$$$$$$$$$CI$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$SCCCCCI; j$$$$$$$$$$SS$CI$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$SSCCCCCIi 7$$$$T7"`,yyiIIC$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$SSSSCCCC?i "4$SC**7"""-:47$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$SSSSCCCCCI 7I . ,';' ";7ICS$$$$$$$$$C$S$$$$$CCCCl : jy.,jyyjCCCCi ..i."7C$$$$$$C$CS$S$$$SCCC?' ; : d$$$$CCC7?"""""?7CiiCS$$$$SCCCC$S$$$$CCCC; i, .CC,]CCSSSCCSCCCIiIiICS$$$SSCCCCS$$$$SCC? .| :`j$$$$$$$$SCCCC$$$CICS$$SCCCCCCCC$CC?; iI. :l$$$$$$$CCCCCS$$$$C?iCCCCCCCCC7"'., .iII, :C?"~~ ,CCC$$$IiIiCCCCCCC? ' ,IIIII :$7 ,_,jS$$$$CIiIi?iCCC?? iI?CCCII .; :;i:;;?S???iiIiIi?i' iII?CCCCCII. ; ';' ?lCi??i;i;; iI?CCCCCCCCIIi : ;? ;I" iIIICCSCCCCCCCCIIl ; .,iiI?CCCC$$$$$SSCCCCCCIi I, II; '. _,. ,i,IIII?CCCCCS$$$$$$SSSCCCCIIIIIIIII' ' ~ + =- - ' ~ ` SCCIIIIII???CCCCS$$$$$$$$$$$SCCCCCCC?I" l$$CCCCCCCCCCCCS$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$SCCC"` It Figures by `nemoorange 2.4 Camelized Camelized ASCII art isn't very popular, even though it already appeared in the book Alice in Wonderland. It is usually poetry (sometimes prose) made into the shape of an object, often an animal. There are a couple of different techniques for making the shapes. Some people use extra spacing to achieve lines of required length, others wrap words from the middle or use extra characters. JavE has a feature for camelized ASCII. 2.5 Others There are variations of the previously listed styles, such as combination of solid and lineart (my favorite type of ASCII), "solid lineart" (made out of heavy outlines in solid style) and tiny ASCII, such as smileys and other very small pictures. ASCII animations are made for terminals or nowadays usually in JavaScript, they can be made in any of these styles, but are usually in lineart. There are also ASCII stereograms and many other wicked things. Some people list lettering, signature art, illustrated stories and 3D as their own genres, but they're usually just variations of line art (sometimes solid or grayscale). Things that can be erroneously believed to be ASCII art include Shift_JIS art (text art using Japanese characters), typographic pictures, AOL macros (made in Arial font and often including extended characters), ANSI and most of demoscene "ASCII art". Another thing that definitely isn't ASCII art is those horrid HTML conversions that are usually composed of 1s and 0s and would have absolutely no shape with the color removed. These are sometimes called "text art" or "character art", even though both terms can be considered slightly misleading. I don't believe using a converter without any editing is really creating ASCII art. It's image manipulation. People sometimes confuse ASCII and ANSI and call either of them "ANSII". What ANSI really is could be described as an extension to ASCII, allowing the use of extended MS-DOS characters (such as so called "raster blocks") and 16 colors. It was commonly used in the BBS (Bulletin Board system) world, but many people still keep drawing ANSI pictures, even though MS-DOS is hardly used any more and the Internet has largely killed off BBSes. 3. Drawing ASCII art 3.1 Starting out Start up JavE or your favorite text editor. Think about what you want to draw and what could be a good subject for your first ASCII. Try not to pick anything too difficult, such as celebrities. Many people choose a house as their first picture, but I think it's a little boring subject. Others attempt a face, but that's much harder. Animals, plants and household objects often turn out to be a good choice. You can either draw a single object or a scene, like a house, a tree and some birds. A reference picture may be helpful. You could also use a technique called tracing which is explained later. Looking at other people's ASCIIs is just as important as drawing your own, because you'll learn a lot of different techniques just by looking at ASCII art. How do people achieve slanted lines, how do they make fur look like fur and what's the secret of smooth curves? Also remember the rules of normal art, like that eyes are located in the middle of the head, not on the top. People are about 7-8 heads tall, unless you're drawing a comic character. Houses usually aren't placed on top of the ground, but on the ground. Perspective really improves pictures of cubic objects. A house or a box without a perspective is pretty much just a rectangle, not very interesting. 3.2 Lineart Lineart is a good choice for an ASCII beginner. It might be a good idea to do a rough "sketch" first. Draw the outline of your object and see if it bears any resemblance to your model. Try to avoid using only straight lines and slashes, that makes your picture look dull and awkward. Instead try commas, periods, hyphens and apostrophes. It might be a good idea to sketch with periods first and then change some of them to colons or semicolons, some to apostrophes and then extend that. Forget about shading, reflections and stuff like that. Try using as many different characters as you can without getting silly results. You can get more detail with lineart than with solid technique, but you still might have to give up some for a better result. If you're drawing a face, you don't have to draw every single wrinkle and you might skip the eyelashes too. 3.3 Solid art Not many people start out with solid ASCII, but nothing says you can't do that. Filled pictures are no harder to make than outlined ones, it just doesn't fit for houses and faces very well. It's usually a good idea not to use outlines with solid art. Some people use a different character for every area of the picture, but I think it's better to stick with one or a few filler characters. Antialiasing is very important in solid art. 3.4 Grayscale Grayscale ASCII is difficult to draw, not recommended for beginners, even though I know people who have started off with it with fine results. You need a good eye for light and shadow and a good reference photo is a must, you may want to increase the contrast of it. Picking the right set of characters is crucial, remember that the "lightness" of some characters varies greatly between fonts. Take a look at existing grayscale ASCII art or even converted pictures to get inspiration for good character sets. Don't start out too small, 80x25 is probably the minimum you want to attempt and 80x50 is better. 3.5 Antialiasing Antialiasing doesn't really apply for lineart the same way it applies for solid and grayscale, but I think smooth edges are one of the most important things in a solid ASCII picture (unless you're aiming for a different impression). Often grayscale is drawn without any empty spaces in the picture, but sometimes without a background and that's when you really need antialiasing. Simple antialiasing is actually very easy to do and can often be achieved with periods/commas and apostrophes/accents/quotation marks alone. Just add these when there's a rough corner and it looks much better. Sometimes you may want to use more characters. I use d, b and n (sometimes m) for the upper parts of objects and + for lower parts, the plus doesn't look too good, but it's the best I've found. q and p can be used to match d and b, but they hang lower. P is better, but it has no equivalent for the left side. Demoscene artists often use a wider variety of antialiasing characters, such as 7, 4, \, / and %. 88888 88888888888 8888888888888 8888888888888 8888888888888 88888888888 88888 A filled circle without antialiasing .nd888bn. .d888888888b. 8888888888888 8888888888888 8888888888888 `+888888888+' `"+888+"' The same circle with antialiasing 3.6 Tracing In the ancient times, people sometimes drew/copied the picture on a transparency first, which they taped on the screen to be able to trace the image as well as possible. I used this technique once, when I needed to make an ASCII out of a map and first I traced the picture from a book, but I didn't have a transparency so I used a plastic bag, perhaps needless to say the results weren't excellent. When Netscape Composer came out, some people figured out that they could just set the image file as the page background and draw over it. Now we have JavE, which has a particular function just for this, you can set the display size and aspect ratio of the image file and apply some brightness/contrast tweaks. 3.7 Aspect ratio Aspect ratio is something to pay attention to, particularly because of the differences between the fonts. Practically all fonts are taller than they're wide, so a picture of 10 lines and 10 columns probably won't look rectangular. Fixed-width fonts in general are of roughly the same width, but Topaz New is considerably more narrow, while Courier and its descendants are very fat. Most people have their web browsers set to use Courier, so some pictures may look unneededly fat, but this is partly unavoidable. Just pay attention to this if you're drawing ASCII for a particular purpose or if you're using Courier or Topaz to draw. One way to solve this is not to draw pictures that are supposed to be exactly circular or square and a different angle can help too. One of my ASCII pictures looks just fine in both 80x25 and 80x50 fullscreen resolutions, even though the 80x50 font is twice as wide. 3.8 Difficulties and limitations Some things are very hard to do in ASCII, some of these are obvious and some not so obvious. Slanted, almost vertical lines are very hard and usually end up looking stupid, so it's a good idea to avoid them whenever possible. Completely straight vertical lines are often better. The same problem doesn't apply for slanted horizontal lines at all, those are very easy to do once you learn to use different characters correctly. Things with a high resolution/detail are also hard, things like small spirals. That's why you sometimes need to drop the detail (or draw the picture in a bigger resolution). You also can't properly represent blurriness or softness, or at least that's extremely difficult. You can do some optical illusions in ASCII, such as stereograms. Magic eye pictures are probably not possible, excluding very high resolutions. 3.9 Perspective, 3D and isometric ASCII Some ASCII pictures feature a perspective, but it's often a very simple one and limited to lines. In a way, a lot of ASCII art could be called naivistic. Even a simple perspective improves the picture, though. A good way for creating a perspective is drawing the lines so that they would continue to this imaginary perspective point, which can be located in the middle of the picture or elsewhere. Isometric ASCII art exists too. JavE has a feature that can render 3D shapes in ASCII art, as wireframes or with a simple lighting. .:. .::'. : : : '. .' : : '. .' : : '. : : : '. .: : : : .' : : '. .' : : : : : : '. .' : : '. .' : ...:. '. : ......::''''' '''... '. ':'' : '''... '. '. : ''':. '. : ...''' '. : ...''' '. : ...'''' '. : ...''' ':.''' A wireframe pyramid by JavE 4.0 Textures and materials Textures and materials aren't commonly seen in ASCII art, if you don't count brick walls and hair. Plastic, metal, wood and skin all look alike in ASCII. Hairy and spiky textures can be done and often artists use different kinds of characters for different areas, like dots for clouds and lines for more solid objects. Experimenting with textures can lead to interesting results. 4.1 Lighting and shadow Light isn't usually present in ASCII pictures, with the exception of grayscale. Reflections sometimes work, but normal shadows often end up looking clumsy. Some artists use slight shading in their line art, usually with periods and colons. It might a good idea to forget about highlights when drawing eyes (and perhaps hair too). Just pretend that the ASCII world lives in ambient lighting without separate light sources. 4.2 Uses for different characters ! used sometimes in lineart and solid style, but the character is very thin in some fonts and fat in some others > sometimes useful for lineart, but the angle varies # used sometimes as the filler character in solid style, not often used in lineart except for tiny images $ a common filler character (especially in demoscene art) and common in grayscale as well, but the brightness of this characters varies in different fonts % I've seen it used as a filler too, but the looks it vary a lot as well, especially between DOS and Windows & not commonly used due to its problematic shape ' used for all styles, the only problem is that sometimes it is a tiny straight line, sometimes more like a little slash ( used for lineart, sometimes solid style too, the plumpiness varies a bit ) -"- * used in line art and solid, but be wary as the size and placement of this character varies a lot, so it's usually not a good filler + not so common in line art, but I love using it in solid art because it's the only mid-sized character that doesn't reach to the bottom of the line , used in all styles, sometimes located higher than the period, sometimes not - used in most styles, has no problems associated with it . used in all styles / used mostly in lineart, the slantedness varies (especially between DOS and Windows) 0 not commonly used, the problem is that sometimes it's struck through, sometimes not, O is better 1 not commonly used 2 not commonly used 3 not commonly used 4 not commonly used 5 not commonly used 6 used in solid style, sometimes grayscale and lineart, useful for little eyes 7 useful for some shapes of lineart, sometimes solid style too 8 a great filler for solid style, not much used in lineart 9 used in solid style, sometimes grayscale and lineart, useful for little eyes : useful for lineart and the edges of solid style ; useful for lineart and the edges of solid style < sometimes useful for lineart, but the angle varies = sometimes used for lines > sometimes useful for lineart, but the angle varies ? mostly used in lineart @ useful as a solid filler and often for lineart too, especially the eyes. Shape varies, but usually that doesn't cause problems A useful for angular shapes, sometimes has serif though B not commonly used, sometimes seen as a solid filler C useful for lineart in eyes, noses and stuff like that, sometimes seen as a solid filler D sometimes used in lineart E not commonly used F used in vertical lines in some line art styles G not commonly used H sometimes seen as a solid filler I sometimes used for vertical lines, but remember that it may be serif and thus look awkward J used in slanted vertical lines in some line art styles K used in slanted vertical lines in some line art styles L used for angles and sometimes in vertical lines M common solid style filler together with its lighter version N N common solid style filler together with M O usually the best choice for small round shapes, sometimes used in solid style P good for antialiasing solid style Q sometimes used for eyes R not commonly used S sometimes used as a solid style filler T sometimes used in lineart U sometimes used in lineart V used in connecting two diagonal lines, something that doesn't look too good in all fonts W common solid style filler X sometimes used as a solid style filler or for connecting diagonal lines Y used in connecting diagonal lines and in some styles also for vertical lines and other things Z not commonly used a sometimes used as eyes or as a solid style antialiaser b good for solid antialiasing (the pair is d) c sometimes used as eyes/noses or as a solid style antialiaser d a common solid style antialiaser e sometimes used as eyes or as a solid style antialiaser f sometimes used for slanted vertical lines g not commonly used h sometimes used as a solid style filler or antialiasing i not commonly used j useful for slanted vertical lines, sometimes antialiasing too k used in slanted vertical lines in some line art styles l for vertical lines in lineart, sometimes solid antialiasing too m good for solid antialiasing n good for solid antialiasing o for lineart and solid antialiasing p good for solid antialiasing (the pair is q), sometimes P is better even though it doesn't have a symmetric pair r sometimes used in lineart s sometimes used for solid antialiasing t sometimes used in lineart u sometimes used in lineart v sometimes used in lineart, though might suffer from the same problem as V w sometimes used for solid antialiasing. x for connecting lines in lineart z not commonly used 4 Fixed-width fonts ASCII art needs to be viewed on a fixed-width font. The fonts have differences, so even though it's not a good idea to "optimize" your picture for a particular font, it's completely ok to say "best viewed with a Lucida Console, preferably a small font size and white on black". Most of the fonts I list are free of cost and TrueType/OpenType, usable on eg. Windows, Linux and Macintosh. There are also other choices for other operating systems, commercial font faces and several fonts that can only be acquired with a particular piece of software. 4.1 Courier New Courier New is the font that looks like a typewriter. It's very wide, which can sometimes cause problems. It's not particularly aesthetical either. Most people use it as their fixed-width font for web browsing. 4.2 MS-DOS font The 80x25 DOS font is cool, especially for solid art, or maybe it's just the white on black. The 80x50 one is less cool. 4.3 Topaz New Topaz is the font used by the operating system of the Amiga computer and Topaz New is a TrueType version of it. It's very narrow, but quite thick and well suited for ASCII art. You can download it on the Internet. 4.4 Lucida Console Lucida Console was introduced in Windows 98 and is nowadays the default font in Notepad. It's an ordinary sans serif font, quite decent, but may have unpleasant effects on some pictures (especially grayscale). 4.5 Fixedsys Fixedsys is a nice sans serif font that used to be the default for Notepad. Many people use it as their ASCII viewing font and it definitely isn't bad for that. Fixedsys is a bitmap font so some Windows programs might not allow you use it. 4.6 Arial Alternative Arial Alternative looks like Courier bred with Arial, resulting in a wide, relatively thick sans serif font, not exactly my cup of tea. 4.7 MS Gothic MS Gothic has nothing to do with slitting wrists, it's actually meant for displaying Japanese. It is sans serif and looks quite ok, but I'm not sure if it's worth getting and installing just for ASCII art, as the file size is a whopping four megabytes. 4.8 Andale Mono (aka Monotype.com) Andale Mono is actually a commercial font, but it was apparently bundled with some versions of Internet Explorer. This is a fixed-width font that actually looks stylish, even though it might not be the best one for viewing ASCII art. 5 ASCII art software 5.1 JavE Jave is the Photoshop of the ASCII world, but unlike Photoshop, it's free software. It's also multiplatform because it runs on Java, so you need to download the Java runtimes to get it to work. JavE offers many kinds of painting modes, gradients, textures and brushes. Naturally it also gives you the ability to copy and paste rectangles, flip and mirror pictures and. JavE also contains a a watermark option, a picture to ASCII converter, camelizer, an ASCII 3D modeller, FIGlet and many other features. You can even make ASCII animations with it. 5.2 FIGlet FIGlet is a derivative of the Unix program "banner" which was meant for the automated creation of crude ASCII art text logos. There are hundreds of different FIGlet fonts available, from handwriting to 3D letters. FIGlet files are plain text with some special markup for the program, so they're quite easy to make. You can also use JavE for creating FIGlet fonts. 88888888b oo dP dP 88 88 88 a88aaaa dP .d8888b. 88 .d8888b. d8888P 88 88 88' `88 88 88ooood8 88 88 88 88. .88 88 88. ... 88 dP dP `8888P88 dP `88888P' dP .88 d8888P ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ /\ \ /\ \ /\ \ /\__\ /\ \ /\ \ /::\ \ _\:\ \ /::\ \ /:/ / /::\ \ \:\ \ /::\:\__\ /\/::\__\ /:/\:\__\ /:/__/ /::\:\__\ /::\__\ \/\:\/__/ \::/\/__/ \:\:\/__/ \:\ \ \:\:\/ / /:/\/__/ \/__/ \:\__\ \::/ / \:\__\ \:\/ / \/__/ \/__/ \/__/ \/__/ \/__/ Some examples of FIGlet fonts 5.3 TheDraw/ACiDDraw TheDraw is an MS-DOS based application meant for drawing ASCII and ANSI, originating from the mid-80s. It can be operated with a mouse, but the menus and commands are executed with the keyboard. It's fairly easy to use once you learn it and you probably won't forget them any time soon. It also features a VGA mode where you can zoom out your picture. ACiDDraw is an improved version by TheDraw made by the legendary artgroup ACiD. I drew ASCII and ANSI with it for years and occasionally still do. Some computers have problems with running ACiDDraw, which can cause runtime errors or freezing of the program. In Windows tweaking the settings of the program often help. 5.4 ACiDView ACiDView is a freeware Windows program, also by ACiD. It's used for viewing ASCII and ANSI files in several resolutions and can also save them as PNG, which comes in handy. There are no drawing functions. 5.5 PabloDraw PabloDraw is another popular ANSI/ASCII editor for MS-DOS Windows, somewhat similar to ACiDDraw. I personally have no experience using it, but PabloDraw's support for multiuser drawing on the Internet is definitely an interesting feature. There's also a viewer companion to it, known as PabloView. 6 Other stuff 6.1 ASCII map 032 [space] 048 0 064 @ 080 P 096 ` 112 p 033 ! 049 1 065 A 081 Q 097 a 113 q 034 " 050 2 066 B 082 R 098 b 114 r 035 # 051 3 067 C 083 S 099 c 115 s 036 $ 052 4 068 D 084 T 100 d 116 t 037 % 053 5 069 E 085 U 101 e 117 u 038 & 054 6 070 F 086 V 102 f 118 v 039 ' 055 7 071 G 087 W 103 g 119 w 040 ( 056 8 072 H 088 X 104 h 120 x 041 ) 057 9 073 I 089 Y 105 i 121 y 042 * 058 : 074 J 090 Z 106 j 122 z 043 + 059 ; 075 K 091 [ 107 k 123 { 044 , 060 < 076 L 092 \ 108 l 124 | 045 - 061 = 077 M 093 ] 109 m 125 } 6.2 Displaying ASCII art on web pages If you want to showcase ASCII art on your web page, you can just save the images as text files and link to them. The problem with this is that if you draw loads of small pictures, you will have hundreds of files as well. Some older versions of Internet Explorer (and possibly some other browsers) might show your art in proportional font. When embedding your art into HTML pages, always remember the 
 tags, which
tell the browser that the text is already formatted and should be displayed in
a fixed-width font. You can use CSS to determine the particular font, provided
that the viewer has it.

6.3 Coloring ASCII art

With HTML you can also color your ASCII pictures, but this is a tedious job to
do by hand and you can use an HTML editor for it.

Other ways for coloring ASCII art include ANSI colors and mIRC colors. Both of
these contain 16 foreground colors. MIRC also has as many background colors,
while ANSI only offers 8. ANSI can be viewed in DOS or the DOS prompt of
Windows if you have a driver called ansi.sys loaded. Alternatively you can use
an ANSI viewer like ACiDView or save the pictures as GIF/PNG.

MIRC colors can only be used on IRC and not all clients support them - and some
networks have a channel mode that forbids you from using colors. Some IRC
clients (including mIRC) also support ANSI color, but you may have to turn on
that option first.

6.4 Demoscene ASCII art

Demoscene is an underground culture based mostly on demos, which are multimedia
presentations a lot like animations, but calculated in real time. They evolved
from cracktros (tiny applications included with cracked software) which had
mostly scrollers and some background music. Nowadays demos often look like
music videos or professional 3D animations. Demoscene is also much more than
that, including national and international gatherings, demoparties.

Like the infofiles of pirated software, demoscene productions (demos and
intros) often have an ASCII logo in their infofile. Generally they're either so
called "oldskool" ASCII or "block ASCII". Oldskool ASCII consists of logos made
mostly out of slashes, pipes, hyphens and underscores. The logos appear very
similar in style and hard to read for many people. They may look very easy to
draw, but are more difficult than they seem.

                                  .
                            _ ____:____
   __ _                           |   (_               _ __
  _\     ___       __       ___   |    / ___  aBHO ____   /_
        / _(___  _/ /__   _/__/__ | _ /_/__/__  __/ _ (_
 __ ___/  \   (_/  /   \_/ _)   (_| /// _)   (_/   l/ _/_ ___
 \  \_        _/  /    _/  `    _/  /   `    _/  ___\   /   /
  \  /________\  ______\  ______\ _/_________\  / /_____\  /
<--\/----------\/-------\/-------\/-----------\/---------\/-->

Clever by aBHO

Some oldskool ASCIIs are made on the Amiga and contain extended characters,
they're known as Amiga ASCII (compared to PC ASCII)  "Block ASCII" is not
technically ASCII at all, as it utilizes extended characters, "raster blocks",
as does ANSI art. There's another type of demoscene ASCII, known as "newskool
ASCII". It's practically a solid style, often used in graffiti-like logos and
usually uses extended DOS characters.

Besides info files, demoscene ASCII can also appear elsewhere. Some demoparties
have ASCII and ANSI competitions and there are ASCII logo compos held on some
IRC channels regularly. ASCII pictures are also released in "collies"
(collections) and artpacks. A colly is usually just a text file with lot of
logos by the same artist. An artpack is usually released by an artgroup and can
have ASCII, ANSI, Ripscript and hires pictures.

6.5 ASCII art culture and etiquette

The people who belong in the demoscene related art scene often regard their
scene as the "real" ASCII scene, though it's much newer and much less popular
than the mainstream ASCII scene. The alt.ascii-art Usenet newsgroup has existed
for a long time and is still rather active for posting ASCII pictures and
requesting them. There are other newsgroups, but they receive hardly any
traffic.

Usually people sign their ASCII pictures with their initials or with a short
nickname. You're usually free to use ASCII art for non-commercial purposes as
long as you keep those initials - it's the artist's signature.  In
alt.ascii-art, people often diddle each other's pictures. That means altering
the picture slightly so that it looks better - or like something totally
different. Usually that means including initials from every person who has
participated in the picture.

There's a certain individual in the newsgroup that makes "ASCII art farts" of
other people's images - he has done that every day for several years. Don't be
too offended if Tran takes a picture of yours and adds a lame joke to it.

File: academy/tutorials/tut_oglesbee.txt
http://www.ascii-art.de/info/tut_jro.txt

So, You Want To Make Text Art?

    ___            _     _            _       _             _
   /  _`\         ( )   ( )          ( )  _  ( )           ( )_
  | (_ (_) _       \`\_/'/__  _   _  | | ( ) | |  _ _  ___ | ,_)
  `\__ \ /'_`\      `\ /' _ \( ) ( ) | | | | | |/'_` )' _ `\ |
  (~)_) ( (_) )_     | ( (_) ) (_) | | (_/ \_) ( (_| | ( ) | |_
   \____)\___/( )    (_)\___/ \___/  `\__/^\__/'\__,_|_)_(_)\__)
              )/
         _____                     _
        (_   _)       /'\_/`\     (_)
          | |  _      |     |  _ _| |/')   __
          | |/'_`\    | /V\ |/'_" ) , <  /'__`\
          | ( (_) )   | | | ( (_| | |\`\(  ___/
          (_)\___/    (_) (_)\__,_|_) (_)\____)
     _____          _         _____      _     ___
    (_   _)        (_)_      (  _  )    (_)_  /__ \
      | |  __      | ,_) ___ | (_) |_ __| ,_|(_) ) |
      | |/'__`(`\/') |  (___)|  _  ( "__) |     / /
      | (  ___/>  <| |_      | | | | |  | |_   |_|
      (_)\____|_/\_)\__)     (_) (_|_)  `\__)  (_)...

   ...That's NO problem, believe me. If you can't paint like
Remington, Picasso, or Chester Scott, or sketch a square circle with a
pencil, or even smear "wash me" on a dirty windshield with your
finger, then text art is for you! Truth is, just about anybody can
make a text picutre; so don't say that you CAN'T. You can. It's easy!
It really is. It doesn't take a lot of practice, and it doesn't take a
lot of "artistic ability". I can have you making your own, unique
text-art, in no time at all.

   Hi, I'm Jonathon R. Oglesbee, and I'll show you some of the simple
"mysteries" of text-art. Just don't call me an "artist". I'm not. At
best, I have been a hack cartoonist in the past... among other
things. I make cartoons in ascii (pronounced ask-ee... or better yet,
ass-key) for fun. I started doing it as a lark, but so many people
took an interest, that the response I recieved left me
speechless. I've stuck with it, in present-day computer form, for a
few long, lineal, loafing, lolly- gagging years - (words with an "L",
this time), and derived many hours of entertainment from cartooning
gags, using nothing but text-art. I'm not an are-teest. But maybe you
WILL be. So, if you are still interested, read on.
     ____________________________________________________
    |____________________________________________________|
    | __     __   ____   ___ ||  ____    ____     _  __  |
    ||  |__ |--|_| || |_|   |||_|**|*|__|+|+||___| ||  | |
    ||==|^^||--| |=||=| |=*=||| |~~|~|  |=|=|| | |~||==| |
    ||  |##||  | | || | |JRO|||-|  | |==|+|+||-|-|~||__| |
    ||__|__||__|_|_||_|_|___|||_|__|_|__|_|_||_|_|_||__|_|
    ||_______________________||__________________________|
    | _____________________  ||      __   __  _  __    _ |
    ||=|=|=|=|=|=|=|=|=|=|=| __..\/ |  |_|  ||#||==|  / /|
    || | | | | | | | | | | |/\ \  \\|++|=|  || ||==| / / |
    ||_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_/_/\_.___\__|_|__||_||__|/_/__|
    |____________________ /\~()/()~//\ __________________|
    | __   __    _  _     \_  (_ .  _/ _      _     _____|
    ||~~|_|..|__| || |_ _   \ //\\ /  |=|_  /) |___| | | |
    ||--|+|^^|==|1||2| | |__/\ __ /\__| |(\/((\ +|+|=|=|=|
    ||__|_|__|__|_||_|_| /  \ \  / /  \_|_\___/|_|_|_|_|_|
    |_________________ _/    \/\/\/    \_ /   /__________|
    | _____   _   __  |/      \../      \/   /   __   ___|
    ||_____|_| |_|##|_||   |   \/ __\       /=|_|++|_|-|||
    ||______||=|#|--| |\   \   o     \_____/  |~|  | | |||
    ||______||_|_|__|_|_\   \  o     | |_|_|__|_|__|_|_|||
    |_________ __________\___\_______|____________ ______|
    |__    _  /    ________     ______           /| _ _ _|
    |\ \  |=|/   //    /| //   /  /  / |        / ||%|%|%|
    | \/\ |*/   //____// //   /__/__/ (_)      /  ||=|=|=|
  __|  \/\|/   /(____|/ //                    /  /||~|~|~|__
    |___\_/   /________//   ________         /  / ||_|_|_|
    |___ /   (|________/   |\_______\       /  /| |______|
        /                  \|________)     /  / | |

   First, you need to get ready. For that, you are going to need very
little. Since you're probably reading this on-line, we will assume
that you have a computer, with a keyboard at your disposal, and so we
can dispense with the typewriter lesson (re- member typewriters?).
Besides a keyboard, you will also need a monitor, and a simple
text-editing program or word-processor. The simpler, the better. I
generally use Windows Notepad, myself. If you are using something
else, then I'd best mention a word or two about fonts.

  "Fonts" are your character, or letter sets. You will need to
"select" a font that will work well to make your text pictures with. A
mono-spaced font is really the only thing to use. Fixedsys, Courier
New, Topaz New, Lucinda Console - these are all mono-spaced
fonts. That means that each character takes up the same amount of
space. A font such as Garamond, Arial, or just plain Courier
doesn't. If you make a picture using that kind of font, then it will
appear skewed on any system that isn't displaying the same font you
used to make the picture. If you use a mono-spaced font, you won't
have these kinds of problems. So, if you are going to use a
text-editor that allows you to pick your font, pick one that will
work! If you're using something like Windows Notepad, it likely
already uses a mono-spaced font, and you won't have to worry about
this.

   That's the main thing you need to know about fonts, but I better
mention one other tip you'll need to know. That's about which letters
and numbers are the good ones to use, for making ascii text-art. It's
best to just stick to those characters you probably see, right there
on the keys of your keyboard. There are some other interesting
characters, often called "alt" or "extended" characters, which are
usually made by holding down the "alt" key and typing in a
number. There are some really neat ones, but it's best if you steer
away from those things.

   Now we'll begin, with a simple, step-by-step tutorial of how to
make a castle.  Maybe you have seen some neat text pictures of castles
or buildings, and been impressed by them. Well, let's just see about
that...

      |   and  _    <---- those are two useless-looking characters on
                            your keyboard, aren't they?

  Here's a thing or two you can do with them. Let's make some of those
bottom-line things, three spaces apart...

   _   _   _   _   _   _   _   _   _
                                        <---- they just don't look like
                                                much, do they?

  Well, let's make some |'s, with _'s between every other one...

|_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_|   <----- looks kind of like... nothing,
                                           huh?

  Now, let's put the two separate lines together, like this....

   _   _   _   _   _   _   _   _   _
|_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| | <--- it looks a little like a
                                             parapet.

   Next, let's continue with the |'s and _'s, on the third line, but
let's add an extra _ between our |'s. One | and then two _'s, over
and over...

   _   _   _   _   _   _   _   _   _
|_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |
|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|  <--- it IS starting to look like
                                              something... just a little
                                              bit.

  Continue this, but offset the |'s on at least every other line, so
all your "blocks" aren't lined up the same. I'm certain you can see
how I do this...

   _   _   _   _   _   _   _   _   _
|_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |
|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|    <----  keep going...
|_|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__||

   _   _   _   _   _   _   _   _   _
|_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |
|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|    <----  and keep going...
|_|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__||
|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|

   _   _   _   _   _   _   _   _   _
|_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |
|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|    <---- And now look!
|_|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__||
|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|
||__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|_|
|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|
|_|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__||

   You could easily keep going, until you created the Great Wall of
China. If I were you, though, I'd stop before I made 4,000 miles of
this. Why not just settle for a simple castle wall?

   Of course, you don't have to make your blocks just like I did mine.
You could make them longer, shorter, twice as big, or even completely
different, by doing some things like this:
                                                              ________
         _________        ___________________                [__]__]__]
        |____|____|      |    |    |    |    |      _____      _________
  _____                  |____|____|____|____|     |_|_|_|    {_}_}_}_}_}
 /_\_/_\

   ... That's all up to you. I'm sure you've got blocks all figured
out by now, anyway.  Make your own, using whatever dimensions you
like. Or use the same ones I have; I won't mind.

   Using nothing more than the two characters we started with, you
should have no trouble making a basic castle wall, like this one:

 _   _   _   _   _   _   _   _   _   _   _
| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |
|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|
||__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|_|
|__|__|__|__|__||         ||__|__|__|__|__|
|_|__|__|__|__|||         ||_|__|__|__|__||
|__|__|__|__|__||         ||__|__|__|__|__|

...As you can see, that entire castle is constucted using nothing more
than the "_" and "|"  characters. Soon, you'll be making much better
ones than this, but I'm going to use it for demonstration purposes,
okay?

  Can you see how I have made the door? It was really no trick. If
you're supple- minded, you could just count over to where you want
your doorway, and remember not to brick it in. If you're lazy, like
me, you could just put your cursor about where you want the right edge
of your door to be, and backspace to where you want the left edge of
your door, and then start making it. Easy.

   That door looks a little plain, though. Still using only the same
two characters, we'll just spruce it up a little:

 _   _   _   _   _   _   _   _   _   _   _
| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |
|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|
||__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|_|
|__|__|__|__|__||_   |   _||__|__|__|__|__|
|_|__|__|__|__|||_  |||  _||_|__|__|__|__||
|__|__|__|__|__||____|____||__|__|__|__|__|

...There you go. You have now mastered the art of mediveal
construction, using text from your keyboard.

   Next, let's see about making a little fancier castle, and put it
into a complete picture....

   Well, here is another castle that I started for a cartoon I never
finished.  It's very similar to the one above, and since it's not
doing anything else, I'll just use it here. Take a look:

                     |
                     |
                    /^\
                   /^^^\
                  /^^^^^\
                 /_______\
                 |  ___  |
                 | |   | |
                 | |___| |
                 |       |
   _   _   _   _ | _   _ | _   _   _   _
  | |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |
  |__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|_|
  |_|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|
  |__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|_|
  |_|__|__|__|__|__|...|_|__|__|__|__|__|
  |__|__|__|__|__|."   ".|_|__|__|__|__||
  |_|__|__|__|__|||     ||__|__|__|__|__|
  ||__|__|__|__|_||     ||_|__|__|__|__||
  |__|__|__|__|__||_____||__|__|__|__|__|

...I never really finished this picture, as you can see. We'll take
care of that, but first, I want you to notice that the additional
characters I have used in this castle:

         /        \     ^    .    "

   Find them on your keyboard, and get ready to use 'em.

   Now, you might think that curve above the door is simple. It is.
It's made on two lines, like this:

line 1    ... three periods

line 2  ."   ". a period and a quotation mark, followed by three
spaces, and then a quotation mark and another period.

Together, lines 1+2 look like this:
                                     ...
                                   ."   ".     ... a simple arch.

   Let's finish this picture, now...

                     |>>>>
                     |
                    / \
                   /   \
                  /     \
                 /_______\
                 |__|_|__|
                 |_|   |_|
                 |_|___|_|
                 |__|__|_|
   _   _   _   _ |_|__|__| _   _   _   _
  | |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |
  |__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|_|
  |_|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|
  |__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|_|
  |_|__|__|__|__|__|...|_|__|__|__|__|__|
  |__|__|__|__|__|." | ".|_|__|__|__|__||
  |_|__|__|__|__|||  |  ||__|__|__|__|__|
  ||__|__|__|__|_||  |  ||_|__|__|__|__||
  |__|__|__|__|__||__|__||__|__|__|__|__|

   All I have done here, is brick in the tower, add a midline to the
door, and add a little flag at the top. I didn't really care for the
"shingles" I had on the roof, so I deleted them. If you liked them,
you can keep them in, of course.

   That "flag" looks cute, but it is really nothing except the <
character...  Oh my, my; I mean the > character, entered a few times,
until it looks like a flag.

   Next, let's add a line to give it a little dimension, just like
with a drawn picture on a sketchpad. We won't really need anything
except the "_" character again....

                              |>>>>
                              |
                             / \
                            /   \
                           /     \
                          /_______\
                          |__|_|__|
                          |_|   |_|
                          |_|___|_|
                          |__|__|_|
            _   _   _   _ |_|__|__| _   _   _   _
           | |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |
           |__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|_|
           |_|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|
           |__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|_|
 _________ |_|__|__|__|__|__|...|_|__|__|__|__|__| _____________
           |__|__|__|__|__|." | ".|_|__|__|__|__||
           |_|__|__|__|__|||  |  ||__|__|__|__|__|
           |__|__|__|__|__||  |  ||_|__|__|__|__||
           |_|__|__|__|__|||__|__||__|__|__|__|__|

   That's much better, isn't it? But this picture still lacks an
element or two... I think what this picture really needs, is a tree or
two. Trees are really simple to make. We will look at two easy ones,
made with the characters:

                       /   |    \     @

   And here they are:

                           @@@@@@
               /\        @@@@@@@@@
              //\\       @@@@@@@@@@
             ///\\\      @@@@@@@@@
            ////\\\\      @@@@@@
           /////\\\\\      | |
               ||          | |

   Pretty simple to make an evergreen and a deciduous tree, isn't it?
I could have made some fancier ones, but I will leave that for your
imagination to come up with.  Anyway, let's add these to the
picture....

                              |>>>>
                              |
                             / \
                            /   \
                           /     \
                          /_______\
                          |__|_|__|
                          |_|   |_|
                          |_|___|_|
                          |__|__|_|
     /\     _   _   _   _ |_|__|__| _   _   _   _
    //\\   | |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |   @@@@@@
   ///\\\  |__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|_|  @@@@@@@@@
  ////\\\\ |_|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__| @@@@@@@@@@
 /////\\\\\|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|_|  @@@@@@@@@
  ___||___ |_|__|__|__|__|__|...|_|__|__|__|__|__| _ @@@@@@ ____
           |__|__|__|__|__|." | ".|_|__|__|__|__||    |  |
           |_|__|__|__|__|||  |  ||__|__|__|__|__|    |  |
           |__|__|__|__|__||  |  ||_|__|__|__|__||
           |_|__|__|__|__|||__|__||__|__|__|__|__|

   That still doesn't look like quite enough foliage to me, so let's
look at some ways to make some flowers and things...

                  @
                 \|/      <---- nothing new here, is there?

                %
               \|/        <------ I didn't do anything here, except
                                  subtitute a percent character.

Now, let's add 'em in quantity....

                              |>>>>
                              |
                             / \
                            /   \
                           /     \
                          /_______\
                          |__|_|__|
                          |_|   |_|
                          |_|___|_|
                          |__|__|_|
     /\     _   _   _   _ |_|__|__| _   _   _   _
    //\\   | |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |   @@@@@@
   ///\\\  |__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|_|  @@@@@@@@@
  ////\\\\ |_|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__| @@@@@@@@@@
 /////\\\\\|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|_|  @@@@@@@@@
  ___||___ |_|__|__|__|__|__|...|_|__|__|__|__|__| _ @@@@@@ ____
           |__|__|__|__|__|." | ".||__|__|__|__|_|    |  |
   @  @  @ |_|__|__|__|__|||  |  ||_|__|__|__|__||  % | %| %
  \|/\|/\|/|_@|__@__|_@|__||  |  |||__|_%_|_%_|_%| \|/ \|/\|/
  @  @  @  |\|/_\|/_|\|/__||__|__||__|_\|/_\|/|\|/ %   %  %
                                                  \|/ \|/\|/

   Notice that I put some of the flowers directly "in front" of our
castle. I knew where I wanted them to go, placed the cursor there,
backspaced, and entered the new character I wanted to use - simple. If
it had looked misplaced, well...  that's a lot easier to fix, than
going back and erasing a "real" line on a piece of paper, or finding
some way to incorporate a mistake into an actual painting.  About the
only "trick" you see me doing in this picture, is with the
background. I have intentionally left out a space between the
background line, and the castle and tree element. This preserves the
perspective of the text picture, by keeping the background line from
running into the foreground elements, which may confuse the eye into
thinking they are all connected. With a text picture, this can often
be a problem. Some text artists don't do this, because they may have
other ways of keeping the perspective constant. Then again, some just
forget, but don't tell them I said so.

   This picture looks almost done, but I think it needs a road up to the
front door...

                              |>>>>
                              |
                             / \
                            /   \
                           /     \
                          /_______\
                          |__|_|__|
                          |_|   |_|
                          |_|___|_|
                          |__|__|_|
     /\     _   _   _   _ |_|__|__| _   _   _   _
    //\\   | |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |   @@@@@@
   ///\\\  |__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|_|  @@@@@@@@@
  ////\\\\ |_|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__| @@@@@@@@@@
 /////\\\\\|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|_|  @@@@@@@@@
  ___||___ |_|__|__|__|__|__|...|_|__|__|__|__|__| _ @@@@@@ ____
           |__|__|__|__|__|." | ".||__|__|__|__|_|    |  |
   @  @  @ |_|__|__|__|__|||  |  ||_|__|__|__|__||  % | %| %
  \|/\|/\|/|_@|__@__|_@|__||  |  |||__|_%_|_%_|_%| \|/ \|/\|/
  @  @  @  |\|/_\|/_|\|/__||__|__||__|_\|/_\|/|\|/ %   %  %
 \|/\|/\|/               .'       '.              \|/ \|/\|/
                       .'           '.
                     .'               '.
                   .'                   '.

...Nothing more than periods and appostrophes were used to make that
road, by using an ever-widening space between them on the following
lines. Hey, how about a cloud or two?...

             ________
           _( (   __ )_
        __( __     ) __)
       (____   (   _)
            (_____)

      Parenthesis and the bottom-line character make good, easy clouds.
Let's put some in the picture...

             ________                          __
           _( (   __ )_                      _(( )_
        __( __     ) __)                  __(   )  )
       (____   (   _)                    (_ (  _ __ )_
            (_____)                       _( __     __)
                                         (__(_  (  _)
                              |>>>>           (___)
                              |
                             / \
                            /   \
                           /     \
                          /_______\
                          |__|_|__|
                          |_|   |_|
                          |_|___|_|
                          |__|__|_|
     /\     _   _   _   _ |_|__|__| _   _   _   _
    //\\   | |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |   @@@@@@
   ///\\\  |__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|_|  @@@@@@@@@
  ////\\\\ |_|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__| @@@@@@@@@@
 /////\\\\\|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|_|  @@@@@@@@@
  ___||___ |_|__|__|__|__|__|...|_|__|__|__|__|__| _ @@@@@@ ____
           |__|__|__|__|__|." | ".||__|__|__|__|_|    |  |  JRO
   @  @  @ |_|__|__|__|__|||  |  ||_|__|__|__|__||  % | %| %
  \|/\|/\|/|_@|__@__|_@|__||  |  |||__|_%_|_%_|_%| \|/ \|/\|/
  @  @  @  |\|/_\|/_|\|/__||__|__||__|_\|/_\|/|\|/ %   %  %
 \|/\|/\|/               .'       '.              \|/ \|/\|/
                       .'           '.
                     .'               '.
                   .'                   '.

   There you go. One completed picture of a castle, that looks like
it's doing something besides hanging there on an empty page. Be sure
and sign your picture, so folks will know who made it!

   By now, I am sure you have dozens of ideas for improving that
picture, and for making better ones of your own. Try them all! There
is really no mystery to making good text-art. Play around with it, in
your spare time.  You'll most likely impress yourself with the
results. Drop me a line, if you come up with any that you'd like to
show me, or need some help:

                     oglesbee@
                             mail.fullnet.net

  We'll be continuing this series of tutorials, later. I'll try to cover
other topics, from people to perspective. Watch for more, later.

              __..\/
             /\ \  \\         Good Luck!
            /_/\_.___\           JRO
           /\\~()\()~/\
           \_    _)  _/      __
             \  //\\/       (((\
           __/\ __ /\__   /)////
          /  \ \  / /  \  \___/
         /    \/\/\/    \/   /
        |      \../     /   /
        |   |   \/ __ \    /
        |   |    o    |\__/
        |   |    o    |
        |   |    o    |

--
Jonathon R. Oglesbee

File: academy/tutorials/tut_oglesbee2.txt
https://www.ludd.ltu.se/~vk/pics/ascii/junkyard/techstuff/tutorials/JRO2.html

    ___            _     _            _       _             _
   /  _`\         ( )   ( )          ( )  _  ( )           ( )_
  | (_ (_) _       \`\_/'/__  _   _  | | ( ) | |  _ _  ___ | ,_)
  `\__ \ /'_`\      `\ /' _ \( ) ( ) | | | | | |/'_` )' _ `\ |
  (~)_) ( (_) )_     | ( (_) ) (_) | | (_/ \_) ( (_| | ( ) | |_
   \____)\___/( )    (_)\___/ \___/  `\__/^\__/'\__,_|_)_(_)\__)
              )/
         _____                     _
        (_   _)       /'\_/`\     (_)
          | |  _      |     |  _ _| |/')   __
          | |/'_`\    | /V\ |/'_" ) , <  /'__`\
          | ( (_) )   | | | ( (_| | |\`\(  ___/
          (_)\___/    (_) (_)\__,_|_) (_)\____)
     _____          _         _____      _     ___
    (_   _)        (_)_      (  _  )    (_)_  /__ \
      | |  __      | ,_) ___ | (_) |_ __| ,_|(_) ) |
      | |/'__`(`\/') |  (___)|  _  ( "__) |     / /
      | (  ___/>  <| |_      | | | | |  | |_   |_|
      (_)\____|_/\_)\__)     (_) (_|_)  `\__)  (_)...

               Part Two of a tutorial about ascii text-art.




   Now that we have delved into castle construction with text-art,
in Part One, how about looking at some other kinds of pictures?
Automobiles might be a good thing to roll on to. Let's race on down,
and look at a simple car, to see how it's made:


          _____            ... line 1  =  _
      ___/     \____       ... line 2  =  _ and / and \
     |______________|      ... line 3  =  _ and  |
       (o)       (o)       ... line 4  =  ( and o and )

    ... yep, that's a basic car shape. It's probably won't turn a
fast quarter mile, but it's good enough for a starting point. The
only characters we didn't use in our castle exercises, are the
letter "o" and the parenthesis. Since I imagine you know your alphabet,
let's do a little more, shall we?


        ______
    ___/ /_|__\____
   |____|__|__|____)
     (o)        (o)

   That wasn't hard, at all. I have really done nothing except put
in the doors and windows, and substitute a paraenthesis instead
of the "|" character for the front end of this auto. It's hardly a
work of art, but it is recognizable as a car; a four-door sedan, at
that. Try making a two-door on your own, and don't forget that you
can lengthen or shorten the whole car, if need be.

Now, let's see what we can do about making some better autos...

              _________
         ____/ |___||__\_______
        [  __  |-  ||-  \  __ |]
       (__/()\_|___||___|_/()\_)
          '..'            '..'

   Okay, it's ugly, but it might pass for a taxi cab, huh? I used five
lines, this time, and two new characters (three, actually): the - minus
character, and the two [ and ] brackets. The tires, as you can see, were
done by using nothing more than apostrophes and periods. The crude
fender wells go a long way towards making it look a little more like a
real car, don't you think?

   How about a truck, made the same way? You shouldn't have any trouble
with that. Here's one of my own...


          _________________
         |   Joe's     /"""\
         | delivery    |____\_____
         |  ___        |-   |___ [|
        [__/ o \_______|____/ o \__)
           '._.'            '._.'

   It's very similar to the taxi cab. The new character, is the
quotation mark. See what differences you can find between this, and
the car up above. Could you make an even bigger truck, this way?
Try it! How about something smaller, like a sports car?


                  ____.-.___\______
                 / __  |-    \  __ '.
                (_/()\_|_____/_/()\__)
                  '..'         '..'

   Well... maybe it does look a little more like an old Jeepster. You
go ahead and make a better sports car, on your own. I never cared very
much for two-seaters, anyway.


   Let's look at a couple of different views of automobiles. Examine
each, and see how they were made:

           _____________________
          //~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\\
         //                     \\
        //_______________________\\
      /' /                       \ `\
     /  /                         \  \
    /__/___________________________\__\
   |/| ____ ||||||||||||||||||| ____ |\|
   |/|______|||||||DODGE|||||||______|\|
   |/ ||  |||||||||||||||||||||||  || \|
  /-------------------------------------\
  '-------------------------------------'
   |\_________________________________/|
   |     |                       |     |
   |_____|                       |_____| jro

   My car doesn't have a horn. It says
          =DODGE= on the front.


   What new characters can you find in the above picture? Notice how I
used the slash characters, with ever widening spacing on each
consecutive line, to give the appearance of looking "up" the hood. It's
really no different from how we made the "road" leading up to the castle
in our first exercise, right?


   Here's a better picture of a favorite old car of mine:

        ___                                __
       / _ )__  ___________  ______  _____/ /_  _
      / _ (/ _`´/ __/ __/ _`´/ __/ |/ / _  / _`´/
     /____)\___/_/ /_/  \___/\__/\___/\___/\___/
           Built in Detroit. By heretics.

               ______________________
             .'______________________'.
            //| \_______ _|_ ______/ |\\
           // /________ [___] _______\ \\
       .-.//_/_________________.-""-._\_\\.-.
       './/______________________________\\.'
       /   /            ||||            \   \
      /   /             ||||             \   \
     /   /              ||||              \   \
    /   /               ||||               \   \
   /___/________________||||________________\___\
  /|__________________  ||||  __________________|\
 | .'  `. ____        \ |||| /        ____ .'  `. |
 | :    : \__/         >||||<         \__/ :    : |
 .\`.__.'_____________/______\_____________`.__.'/.
'__________________________________________________'
 '.______________________________________________.'
  |\  \______________/       \_______________/  /|
  | '------------------------------------------' |
  |______|                                |______| jro


  Sorry, but I couldn't help re-creating the old ad-logo,
at the top. This car introduces some more new characters.
Did you find the ~ and the ` character in the Dodge above
it? They're in this one, too, along with the < and >
characters.


        How about some rear views?

               ____ _______  __
              / ___|_   _\ \/ /
             | |  _  | |  \  /
             | |_| | | |  /  \
              \____| |_| /_/\_\


                                    .
           ________________________ |
          //~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\\|
       ()//________________________\\()
        /_/________________________\_\
       || _______     GTX    _______ ||
       |||_______|_____.____|_______|||
      |\______________________________/|
      |     |(_)----\____/----(_)|     |
      |     |/                  \|     |
  ____|_____|____________________|_____|_____jro




      ____             _ _
     / ___| _ __   ___| | |___
     \___ \| '_ \ / _ \ | / __|
      ___) | |_) |  __/ | \__ \_ _ _ _ _ _
     |____/| .__/ \___|_|_|___(_|_|_|_|_|_)
           |_|

                                    .
           ________________________ |
          //~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\\|
       ()//________________________\\()
        /_/________________________\_\
       || _______     GTX    _______ ||
       |||_______|_____.____|_______|||
      |\______________________________/|
     (|     |(_)----\____/----(_)|(    |))
    ((|)) ))|/                  \|  )) | ))
  __((|((_(_|))________________(_|_)_)_|)____jro




       _ _  _             _ _          _ _
      ( | )/ \  _   _  __| (_) ___  __( | )
       V V/ _ \| | | |/ _` | |/ _ \/ __| V
         / ___ \ |_| | (_| | | (_) \__ \
        /_/   \_\__,_|\__,_|_|\___/|___/
                          ____
                    _____( -  )__
               ____(   . )  )((  )_
            __(  ( . (  ()   )))   )__
           (_. (    (((    )   . )) __)
            (__ (-  ()-   (((    )__)
            __(       ))  . (( - )_
         __(  ((.  ((-.      ))  ) )_
        (__ (    ( "   .' ( ()__)  ) )___
        __(  (.   ( "  ;   .  )) _--) ))))
       (__((   ().  ((   () ) )__ " ) ___)
       __( ( -;   )   __(   ((.   ) - . )_
______(______(_______(___________)________)____jro


  I guess you can color that car gone. Ever drive one?... nevermind.
Ignore the big, ascii letters for now - we'll get into those, later.
Look how I used the same basic clouds we discussed earlier, to make
that cloud of smoke. It's been spruced-up a bit, with some periods and
minus signs, but it's nothing more than a giant version of the same
clouds we used in the castle picture.


                          __
                        _( _)
                       (__)
                       __
                     _( _)
                    (___)
   ________________  ||
  /________________\ ||
 /__________________\||
 |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~||
 | |         //\\\ | ||               ____
 | |________( o_o )| ||         _____/TAXI\_____
 |___________\ - /___||        //~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\\
 |__________/_\_/_\__||       //         )))))  \\
 /===================\|      //_____ ___[|o o|]__\\
 |___________________|/     //_/____\__/).-'-.(\__\\
 | _  _  METRO  _  _ |     /_/__________@_________\_\
 |(_)(_)|||||||(_)(_)|    |(__) |||||||||||||||| (__)|
 |[__]  |||||||  [__]|    |(__)[]__\||||||||/__[](__)|
(____________________)   (____________________________)
 |  |            |  |      |  |                  |  |
 |__|            |__|      |__|                  |__|


   Here's a taxi and a truck, taken from another cartoon of mine.
They aren't very realistic-appearing, but then they weren't supposed
to be. They're supposed to look silly, like the people in them.

  Here's some other simple cars. Try making and improving some like
these, working up to larger and more detailed ones:

        _______
       /~~//~~||
  ____/__//___||_____________
 ()_() ____    |      ____   |
 <<<<|/.--.\   |     /.--.\ =|
 [___]| () |___|____/| () |\(]
   `..`.__.'      `..`.__.'


   __ __ __
   )(_)(_)(
  / .' __ '._()_\__           ___
 ||:  /  \  :      """----...' _ `.__
  \:  \__/  :_______________| (_) |__>
    `.____.'                `.___.'

     ____    _
   .' __ '._(_)__\           ___
  :  /  \  :      """----...' _ `.__
  :  \__/  :_______________| (_) |__>
   `.____.'                `.___.'


          ______
    _____/o/____\_________
   [       |      \   __  \
   (_______|______|__/  \__)
      \__/           \__/

                   _
       ___________|_\_________
      /  ____  |-    \  ____  \
      \_/ () \_|_____/_/ () \_/
        `.__.'         `.__.'



  Try putting some of your new cars in a picture, as we
did with the castle in the previous tutorial...



      /\     /\     /\     /\     /\
     //\\   //\\   //\\   //\\   //\\
    ///\\\ ///\\\ ///\\\ ///\\\ ///\\\
      ||     ||     ||     ||     ||
    @     @      @      @      @     @
   \|/   \|/    \|/    \|/    \|/   \|/
____________________________________________
           .-----.
    ______/  |____\_________
  [|  ____   |-     \ ____ |)
  (__/ () \__|______|/ () \__)
     '.__.'          '.__.'
_____________________________________________

  Cars and trucks are good practice for any text-artist.
They range from the simple, to the complex. I reccomend
you start small, and let your imagination make them grow
from there.




  Now how about some common objects? Let's look at a few
of those...

               _____________         .
              /            /       . |
             /            /|       |/|
            /            /||    ___| |
           /            / ||   /   |/|
          /____________/|     /____|/|
          ||  ||       ||     ||__||||
          ||           ||     ||  ||||
          ||           ||     ||  ||

           table and chair

                   (
                  (
                  )(
    ______________)
   (__((_________()

         smoke


                     _____.
                   ~(_]---'
                  /_(U

            six-shooter



            ___________________
           /__________________/\
          /  _______________  \|
          |.'    \  12      '.||
          ||    11\   / 1    |||
          ||  10   \_/    2  |||
          ||   9   (_)    3  |||
          ||   8         4   |||
          ||     7  6  5     |||
          |'._______________.'||
          \___________________//
    alarm
    clock


______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
      | |                                         | |
      | |                                         | |
      | |         [ ] ______________ [ ]          | |
____  | |            |              |             | |    ____
  ||  | |            |   ________   |             | |   ||
  ||  | |            |  |        |  |             | |   ||
  ||  | |            |  |________|  |             | |   ||
__||  | |            |              |             | |   ||___
  ||  | |            |   ________   |{o}          | |   ||
  ||  | |            |  |        |()|             | |   ||
  ||  | |            |  |________|  |             | |   ||
__||  | |            |              |             | |   ||___
      | |            |   ________   |             | |
      | |            |  |        |  |             | |
      | |            |  |________|  |             | |
______| |____________|______________|_____________| |________
      | |            / W E L C O M E\             | |
      | |           /________________\            | |
______|_|_________________________________________|_|________
           @       /__________________\    @
________@_\|/@_____|__________________|__@\|/_@______
       \|/  \|/   /____________________\\|/  \|/
                  |____________________|

front door


  Perhaps you are wondering what's going on here, with all these
new and different pictures I am throwing at you. Just what is it
that I am doing, and how am I making all of these?

  I'm really not doing anything except "outlining" simple objects
with text. Try this: look at an object in the room. A clock, a book;
even your computer screen. Outline the thing. You probably won't need
more than the _ and | characters, to start with. Once you have the
basic shape, you can go back and add other details; if you think it
needs them. Often, your first text-art picture of something may look
too simple, or just plain bad. Don't give up on it! All that it may need
is just a detail or two. Imagine that front door above, without the knob
or inset panels. It would be nothing but a box, right? But by filling in
those details, it looks like a door. Let's make a new one, together...


                       _____________
                      |             |
                      |             |
                      |             |
                      |             |    Okay, we're calling it a door,
                      |             |    but it doesn't really look like
                      |             |    anything except a rectangle,
                      |             |    right?
                      |             |
                      |             |
                      |             |
                      |             |
                      |             |
                      |_____________|



                       _____________
                      |    _____    |
                      |   |__|__|   |
                      |   |__|__|   |
                      |             |   We'll add a little window, and
                      |             |   now it's beginning to look like
                      |             |   something...
                      |             |
                      |             |
                      |             |
                      |             |
                      |             |
                      |             |
                      |_____________|



                       _____________
                      |    _____    |
                      |   |__|__|   |
                      |   |__|__|   |
                      |             |   The addition of two panels
                      |  _________  |   makes it look more like a door,
                      | |         | |   indeed...
                      | |_________| |
                      |             |
                      |  _________  |
                      | |         | |
                      | |_________| |
                      |             |
                      |_____________|



                       _____________
                      |    _____    |
                      |   |__|__|   |
                      |   |__|__|   |   Add a knob...
                      |             |
                      |  _________  |
                      | |         |O|
                      | |_________| |
                      |             |
                      |  _________  |
                      | |         | |
                      | |_________| |
                      |             |
                      |_____________|


                      _______________
                     | _____________ |
                     ||    _____    ||
                     ||   |__|__|   ||
                     ||   |__|__|   ||  And a frame, and wallah! You
                     ||             ||   have a door.
                     ||  _________  ||
                     || |         |O||
                     || |_________| ||
                     ||             ||
                     ||  _________  ||
                     || |         | ||
                     || |_________| ||
                     ||             ||
                     ||_____________||



  Nothing to it, see? It really does look like a door. Just don't
try to open it, or you'll smear fingerprints on your monitor.

  Don't feel obligated to use the same characters I do. Could you
think of ones that might make suitable replacements? Or ones that
might work better? Look at these versions of the same door:

                      ...............
                      H.............H
                      H    .. ..    H
                      H   l..l..l   H
                      H   l..l..l   H
                      H             H
                      H  .........  H
                      H l         lOH
                      H l.........l H
                      H             H
                      H  .........  H
                      H l         l H
                      H l.........l H
                      H             H
                      H_____________H



                      _______________
                     : _____________ :
                     ::    _____    ::
                     ::   :__:__:   ::
                     ::   :__:__:   ::
                     ::             ::
                     ::  _________  ::
                     :: :         :Q::
                     :: :_________: ::
                     ::             ::
                     ::  _________  ::
                     :: :         : ::
                     :: :_________: ::
                     ::             ::
                     ::_____________::



                      _______________
                     I _____________ I
                     II    _____    II
                     II   I__I__I   II
                     II   I__I__I   II
                     II             II
                     II  _________  II
                     II I         I0II
                     II I_________I II
                     II             II
                     II  _________  II
                     II I         I II
                     II I_________I II
                     II             II
                     II_____________II


  Point here being, there is always more than one way to
make a door, or anything else. Use whatever you find most
asthetically pleasing, and don't be afraid to experiment.
Believe me, you WILL discover new ways of making things!



  We started out with simple automobiles, tossing in a few
more complicated ones. None of them were terribly difficult,
however. Neither are any of the other objects we moved along
to. You don't need to be an artist to draw with text-art, as
I'm sure you're beginning to realize.

  So far, however, all these pictures are reasonably angular.
Here's an example of the kind of picture that often confuses
beginner text-artists:

          Northrop
            XP-56
                         _
                        / |
                       /  |`'.
            .~~~\--.../_  |_-~'
           /_\_.-       ~-._.--~`-.
        .-`.      __..--~~`  _.-~._~-.
       (   .   :~(__)    _.-~  :   ~-.~.
   .-~` '-.__   ~-------~_|~=,;       ~
 _~_.`~~~~   ~~--~~~~~~\  |.-`
  ~        jro          \_|



  There's a lot of little curves and angled lines in this picture
of an old experimental plane, isn't there? Don't dispair; here's a
few tried-and-true examples of lines and cirles, sent to me by a pal.
I think you'll find them useful when you want to make a picture that
needs curves and obliques in it:


:   6/1   3/1    2/1     1/1     2/3     1/2
: |  J    J     J       /      .'      .'
: |  J    |     F      /      /      .'
: |  |    F    J      /     .'     .'          1/3
: |  |   J     F     /     /     .'         .-'
: |  F   |    J     /    .'    .'        .-'
: |  F   F    F    /    /    .'       .-'       1/4
: | J   J    J    /   .'   .'      .-'      _.-'
: | J   |    F   /   /   .'     .-'     _.-'       1/5
: | |   F   J   /  .'  .'    .-'    _.-'      _.--'
: | |  J    F  /  /  .'   .-'   _.-'     _.--'      1/6
: | F  |   J  / .' .'  .-'  _.-'    _.--'    __.--'     1/7
: | F  F   F / / .' .-' _.-'   _.--'   __.--'    __..--'
:                  _.-'  _.--'   __.--'   __..--'    1/8
:                   _.--'  __.--'  __..--'   __..--''
:                    __.--' __..--'  __..--''
:                    __..--' __..--''
:                    __..--''
:                   -------------------------- 0

                                           _____              __
                                        .-'     `-.        ,dP""Yb,
                                      .'           `.    ,d"      "b,
                                     /               \   d'    _   `Y,
                             _      ;                 ;  8     8    `b
                  __      ,'" "`.   |                 |  `b,_,aP     P
          __    ,'  `.   /       \  ;                 ;    """"     d'
        .'  `. /      |  |       |   \               /            ,P"
     _  |    | |      /  \       /    `.           .'     a,.__,aP"
  o (_) `.__.'  `.__.'    `.___.'       `-._____.-'        `"""''


  And a few others I also use, although I'm sure a hundred other
people do, too:


        _.-~
    _.-~
_.-~            __..--""
        __..--""
__..--""                ___...---~~~
            ___...---~~~
___...---~~~

   ____
 ."    ".                           ____
/        \               _____    .'    '.
|        |        __    /     \  :        :
\        /       /  \  |       | :        :
 '.____.'        \__/   \_____/  '.      .'
                                   '----'
   ____
 ."_  _".
/ (_)(_) \
| .    . |
\ \____/ /
 '.____.'


  Here's a thing or two you can do with them...

                     \  | /
                   '. ____ .'
                 "-.."    "..-~
             ~~--../        \..--~~
             ------|    __..--""-._---                   __.--""--..__
            ___...---~~~           ~-._                .'
        _.-~                           `.          _.-~
__..--~~                                 `.__..--~~

   Sunset on the prairie... Look how many combinations of the
sample lines above, that I used to make the horizon.


          ."".
         '    ;
     .''..'  .'    Silly shape... A kidney bean, perhaps?
     .     .'
      '...'



 The Martians_____________________________________
|*        .    .   * _______________________      |
|               .   /  To Antares with the  \  .  |
|   *     '      * / "mission", Base.  Those \   *|
|                 |   Earth Beings abducted   |   |
|       * .    '  |  Zompflitz, and tried to  | . |
|                  \  have SEX with him!!!   /    |
|   ' .             \_________ _____________/ . * |
|              _.-'~~~~'-._  |/                   |
|   .      _.-~\__/    \__/~-.         .          |
|       .-~    (oo)    (oo)   ~-.                 |
|      (______//~~\\__//~~\\_____)                |
|  _.-~`                         `~-._            |
| /O=O=O=O=O=O=O=O=O=O=O=O=O=O=O=O=O=O\     *     |
| \___________________________________/.          |
|            \x x x x x x x/            `.        |
|    .  *     \x_x_x_x_x_x/.    '  .     ___   .  |
|              `.           `.         .'| \'.    |
|                `.     .     `.       | \ / |    |
|   ' .     *                          '.___.'    |
|_________________________________________by_JRO__|

  And an early text-art cartoon of mine. Not too good
a "Planet Earth", but the Martians' flying saucer is
acceptable, yes? In any cartoon, of course, it's mostly
the gag that counts, anyway.

  I'm sure you can now see how easily I handled the lines
and curves in that small airplane picture I first showed you.
Cirles, curves, and obliques are no big deal. After looking
at a few examples, and giving it a try or two, I'm sure you'll
have it mastered.



  Well, this about wraps it up for this second instalment.
I hope I've given you some new ideas, a few tools to work
with, and an increasing interest in making text-art. Practice
simple exercises, and work up from there. Soon, you'll find
yourself able to make a text-art picture of almost anything
you've seen or imagined. Remember - it's never as hard as it
looks!

              __..\/
             /\ \  \\         Keep typing!
            /_/\_.___\            JRO
           /\\~()\()~/\
           \_    _)  _/
             \  //\\/        (((\
           __/\ __ /\__    (\||||
          /  \ \  / /  \    \___/
         /    \/\/\/    \  /   /
        |      \  /      \/   /
        |   |   \/ __\       /
        |   |    o    \     /
        |   |    o    |\___/
        |   |    o    |

        .       .        .
         .      .       .        .'               .--.
 '.       .     .      .       .'       ________.'_.'_____.--.___
   '.      .    .     .      .'        ()_() ooo   ~/   -.|      "-._
     '.     .   .    .     .'          ((((<____   |      |  ____  = )
       '.    .  .   .    .'       .-'  (__)/ () \___\_____|_/ () \__/)
.        '   ______    .'      .-'    ___'.'.__.'_________'.'.__.'____
 '-.      .-~      ~-.      .-'      /
    '-. .'            '. .-'      __/
_      .                .      _./
 '-._ .                  . _.-'  |
      :                  :      /
  .-' .                  . '- .'
-'     .                . . .'
    .'  '.            .' _.'
  .'  .'  '__________'.-'
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~/
~~  ~~~    ~~~ ~~ ~ /jro
  ~~   ~~~~  ~~~~ ~/

--
Jonathon R. Oglesbee

File: academy/tutorials/tut_oviatt.txt
https://web.archive.org/web/20071029164837/http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/7373/soviatt.htm

1.  What is ASCII art? or "ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI."

    What is ASCII art?  Basically, it's creating pictures using the
    letters and symbols found on a regular keyboard or typewriter.  Trust
    me, the computer keyboard is MUCH easier to use than a typewriter.
    Related art can be done with ANSI (sometimes known as "higher ASCII")
    characters, but since those don't show up on Aladdin or GEnie, I've
    never played with them.  Most everyone has seen some sort of ASCII
    art, either in regular ASCII Art topics, (such as in the Family RT),
    as part of the opening screen for various RoundTables, or as part of a
    cute little signature by the members themselves.  This is a sample of
    a signature ASCII art:

                 _
               ('v')
               (   )   "Birdie"
              ~/'~'~~

    My pictures are done for the computer screen, and look best on a
    screen that is set for a dark background and light letters.  Viewing
    the pictures on a light background with dark letters (either on the
    screen or on paper, printed up) makes them look a little like photo
    negatives, light where it's supposed to be dark, and dark where it's
    supposed to be light.  Just keep in mind how your pictures will be
    viewed, while you're creating them.  Some of the pictures I've done
    will "translate" just fine to a different setup, some don't do nearly
    as well.

2.  The CANVAS, or "Targon's secret."

    One of the very first ASCII artists on GEnie, TARGON, came up with the
    idea of creating a "canvas."  To make it easier to put your characters
    where they need to go, start with a blank canvas.  In most word
    processing programs, (including Aladdin's text editor), the cursor
    can't be moved somewhere it's never been before.  That's fine if you
    know exactly where you want each character, and can type it in
    perfectly the first time, but if you need to experiment, like I do,
    you'll want to move that cursor around with your arrow keys.

    The canvas consists of a screen full of lines, and the lines consist
    of nothing but spaces you've tapped in with your spacebar.  This is
    the way I made mine:

    First, go to the program you plan to use to make your pictures. Since
    I use Aladdin, I'll describe the procedure I use.  While offline, go
    to a reply screen, such as the ASCII Art topic in the FAMILY BB.
    (Category 3, topic 18.)  Hit "r" for "reply."  When the screen comes
    up, draw a line of dashes across the top, and then hit the enter key
    oh... about twenty times or so.  At the end of the screen, draw
    another line of dashes across the bottom.

    Go back to the top of the screen, press the down arrow once, and start
    hitting the space bar.  When you get to the end of the line, use the
    down arrow to get to the next line.  Do not hit "enter" again, and do
    not let the line of spaces wrap around.  Hit the space bar again,
    filling the next line with spaces, and again when you get to the end
    of the line, use the down arrow key to get to the next line.  Continue
    doing this till you've filled all 20 lines with blank spaces.

    At this point, it would be wise to "save" the "canvas" so that you
    don't have to go through this every time you want to do a picture.  To
    save a file on Aladdin, you hold down the control key and tap the K,
    then the W.  A little screen will pop up, asking for a name.  I chose
    the name "canvas," but then, I'm an original thinker.  :)  From then
    on, when you want to create a new picture, you can "recall" the canvas
    by going to a reply screen.  To recall the canvas using Aladdin, hold
    down the control key and tap the K then the R.  You'll see that little
    window come up, asking for a file name, and you type in the name you
    gave your canvas.  Then hit enter, and the canvas will be on the
    screen.  For those who would rather skip this step, I've included a
    canvas at the end of the file.  Since most of my pictures are rather
    large, the canvas is larger than I've specified here.

3.  How to start, or "Whaddaya mean, just start tapping keys?"

    Now you're ready to begin creating your picture.  The first thing you
    need to do is make sure your text editor is in "overwrite" mode.  In
    Aladdin's default setting, that means you'll need to hit the "insert"
    key one time.  This way, each character you tap into place will
    overwrite the blank space.  If you do not have your text editor in
    overwrite mode, each character you tap in will be inserted between
    your spaces, and the lines will begin to wrap almost immediately.  If
    that happens, don't panic, just delete the extra keys, press the
    "insert" key and start again.  I guarantee you, you'll notice quickly.

    Another pointer to remember:  If you've tapped something in and you
    don't like it, or if you've made a mistake, do NOT erase it using the
    backspace key.  The backspace key will delete that space, and it'll
    offset the rest of that line by one.  You may not notice that if
    you've only backspaced once, but if you've backspaced a dozen
    characters out of the way, you'll have a line that's shorter than the
    rest by that many spaces.

    If you want to correct a mistake, just use your arrow keys till the
    cursor is on the space you want to change, and tap in the character
    you want.  (Again, make sure you are in overwrite mode.)  If you
    forget and backspace an error away, hit the insert key again, then hit
    the spacebar till you've added back in the spaces you accidentally
    deleted, then hit the insert key again to go back to overwrite mode.

    Oh, one more thing... For some reason, it's best to leave the first
    space on each line blank.  Your art will look fine while you're
    creating it, but when it gets uploaded to GEnie a character on the
    very first space of the line will cause the following lines get
    shifted over one space, and that's enough to mess up a picture.  This
    is especially true if you have used any asterisks (*) as first
    characters on the line.  The asterisk is used on GEnie to say, "The
    following is a command, not part of the text."  People viewing your
    work won't even see that line.

4.  Sources, or "Where do I find pictures to try?"

    Most of us have some little doodle we've done for years... I've always
    drawn little elephant fannies all over papers and scraps.  I'd suggest
    that you translate YOUR doodle to ASCII art as your first piece.  It's
    familiar, and you'll know if it doesn't look quite right.  Play with
    it till you're satisfied with it.

    For your next piece, choose something simple.  You'll have an easier
    time, and you'll build your confidence.  Children's coloring books are
    a great place to find simple pictures to try.  While you're finding
    the sorts of pictures you enjoy doing, you'll be developing your very
    own style of ASCII art.

    One of the greatest things about this particular art form is that each
    style is so distinctively different. Once an artist has the basics
    down, you can almost tell WHO did a picture before you see their name
    at the bottom of the screen.  Some of the ASCII Artists you've
    probably seen at one time or another here on GEnie are TARGON,
    PHOENIX, TSUEX, and RIKROK.  All of these people have very individual
    styles.  Some pictures look like drawings with ASCII characters, some
    look more like paintings.  They're all delightful.

    Holiday pictures are my favorites.  I can find samples from
    newspapers, comic books, coloring books, art books, and sometimes from
    my own imagination.  Most of the time I need a pattern, even if the
    finished product doesn't look anything like the original.  It gives me
    an idea of where to go first.  :)

5.  Choosing Characters, or "Which characters do I want to use?"

    First of all, your choice of characters depends on what effect you're
    looking for.  If you are "sketching" with ASCII characters, you'll
    want to pay special attention to the following keys:

         / ` " ' \ , . _ - = ~ ^ ; |

    Notice that all of these characters have been entered on the same
    line, but many are in different positions on that line.  The
    apostrophy is higher on the line than the comma, for instance.  Keep
    this in mind as you "sketch" because sometimes that small difference
    is enough to make or break your picture.

    If you are going for a more filled in look, such as I do in my
    pictures, you will also want to keep in mind the relative value of the
    characters as far as light and shade go.  Look at the following
    characters:

          @ # $ & X % > / ; :

    Notice that when you are using a dark background, light letters, that
    the @ and # keys provide a lot of light.  You would use these
    characters to highlight your work.  The : and ; let much less light
    through, so those would be the characters you shade with.  If you are
    working on a reverse screen, with a light background/dark characters,
    the opposite would hold true.

    Keep in mind, too, that for detail work there are several characters
    that are very similar, but subtly different, and can add just the
    right amount of contrast to get the effect that you want.  For
    instance:

        S $    : ;    % X    0 O

    One more thing that will help you get the look you want is the
    relative height of capital and lower case letters. When you need a
    line to taper a bit, using a lower case letter is sometimes the
    perfect "bridge" between high and low characters.  For instance:

        S s    X x    O o   @ a

    To taper these lines even further, when a very gradual decrease is
    wanted, use both of these methods, somtimes using them more than once.
    For instance:

        Ss,..,sS          or    -=*@*=-     or     .,%,.
        SSss,,..,,ssSS    or    ..,,;;|;;,,..

    Also remember that what is low on one line can be the perfect bridge
    for something high on the line directly under.  This is especially
    helpful when you're creating signatures of some kind... For instance:

                  ,;;;,
                 ;;  .;'                 ;;
                 `;,
                 . `';,.  .;. ;.   ,;;;, .;.  .;;;.
                  ';.  ;;  ;; ;;   ',,.   ;;  ;; ;;
              ,;;;.;;  ;;  ;; ;;   .  ;;  ;;  ;;''
             ;;   ';;;;'   `;;';;' ';;;'  ';. `;;;'
             `;;;;'

6.  Small pictures, or "Good things come in small packages."

    VERY small pictures can be a lot of fun to do.  Just remember that
    with those tiny ASCII pictures, a LOT is left to the imagination.
    Sometimes a suggestion of what you're looking for is the best you can
    do.  For instance, the following was done on only two lines:

             ~|_
              (_)\_

    It's certainly no photograph, but most people will recognize this as a
    wheelchair.  Another fun use for tiny ASCII graphics are for signing
    off e-mail, especially during the holidays.  For instance, during the
    Christmas season, I like to sign letters off with one of the
    following:


                 <\oOo/>
                 ### ###
                 ### ###


                   /\
                  //\\
                 ///\\\
                   ][

    It's important to remember that many RoundTables on GEnie (Such as the
    FAMILY and Personal Growth RoundTable) frown on the use of excessive
    ASCII art in regular topics. This is due to the fact that users who
    are visually impaired and use voice synthesizers have a heck of a time
    with this stuff...  For instance, a blind user coming across the top
    Christmas miniature would hear, "lesser than, backslash, o, O, o,
    slash, greater than..."  And that's only the FIRST ROW!  Can you
    imagine how irritating that would be?

    Some voice synthesizers do not "pronounce" punctuation, but they do
    pause for many punctuation marks.  For instance, if your little ASCII
    picture consists of a lot of periods and commas, the voice synthesizer
    will pause for each.  If there's enough there, the user may think that
    he or she was discontinued.

    If you are on a RoundTable and you don't know what their policy is,
    it's best to preface any ASCII art with a warning phrase, placed a
    line above the actual art:  "WARNING:  ASCII Art to follow."  And
    don't be offended if it's returned to you.  There are many ASCII Art
    topics on GEnie, and your work is VERY welcome there.  :)

7.  Big pictures, or "Bigger is better, right?"

    Though a large picture can be a little intimidating, it is often
    easier to do than a small picture.  Large pictures give you room to
    add detail.  If you are doing a picture on, say, ten lines, you don't
    have as much room to develop curves and angles.  Your work has to be
    much more precise, and it's not always possible.  On the other hand,
    on a large picture, you have much more room to develop not only curves
    and angles, but also shading and highlighting.

    Where do you start on a large picture?  Well, first of all you'll
    probably want more than one "canvas" to work on.  Just add another
    canvas or two on the end of the previous one so that you have plenty
    of room.  Get rid of the excess lines between them with the
    "control-y" keysequence.

    Some ASCII artists consistently start with the eyes, if the picture
    HAS eyes.  Personally, I start in a different place each time, but
    most often I start on what will give me the most problems.  For
    instance, on the tiger I started with the nose.  I'm not exactly sure
    WHY that nose was such a bugger (sorry, couldn't resist... :) but once
    I got that done, I figured I could finish the rest of the picture.
    Other times, when there isn't an area that I feel I need to start on,
    I might start at the very top, so that I can get a relative feel for
    the width and length of the picture.

    Once I've started the picture, I will most of the time go ahead and
    tap in the rest of the basic shape.  Afterwards I'll go through and
    add the highlighting, shading, and other detail work that I want.
    Sometimes when you're sitting so close to the screen, tapping in the
    pictures, NOTHING you do looks right.  If that's the case, stand back
    from the screen.... Or squint your eyes.  Or if you wear glasses, take
    them off for a moment.  Many times you'll see the picture "come
    together" when you try one of these little tricks.

    When you're finished, make sure you save your picture.  You save your
    picture the same way you saved the canvas; hold down the control key,
    hit the K and then the W.  When the screen comes up, give your picture
    a name.  That way you can bring it up again whenever you'd like.

8.  ASCII Art protocol, or "Gee, this is neat, can I show my friends?"

    ASCII art IS neat, and it's great to get it in the mail.  Kids (and
    the kid in all of us) enjoy watching it download, as the picture takes
    shape right before our eyes.  Though I can only speak for myself, I
    don't mind at all when pictures are "shared" with others.  Some of my
    pictures have been to many different countries, on many other
    continents, and that tickles me.  Though tastes differ, appreciation
    of art is something everyone has in common, especially in such a fun,
    unexpected form as ASCII art.  What I do ask, though, is that my name
    be left on the picture.  If you KNOW the source of the art, include
    the artist's name.  It's not enough to put in a line that says, "yes,
    it's stolen."

    There have been times in the past that I've received my OWN artwork
    back in e-mail to me, along with a note that says, "See, you're not
    the only one who can do this stuff..."  Even more irritating is seeing
    my own picture with credit given to someone else.  This stuff may not
    be as "important" as some great literary work, but ASCII artists DO
    spend an hour or more on each picture to make something that will give
    others pleasure.  Give them credit.

9.  Printing up ASCII Art -- or "Eww. Why does this look so bad on paper?"

    Why is it when we print up this ASCII art it looks sort of squatty?
    One reason is that the "characters per inch" is different on the paper
    than it is on the screen.  In old "typewriting" terms, "Pica" print is
    ten characters to the inch.  "Elite" print is twelve characters to the
    inch.  The screen is fairly close to "elite," the default pitch of
    many printers is closer to "pica."  The printer will print the
    line character by character rather than inch at a time.  The
    difference isn't much, but when the picture is six inches wide, that
    means when it's printed, it'll be seven and a half inches wide. Thus,
    the "squatty" look.  To correct it, when you print out the work,
    change the default pitch to something that is closer to the size on
    the screen.  If you play with it enough, it'll work out.

    The second reason ASCII art may look a little strange on paper is that
    it may have been created for a dark rather than a light background.
    (Paper is light.  :)   For instance, if I create a picture, using the
    @##@ characters as highlights, it's easy for you to see that on a
    white piece of paper, those characters are actually DARK, not light.
    The solution is to either   1) keep in mind HOW the picture will be
    seen.  If your picture will be seen mostly printed up, work on a light
    background with dark characters while you're creating it.   2) Hand
    the picture to a child to color.  They can fix anything. :)







My canvas... (I put a + in the center):

=====================================+====================================










=====================================+====================================

File: academy/tutorials/tut_quinn.txt
https://www.ludd.ltu.se/~vk/pics/ascii/junkyard/techstuff/tutorials/Shawn_Quinn.html

From: skquinn@brokersys.com (Shawn K. Quinn)
Newsgroups: alt.ascii-art
Subject: GIFSCII.EXE for DOS
Date: 31 May 1996 13:01:26 GMT

In message  - Shane Hall  wri
tes:
:>Does anyone have any tips or tricks for using GIFSCII? It has no docs and
:>no built-in help. It offers 3 prompts: name of gif, columns and lines.
:>The author told me to hit ENTER at the last 2 prompts and then I will get
:>a menu to View, Save and other things. I never get this menu.

The way I remember it, it goes like this:

Start the program, give it the name of a GIF. It will then prompt you for
number of columns and rows, and should give you this table:

Lines     Columns    Lines        Columns
Spec.      Spec.     Output       Output
-----      -----     -----         -----
  0          0       GH/10        GW/6
  0          C       C*GH/GW*.6   C
  L          0       L            L*GW/GH/.6
  L          C       L            C

This means (1) Gifscii will default to giving you one ASCII row for each 10
GIF rows, and one ASCII column for each 6 GIF columns, (2) if you specify
only a number of columns or rows, it will default to keeping the same aspect
ratio when figuring out the other value, and (3) if you specify both it will
make an ASCII picture of exactly that size.

NOTE: any GIF wider than 480 columns or taller than 240 rows WILL NOT FIT on
an 80x24 screen if you accept both defaults! This includes ANY 256-COLOR GIF
that fills the screen or comes close in SVGA resolutions! Whip out your
calculator if needed to figure out what to tell the program.

Then comes the tricky part. You'll get this prompt:

(v)iew (zZ)oom (s)ave (lrud)=Pan (i)nvert (h)elp (cC)cont (bB)bright:

These describe the options. These do pretty much the same as ASCGIF,
unfortunately, I don't think that came with docs either. Typing in an "h"
will show a help screen. Most of the options let you tweak the way the
conversion is done so it will hopefully show up better. Be prepared to alter
the GIF after conversion in case it doesn't quite look the way you had hoped.

I really wish the authors would not rely on the source code comments to
effectively document the program the way some do. Some people don't even
download the source code. I do if there's no doc file, because I know better.
Of course if there are no comments in the source code, that's a problem too...

SKQ

File: academy/tutorials/tut_stark.txt
https://web.archive.org/web/20071028135413/http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/7373/howto.htm#programs

    .:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

                        How I Make these ASCII Pictures
                         and Links to Other Tutorials

    .:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

FAQ's About Creating ASCII Art:

 1) Do you need any special programs or software to make ASCII Art?
 2) You've heard of programs that make ASCII art- do they work?
 3) How long have I been creating ASCII Art images?
 4) What were my first ASCII art creations?
 5) How much time do I spend on making just one ASCII art picture?
 6) How do I make the characters "fit together"?
 7) Aren't ALL keyboard characters "ASCII"?
 8) Are there other ASCII Art tutorials online?
 9) What suggestions do I have for aspiring ASCII Artists?
10) Do I have too much free time on my hands?

                            .:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

1) Do you need any special programs or software to make ASCII Art?

    The answer is "NO".  All you need is a text editor with a fixed-width font.
    Examples of fixed-width fonts are: Courier, FixedSys, and any others where
    the following two lines of letters are the same length:

                      IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
                      WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

    I don't have any "secret programs" or "magic software".   I've created
    these ASCII pictures by using Windows notepad, my keyboard  ( and monitor
    obviously ), my imagination, and plenty of inspiration. That's it.  I
    create these pictures by free-hand.

    Essentially I sit at the keyboard and type. The more I do, the faster and
    easier it becomes. Some images come from models (usually one of my kids'
    toys), pictures in books and magazines, or from my imagination.  I can only
    make a picture when I feel inspired to do so.  Not every day is a creative
    day.

                            .:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

2) You've heard of programs that make ASCII art- do they work?

    As you may have noticed, there are different styles of the ASCII art. I
    typically make the "line-ASCII art".  Others, like Allen Mullen and The
    Dutch Dude make "solid-style ASCII art".

         .-.                     .-.               .                      .
      .--' /                     \ '--.           ..###'                    '###,.
      '--. \       _______       / .--'          '####;       .ooooo.       ;####'
          \ \   .-"       "-.   / /                 '##,   .o8P"""""Y8o.   ,##'
           \ \ /             \ / /                   '##, 88'         '88 ,##'
            \ /               \ /                     '##8'             '8##'
             \|   .--. .--.   |/                       '#8   ,o.   .o,   8#'
              | )/   | |   \( |                          8 8 888; :888 8 8
              |/ \__/   \__/ \|                          8P '88'   '88' Y8
              /      /^\      \                          P       8      'Y
              \__    '='    __/                          b      888      d
                |\         /|                             `8b         d8`
                |\'"VUUUV"'/|                              88'"88888"'88
                \ `"""""""` /                              8 `"""""""` 8
                 `-._____.-'                                `8ooooooo8`
            jgs    / / \ \                                  ,##'   '##,
                  / /   \ \                                ,##'     '##,
                 / /     \ \                        jgs   ,##'       '##,
              ,-' (       ) `-,                        .#####,       ,#####.
              `-'._)     (_.'-`                           `##'       '##`

               LINE STYLE                              SOLID STYLE

    There are converters available to turn GIF and JPG files into ASCII art.
    The results are usually solid-style --but even so, you still have to do
    quite a bit of work with them to make them look good.   If you want to give
    it a go anyways, check out  conversion programs.

    There is a PicText Service online that will convert GIF images into
    ASCII... results are OK-- not ideal.  As example, see an ASCII image of me
    in comparison to the original GIF graphic--->  jgs

    There is *ONE* conversion program that works well--  that is FIGlet!  If
    you want to write your name in a fancy ASCII'fied font, this is the place
    to go:  FIGlet Service.   Also, check the alt.ascii-art FAQ for Internet
    locations  to download your own copy of the program.

                            .:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

3) How long have I been creating ASCII Art images?

    I've been around the USENET's  newsgroup since November '95
    and I've been making the ASCII pictures since July '96.

    I first saw ASCII art in the summer of 1995 and was intrigued by it.  My
    immediate thought was that there were people in this world who had too much
    time on their hands!   Nonetheless, I was amazed at what I saw.   I tried
    to collect as much of the ASCII art as I could.   Then when I found
    Scarecrow's archive, and saw the immensity of it, I gave up and decided to
    try to make the ASCII images instead.

    I had been lurking on the alt.ascii-art newsgroup and saw many
    requests--most which were never filled.  At that point I chose to create
    the ASCII art pictures to respond to the requests.

                            .:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

4) What were my first ASCII art creations?

    My first ASCII Art creations were letters that spelled out my screen name
    -- and I added a little fish and a swimmer....  Here it is:

       ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooojgs
      __~~ _- ~~ -~~~-_/\O_~~ ~~__~~  _-~_ __
     /  \ ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo| |  / /
    / /\_\ |  _ \  | |  | | | \  | | | | / /  /
    \ \_   | | \ \ | |  | | |  \ | | | |/ /  <')=<
     \_ \  | |_/ | | |  | | | | \| | |   <    \`
    __ \ \ |  __/  | |  | | | |\ | | | |\ \ Spunk1111
    \ \/ / | |     | |__| | | | \  | | | \ \@juno.com
     \__/  |_|     \______/ |_|  \_| |_|  \_\@aol.com

    It's not very good, IMO -- but it was a start.  Playing around with making
    letters helped me to figure out how the ASCII characters fit together.  I
    don't remember how long it took to make.

    I stopped making the letters once I found out about "FIGlet".  FIGlet is a
    program that creates the ASCII art letters for you -- all with a click of a
    button!   Try it yourself!   FIGlet Service

    The first big picture I made was of a dragon-- it took about a week to
    complete-  When it was finished, I sent it to the alt.dragons ASCII art
    page (http://www.dragonfire.org/) - and they put it at the top!  I was
    "published"!  From then on, I was hooked on the ASCII art!

    ~ Fire-Breathing Dragon ~  7/96
                                                              ___
                                                           .~))>>
                                                          .~)>>
                                                        .~))))>>>
                                                      .~))>>             ___
                                                    .~))>>)))>>      .-~))>>
                                                  .~)))))>>       .-~))>>)>
                                                .~)))>>))))>>  .-~)>>)>
                            )                 .~))>>))))>>  .-~)))))>>)>
                         ( )@@*)             //)>))))))  .-~))))>>)>
                       ).@(@@               //))>>))) .-~))>>)))))>>)>
                     (( @.@).              //))))) .-~)>>)))))>>)>
                   ))  )@@*.@@ )          //)>))) //))))))>>))))>>)>
                ((  ((@@@.@@             |/))))) //)))))>>)))>>)>
               )) @@*. )@@ )   (\_(\-\b  |))>)) //)))>>)))))))>>)>
             (( @@@(.@(@ .    _/`-`  ~|b |>))) //)>>)))))))>>)>
              )* @@@ )@*     (@) (@)  /\b|))) //))))))>>))))>>
            (( @. )@( @ .   _/       /  \b)) //))>>)))))>>>_._
             )@@ (@@*)@@.  (6,   6) / ^  \b)//))))))>>)))>>   ~~-.
          ( @jgs@@. @@@.*@_ ~^~^~, /\  ^  \b/)>>))))>>      _.     `,
           ((@@ @@@*.(@@ .   \^^^/' (  ^   \b)))>>        .'         `,
            ((@@).*@@ )@ )    `-'   ((   ^  ~)_          /             `,
              (@@. (@@ ).           (((   ^    `\        |               `.
                (*.@*              / ((((        \        \      .         `.
                                  /   (((((  \    \    _.-~\     Y,         ;
                                 /   / (((((( \    \.-~   _.`" _.-~`,       ;
                                /   /   `(((((()    )    (((((~      `,     ;
                              _/  _/      `"""/   /'                  ;     ;
                          _.-~_.-~           /  /'                _.-~   _.'
                        ((((~~              / /'              _.-~ __.--~
                                           ((((          __.-~ _.-~
                                                       .'   .~~
                                                       :    ,'
                                                       ~~~~~

                            .:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

5) How much time is spent on making just one ASCII art picture?

    That first large dragon picture took a week to make--  However, as I create
    more ASCII art graphics, they take less time to make... Usually, I spend
    about 20 minutes on each... a little longer for larger ASCII art, less time
    for smaller ones. I can create the picture quickly if I can envision the
    image beforehand, . At times, I see lots of things in "ASCII"--- it's at
    those instances that I have a creative spurt!

    Remember that this website has been a labour of love which has lasted
    several years-- there is no way that I could create all of these pictures
    in one sitting!

                            .:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

6) How do I make the characters "fit together"?

    Playing around with the characters on the keyboard really helps...
    For instance, the following characters can create a gradual slope:

                             _,.-'"^`

    To change the degree of the slope, you can either add more characters, or
    delete... of course keeping in mind the "look" of whatever it is that you
    are trying to create.

           a more gradual slope:              __,,..--""^^^

             a steeper slope:                      _.-"
                                                .-"

    Look at the individual ASCII characters-- you'll notice that they are
    located in various typographical locations.  The periods, commas, and
    underscores are at the bottom of the character space.  The hyphen, equal
    sign, and the plus sign are found in the middle of the space.  The
    apostrophe, quotation marks, and caret sign are located at the top portion
    of the character space.  The asterick and the tilde characters are either
    in the middle or the top of the space-- depending upon which fixed-width
    font you use.

    Deciding which character to use often depends upon the desired 'feel' of a
    picture.   However, I've found that some of the characters are
    "inter-changeable", such as:

                                      " and '
                                      . and ,
                                      - and =

    Sometimes it is very helpful to look at the ASCII art pictures created by
    the different artists.  You'll be able to see just how that person handled
    curves, lines, slopes, and details.

    I've added a really neat online ASCII art experience.  If you have Internet
    Explorer 4+, you can give this a try.  The text characters can be dragged
    onto a grid in order to create an ASCII art image.  There is template to
    follow if you wish-- or just go freestyle!

                           ASCII ART HOW-TO --- GRID

                            :*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

7) Aren't ALL keyboard characters "ASCII"?

    No-- ASCII is an acronym for American Standard Code for Information
    Interchange.  There are only 94 ASCII characters (95, if you include the
    space)-- these are the ones that are typically found on the standard
    American keyboard:

                            abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
                            ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
                                    0123456789
          < > [ ] { } ( ) ~ ! @ # $ % ^ & * _ + | - = ; : " ' ` ? \ / . ,
                                      (space)




    It is possible to make non-ASCII characters with your computer.  Some
    examples of non-ASCII characters are the British pound-sterling, the
    copyright symbol, fractions, and the accented characters.  These should NOT
    be included in ASCII art images because they are not standard from one
    computer system to another.  One computer may interpret the character code
    accurately-- another computer may not.  Believe me, it can make for a
    pretty bad ASCII art image!

    I know that America Online users have "macros"--  proportional-font text
    art.  These macros often contain non-ASCII characters.  This will work on
    AOL because AOL users are all using the same America Online network.   mIRC
    often uses the non-ASCII characters too (fixed-width  fonts though)  This
    works on mIRC because that is how the system is designed.  Presently, the
    Internet is not as standardized.  In conclusion, it is best not to use the
    non-ASCII characters in any international email/USENET posting.

    If you have any questions about font, characters, or ASCII/non-ASCII,
    please refer to the alt.ascii-art FAQ or my 'What is ASCII Art?' webpage

                            .:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

8) Are there other ASCII Art tutorials online?

    There are several ASCII Art  tutorials available... but, IMO, they don't
    help unless you've tried your hand at it first. Keep in mind that ASCII
    artists have their own 'style'.   Accordingly, the tutorials differ in
    regard to the type of ASCII drawings.

        Daniel Au's Tutorial
        Susie Oviatt's Tutorial
        Rowan Crawford's Tutorial
        Normand Veilleux's Tutorial
        Targon (Ed Wisniewski)'s Tutorial

                            .:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

9) What suggestions do I have for aspiring ASCII Artists?

    My suggestions for budding ASCII artists are the following:

        look at as many ASCII pictures that you can
        identify how the characters are used in those pictures
        duplicate an "already-made" picture -
        copy it line by line or section by section
        modify an existing picture
        start small- perhaps doodle and see what it looks like,
        and go from there
        use a model or picture as a guideline
        read the tutorials and the FAQs
        post your pictures for critique
        (or send them to a friend for critique)
        keep at it and have fun... <--- most important!

                            .:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

10) Do I have too much free time on my hands?


    Too much free time on my hands??  That's a funny one!             _  _
      As a mother of four kids, I can testify that I       hehehehe  (.)(.)
    don't have excess time!  However, I will confess that         \ /  ()  \
    my laundry pile is larger than it ought to be!                _ \ '--' / _
    Laundry time has taken a backseat to ASCII art               { '-`""""`-' }
    time.   ASCII art is a hobby-- most people have               `"/      \"`
    hobbies.  ASCII art is mine.  Usually I create this             \      /
    ASCII art late at night when the kids have gone to             _/  /\  \_
    bed.  I try not to spend my life in front of the          j   {   /  \   }
    computer.  Really!                                             `"`    `"`

    .:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

              [Guidelines For Using this ASCII Art ][-=[ GO ]=-]

                         to main pageSearch this site

    .:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

File: academy/tutorials/tut_targon.txt
https://web.archive.org/web/19990501044414/http://users.inetw.net/~mullen/tarteach.htm

Note: some of the directions apply only to the GEnie computer service.

Punch Art is not as hard as you would think if you prepare your canvas
first. Here are some tips that might help.


        1. I start my canvas by selecting this topic from aladdins j
screen and selecting R to reply.
        2. When the reply screen is open I draw a line from the left
boarder to one space from the right boarder.
        3. Then I hit return 20 times and draw another line at the
bottem of the screen.

                               (like so)

-------------------------------------------------------------------
(press return)     { use the space bar to move the cursor to here !)
(press return)
(repeat above 20 times)        (you are doing this because the cursor
                                 can not be moved where it has never
                                  been before.)




                        (bottom line)
-------------------------------------------------------------------

        4. Then I return the cursor to the first line and use the
space bar to move the cursor to one space from the end of the line.
        5. I use the arrow key to move the cursor down to the next
line. It will automatically go to the beginning of the line. I then
use the space bar to move it to one space from the end of the line.
        6. I repeat this until I reach the line I drew at the bottom
of the canvas.

 Once this is done your canvas is ready. You can now use the arrow
keys to move your cursor anywhere you want and you are ready to
begin your drawing.

        7. To draw on the canvas, I press the insert key to go into
typeover mode. This is important so that when you enter characters,
your cusor does not insert spaces.
        8. If you make a mistake and want to erase a character just
use the arrow key to move the cursor back to the character and use
your space bar to erase it. (Do not use the backspace key or the
delete key to correct mistakes. They will change the spacing)
                -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

                         TIPS

If you are drawing an animal or a person, start with the eyes then
the nose and the mouth. Then draw the head. You will be able to
judge the size the body needs to be from the head.

Get familiar with the position of the following keys on the screen.

        [ ] ( ) . ` , ' ; : \ / | " ^ < >   - _ = ! ~

Notice that they have all been typed on the same line, however they
are positioned at different hights. You can use combinations of
these keys to draw angles, slants, and sometimes circles.

           \             /        \_     `-._      (increasing the
            \           /           \_       `-._   amount of the _
             \         /              \             can change the
                                                    angle.)

                                     `----.______
                                                 `------


                              ,----.
                            ,"      ",
                            "        "
                            "        "
                            `.      ,'
                              `----'


The following keys make good eyes, fingers, or toes.

                         o O  0 ( ) c C

        eyes ---->    0 0   or (0) (0)    or   o o or (o) (o)

        toes ----->    Oooo    or  Cooo

If you get to the bottom line of your canvas and your picture is not
finished, you can expand the canvas by hitting enter as many times
as you need and using the space bar to prepare the canvas as you did
when setting it up.


If you cannot complete your drawing in one setting, type control k
and then w. A window will open and ask you for a file name. Name the
file. Then type ctrl a to abort the reply.

When you're ready to resume the drawing, open the reply window from
the j screen, then type control k and then r. When prompted for a
file name, enter the name of your picture. It will be loaded back
into the reply screen and you can continue.

You can also use the above method to save a blank canvas after you
prepare one. Then you don't have to make a new canvas for every
drawing.

Remember that every key on the key board can be used. Some of them
make good shading keys. Such as @@@@@@@@@  or  ######
                                @@@@@@@@@      #####
                                 @@@@@@@       #####

Don't be afraid to try different key combinations. If they don't
work, experiment.

Don't worry about pictures that don't work. I have many failures. It
dosn't take long to realize you can't make a drawing work. I just
give up on them.

File: academy/tutorials/tut_veilleux.txt
http://www.ascii-art.de/info/tut_veilleux.txt

Normand Veilleux's ASCII Art Tutorial

From: Normand Veilleux 

Date: Tue, 11 Jan 1994 12:18:52 -0500 (EST)

Several people have asked me how I do what I do (smoothing out
pictures,  etc.)  First, I would like to say that I am a complete
beginner myself.  I had no drawing experience before Dec 11, 1993.
At that time someone posted an ascii picture of Meriday (a
professionally drawn nude, I think).  I found that picture a lot
more appealing than the GIFs I have seen or the mainframe pictures
from my University years.  Those tend to be hard the eyes from
close up.

Anyway, when someone else posted another nude that (I'm guessing
here) was a cleaned up GIF.  I immediately saw there was lots of
room for improvement and I decided to give it a try.  The only
tools I had at my disposal were a PC with WordPerfect.  The big
advantage I saw with WP was that I could toggle between a normal
view of the picture and a reduced version since WP allowed me to
view a full page of text at once on the screen.

In reduced format the text is actually transferred in graphics so
that an '8' would actually appear as a black square.  This gave the
picture a rough look; the edges were all jagged.  But, by
experimenting with various character changes I soon realized that
I could smooth out those jagged edges.  I spent a lot of time
flipping back and forth between the normal and the reduced views.

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention.  When I changed the font from
"Courrier 10" to "Line Printer 16.67 cpi" for the LaserJet printer,
I noticed that the jagged flaws appeared even more pronounced.
This is why you'll see me mention once in a while that "the
drawings I post are at their best when printed with 'Line Printer
16.67 cpi' font or equivalent."  They were worked on using that
font.  They still look very good in a regular font
though.  That's the beauty of it all.

I still do the same thing now, only a little faster.  It is a time
consuming process and I see potential to automate some, if not a
large portion of it.  I have asked a few people on the NET if they
knew of any software that could lighten or darken an ascii picture,
reduce or enlarge it, etc.  So far, no luck.

I took a 15 hour bus ride (double it for the return trip) during
the Christmas holidays up to Kapuskasing where my parents live.  So
I had some time to think about things.  I came up with pseudocode
for a program to lighten and darken a picture automatically.  That
is, if the picture is dark, it will lighten it and vice versa
without any cumbersome parameters of any sort.  It's extremely
simple when you think about it for 3 to 4 hours.  I haven't had the
chance to program any of it yet but given a week or two it will be
implemented.

I also wrote pseudocode for flipping a picture horizontally, and
for reducing and enlarging one.  These were not quite as simple but
it looks like it can work.  If any of you out there know of
programs that do just that already please let me know ASAP.  You'll
save me a lot of time.

Thank's a million.

I hope these "tips" have entertained as much as enlightened you.
Like a person I use to listen to on radio often said "When I learn
something during the day I go to bed at night less ignorant."

And so it has been for me a joy to learn how to draw.

From: Nveilleu@emr1.emr.ca (Normand Veilleux)
Date: Sat Jan 08 16:08:26 CST 1994

I have received a few requests to explain the "logic" behind the
smoothing.  So far I have only explained what tools I use to create
it (flipping back and forth from normal to reduced view in
WordPerfect).  I will try to give here the same explanation I gave
the first student who asked.  Since I did not save that discussion
this one will be slightly different.

The whole thing is visual as you could have guessed.  So, the best
way I know to show you what I mean is by giving an example:

     Take this                     Doesn't this
     for example                   look smoother?

      8                              8
      88                             Yb
       88                             Yb
        888                            Y8a,
          88888                         `"Y888

BTW, that reminds me of a quote I saw not too long ago:  "A truly
wise person does not play leapfrog with a rhinoceros"  :-)

I consider the "smoothing problem" as nothing more than a "weight
distribution problem".  By shifting up the pixel density of an 8
with characters such as P, Y, ", etc., where necessary, and by
shifting down the pixel density of an 8 with characters such as b,
d, a, etc., where necessary, the graphic takes on a smoother look.

May sound simple when it's explained like that but I don't know
where to start to program it.  I'll start with easier stuff first,
like flipping a picture horizontally.  That's kids stuff.  I used
a semi-manual technique when I had to flip my ascii face around.
The picture I had drawn was a mirror image, so it had to be flipped
to look right.  I created two small macros (less than 10 commands
each) in WordPerfect which did the bulk of the work.  After that
all I needed to do was about 20 global search and replaces.  It
took about 5 - 10 minutes total.  It would have taken hours to
retype it in reverse or to write a program to do it.

Since I don't have access to a scanner, but I sometimes want to
take a picture from paper and draw it in ascii I developed a GRID
technique to help me out.  Anyone who wants to give it a try needs
to create the grid electronically and then print it.  Here is how
it works.  Start with the following grid:

1.2.3.4.5.
2.A.B.C.D.
3.E.F.G.H.
4.I.J.K.L.
5.M.N.O.P.

The dots can actually be replaced by spaces, so create the grid
using your preference.

Then, copy the whole grid horizontally until you fill all the width
of the paper size you want to use.  And then, copy this new grid as
many times as needed to fill the length of the page.  You will end
up with something along these lines (with spaces):

1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D
3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H
4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L
5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P
1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D
3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H
4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L
5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P

Now, get a printed copy of that grid and put it aside for a bit.

BTW, this technique works best with pictures that are about 1/4 of
an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper.  Larger pictures can also be done but
are cumbersome and time consuming.  That is how I created three
ascii pictures so far:  the hand that showed "that close", the ying
yang, and my own face.  The toughest thing about the face was to
draw it on paper first.

At this stage you need to find a picture that is reasonably simple
in terms of complexity :-)  In other words not too detailed; the
coarser the better.  Something taken from a colouring book would
probably be an excellent choice (although I have not used any
myself yet).  You may need to "modify" the picture so that it will
also "cooperate" to the process (especially if taken from a
photograph or other source).

With a photocopier, enlarge or reduce the picture so that it is
close to the best size (as stated above).  Then, use a wide black
marker to "highlight" the lines and contours (this may not be
necessary if the picture came from a colouring book).  If there is
a background image that you want to remove, just cut and tape white
paper over those areas or just cut out the undesired areas.  This
is important since the "junk" you would otherwise leave in would
eventually interfere with the grid.

When the lines are all really dark and just about all the
background has been removed you can photocopy the new picture on
the grid.  You may have to experiment a few times to get the
picture to come out the same as the original on an upside up grid.

When you have such an image you can now bring up the electronic
grid.  Work at it from left to right and from top to bottom.  Put
your word processor on typeover and space over the characters of
the first line until you get to a character that is partially or
completely covered by a dark line on the paper grid.  Use the 1 to
5 and the A to P to locate the correct position.  When you get to
such a character, try to find a character that resembles the shape
of the line and type that in.  Ex: '8' for a character that is
totally covered, 'a' for a character that has the bottom half
covered, etc.  This is actually starting the smoothing process at
the same time you are converting from paper to screen.  Remember
that shading complicates things unnecessarily, so ignore it
completely.

Repeat this process for all the lines of the grid until the picture
is completely transferred to electronic form.  You don't need to be
an artist do this.  You just need to have some time on your hands.

Of course at this point the ascii picture is still slightly rough,
but at least you have the right proportions, etc.  Now you could
try to smooth it out by using the "weight distribution" technique
described above and perhaps a printed version of one of the ascii
pictures I have smoothed (for concrete examples).

It may sound very complicated at first, but just to give you an
example, the ying yang I did (a few people informed me that I had
forgotten the eyes):

            .,ad88888888baa,
        ,d8P"""        ""9888ba.
     .a8"          ,ad88888888888a
    aP'          ,88888888888888888a
  ,8"           ,88888888888888888888,
 ,8'            (888888888( )888888888,
,8'             `8888888888888888888888
8)               `888888888888888888888,
8                  "8888888888888888888)
8                   `888888888888888888)
8)                    "8888888888888888
(b                     "88888888888888'
`8,        (8)          8888888888888)
 "8a                   ,888888888888)
   V8,                 d88888888888"
    `8b,             ,d8888888888P'
      `V8a,       ,ad8888888888P'  Normand
         ""88888888888888888P"     Veilleux
              """"""""""""

took just over half an hour using that technique.  I hope a few of
you will be interested enough to try it out.  If you do, let us
know how it goes.

EXPERIMENT:    Would someone with access to a scanner and the
               GIF2ASC program (or an OCR) try the following:
               take a picture from a colouring book, scan it and
               then convert it to ascii.  Alternatively, tell your
               scanner that what you are scanning is text, if you
               have an OCR.  I am under the impression that the
               results would be quite presentable.  Of course,
               sometimes theory and practice differ considerably.
               Please post your findings.

From: Normand Veilleux 
Date: 27 Jun 1994 20:26:35 -0500

I have seen several ascii versions of the Mona Lisa circulating in
alt.ascii-art but I was not happy with any of them.  They all
appeared to be converted GIFs and even the best one, which was
distinctly superior to all the others, only looked decent when I
stood back at least 5 feet from it.  It also had the drawback of
being stretched vertically.  So I decided to make my own.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to give a concrete example
of how the special grid technique that I use, accelerates and
simplifies the creation of many ASCII drawings.  I wanted to
explain, as much as possible, what was involved in drawing by
"hand" the ASCII version of a relatively complex picture while
starting from scratch.

I have described the grid technique in a previous post (in Jan.
'94), but a recapitulation is necessary before going any further.
Basically, the grid was nothing more than a series of characters
that filled up the area taken by the drawing.  I realized that the
characters composing the grid would be more useful if they were
chosen to help pinpoint where a particular portion of the drawing
was located within the grid.

There was many ways of doing this, but I opted for the following
rectangle (10 x 5 characters):

1.2.3.4.5.
2.A.B.C.D.
3.E.F.G.H.
4.I.J.K.L.
5.M.N.O.P.

This rectangle was then replicated horizontally and vertically
until an area the size of an 8.5" x 11" page was filled up.  I
later decided to replace the periods by spaces to "lighten" the
grid.  This created an electronic grid which looked like this:

1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4
2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C
3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G
4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K
5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O
1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4
2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C
3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G
4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K
5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O

The characters 1 to 5 produced horizontal and vertical guidelines.
With these guidelines, I could quickly locate the approximate area
of the grid that I wanted to work on.  To pinpoint the exact
location, I relied on the letters A to P which appeared only once
inside each rectangle.

Of course, the electronic grid alone was not very useful until I
could somehow relate it to the drawing.  To do so, I printed out
the grid and then photocopied it on an acetate for reusability.
Then, whenever I wanted to work on a picture, I taped a photocopy
of it to the back of the acetate and brought up the electronic grid
on the screen.  By the intermediary of the grid, I automatically
had a relationship between the picture on paper and the screen.

TIP: If you ever print a grid on an acetate, make sure to cover the
     acetate with clear tape afterwards to prevent your fingers
     from eroding the toner.  I learned the hard way.

Now, back to Mona.  You may find the discussion a little difficult
to follow at times without a picture, so either find a copy of the
Mona Lisa or print out this file.

In search of a decent reproduction of the Mona Lisa I went to the
closest library and found an excellent example on page 25 of the
book "Leonard de Vinci" published by McGraw-Hill in 1974.  The
picture measured about 9.5" x 12" and was in full colour.

Next, I photocopied the picture.  The lowest darkness setting gave
the best result, but was still a little bit too dark in certain
areas to distinguish some of the lines.  Before addressing that
problem, I decided to cut the photocopy so that the resulting
picture could fit in 55 lines by 78 columns.  This was
approximately double the height of the head and was wide enough to
show a large portion of both shoulders.

To make the barely discernable lines more visible, I highlighted
them with a blue pen.  I made sure to draw those lines about one
sixteenth of an inch thick so they would be clearly visible.
Experience had taught me that very fine lines were often too
difficult to distinguish from a dark background once the grid was
superimposed on the picture.  The affected lines were:  the lines
between veil and hair, hair and background, chin and throat, and
the lines on each side of the face and on each side of the arched
garment extending to her left shoulder (referred to as the shawl in
the rest of this document).  While I was at it, I also highlighted
the contours of the lips, nose and eyes in the same manner.  I then
taped the touched up photocopy behind the acetate which had the
grid.

The next step was to load the electronic version of the grid in my
favourite word processor (WordPerfect).  Before starting work, I
decided to represent the dark areas of the picture with an "8" (I'm
sure you guessed that), the shawl with an "I" and the veil with an
"8" if it was covering any hair and with an "I" if it was not (or
to show its border in the hair).  I chose those characters since
they contrasted very well:  it was easy to distinguish a line of
I's in an area filled with 8's.

Then, I determined which character of the acetate corresponded to
the top of her left shoulder and located that character on the
electronic grid.  While holding the acetate in my left hand and
marking my position on it with my thumb, I delimited the contour
(only one character wide) around the bottom of the picture (counter
clockwise) up to her right shoulder by replacing the characters of
the grid with 8's except for the ends of the shawl which needed
I's.

I then continued up the picture, line by line, while overwriting
the grid's characters with spaces until I got to the first
character delimiting the border of Mona's hair or veil, as
determined from the acetate.  At that point, I typed one of four
characters: "8", "d", "`" or "," depending on which one
corresponded best to the dark portion of the picture at that
location on the acetate.  I then typed two more 8's and a space;
just enough to define the contour.  Of course, when I was in the
area where the veil was the first thing to be reached I used I's
instead of 8's.

I repeated that process for each line until I reached the top of
the head.  There, I decided to follow the inside line of the hair
while going down the right side of the picture.  So, I first
started by defining the hair line on the forehead and filling the
top of the head with 8's.  Then, starting at the inside line for
the hair I typed 8's until I reached the other side of the hair and
then added a "b" or a "," if necessary.  I also made sure to drop
an "I" along the way at the exact location where I had shown the
veil to start covering the hair (it was a blue line on the
photocopy).  I continued this, line by line, until I reached the
top of the shawl.

So, half an hour after loading the grid I was at this stage:

                                  _______
                           _,,ad8888888888bba,_
                        ,8888888888888888888888888,
                      ,888888888888888888888888888888,
                    ,8888888888888888888888888888888888,
                   d88888PP"""""""YY888888888888888888888,
                 ,88  A B C D 2 A B C D 2 ""Y8888888888888,
                ,II 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E  IIII8888888888,
               ,II  4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J `888III8888888,
             ,II  P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N  `888888I888888,
            ,II 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4  `888888I8888b
           ,II  C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 8888888I8888,
           II8  G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H `8888888I888b
           II8  K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L  88888888I888
           II8  O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P  88888888I888,
           II8  4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 ,888888888I88b
          ,II B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 8888888888I888
          II8 F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 8888888888I888,
         ,II  J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 8888888888I888b
         II8  N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 88888888888I888
         II8  3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 88888888888I888,
         II8  B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 88888888888I888b
         II8  F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 88888888888I8888,
         II8  J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 88888888888I8888b
         II8  N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 88888888888I88888
         II8  3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 88888888888I88888
         `II  B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 88888888888I88888
          II8 F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 8888888888I888888,
          `II J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 8888888888I888888b
           `II  O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 8888888888I8888888
            `II 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 `888888888I8888888,
             II8  D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D  888888888I88888888,
            ,II G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H  `88888888I888888888,
            II8 K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 88888888I8888888888,
            II8 O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 88888888I888888888888,
           ,II  4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 `8888888I88888888888888,
           II8  C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2  8888888I888888888888888b
          ,II F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 ,8888888I8888888888888888
         ,88  J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J I
      ,88 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N I
    ,88 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 I
  ,88 C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B I
 ,88  G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F I
d88 J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J I
8 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N 8
8 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 8
8 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B 8
8 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F 8
8 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J 8
8 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N 8
8 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 8
8 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B 8
8 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F 8
8 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J 8
8888888888888888888888888888888IIIIIIIIIIIIII88888888888888888888888888888888

Here, it seemed appropriate to fill in the shawl with I's which
automatically led to filling in the bottom right corner with 8's
and adding my name.  I then completed the small portion of hair at
the top of the shawl.  Then, I defined the upper portion of the
garment, beside the veil, and filled in the section below that with
8's.  Next, I filled the rest of the hair (on the left side of the
picture) with 8's while defining the hair's inside line.  I also
filled in, with spaces, the area of skin from the top of the
garment up to the throat.  Next, I drew the veil on the forehead
and filled in the rest of the forehead with spaces.  And finally I
smoothed all the lines drawn so far, leaving the face for last.

So, after one hour of work I was at this stage:

                                  _______
                           _,,ad8888888888bba,_
                        ,ad88888I888888888888888ba,
                      ,88888888I88888888888888888888a,
                    ,d888888888I8888888888888888888888b,
                   d88888PP"""" ""YY88888888888888888888b,
                 ,d88"'__,,--------,,,,._ ""Y8888888888888,
                ,8II-'"                  "```IIII8888888888,
               ,I88'                          `Y88III8888888,
             ,II88I                            `Y88888I888888,
            ,II888'                              `888888I8888b
           ,II8888                                Y888888I8888,
           II88888                                `8888888I888b
           II88888, 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L  88888888I888
           II88888I 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P  88888888I888,
           II88888' 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 ,888888888I88I
          ,II88888  2 A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D d888888888I888
          III88888, 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 8888888888I888,
         ,III88888I 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 8888888888I888I
         III888888I 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 88888888888I888
         II88888888,  2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 88888888888I888,
         II88888888I  A B C D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 88888888888I888b
         ]I888888888, E F G H 3 E F G H 3 E F G H 88888888888I8888,
         II888888888I I J K L 4 I J K L 4 I J K L 88888888888I8888I
         II8888888888b  N O P 5 M N O P 5 M N O P 88888888888I88888
         II888888888888a  4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 88888888888I88888
         `II8888888888888b, D 2 A B C D 2 A B C D 88888888888I88888
          II888888888888888ba,_ E F G H 3 E F G H 8888888888I888888,
          `II88888888888888888b I J K L 4 I J K L I888888888I888888b
           `II88888888888888888 M N O P 5 M N O P I888888888I8888888
            `II8888888888888888                   `888888888I8888888,
             II8888888888888888,                   Y88888888I8888888b,
            ,II8888888888888888b                   `88888888I88888888b,
            II888888888888888P"I                    88888888I8888888888,
            II888888888888P"   `                    Y8888888I88888888888b,
           ,II888888888P"                           `8888888I8888888888888b,
           II888888888'                              8888888I888888888888888b
          ,II888888888                              ,8888888I8888888888888888
         ,d88888888888                              d888888I8888888888IIIIIII
      ,ad888888888888I                              8888888I8888IIIIIIIIIIIII
    ,d888888888888888'                              888888IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
  ,d888888888888P'8P'                               Y888IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
 ,8888888888888,  "                                 ,IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
d888888888888888,                                ,IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
888888888888888888a,      _                    ,IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII888888888
888888888888888888888ba,_d'                  ,IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII88888888888888
8888888888888888888888888888bbbaaa,,,______,IIIIIIIIIIIIIII888888888888888888
88888888888888888888888888888888888888888IIIIIIIIIIIIIII888888888888888888888
8888888888888888888888888888888888888888IIIIIIIIIIIIII88888888888888888888888
888888888888888888888888888888888888888IIIIIIIIIIIIII888888888888888888888888
8888888888888888888888888888888888888IIIIIIIIIIIIII88888888888888888888888888
88888888888888888888888888888888888IIIIIIIIIIIIII8888888888888888888888888888
8888888888888888888888888888888888IIIIIIIIIIIIII88888888888888888 Normand  88
88888888888888888888888888888888IIIIIIIIIIIIII8888888888888888888 Veilleux 88
8888888888888888888888888888888IIIIIIIIIIIIII88888888888888888888888888888888

I found the shawl to be much too pale in comparison to the rest of
the garment, so I tried replacing the I's with darker characters
such as M, H, A, etc.   Unfortunately, even though I could see the
difference on the screen reasonably well, I could not see any
difference between those characters and the surrounding 8's when I
used the reduced view feature of WordPerfect.  I have been using
this feature to view an entire page at a time on the screen.  It's
only when I tried a 'Z' that I was able to distinguish between the
two characters in the reduced view.  So, 'Z' had my vote.

I then worked on the face for about half an hour, defining the
mouth, nose, eyes, etc.  I tried my preferred style first, but it
looked awful so I tried line draw instead without any more success.
Nothing seemed to work, so I reverted back to my preferred style of
ASCII drawing and to be true to it I did not add any shading to the
face.

This was how the picture looked at that stage:

                                  _______
                           _,,ad8888888888bba,_
                        ,ad88888I888888888888888ba,
                      ,88888888I88888888888888888888a,
                    ,d888888888I8888888888888888888888b,
                   d88888PP"""" ""YY88888888888888888888b,
                 ,d88"'__,,--------,,,,._ ""Y8888888888888,
                ,8II-'"                  "```IIII8888888888,
               ,I88'                          `Y88III8888888,
             ,II88I                            `Y88888I888888,
            ,II888'                              `888888I8888b
           ,II8888                                Y888888I8888,
           II88888                                `8888888I888b
           II88888,   .aag,    ,gaaP""             88888888I888
           II88888I    ___"b  d"    ____           88888888I888,
           II88888'  <^I88>I  I   <^I888'         ,888888888I88I
          ,II88888  . `""" I  I    `""" .         d888888888I888
          III88888,  ````     b     ''''          8888888888I888,
         ,III88888I                               8888888888I888I
         III888888I        ,   \,                 88888888888I888
         II88888888,      I'    "I                88888888888I888,
         II88888888I      `"baad"'               ,88888888888I888b
         ]I888888888,                           ,P88888888888I8888,
         II888888888I    "Y88bd888P"          ,d" 88888888888I8888I
         II8888888888b     `"""""          _,8"  ,88888888888I88888
         II888888888888a                _,P"'   ,d88888888888I88888
         `II8888888888888b,          _,d"'    ,aP"88888888888I88888
          II888888888888888ba,__,,ad""    _,aP"   8888888888I888888,
          `II88888888888888888b"ba,,,,aadP"'      I888888888I888888b
           `II88888888888888888  `""""'           I888888888I8888888
            `II8888888888888888                   `888888888I8888888,
             II8888888888888888,                   Y88888888I8888888b,
            ,II8888888888888888b                   `88888888I88888888b,
            II888888888888888P"I                    88888888I8888888888,
            II888888888888P"   `                    Y8888888I88888888888b,
           ,II888888888P"                           `8888888I8888888888888b,
           II888888888'                              8888888I888888888888888b
          ,II888888888                              ,8888888I8888888888888888
         ,d88888888888                              d888888I8888888888ZZZZZZZ
      ,ad888888888888I                              8888888I8888ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
    ,d888888888888888'                              888888IZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
  ,d888888888888P'8P'                               Y888ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
 ,8888888888888,  "                                 ,ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
d888888888888888,                                ,ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
888888888888888888a,      _                    ,ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ888888888
888888888888888888888ba,_d'                  ,ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ88888888888888
8888888888888888888888888888bbbaaa,,,______,ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ888888888888888888
88888888888888888888888888888888888888888ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ888888888888888888888
8888888888888888888888888888888888888888ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ88888888888888888888888
888888888888888888888888888888888888888ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ888888888888888888888888
8888888888888888888888888888888888888ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ88888888888888888888888888
88888888888888888888888888888888888ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ8888888888888888888888888888
8888888888888888888888888888888888ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ88888888888888888 Normand  88
88888888888888888888888888888888ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ8888888888888888888 Veilleux 88
8888888888888888888888888888888ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ88888888888888888888888888888888

Since I could not seem to improve the face, I decided to try and
experiment with shading to see if that could help.  Well, it did
not turn out the way I thought it would: the shading was too pale.
So I ended up losing half an hour to get to this stage:

                                  _______
                           _,,ad8888888888bba,_
                        ,ad88888I888888888888888ba,
                      ,88888888I88888888888888888888a,
                    ,d88888888I88888888888888888888888b,
                   d88888PP""" """YY88888888888888888888b,
                 ,d88"'__,,--------,,,;:::""Y8888888888888,
                ,8II:'"              .,:.":::IIII8888888888,
               ,I88:.                 ...::::::Y88III8888888,
             ,II88I:.                   :..:::::Y88888I888888,
            ,II888'..                  :.:...:::::888888I8888b
           ,II8888.                        .::::::Y888888I8888,
           II88888:                        .:::::::8888888I888b
           II88888;   .aag,    ,gaaP""... .:.::::::88888888I888
           II88888I:::::::"b  d":::::;;::, :..:::::88888888I888,
           II88888'::<^I88>I  I::.<^I888'   ..:.::;888888888I88I
          ,II88888  . `""" I  I:.. `""" .   ..:.::d888888888I888
          III88888,  ````     b;.   ''''   ..:.:::8888888888I888,
         ,III88888I            :.         ..:.::::8888888888I888I
         III888888I        ,   :,         :::.::::88888888888I888
         II88888888;:     I'    "I       :.:.:::::88888888888I888,
         II88888888I:.    `"baad":       .:::.::::88888888888I888b
         ]I888888888;:.:.    :.:..:.:: ..:.:.:::::88888888888I8888,
         II888888888I:. ."Y88bd888P"   ..::.::::::88888888888I8888I
         II8888888888b::.  `""""'.:.:.:.::.::::::;88888888888I88888
         II888888888888a:.   :::::.:. .:,aP:::::;d88888888888I88888
         `II8888888888888b;.    ..::.;aP":::::;aP:88888888888I88888
          II888888888888888ba,__,,aP"::::::;aP::::8888888888I888888,
          `II88888888888888888b"ba;;;;aadP":::::::I888888888I888888b
           `II88888888888888888 .:::::::::::::::::I888888888I8888888
            `II8888888888888888  .::::::::::::::..`888888888I8888888,
             II8888888888888888,   ..::.:::::.:..  Y88888888I8888888b,
            ,II8888888888888888b      .::..:..     `88888888I88888888b,
            II888888888888888P"I        ..:.        88888888I8888888888,
            II888888888888P"::.`                    Y8888888I88888888888b,
           ,II888888888P".:::                       `8888888I8888888888888b,
           II888888888'                              8888888I888888888888888b

Later, I decided to give line drawing another chance and started
working on the face with no shading.  I managed to get a decent
looking nose in about 5 minutes so I continued and slowly but
surely the rest of the face took on a new look that was much better
than anything obtained so far.  It took about half an hour of trial
and error to get to this:

                                  _______
                           _,,ad8888888888bba,_
                        ,ad88888I888888888888888ba,
                      ,88888888I88888888888888888888a,
                    ,d888888888I8888888888888888888888b,
                   d88888PP"""" ""YY88888888888888888888b,
                 ,d88"'__,,--------,,,,._ ""Y8888888888888,
                ,8II-'"                  "```IIII8888888888,
               ,I88'                          `Y88III8888888,
             ,II88I                            `Y88888I888888,
            ,II888'                              `888888I8888b
           ,II8888                                Y888888I8888,
           II88888                                `8888888I888b
           II88888,    ---.      ..-----           88888888I888
           II88888I   _,,_ `.  .'   _,,_           88888888I888,
           II88888'  <'(@@> |  |   <'(@@>         ,888888888I88I
          ,II88888    `"""  |  |    `"""          d888888888I888
          III88888,            `                  8888888888I888,
         ,III88888I                               8888888888I888I
         III888888I        ,   ',                 88888888888I888
         II88888888,      (_    _)                88888888888I888,
         II88888888I        `--'                 ,88888888888I888b
         ]I888888888,                           ,P88888888888I8888,
         II888888888I    "Y88bd888P"          ,d" 88888888888I8888I
         II8888888888b     `"""""          _,8"  ,88888888888I88888
         II888888888888a                _,P"'   ,d88888888888I88888
         `II8888888888888b,          _,d"'    ,aP"88888888888I88888
          II888888888888888ba,__,,ad""    _,aP"   8888888888I888888,
          `II88888888888888888b"ba,,,,aadP"'      I888888888I888888b
           `II88888888888888888  `""""'           I888888888I8888888
            `II8888888888888888                   `888888888I8888888,
             II8888888888888888,                   Y88888888I8888888b,
            ,II8888888888888888b                   `88888888I88888888b,
            II888888888888888P"I                    88888888I8888888888,
            II888888888888P"   `                    Y8888888I88888888888b,
           ,II888888888P"                           `8888888I8888888888888b,
           II888888888'                              888888I8888888888888888b
          ,II888888888                              ,888888I88888888888888888
         ,d88888888888                              d888888I8888888888ZZZZZZZ
      ,ad888888888888I                              8888888I8888ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
    ,d888888888888888'                              888888IZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
  ,d888888888888P'8P'                               Y888ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
 ,8888888888888,  "                                 ,ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
d888888888888888,                                ,ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
888888888888888888a,      _                    ,ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ888888888
888888888888888888888ba,_d'                  ,ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ88888888888888
8888888888888888888888888888bbbaaa,,,______,ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ888888888888888888
88888888888888888888888888888888888888888ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ888888888888888888888
8888888888888888888888888888888888888888ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ88888888888888888888888
888888888888888888888888888888888888888ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ888888888888888888888888
8888888888888888888888888888888888888ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ88888888888888888888888888
88888888888888888888888888888888888ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ8888888888888888888888888888
8888888888888888888888888888888888ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ88888888888888888 Normand  88
88888888888888888888888888888888ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ8888888888888888888 Veilleux 88
8888888888888888888888888888888ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ88888888888888888888888888888888

I decided to consider this the final unshaded version.

Now, the question remained: would it be worthwhile to add in the
shading?  I showed the unshaded version of the picture to a friend
who is a graphic designer.  It didn't take him long to mention
shading as the next step.  I showed him the first attempt
(displayed above) and admitted that I had no idea how to improve
it.  He suggested using a printed copy of my unshaded picture and
drawing the shading on it first, before attempting to draw it on
the computer.

Well, that almost discouraged me right there.  Drawing simple stuff
on paper was not a problem, but when it came to shading I didn't
have a clue how it could be done.  He helped by pointing out that
I could start by drawing the outer edge of the faintest shading as
though it were a regular object.  I could then define another line
that would represent the "middle ground" of the shading.  He
suggested not to use more than 2 or 3 different levels of shading.
So off to the drawing board I went.

I did not keep all the stages of the shading, but suffice to say
that it took about twice as much time then all the rest of the
picture.  This was the final result of the shaded version:

                                  _______
                           _,,ad8888888888bba,_
                        ,ad88888I888888888888888ba,
                      ,88888888I88888888888888888888a,
                    ,d888888888I8888888888888888888888b,
                   d88888PP"""" ""YY88888888888888888888b,
                 ,d88"'__,,--------,,,,.;ZZZY8888888888888,
                ,8IIl'"                ;;l"ZZZIII8888888888,
               ,I88l;'                  ;lZZZZZ888III8888888,
             ,II88Zl;.                  ;llZZZZZ888888I888888,
            ,II888Zl;.                .;;;;;lllZZZ888888I8888b
           ,II8888Z;;                 `;;;;;''llZZ8888888I8888,
           II88888Z;'                        .;lZZZ8888888I888b
           II88888Z; _,aaa,      .,aaaaa,__.l;llZZZ88888888I888
           II88888IZZZZZZZZZ,  .ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ;llZZ88888888I888,
           II88888IZZ<'(@@>Z|  |ZZZ<'(@@>ZZZZ;;llZZ888888888I88I
          ,II88888;   `""" ;|  |ZZ; `"""     ;;llZ8888888888I888
          II888888l            `;;          .;llZZ8888888888I888,
         ,II888888Z;           ;;;        .;;llZZZ8888888888I888I
         III888888Zl;    ..,   `;;       ,;;lllZZZ88888888888I888
         II88888888Z;;...;(_    _)      ,;;;llZZZZ88888888888I888,
         II88888888Zl;;;;;' `--'Z;.   .,;;;;llZZZZ88888888888I888b
         ]I888888888Z;;;;'   ";llllll;..;;;lllZZZZ88888888888I8888,
         II888888888Zl.;;"Y88bd888P";;,..;lllZZZZZ88888888888I8888I
         II8888888888Zl;.; `"PPP";;;,..;lllZZZZZZZ88888888888I88888
         II888888888888Zl;;. `;;;l;;;;lllZZZZZZZZW88888888888I88888
         `II8888888888888Zl;.    ,;;lllZZZZZZZZWMZ88888888888I88888
          II8888888888888888ZbaalllZZZZZZZZZWWMZZZ8888888888I888888,
          `II88888888888888888b"WWZZZZZWWWMMZZZZZZI888888888I888888b
           `II88888888888888888;ZZMMMMMMZZZZZZZZllI888888888I8888888
            `II8888888888888888 `;lZZZZZZZZZZZlllll888888888I8888888,
             II8888888888888888, `;lllZZZZllllll;;.Y88888888I8888888b,
            ,II8888888888888888b   .;;lllllll;;;.;..88888888I88888888b,
            II888888888888888PZI;.  .`;;;.;;;..; ...88888888I8888888888,
            II888888888888PZ;;';;.   ;. .;.  .;. .. Y8888888I88888888888b,
           ,II888888888PZ;;'                        `8888888I8888888888888b,
           II888888888'                              888888I8888888888888888b
          ,II888888888                              ,888888I88888888888888888
         ,d88888888888                              d888888I8888888888ZZZZZZZ
      ,ad888888888888I                              8888888I8888ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
    ,d888888888888888'                              888888IZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
  ,d888888888888P'8P'                               Y888ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
 ,8888888888888,  "                                 ,ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
d888888888888888,                                ,ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
888888888888888888a,      _                    ,ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ888888888
888888888888888888888ba,_d'                  ,ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ88888888888888
8888888888888888888888888888bbbaaa,,,______,ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ888888888888888888
88888888888888888888888888888888888888888ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ888888888888888888888
8888888888888888888888888888888888888888ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ88888888888888888888888
888888888888888888888888888888888888888ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ888888888888888888888888
8888888888888888888888888888888888888ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ88888888888888888888888888
88888888888888888888888888888888888ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ8888888888888888888888888888
8888888888888888888888888888888888ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ88888888888888888 Normand  88
88888888888888888888888888888888ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ8888888888888888888 Veilleux 88
8888888888888888888888888888888ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ88888888888888888888888888888888

As you can see, the grid system that I have been working with since
January '94 allows to very quickly transfer the large details from
paper to screen while keeping the proportions of the original
picture.  This eliminates a lot of the time-consuming
experimentation otherwise required to get the right proportions.
You can't go wrong with the grid:  the characters that compose it
allow you to "see" where you should start and where you should
stop.  The skills required to use it are fairly simple as well,
although they do need to be practiced.  One thing the grid cannot
do though, is eliminate the experimentation needed for the
finishing touch:  the smaller details, the smoothing, the shading,
etc.

     ---<-<@    ---<-<@   ---<-<@    ---<-<@   ---<-<@

A big thank you goes to Rowan Crawford who spent time revising an
earlier draft of this document and who provided many useful
suggestions to improve its contents.

The pictures I post are at their best when printed with a
'Line Printer 16.67 cpi' font or equivalent.

    ___        _______
  ,88888,    ,d88888888a
 ,88" `Y8,  ,88"'   `"Y8i     ,ggggg,   ,ggggg,   ,ggg,,ggg,,ggg,
 I8b,  `8b ,88'       d8I    dP"  "Y8ggg8""""8I  ,8" "8P" "8P" "8,
 `Y8P   88.88'       ,88'   i8'    ,8I       8I  I8   8I   8I   8I
        (8V8'        d8P    I8,   ,d8'       Y8,,dP   8I   8I   Yb,
        (88P        ,8P     `Y8888P"         `Y88P'   8I   8I   `Y8ba
        d88         d8'
       ,88'        ,8P                 _,,ggdd888bbgg,,_
       d8P         I8I            _,gd8888P"""""""""Y8888bg,_
      ,88          I8b       _,gd88P"""'               `"""Y88bg,_
      88'          `Y8b,__,gd8P""'      Normand Veilleux     `""Y8bg,_
     d8P            `Y88888P"'        nveilleu@emr1.emr.ca       `"Y88ba