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diamondie — ASCII art tutorial 1.0
Published: 2004-11-02 15:26:15 +0000 UTC; Views: 61240; Favourites: 161; Downloads: 8994
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Description
I've been working on this tutorial since May or June, but multiple things have caused delays and I was only able to finish it now. Click the Download to Desktop button to view the tutorial, which is a single HTML file without any images, besides the inline ASCII pictures of course. The title image is made with FIGlet, except for the border.I've changed the structure of the tutorial multiple times and I hope it's clear enough now. There are surely some errors in the information, so feedback and corrections are appreciated. I'm afraid the HTML isn't too pretty, I might fix that in the future.
I've decided not to include any links in the tutorial, because they would go stale eventually. It's easier to edit the description field than the actual file, so I provide a few pointers here. Most of the things mentioned in the tutorial (such as software, fonts and definitions of words) are easy enough to find with Google.
The ASCII tutorial in Spanish , kindly translated by =jSepia My ASCII art website ASCII art on DeviantART JavE The history of ASCII art , mirrored here Most ASCII pieces in the tutorial are mine, the rest are used with permission. Unfortunately I've had to leave out a few pictures that I couldn't obtain a permission for (the author was unreachable or didn't reply to my email), but I provide links to them. Here's also a link to `nemoorange 's great piece used in the tutorial, so you can view it as intended and comment on it.
Echidna by Andreas Freise (for the "Textures and materials" section) Dolphin by Donovan, scroll down the page (for the "Camelized" section) It Figures by `nemoorange
Related content
Comments: 111
CCC l !!!
C l !!!
C ooo ooo l !!!
C o o o o l
CCC ooo ooo l !!!
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I don't know if you're aware, but you have a drawing on your home page called "babushka" that depicts a "matryoshka". "babushka" means grandma or old lady. "matryoshka" is the name of the toy.
Feel free to ignore this message if you where aware of this beforehand.
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Thank you so much for this!!!! I've been looking for a tutorial on how to do this FOREVER
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I turned my screen upside-down & still can't see what you tried to draw...
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:-S
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_____ ___ ____
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looks like i need some help
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Nice tutorial!
Just stumbled across
it, will help me make
some ascii pictures of
my own i think
Thanks
Mike
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Oooh.... an ASCII tutorial. You don't get a lot of these avidly advertised on the web. I don't do a lot of ASCII art myself. But i took a look at your tut and it is a very neat tut. I mostly looked at the pictures, some really amazing ASCII art in there.
Here is some love, just because there is not enough love comments on here
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Very good tutorial. I feel stupid asking this, but how do you type a line like this "|" in Courier New? I think there's something I'm missing. (I copied and pasted that one)
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Do you mean the shift+slash? | Right above the enter key. It looks like an elongated colon, but its actually a straight line. It should be the same in courier, i think. |||
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It depends on your keyboard. :-> I'm using a Finnish keyboard, so for me the pipe character is produced by Alt Gr+<, but it's in a different key in the U.S. keyboard (and most other keyboard layouts) and I can't remember where it is.
Thanks for commenting.
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Awesome tut, keep it up :> Also there could be some more examples. ._.
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Thanks. You're right that the tutorial could be more conclusive and have more examples. I've been supposed to revamp it for a few years, but other stuff has always come in the way...
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very interesting, just found out this was an actual artform, but how do those things that are copy pasted with chain letters, you know the footprints, the heart, the rose, how do they fit in?
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Usually those pictures use proportional fonts like Arial (and often contain non-ASCII characters). Many people consider them to be ASCII art, even though technically they are not. Pictures drawn in Arial used to be called "AOL macros", which is because they were used in an AOL webchat (or forums?) which used this font.
I once got commissioned by a PR agency to draw Mona Lisa in Verdana (another proportional font). I had never tried drawing in a proportional font before - it's quite difficult to make something like Mona Lisa. Sadly the project was cancelled. I think it would have been for Microsoft.
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wow too bad the project was canceled, that must have been a shiton of money you missed out on
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Yeah... It probably would have been a decent amount of money (especially considering my very low income). I try not to think about that too much. ;-P
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well you have a lot of talent, mabe ull get another job like that soon
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A blast from the past, brings up nice memories...
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The pictures' okay but it's not my thing I dontlikenumbers like the ### kind
nine tute though
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thats cool:english
c'est de la magie:french
molto béné:italian
jmil : arab
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Wonderful Tutorial... Wow takes me back to the old BBS days. Thanks for the memories
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Wow! What an excellent job you have done. Checking it out more, I tested ASCII art in 3ds Max (forgive me, I hope I have not sinned 
See!
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That's quite a cool idea, I'm glad I was able to inspire you. There's one little problem with the animation though: you didn't use a fixed-width font but a proportional one, which isn't fit for displaying ASCII art. You can see that the characters don't line up perfectly as they do in the original.
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Ah! Fixed-width font! Great eye too. That makes sense, Thank You!
(In the tiny little text window for Max, I kept re-spacing/re-aligning all the text, lol!
Adobe After Effects has some really fun text animation presets, -making the text animate into your art would look great (I think).
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ASCII art is great. I will try this soon.
Thnks for the tutorial.
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Click the "Download" button (it doesn't actually download the tutorial to your computer, but lets you view it in your browser).
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You created some clear and minimal things and I think that both are really the best parts in anything worth of doeing : )
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Oooooh, wow! I always wondered how people do those so well. This was very informative!
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Very Very nice tutorial!
but I found out I totally suck at it!
I tried doing a lollipop,
it looked more like a squashed aubergine!
omar
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huh? good, i speak spanish, thanks for letting me know,
and. thanks for the tutorial a lot 
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I think i'll take another try, when i read it, i've started to do some ASCII with notepad
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Wow, this is a really well written tutorial, good job! 
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Thanks! Frankly I don't really need the CSS, I'm happy with plain even if someone may find it bland. I'm hoping to be able to revise this tutorial in the upcoming months, I'm just the kind of person who has a hundred projects running at once so I don't know when I can get to it.
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Oh ok, I just find it hard to resist doing coding, hehe
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this is pretty awesome
drop by the club sometime
jaako
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This is awesome. I've been assigned a text-based art assignment at my colleg art course. Of course the instructor isn't expected SCII, but this looks very informative and helpful. Thanks for putting in so much time and effort!
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Hi Diamondie, nice work. You should have a look at my ASCII & ANSI Text Art Lens at Squidoo which shows the distinct styles of the Underground Text Art Scene. I also believe that the Text Art History Article from Joan G. Stark. Enjoy.
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Thanks for the link. I think we will feature it in the next issue of TextCanvas (a news article series focusing on ANSI and ASCII art).
I'm trying to get this tutorial updated in the near future, with more information about the actual drawing process (as well as some more editors and fonts).
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You can find Editors here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_art . I have on My Internet Homepage TheDraw available for download (my Editor of choice) and also ANSIDraw which is one of the oldest, if not the oldest editor for the PC. A real piece of crap. I made my first ANSI's and ASCII's with it and talked about my experiences with it on my Homepage as well. The Draw comes with a bunch of fonts and allows the creation of custom fonts by the user. Hope this will help. CYA
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that's really interesting and good work..... keeep coming more...
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