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mariiiis-dolls In reply to shimmerydaze [2013-09-20 16:37:53 +0000 UTC]

Thank you for the comment

About the palettes I wouldn't agree 100%. Choosing a palette is hard - because you need to get the perfect green or red which you imagine. And there are millions of colors - and to pick exactly these colors (like the palette above) by just looking at them, is nearly impossible. You of course can have a palette that 'looks' the same, but has different hexcodes.
That's why dollers tend to ask for a link or don't allow stealing palettes.
(Though the same palette doesn't make the same shading - as explained above )

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shimmerydaze In reply to mariiiis-dolls [2013-09-21 08:35:20 +0000 UTC]

You're welcome. I've always been a fan of your dolls, so I'm glad I found you on DA.

I know that finding the right palette is challenging, but what I don't get is how uptight the artist gets about their particular palette. Nobody's going to stop you from using the same set of colored pencils or markers, so why freak out over a palette? The drawing is what sets you apart. I recently recolored an old doll using the old crappy palette that I put together myself back when I made the doll, and the doll is about a hundred times better now because I can actually draw now, as opposed to 10+ years ago. (It's still not that great because the outfit is pretty lame and the hair is ridiculous, but there is a noticeable difference, just by changing the shading and the proportions.)

Compared to a base or a finished doll, a palette is nothing. A hundred pixelists could make a base from the same reference or inspiration, and each base would have its own flair, personality, and level of technique behind it. A hundred different pixelists could doll on each base, and not one doll would be confused as having come from the same artists as the other dolls. A palette, though? If you set a reference image for a palette, a hundred artists could replicate it pretty closely. You'd probably even get some of the same hexcodes. And there would be no way to really distinguish a style or level of technique between a hundred artists. All the palettes would look the same. 

A base could be considered art by itself, and a doll definitely would. Bit a palette is nothing on its own. Arguably, they're aesthetically pleasing therefore could constitute art, but only in the same way as a beautifully crafted paintbrush could be considered art. Nobody cares about who made the paintbrush the artist used, except maybe another artist -- so yes, the tools we use are important. MS Paint is vastly different from Photoshop in terms of what you ca do with it. And a carefully put together palette can make a huge difference the quality of the finished product. I just don't see it as so vital that people should consider someone else using the same palette as "theft". 

Then again, I've never been that precious about my work. I'm not really that concerned about frankenbasing, and I don't really mind if people recolor my dolls as long as they do so for their own use. But I also have a tendency to look back at old dolls and realize how awful they are, so I figure even my best doll is going to look bad enough in a few years that I'll want to redo it, so it's hard to get too attached to my own pixels, let alone my palettes. 

Some doll artists are better than me, though, and are far more thoughtful and talented in putting their pixels together, so I suppose I can understand a sense of over-protectiveness in those cases. But it's still a turn-off when I see people setting strict limits on their palette usage. 

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