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3.1 Starting out
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3.2 Lineart
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3.3 Solid art
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3.4 Grayscale
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3.5 Antialiasing
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3.6 Tracing
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3.7 Aspect ratio
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3.8 Difficulties and limitations
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3.9 Perspective, 3D and isometric ASCII
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3.10 Textures and materials
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3.11 Lighting and shadow
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3.12 Uses for different characters
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4 Fixed-width fonts
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4.1 Courier New
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4.2 DOS font
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4.3 Topaz New
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4.4 Lucida Console
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4.5 Fixedsys
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4.6 Arial Alternative
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4.7 MS Gothic
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4.8 Andale Mono (aka Monotype.com)
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5 ASCII art software
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5.1 JavE
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5.2 FIGlet
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5.3 TheDraw/Aciddraw
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5.4 Acidview
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5.5 PabloDraw
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6 Other stuff
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6.1 ASCII map
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6.2 Displaying ASCII art on web pages
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6.3 Coloring ASCII art
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6.4 Demoscene ASCII art
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6.5 ASCII art culture and etiquette
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1 Introduction
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ASCII is an acronym of "American Standard Code for Information Interchange".
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ASCII art means art made out of different characters in the ASCII map and can
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thus be represented in plain text format. It cannot include extended characters
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or text formatting such as bold or italics. ASCII art is always done on a
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fixed-width font like Courier New or Fixedsys, never on a proportional font
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like Arial or Times New Roman. It can be made in Notepad or MS-DOS Edit, but
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there are also some specific programs for making ASCII art. And no, I'm not
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talking about ASCII converters.
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People often comment on ASCII art by saying "Wow, that is so amazing, I'd never
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have the patience to make something like that". I don't get it. Why do they
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think ASCII art requires so much patience? I can make a decent fullscreen ASCII
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in an hour (even if it sometimes takes ten hours). It takes me at least fifteen
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hours to draw a decent fullscreen CG picture.
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ASCII art isn't easy and it does require skill, but you don't have to care
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about things like brush strokes or colors and usually not about shading either.
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In a way it is a lot like pixel art. When I started pixeling it felt very
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familiar due to my ASCII and ANSI experience. Pixel artists will probably
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experience a similar reaction when they start drawing ASCII. You don't have to
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have great drawing skills to be a good ASCII artist. I, for instance, suck at
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drawing, I can paint but I can't do the sketch like thing at all. ASCII
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sketching is practically something non-existant, but if this interests you,
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nothing stops you from trying this new style.
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Some people wonder what's the point. What's the point in making art in general?
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I think limitations are what makes art interesting and feeds the creative mind.
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ASCII art probably isn't something that you encounter in an art museum (which
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is regrettable), it's more like everyday art. I guess it has something in
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common with pop art. ASCII art can be sent via email or to Usenet newsgroups,
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it can be used on IRC and many chatrooms (do that with caution, though). You
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can include ASCII art in your signature or login screen or print it out with
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your old matrix printer. It can be used for representing game situations,
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graphs or molecular models.
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I've heard opinions of ASCII art not being art but graphical design, but I
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disagree with that. Design is usually considered to be something functional,
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such as advertisements or interfaces, while visual art is something you can
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hang on your walls. ASCII art usually isn't functional but aesthetical. I know
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people who have ASCII pictures hanging on their walls.
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There are other ASCII tutorials, but I decided there's still room for another
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one. Many of the others are outdated, some are even more than 10 years old.
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They also feature slightly different techniques and lack some of the parts that
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my tutorial focuses on. This turned out perhaps more like a ASCII drawing/
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culture FAQ than an actual tutorial, but I hope it will still be useful.
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2 Types of ASCII art
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2.1 Lineart
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Lineart is just what its name implies, things are represented with (usually
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thin) outlines, sometimes dotty, sometimes consisting mostly of slashes,
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underscores and pipes. Lineart also includes most FIGlet fonts and demoscene
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logos. Suitable for both huge images and tiny pictures.
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