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THE.ASCII.ART.EMPORIUM

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serif. This isn't often important, but if you're using a sans serif
font, just remember to use the vertical bar (|, above \ on most
keyboards) to draw vertical lines, and not the capital i (I),
otherwise it will look weird for people using serif fonts. It also
means that you should think carefully before using characters like L
and 7 for various corners -- they won't always look that good with a
serif font.
One way to make drawing ASCII art easier is to type a row of spaces
for however wide you want your picture, and then copy this row and
paste it for however many rows high you think your art will get. Then
turn overtype on, stick your cursor somewhere in the middle, and
you're ready to draw.
If nothing springs to mind immediately, start with the ASCII art
equivalent of the stick figure:
O
/H\ Person
/ \
Fiddle with it, and see what you can do...
A _ o _
O Person wearing O` _O_ (< = Person about
/H\ a dunce's hat /H\ Professor XHX Angel /H-' to eat a
/ \ / \ / \ / \ sandwich...?
Gradually you'll be able to add things like scenery around the person:
___ ,---.
/ __\/---. ._,
/ \@-. -(_)-
@ ' ` Person playing a banjo
,P while sitting against a
d'O_, MT palm tree ...
____@/|/________
::::@\O_,:::::::
::::::::::::::::
Draw your cat, your toaster, your musical instruments, your partner,
anything that will sit still long enough -- practice makes, if not
perfect, then at least pretty good. Whether you do small drawings
(less work involved) or large ones (easier to make a drawing
recognizable) is up to you.
The things which give beginning ASCII artists the most trouble are
usually diagonal lines and circles. Here are some lines of various
angles:
| | / ,' ,-' _,-'
| .' / ,' ,-' _,-'
| | / ,' ,-' _,-' __..--""
| .' / ,' ,-' _,-' __..--""
| | / ,' ,-' ,-' __..--"" _______________
And here are a few circular shapes:
_____ __
.-' `-. ,dP""Yb,
.' `. ,d" "b,
/ \ d' _ `Y,
_ ; ; 8 8 `b
__ ,'" "`. | | `b,_,aP P
__ ,' `. / \ ; ; """" d'
.' `. / | | | \ / ,P"
_ | | | / \ / `. .' a,.__,aP"
. o (_) `.__.' `.__.' `.___.' `-._____.-' `"""''
The spiral is a good example of anti-aliasing -- using the particular
shape of some characters (especially b, d, and P) to smooth the edge
of a solid shape.
A final point: don't use the Tab key. Pressing Tab will go along a
certain number of spaces in your editor/word processor -- but that
`certain number' is different for different newsreaders, editors, and
so on, so your picture may suffer from what is known as `tab damage'
when other people try to view it. Just use spaces instead.
Here are a couple links to existing ASCII art tutorials:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/7373/dcau.htm (Daniel Au's Tutorial)
http://www.inetw.net/~mullen/asciiart.htm (Allen Mullen's Site-
several tutorials)
6. What should I know before posting ASCII art?
It doesn't matter if it's not particularly good -- we'd like to see it
anyway. We won't be rude about it (although you'd better tell us what
it is, or we might ask :-), but if it shows potential, you may find
that other people will `re-diddle' it -- change a few characters, make
it a bit better, and re-post it.
HOWEVER, there are a few things you should check before you post any
piece of ASCII art.
□ Are you sending it as plain text? Some news programs, particularly
those built in to Web browsers, read and write messages in HTML
(HyperText Markup Language, the language which Web pages are