Go give these emoticons and their artists some love.

Well, life made a liar out of me. As soon as I made my last journal promising everything would get better, everything got worse. I'd rather not go into it now. As for the resignation, I simply do not have the time or energy now to give the wonderful emoticon community the attention it deserves, so I'm going to let someone else take over and make the community shine.

I'd like to feature some outstanding emoticons that have been suggested to me over the last month. Go give the emoticons, the artists, and the suggesters some love.

Hi all, I'm alive. Just been incredibly busy. I was expecting my last semester of college to be easy, considering none of my classes are particularly hard. They're easy. They're just the most time consuming classes I think I've ever had. I've also had a bunch of out-of-school stuff happening, too. Summary of the last month:

-Had my art show in downtown Indianapolis. Sold half my photographs! It was a big success.
-Preparation for the senior art show that's in a few weeks. Senior art majors are required to have an art show, and since there's so many of us this year, we're putting on a group show. I'm in charge of promoting it.
-Preparation for a smaller gallery show in May.
-In training for promotion at GameStop.
-Working a lot for the local library. My internship turned into a part-time job.
-Quit two of my other jobs. No more IT desk and receptionist job for me.
-Been taking care of my grandmother, who is currently very sick.

I really feel awful for not being active on here. I've lurked. I've been on here every day. I've read everyone's notes and been marking some stuff for DDs, as well as getting caught up on what is going on with the gallery makeovers. `Synfull has made a wonderful article about it, which can be found here.

I'm also very pleased to see that the 2012 Emote Awards winners have been announced, and I'd like to congratulate all the winners and nominees, as well as everyone who voted. _{My emoticon tutorial won Best Emoticon Tutorial.}

Spring Break is upon me, and now that I'm past midterms things should get easier. I'll probably disappear for a few days in April since I'll have my senior comp exams then, but otherwise I plan on being around now. So thank you to everyone for being patient!

I have some exciting news from this thing called Real Life, which doesn't often happen. My photography is going to be on display at the Wheeler Arts Community in Fountain Square in Indianapolis, and is opening at 6pm, March 1st, during Indianapolis' First Fridays. For those of you who don't know, First Fridays is an event that takes place, as the name would suggest, on the first Friday of every month in downtown Indy (as well as other big cities). Galleries along Mass Ave and other artsy places open their doors to the public for the night, and people can wander from gallery to gallery. There's food, music, and art, and is tons of fun.

If anyone is in the Indianapolis area, come downtown and take a look at my stuff, as well as the other awesome galleries that will be open to the public that night. There will be free food and drinks, and lots and lots of artwork, as well as a ton of nice artists to talk to. My work will be on display for the whole month of March.

Hope to see you there!

Well, I've been useless for the last two weeks. First, there was the pre-Christmas rush at the mall. That kept me and my store really busy. As a side note, we got a foot of snow on Christmas and everything was closed the next day. So that got me a nice, relaxing day off work. Then I've been sick since Christmas Eve. Just started off as a sore throat, and didn't get worse for a while. Then, I get insanely sick. Seriously spent the last three days asleep. My fever finally broke last night and I'm starting to recover.

I start my month-long internship at the local library tomorrow. I'll be doing graphic design and photography work for them. I'm really excited about it, I just wish I had more time to get healthy before having to go out and push myself like this. If I'm not careful, I'll go right back to being sick.

I've spent quite a bit of time today cleaning up the emoticon gallery. I'll have a DD round-up up soon, hopefully tonight but maybe tomorrow morning. I haven't been very good about recording what I've featured this month, so I gotta go through the days. New Year's resolution: organization!!

I hope you guys had a nice New Years and Christmas or Hanukkah or whatever you celebrate this time of year. Let's make 2013 awesome.

My chicken is still purple from Spirit Day, which was almost two months ago. I really need a new avatar; I've had my exploding cuckoo one for over 6 years. Would anyone be willing to do a points commission for me?

I've been recovering from my Black Friday shift at GameStop. Midnight to 11am. In a mall. In a store the size of a closet. It was loads of fun. (Not being too sarcastic here, I do really enjoy working.) I was supposed to work a second job after that, but I got someone to take my shift. The last day has been spent sleeping. Like, that's literally all I've done since my shift ended yesterday morning.

It seems I've utterly failed NaNoEmo. Thankfully, others have not. It's encouraging browsing through the emote gallery and seeing lots of emotes. It's not something that happens too often, because the emote galleries are often filled with more misplaced stuff than emotes. Now that I have my laptop back, I hope to correct that. Tonight will be spent cleaning the gallery of misplaced deviations from the last month. And speaking of the state of the emote galleries, I have some questions for you, dear readers. Feedback would be very, very appreciated.

Do you think the emote gallery could use a restructure? I have some ideas in mind (outlined below), but I'd really like to hear suggestions and comments.
I'm thinking of starting up a series of monthly contests in the same vein as The Non-Emote Emote Contest. Would you participate?
Are you happy overall with the state of the emote community? Is there something you would like to see improved?
Anything else you'd like to say?

Now, as for restructuring, here's what I have in mind:

Keep the galleries organized into animated or static, and by small, medium, or large. I believe it makes it easy to find exactly the kind of emote you are looking for.
Get rid of the Projects galleries. I don't believe emote projects are common enough to warrant their own gallery, and more miscats are submitted here than actual emote project things. Project bases and templates could be submitted to Emoticons > Other/Misc. Entries for projects could be submitted to the respective animated/static and size galleries.
Get rid of the Packs gallery. This is one I'm not so sure about. Again, this is a gallery where there are more things that don't belong are submitted than things that do. But, I'm not sure where packs would be submitted instead. Feedback would be especially helpful here.

I'm not even sure if I'd be allowed to do so, but if the community in general would be behind it, it may be able to be done.

Well, there hasn't been any. No progress for me. Maybe over Thanksgiving break I can go on an emote-making spree. The laptop I've been using also doesn't like it when I used Photoshop, so that's been hindering progress. It doesn't much like anything I do, really. It's a grumpy old computer who resents having to do any work. Meanwhile, I'm waiting on a part for my newer laptop to be shipped, and that could take another week. So I'm stuck with my old laptop for maybe another week.

You may have noticed there haven't been many DDs so far this month. I've seen quite a few awesome emotes so far this month because of NaNoEmo, and I'm hesitating giving a DD to anything because there may be even more awesome stuff just around the corner, and I want to be sure to feature the best. So stop making such awesome stuff, guys!

On the note of DDs, suggestions are always welcome.

And now, I'd like to feature some of the awesome NaNoEmo stuff that has been submitted so far! Did I mention these are all awesome?

Sorry this took a few days...Been pretty busy with school, and my current laptop isn't exactly reliable...

Which is why I haven't been very active on here. I took my computer back in to the shop on Tuesday, because on that day alone I had 4 BSoDs. It's been almost a week since I took it in, and it will be at least another week until I get it back. They think it's a hardware issue, which is why it's taking forever to diagnose and get fixed. This week I've also been pretty busy with my school work and work work. Monday or Tuesday I'll get back to my regular stuff, because then I won't have several quizzes to study for. Until then, sorry I've been a tad dead. Work and school are killing me.

Also, I'm likely not going to be very active on the week of Thanksgiving. I'm out of school for that week (yay! ), but I'll be working approximately a billion hours between two of my jobs (16 hours on Black Friday! ).

Well, it's that awesome time of year again! The fall foliage, the changing of the weather, and...zombies?! What?!

Haven't we been over this enough times? For the love of God, if you disagree with a DD selection, don't be rude about it and post it directly on the deviation's comments. How would you feel if people started talking shit in the comments of one of your deviations? I know, I know, I hear you cry: "But CEH, if I don't post my burning hatred for everyone to see, how will everyone know how elite and sophisticated I am for hating such a heinous crime against art? " Chill. It's a daily feature. Not a Nobel Prize. When emoticons start deciding the fate of the world, then you can complain about which ones get featured. Until then, direct your DD selection hatred toward me or $Moonbeam13. Don't take it out on the work or the deviant; have respect for your fellow artists, even if you disapprove of their art. Suggesting what you believe is worthy of a DD would be super helpful, too. You can't disapprove what you had a hand in picking.

I'm writing this because of yesterday's DD, Pearl in the Oyster Shell by *Kohaku0827. I got a few notes from deviants who were quite upset over the selection, because the emote has a resemblance to the Pokemon Clampearl. I've been at this whole CV thing for not even a month now, and, being merely human (oh, forgive the crime of it!), I may have made a mistake. When I selected it to be featured, I did not notice that it looks like a Pokemon. It never even occurred to me. I noticed its bright and eye-catching colors, subtle shading, and adorable pearl emote, and felt that overall it was of good quality, and that is why I featured it. After the complaints arose, I compared the emote and the Pokemon sprite both side-by-size and in an overlay in Photoshop, and they are not the same. There are differences in the size, shading, and shape, and *Kohaku0827's. It is not a copy, trace-over, or re-color. I stand by featuring it, and if it bothers you, walk away and ignore it. Just leave the computer for a while, you probably need it.

So, for future reference, refer to the first half of this journal if you have a DD complaint. Now, this isn't to say that feedback isn't helpful. If you do disapprove of a DD, it does help to let us know (just, y'know, by noting us and not voicing your displeasure in comments) so we can learn. I've certainly learned to be more careful about what I select. I'll definitely be on the lookout for Pokemon look-a-likes. Or, if you absolutely must let the recipient of a DD know how much you dislike their work, please do so in a constructive way. Offer mature advice on how a work could become better. Just saying, "This doesn't deserve a DD" or "u suk" doesn't help the deviant grow as an artist. If you help more artists develop, there will be less future DD selections for you to complain about. Everybody wins.

I got my laptop back today! So happy! Not so happy about having to reinstall all of my games, though. D: It's gonna take around two hours for Skyrim to download and install since I lost the disc a while ago...Guild Wars 2 will take a while, too. I also lost all my WIP emotes, as well as some photography.

Speaking of games and such, feel free to add me on Steam. Name is CEH The Cheerful Sniper or irflyingpapaya if that doesn't work.

And a reminder: I'm looking for purple emotes for Spirit Day! That's tomorrow! So suggest!

Well, I get a BSoD about once a day, it's slow as molasses, and just plain refuses to start up about 50% of the time. So I think it's about time to get my laptop looked at. I may be without reliable computer access for a few days while I get whatever is wrong fixed.

EDIT: My laptop has been taken in, and it's getting completely wiped and restored to factory settings. Something about Windows 7 being completely corrupted and unfixable. Thankfully I remembered I had my old laptop in the trunk of my car, so after waiting around 30 minutes for it to boot up, I have a semi-reliable computer. It's even slower than the laptop I took in to get fixed, though, so I'm not going to be doing much on it.

Coincidentally, this is the laptop I use for my photomicrography, so I may break out the microscope tonight.

What's on my head?! Wait...it's a hat! That's right, I'm the new emoticon CV.

To those of you who don't know me: My name is Kirstyn Click. I'm a college senior, double majoring in Art History and Art Studio: Design, and minoring in English. Besides emoticons, I also really enjoy abstract photography and I'm currently applying to several MFA photography programs. I work several jobs, and all but one of them involve sitting at a computer, so I'm basically glued to my computer unless I'm in a class or sleeping. I check my email and dA at least twice a day, usually much more often if work is really slow, so expect a response from me within a few hours.

I've been making emoticons for going on 8 years (since I was 14!), and I've seen the emoticon community grow and develop. It's been interesting watching various trends appear and be forgotten, see new techniques and "types" of emotes develop, etc. Some awesome artists have come and gone and, sometimes, returned. New, also awesome, artists are always appearing. It's a small but ever-changing community. I'd like to get to know those of you who I haven't talked to much, so just note me or comment here and just tell me a little about yourself. Hell, even if I have talked to you before, do that, too, and I might learn something new about you.

If you have any emoticon DD suggestions, send them my way!