Project Educate - Digital Dolls A-Z

Digital Dolls from A-Z

This is a basic overview of terms associated with Digital Dolls and their categories here on dA.

A
Adoption – When a doller has allowed their work to be adopted, it means that you can display their work on your website.  However, there are usually rules to this, such as having a link back to the original doller.

Adopted base – This is one of the Digital Dolls subcategories on dA.  A doll that was made using another person's base would be submitted to this category.

AA/Anti-Alias – A technique used to soften a hard pixel outline.


B
Base – A usually bald, naked, humanoid template that is used to create a doll.  


Base edit – It's how it sounds; making a change to the appearance of the base that is being used.  This can be a simple as changing eye colour or skin tone or as complex as changing the entire face, the pose and anatomy.  Note: not all bases are allowed to be edited, so read the base maker's rules before editing.

Baseless – A doll made without a base.

C
Collaboration – 1) a doll made by two or more dollers 2) a group of dolls put into one image, with all of the dolls made using the same base but made by different dollers.
:thumb147175072:

Contest – A contest is a one round competition; they differ from pageants, which are multiple rounds.

CC/Constructive Critique – Many dollers (and artists) ask for help as they create to make sure that things look the way that they should.  A good critiques points out what is going right as well as identifying problem areas and how to fix them.

D
dA – deviantart.com (but you knew that already )

DD /Daily Deviation - A 24 hour feature given out by a gallery moderator on dA.

Digital Dolls – dA's category system currently defines dolls as follows: Digital dolls are created when an artist uses a base body created by themselves or another artist and draws hair and clothing on it, using a digital art program.  These dolls usually have a hard pixel outline and a transparent background.  Submission file format: .png or .gif.

Dithering – A pixel shading technique used to blend colours.


Dollchat – dA's digital doll related chat room.  It can be found here -> chat.deviantart.com/chat/digit…

Drag n' Drops – Games where you dress up a doll using pre-made bases, clothing and hair.  Doll Divine, CandyBar Doll Maker and Tektek,org are 3 very common examples.  Dolls made by these should be submitted to your scraps.

E
Exclusive Base - A base that has been created, usually for a forum, that only certain people have access to/are allowed to use.

F
Face the base – A chat game created by FionaCreates where a base with a blank face is given to the participants and they have to draw in a face.

Frankendolling/Frankenbasing – Using parts of others peoples' dolls to make your own (taking the hair from one, the dress from another, etc) via cutting and pasting/using parts of other peoples' bases to create your own (the head of one, arms of another, etc).  The name was inspired by Frankenstein.  This is heavily frowned upon in the doll community.

Full-body – A doll that shows the whole body, from head to toe.

G
Generator Doll – The use of a generator to make dolls based on a theme; you type in a word and it gives you items that must be included in your doll (pink hair, feathers, etc).  These are sometimes used in contests or for inspiration.

Glam – A dolling forum that has become very popular in the past 2 years.

GM/Gallery Moderator – A volunteer on dA's Community Relations team who oversees a gallery and acts as a voice for the users of that gallery.

Guess the doll – A chat game where part of a doll is shown and the actual doll needs to be found and linked to.

H
Half-body – A doll that shows the body from the waist-up.

I
Nothing to see here.

J
Nothing to see here.

K
Kiss dolls – see Drag n' Drops above.

L
Legal bases – Slang term for bases that are NOT made via tracing.  The term came about in retaliation to the traced bases that have been allowed on dA for the past 2 years.

Line art – The outlines of a doll.

Lightsource – The direction of the lighting on the doll; very useful for realistic shading.

Lyricanna - The current Digital Dolls GM.

M
mintyy – Former temporary GM for Digital Dolls; her main GM duties were with emoticons.

Miscats/Miscategorizations – An art piece submitted to the wrong category on dA.  More on them here -> news.deviantart.com/article/13…

Miscellaneous Shading – dA currently defines this as: Dolls created with a mixture of tooled and pixel techniques, cell-shading or a non-specific style of rendering.  Also called mutt shading or mixed shading.

Moe – Possibly the most famous base set in the doll world, created by Doll on the Hill Factory, a website that is no longer available.

N
Non-dollers – How some dollers refer to other artists.  An ironic term, since dollers are a minority

O
Original Base – In dA's submitting system, a doll made on an original base is a doll made on a base made by the doller.  This is not a category for non-traced bases.

P
Pageant – A multi-round competition based on a theme.  The oldest pageant is Miss Doll International, currently being run by isoldel

Pillowshading/pillowfolding – Shading from the outlines inwards, getting lighter towards the middle, without regard for the lightsource or shape and textures of the object.

Pixel shading – dA currently defines this as: using hand laid pixel by pixel techniques to create a doll.

Portrait – A doll that shows the chest or shoulders up.  

FionaCreates – Former GM who created dollchat and some of the chat games used for parties.  She was the GM for 18 months, before the 1 year maximum was implemented.

Q
Quitters – Slang term for those that give up dolling.

R
Redlines – If someone is giving CC, sometimes they will do it visually, by drawing red lines over your work in progress to show what needs to be changed (note, can be any colour, red just happens to be the most common).

Re-doll – Recreating an older doll at a later date to show improvement.

S
AdorkaStock - A stock artist here on dA that allows her stock photos to be referenced to create bases.

Siblings/Sisters – People that are considered family  in the doll world.  They usually exchange gift dolls to ask to be sisters (the term sister is used more often due to the lack of male dollers)

ShoneGold - The first GM for Digital Dolls.  

T
Tool shading – dA currently defines this as: dolls made by using tools and techniques available on digital art software.  Some examples of tools used are brushes, pre-made gradients and pre-made patterns.

Tracing – creating an image by drawing on top of a pre-existing image.  This technique has been used to create bases.

Transparent – Dolls usually have a transparent background so that they can be placed on different coloured backgrounds without the dolls looking out of place.

V
Nothing to see here.

W
WIP/Work in progress – a doll that is not yet finished.  Dollers generally show these to each other to get help along the way.

X
Nothing to see here.

Y
Nothing to see here.

Z
Nothing here either

Thanks for reading and I hope that this will help make Digital Dolls easier to understand.