I’m at work; but I wish I had my laptop near!
Yes, I’m at work as I type this – in fact, it’s my 18 hour day of work. I wish that I had my laptop with me – I really feel like working on a doll! In fact…I started making a base body last night. Can you believe it? And it was quite amusing, because at the same time as I was dolling, my husband was playing The Sims. I dunno, they just always seemed to go hand-in-hand (in the past…The Sims is far more advanced nowadays).
Anyhoo, it got me thinking about the past. The Palace Chat & cartoon dolls are the reason why I kept buying laptops – so that I could bring them to work. Well, World of Warcraft was another reason (there were a few nights when I raided with our Horde guild while I was on layover at the hotel with work!). As you may or may not know, I’ve been making & creating dolls (or avatars as they were known on The Palace Chat) since 1997 or thereabouts. I initially uploaded other’s dolls onto my website as people tend to do nowadays from the use of websites like DollsMania and other drag and drop websites. Sometime later I realized that was dumb, when I started editing and then creating my own dolls.
I was pretty well known on The Palace Chat — in particular, I hung out at The Avatar Palace (I was also briefly a wizard there — wizard means admin). I was approached & asked a lot on how to create new dolls & clothing and such, so I decided to put tutorials online. I was inspired by Love, For An Immortal who I swear had the first cartoon doll tutorials online. I don’t hesitate to say that mine were the second up online. Were my dolls the best? Hell no! My friend Desert Angel and loads of other friends of mine all came into amazing talent with making dolls. I just happened to post up my website at exactly the right time.
So I changed my website & wrote my tutorials on it, and supplied links to other tutorials around the web. Pixel or sprite art is much the same as dolling, so I included those sorts of tutorials as well. And of course, I would post up all my own dolls as well. I don’t know if my website is less or more popular than it was, but if it helped at least one person in their dolling pursuits, it was worth it…Plus, it was way fun!
In 2012 around February, I returned to The Palace after not having used it for years. I was so nostalgic for the past that I immediately purchased hosting for a year. I was greatly dissapointed to see that there weren’t any dollers around — let alone any sk8er avatars! There was hardly any people as well. I believe the reason for this is that The Palace’s big draw was the free avatars. It was basically one big drag and drop.
One people started ripping the dolls and their doll parts off of The Palace, they started posting them on websites and created places like Dolls Mania. I can’t fault them for it — after all, I sort of did the same thing (mostly with my own creations). However, I believe that was the big downfall of The Palace.
Anyhoo, I made a few new pixels, and worked a bit on my website — and then I was made the promotions director and webmaster for my Rocky Horror Picture Show shadow cast’s website & social media pages. But I’m back now, and that’s what matters, right?
Ahhhh, but I digress. Or did I? I don’t even know what the point of my article was, now!
In any event, cartoon dolls are alive and well on the web, and that’s what counts. I get a little miffed that people simply post them up to places like Deviant Art now instead of having their own website. But I do acknowledge the fact that websites can be a handfull themselves, so I don’t get too mad. At least DA gave dollers their own category and view it as a legitimate art! For a while there, even pixel artists sneared at us dollers (seemed kinda weird since it’s very nearly the same thing).
As for my website, I may not have the time like I used to, to create new base bodies & dolls (but I’m going to try!). I’m now 31 years old (quickly coming up on 32!) but I definitely plan on updating my site here. As you can see, one of the main goals is to continually link to other’s tutorials on the web, have at least one “Spotlight” or showcased website every month, and adopt awesome dolls. I think that’s why I changed the name to include “Magazine”. Because it sort of is now, right?
Comments New Tutorial Links & Adopted Doll
