Sticky Forum rules and directory / SQSA

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sleep talk metropolis
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Top Artist Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Staff Alumnus
smearglelogocolorresized.png

Logo by Zracknel, colored by Bummer

Welcome to the Smeargle’s Studio!​

The Smeargle’s Studio is meant as venue for all users to share their original creative work, be it digital art, traditional drawings, paintings, sculpting, written works, music, and many more. Additionally, this is the place where many illustrations for projects and content all over the website are created! If you're new to this part of Smogon and want to learn what this forum has to offer, then this thread should hopefully hold all information you need to get started. Be sure to review the forum rules before diving right in, in order to avoid any unwanted surprises. Users dropping by specifically to request art can refer to the condensed directory here.

If you have any questions, feel free to make a post right in this thread or ask one of the studio’s staff members.

List of the studio's staff members
Kaiju Bunny
Zephyri
kolohe
Kiwi
Pissog
uppa
 
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studio-rules-2.png

Art by tiki

Smeargle’s Studio Rules​

The Smeargle’s Studio is generally considered one of the more casual forums on Smogon, but nonetheless, there are a few guidelines that need to be acknowledged before participating. In addition to the global rules of the Smogon forums, the Smeargle’s Studio has its very own set of rules which help keep the forum organized and ensure everyone has an equal chance of presenting their art.
Take a moment to review these rules before getting involved in the studio! That way, you avoid unnecessary drama and the moderating staff doesn't have to clean up any potential messes. Not following the rules will either result in post deletion or thread locks, with a possibility for infraction for more severe and repeated offenses.


Posting an art thread

The thread needs to include at least three artworks: Those artworks can depict the same subject as long as they're not the exact same image. In the case of written works and poems, the thread must include at least three different works or works that together exceed 1000 words. If you don't have enough to create your own thread, there are several mega threads where people can post and share their work:​
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The Smeargle's Studio is for original art: Only creative works which you’ve made yourself from scratch is allowed in the main forum. Graphical art that doesn’t fit this criteria, such as non-scratched sprites and photo-collages (artwork, avatars, or banners), should instead be posted in the Smeargle's Laptop subforum. Do note that you can use your already established art thread to share such graphical art on occasion, but regular postings usually warrant their own thread in the Smeargle’s Laptop.​
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Only a single active art thread is allowed: Every artist is limited to a single active art thread in the main forum, even when working on multiple projects and in different media. If you want to create a new art thread, the old one has to be locked beforehand.​
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Do NOT plagiarize: Plagiarism means claiming that someone else's work is your own, and will be met with hefty infractions, so don't do it. Traced images are okay as long as you openly admit to it, and preferably with a link to the original work.​
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AI-Generated pieces are not allowed: This goes without saying, but AI pieces are not welcome in Smeargle's Studio. AI-generated images steal from real artists and insults their hard and dedicated work. Using AI to any extent to help create your pieces will be met with a serious infraction, as it is a form of plagiarism. For more information, please reference Smogon Global Rules.​
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Keep your content appropriate: Please do not make posts that are hateful or racist in nature. In addition, refrain from posting pornography or explicit, gore-intensive images. Non-explicit works that are more suggestive will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Do your best to use hide tags and warn viewers if you're not sure your image is appropriate.​
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Posting in existing threads

Do not advertise: Refrain from advertising your own and other people’s art in unrelated threads, and posting images and links from external projects and sites. Images and links to your own external projects and sites are only allowed in your own art thread.​
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Do not necrobump threads: While we allow the creator to necrobump their own threads with new content, we ask that everyone else avoids bumping old threads with comments. There are plenty of users who would be happy if that artist was active again, so if they see the thread bumped, they can get their hopes up for nothing. If an art thread hasn't gotten any activity in a month, consider it a gray area. An exception to this are ★ starred threads that aren't locked, which can be bumped by any user willing to add new content and thoughts.​
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Don’t double post: Once again, exceptions are made for the creator of an art thread and ★ starred threads when adding new content (within reason), but for all other cases the edit function should suffice.​
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Requesting Etiquette

Please respect Smeargle's Studio requesting etiquette: more information can be found in the sticky thread with the same name, but in short, be kind to artists who you request art from, especially if they're doing it for free. If you, as an artist, feel you've been treated unfairly when it comes to requesters, we heavily encourage you to reach out in PMs!​
 
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PXKdOEX.png

Art by Bummer

Smeargle’s Studio Directory​

The Smeargle’s Studio can be a big place at times, and certainly brings along a rich history of threads, projects and resources. So hopefully, this directory will be able to provide a comprehensive overview on what the current forum has to offer, and pinpoint all artists in the right direction.


The Smeargle’s Studio Hub
The Smeargle's Studio Hub was set up with the aim to conserve notable artwork and events from the past and feature the hardworking artists who contributed to the site. Additionally, many specific resources for the forum and community have found a permanent home in the hub. If you have ever wanted to know more about the history and inner workings of the Smeargle’s Studio, or just enjoy casually scrolling through artwork and contributions, this is the place for you!

As the forum activities carry on and new artists enter our community, the hub is ever changing and in need of regular updates. If you’re interested in helping out or have any concrete suggestions, we’d be happy to hear from you in our thread for Improving the Studio's Hub.


Chat Channels
Our official chat channels on Discord (#smeargle) and the Pokemon Showdown The Art Gallery are some of the best platforms to get involved with the community and receive feedback from other artists in real time. Art and Pokemon are of course popular topics, but you will find that the discussions can cover really anything beyond that scope.


General Info and Resources
If you have further questions on how to use this forum or if you are looking for technical advice for your art, these threads might be worth checking out.

How to contribute to the forum – It can be hard to find a place to start contributing in a big forum. This thread will cover the basic venues, demands and finally rewards for those willing to lend us a hand.​
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Where to request art & requesting etiquette – If you’re looking for custom art around the Smeargle’s Studio, this thread will guide you in the right direction.​
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Professor Smeargle – How does that artist choose her colors? How does that guy get his lines so smooth? Professor Smeargle is a collection of tutorials by Smogon's leading artists, who have graciously decided to share their techniques. Feel free to add your own tips and tricks.​
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Showcase your work!
You want to get feedback without having to setup an entire art thread, or want to draw more general attention to a certain piece of art? No problem, since anyone can use the following threads to showcase their work!

Writing Thread – The Studio's writing thread is suitable for all forms of fiction, nonfiction, prose, and poetry. Share your written works and give feedback to others!​
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Music Thread – If music or other audial art is more of your thing, feel free to post your creations here for others to enjoy!​
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Collaboration Thread – Collaborations between two or more artists are always something special and fun, and is a thread to present the results of such endeavors. You can also submit the first half of an artwork and wait it to be completed by another artist.​
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Fakemon Central – Everyone loves Fakemon, so of course we have a special thread dedicated to showcasing all the creative designs. Artwork is required, but feel free to also share additional flavor details about the design, such as stats, lore and inspiration.​
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Participate!
Wanna get involved with the community? These threads are popular venues in which you can interact with other artists in a fun way. Extensive art skills not required!

Battle, Free For All! – Draw a Pokemon of your choice defeating the former entry in any manner you see fit. No artistic talent or superb wit required, just have fun and be creative!​
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Picture Telephone Megathread – In this game, a set of artists will attempt to pass some starting information along through a series of images and descriptions to their best capacity, despite limited time and words. Most of the process takes place through forum PMs with a host. If you plan to host a new round, be sure to read up on previous hostings in the thread to get a grasp of the process.​
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You're Not My Type – In this game, you have the ability to recreate a Pokemon with an entirely new type or type combo! If you're feeling adventurous, feel free to give them, stats, movepools, and more!​
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Pokémon Fusions – Ever wondered if instead of just one kind of Pokemon was born from an egg, it actually was a combo of both parents? In this game, you're able to combine traits and designs of two Pokemon to create a whole new creation!​
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Evolved: Revolutionary Discoveries – What if a certain Pokemon was recently discovered to have a prevo, a split evo, or a new evo altogether? In this game, you can design just that!​
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Limited Palette Challenge – Looking for a challenge? In this game, you're able to recolor Pokemon with just a few limited randomized colors to put a new colorful twist on them!​
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Contribute Art!
Ever wanted to try your hand at contributing art? You can find out what's currently needed on Smogon here, though the latter two threads are reserved for Approved Artists only. For further info, check out this thread.

The Workshop – A thread dedicated to creating images and banners for various discussion threads across the Smogon forums or similar locations.​
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Art for Social Media – The social media team from Smogon regularly features custom artworks to spice up certain events such as their traditional Facebook Giveaways.​
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Art for Articles – There are a multitude of articles that are already on-site, but plenty of them sure could use some improvement by having an illustration to go alongside them!​
 
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So the resource threads for the studio have been under reconstruction for a while, and not all of the original information have been compiled yet. We're working towards a thread that provides a standardized overview of how contributions and rewards work in Smeargle's, including guides, badge standards and approved artists. For the time being, the latter part will be accessible here, since we regularly get approached about the approved artists list and it's good to have a visible place to keep track of them until the final thread is ready.
approved-artist.jpg

Art by Bummer

Info about Approved Artists​

Bummer said:
As of this year, I've introduced something relatively new to the artist community: to be an approved artist. This does not refer to artists that are already badged, but instead artists that have shown that they understand the basics and are well prepared to make adequate illustrations and images for various purposes around the site. This has technically already been around for some time, as the people we approved to illustrate for The Smog first needed to go through a quality check before they could enter the hidden workshop forum. But seeing how Smogon now has several outlets to distribute articles and information, it's a given that the images that goes along with them must be of good shape in order to make a good impression. Granted, we don't expect professional masterpieces here. As long as you can make decent images that well illustrates the point you were trying to make without containing too many distracting flaws, we're good for the most part.

If you're interested to contribute with your art to Smogon and would you like to see if your art is of good enough quality to warrant becoming approved, make a new thread in this subforum titled with your username, and studio staff will have a look at your application and offer any advice if necessary. But if you have an art thread of your own and it's clear that your art is of good quality, they can choose to approve you directly!

Being an approved artist is a position, and not a commitment. If you want to contribute art to some of our more demanding areas of the site, you're now free to do so, but as we're all doing this for free, we simply cannot expect anyone to do this against their will. But we appreciate any help we can get, as we're pretty much always running short on artists.
Click to expand...

Currently, only digital art qualifies towards becoming an approved artist. This means neither graphic design nor spritework qualify towards this position. However, at the moment of writing this, spriters becoming approved in their own way is in the works in Smeargle's Laptop!

New contribution outlets for Approved Artists

Smogon's Flying Press - This is a community project that's spanning several years (initially known as The Smog), where users from this very forum join together to write, check, code, and illustrate articles of various subjects. The artists obviously help out with the latter, so if you're interested, just contact Quite Quiet or Lumari, and they'll be glad to set things up for you. Once you have access to the hidden workshop area, this thread will be of great importance for you in order to see what articles are in need of art.​
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Art for Articles - This thread is the Studio's portal to the magical world of Contributions and Corrections (C&C). This project is pretty self-explanatory: there are a multitude of articles that are already on-site, but plenty of them sure could use some improvement by having an illustration to go alongside them! If you want to contribute, just placehold an article in the thread, although do read the OP first to make sure you get a good idea of the project.​
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Art for Social Media - Plenty of various site updates and analyses are featured on Smogon's Facebook and Twitter pages, and sometimes those updates could use some art to spice things up! If you would like to volunteer for such tasks, contact Marnie (Social Media Head), or dhelmise and Kiwi (Social Media Mods) or check out the currently open requests that's posted in this thread!​

If you're an artist that's been directed to this post to get a better idea of what being an approved artist means, then we thank you for becoming more involved with our community, and we hope that we'll see more of both you and your work around the place! If you choose to help, we'll greatly appreciate it, and we'll definitely seek for opportunities to reward you with an artist or community contributor badge whenever possible. If you have any further questions, just ask me. Have fun! :)


List of Approved Artists

If approved artists receive an art badge, they're removed from this list, as the badge itself is proof of their skill. Users who haven't visited Smogon for two years are removed as well.
a deer
Albi
Blueforce
Breadboy
bro torterra
brzozod526
Chras
Copheehouse
D_what
Finchely
Gaboswampert
GenOne
GrannyBashy
HanSoloIndie
imas
Inkblot
Ivy
Kyrads
PsychicAcademic
Shaymoo
spell
supernerd
useless trainer
VerlangenLotte
Violet
wixi
xzern
Zatqer
Zebraiken
 
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Hmmm, so this doubles as the SQSA thread?
If so, I've got a simple question. What's a good, cheap drawing tablet for someone who's just starting out?
 
I heard somewhere that 3DS pokemon menu sprites used a shared palette of some sorts. Does such a palette actually exist and if it does, what are the colors in it?

Sorry of this is the wrong place to ask this.
 
Apologies if this is answered somewhere else. How is smogon going to handle mini sprites on PS? We have never had a generation with only some and not all of the mons from previous generations. Like for example, if I go to my gen 5 teambuilder, all of the pokemon in gen 5 are also in gen 7, so the gen 7 mini sprites are shown. But now that SS is out, we have new mini sprites for old pokemon like roserade, hydreigon , and tyranitar but not for pokemon not in the new game (like scizor or forretress for example). Are we going to update the mini sprites like every past gen, or keep them the same for older mons. Apologies if this question is confusing
 
Lovely11 said:
Apologies if this is answered somewhere else. How is smogon going to handle mini sprites on PS? We have never had a generation with only some and not all of the mons from previous generations. Like for example, if I go to my gen 5 teambuilder, all of the pokemon in gen 5 are also in gen 7, so the gen 7 mini sprites are shown. But now that SS is out, we have new mini sprites for old pokemon like roserade, hydreigon , and tyranitar but not for pokemon not in the new game (like scizor or forretress for example). Are we going to update the mini sprites like every past gen, or keep them the same for older mons. Apologies if this question is confusing
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It became a part of the sprite project threads. From what I see, we aren't updating the mini spites, just making new ones for those that need them.
 
CoolMan6001 said:
It became a part of the sprite project threads. From what I see, we aren't updating the mini spites, just making new ones for those that need them.
Click to expand...

I think what Lovely11 meant is if we are going to add mini-sprites from older Pokémon in the style of SWSH. Which… is something I’d really would like to see, actually. Could be a fun project.
 
Cresselia92 said:
I think what Lovely11 meant is if we are going to add mini-sprites from older Pokémon in the style of SWSH. Which… is something I’d really would like to see, actually. Could be a fun project.
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The opposite was done. New sprites were manually scaled down to fit the size of the previous gen.
 
What I'm trying to say is when playing older gens, the minisprites have always been of the current gen. Now, only some pokemon have new mini sprites. In the older gens will we see the new minis for the pokemon that got them or no? Sorry this is not a simple question whatsoever lol
 
Is it allowable to post a thread requesting an art piece (not looking to commission anyone, just a simple personal request)? I can't find anything on forum etiquette here and I do not want to post a thread that'll just be locked. I posted a thread in the general topics place, but I didn't realize we had an art subforum here.

Thank you
 
The High Mason said:
Is it allowable to post a thread requesting an art piece (not looking to commission anyone, just a simple personal request)? I can't find anything on forum etiquette here and I do not want to post a thread that'll just be locked. I posted a thread in the general topics place, but I didn't realize we had an art subforum here.

Thank you
Click to expand...
Heya! Unfortunately, I do not believe making a thread asking for art is allowed on the forum, to put it short. However, you have some alternatives!

- The first and easiest thing you could do here is take a look through the forum's threads, where some thread titles may have "Requests Open!" or something similar if the artist is happening to take free requests. From there, you can either post in the user's thread with your request, or you could pm the artist directly. (If posting a request in an artist's thread though, I'd be careful not to accidentally necrobump somewhat dead threads.)

- You could also ask in the #art or #general channels of the Smeargle's Studio Discord, link here.

- Last but not least, you can also commission any artists open for commissions c: this might cost you a bit, but it always ensures a good product in the end. If this interests you, I'd suggest checking out the commissions thread!

Hope this helps, and welcome to Smeargle's Studio! n.n
 
Hello! I've found an artist that made sprites of the galar gym leaders, and he gave permission for using it on Pokémon Showdown! if him is credited. So, what should i do? With wich staff should i talk?
 
BakuraFangirl28 said:
Do I have to have digital drawings to become an approved artist?
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You do not, but it certainly helps! Traditional artists tend to have difficulty becoming approved if only because it can be difficult to translate a nongrainy background that paper naturally provides to a proper clean finish that digital pieces normally show. Be that as it may, it's not impossible! If ever you need some tips and/or pointers on how to improve your skills, you're always welcome to ask in Smeargle's Rate My Art Thread, or ask right in Smeargle's Discord Server! Hope his helps!
 
fx said:
If you ever need help turning your camera images of traditional artwork to more of a digital-looking drawings, there’s a capability in Adobe Acrobat DC which allows you to make them look scanned in, and I’d be happy to help you out with that!
Click to expand...
Ok! Thanks! Should i let you know whenever I need help?
 
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