Neopets Art Gallery Guide

The wide known art gallery is, as the name says, a place to show up your artistic features on the form of an image. It can be any image, but it just needs to be related to Neopets. You can draw, bake, sew… Pretty much anything! And above we’ll check out what can you do to get in the Gallery!

Theme

I recommend you to apply on special neopets days. TNT always puts up more pages on those days so you’ll have a slightly higher chance to be picked. When picking the theme of your drawing try to choose something original. Like a side character of Neoquest or your own pet. If you choose to work on a well known character, as Eliv Thade or Edna, you’ll have more problems. But if your art is good enough, go on! Things that don’t work on neopets

  • Blood, death and similar
  • Human neopets
  • Not related characters
  • Drawings on paint consisting in 3 circles
  • Scraps

“Artistic” Dictionary

Artists often talk of words that you’ve ever known about, isn’t it? Here is a brief dictionary of the terms:

  • Lineart – The line that surrounds the drawing
  • Layer – A colour over another, making a new “layer” of shade or light
  • Shade – The darkened part of the drawing
  • Light – The lighted part of the drawing
  • Pen – Digital pen that comes with pressure tablets
  • Pixelated – With harsh points that seem single pixels
  • Pencil – A not coloured pencil
  • Art Trade – When two artists make a piece for each other, like they were “trading” drawings
  • Art Request – When an artist makes a piece for someone that asked it
  • Comission – A paid Request

Technique and Tools

To enter on the Art Gallery you’ll basically need to draw. There are several ways to draw and various techniques, and I’ll try to teach you and direct you through some of them (those I know. In theory.) Digital Art To work on digital art you’ll need to use a program on your computer. The most used programs are Photoshop (PS), Open Canvas (OC), Paint Shop Pro (PSP), MS Paint and Flash. PS and PSP are associated with two animation programs: Image Ready and Animation Shop. Also you’ll need some “solid” tools to work with this. To make your brush or virtual pencil flow on the screen you’ll need a computer mouse or (much easier) a tablet. Notice that everything is possible to do with a mouse. It just turns to be much easier with a tablet… Photoshop is a very complete program. You can do pretty much everything on it, since painting cartoons, to make photomanipulations and to turn men into women. All with a simple sequence of “clicks”. If you want to make a simple Gif animation, PS comes with an animation program, Image Ready.

Open Canvas is a simple program that pretty much completes all the others. I warn you that it may be simple but that it’s very hard to manage and to learn how to use it. It will give you a smooth shade effect, like you were dealing with fresh paint.
Paint Shop Pro is pretty much like PS. May not have as many resources. Associated with Animation Shop Pro.
MS Paint is the program everyone has. You can only do on it pixelated stuff. And, worst, pixel by pixel (unless you have a tablet)
Flash is a program I don’t know very well. You can make cell soft painting on it and you can make movies.
If you people want I can make a tutorial of the way I (Lady) paint and work on Photoshop, Image Ready and MS Paint. If we ask a lot, our home artist Aludra eventually can make a tutorial too *wink wink nudge nudge*Traditional ArtOn traditional art you will not use a program, but a technique. From the various techniques that exist I’ll just post the most important and used ones. Notice that to work on traditional art you will need the correct tool that I’ll indicate in front of the technique. Currently art tools are very expensive: for example, a single Copic Marker on my country costs about 6$. Wow, isn’t it? oO Coloured Pencils Coloured Pencils can be of many kinds: normal, pastel and watercolour are the most used. With coloured pencils you’ll get a soft image. It is very hard to masterize the coloured pencils in way to get a solid figure, but if you show some effort your image may get in. Tools: Coloured pencils, fixer, hard rubber (plus paintbrush and water in case you’re using watercolour pencils) Pastel Pastels are like soft crayons. They will give you a very smooth effect and work better on light colours. Tools: pastels, pastel knife Paints I decided to gather them all here, since I doubt anyone will use them often. These are the techniques where over a solid surface people paint directly with the help of a paintbrush. There are several types, depending on the kind of ink: acrylic, watercolour, oil, gouache… Tools: desired paint type, correct paintbrushes, water, fixer. Depending on your surface you may need other tools, but this is very complex for a simple neopets contest. Markers Ever thought that markers could be… Useful? Oh yes they can. This is the colour type used on manga artbooks (together with paints) and it’s very simple. Bad part: it’s expensive. Tools: Copic Markers, copic corrector paint or tape, special tape, the White Copic Marker and white ink. Also known as graphitti. It’s a spray over a hard surface. Tools: airbrusher/spray, copic markers/ink, special spray cansBallpoint Pen and Graphite Black and white pictures are made of this. The first is with a pen, the second is with pencil. Realistic portraits are usually made with the last one. Some Examples of the above techniques (sorry there are not much neopets pictures, but people don’t normally use those expensive techniques for the Art Contest ^^’)

Art Styles

Here I’m going to tell you about the styles that are used on Neopets and those that are preferred. Manga Do you know the concept of anime, right? (Japanese animation, big eyes, cute smiles and lots of girls?) Manga is the drawing before anime) You can apply the Manga concept on Neopets, but pure human forms never win. Unless they are faeries, off course. Anthro This is the most used form. Now, let’s notice the kinds of anthro you can use (they are all accepted):

  • Realistic – here the anatomic elements are correct. It’s an animal standing in two paws and normally does not have much human traits.
  • Humanized – This is an animal with human traits, but with it’s normal position
  • Cartoonish – It’s the mix of the above and it’s the one that Neopets use on their art and plots.

Compre the Styles: Realistic Used if you want to draw pure animals. Dispensable if you are going to draw humans.Pure Cartoon These are those cartoons you see on comic stripes. No shade, no light, just lines. Only work in a comical way (seriously)

Crafts

If there is a thing that TNT loves is that we work *a lot* for them. Since you’re probably already tired with all the art above… I’m just telling you some of the things you can do! (if you actually want to know how to do them tell me and I’ll make tutorials) Sewing Crafts Cross Stitch, Half Stitch, Borders, Rugs, Rag Rug, Arrailos, Plushies, Line Stitch. Bakery Bread, Chocolate, Clay, Fimmo, Plasticine, Acrilic, Paper. Other Tips Before even trying learn the technique. I’ve learned that talent is achieved with train. So, train a lot. Do you know that boring class you have to assist? Train your drawings then. Try to draw a skeleton of the figure and try several scraps before your final image. Don’t expect to have the complete perfect drawing the first time you try! Knowing this it will be easier. Train, train and train, try over and over again until you get a satisfactory result. The prizes are good, rare items and a 10k amount of neopoints. But to get them you’ll need to show on your drawing more than talent. If you show effort and dedication be sure that you’ll get in. :)