Bob Dylan: "I got a head full of ideas that are driving me insane."

This started as an addition to my existing art guides then it grew out of control. I made the choice to use pictures minimally since all you need are ideas and tools, not floorplans. You will be the architects and builders after all. I merely aspire to amuse (one word or two?)

There is nothing subtle here. Clever, I hope; stupid, I am sure. I put out all my shells of ideas for you to consider for yourselves, as I wanted to work openly for once. So here we are, 6 months on.

The sections down to Leftovers are about Emoticons. The few after that are just odd.

Anyway, let us see if we can spark something stupid in you.

It is valueless to use up space showing heads. Practically 1/5 emotes on the market is a head. I will show a few crowns and hats though you will have to experiment as to which ones fit your chosen heads. Apart from the Cube Life ones they were not made to go together.

Mostly what you need is a chest, head, trousers/legs/feet. Arms are nice if possible. The legs are the biggest problem since the 3 that seem amazing for it are dire on preview size. They work in limited conditions but not in a full set so they are no good. They are :HeelsValortha: :HeelsSayaka: :feetepica:

The summer2019boost showing behind the Rocket above is not tradable. I use the stnlaser (later section) behind the rocket:

The rocket, blacksmith sword, dogs, water dragon and lasers to come can repeat a middle section. The racetrack ends do not meet. There is a full image of the maze on my custom info.

I believe we can merge ASCII with emotes. Some guns fit the beams and some do not but also some odd items go well like the mine cart from an earlier section can have a weapon mounted on top. Real tanks can have a machine gun mounted on the roof so we can do something similar with secondary weapons on ASCII structures. Mounting in ASCII, we need to think about the setting more than the beam. You may find that just one piece of a laser set is needed or use codes or regular dashes as fire.



ASCII and Unicode

There are two types of insertable image that can be used more freely than emotes. ASCII is a limited pool and you can reach them by holding the ALT key and pressing the required number on your numerical keyboard. Unicode will show as U+ followed by a number - you can show that in HTML (that Steam uses) by typing &# followed by that number. What I recommend though is just find a table of parts you want to use and copy/paste them in.

I will list a few helpful ASCII parts and the keyboard codes for them anyway.

178 ▓ 177 ▒ 176 ░ 219 █ 220 ▄ 223 ▀ 248 ° 254 ■ 255   (space)

185 ╣ 186 ║ 187 ╗ 188 ╝200 ╚ 201 ╔ 202 ╩ 203 ╦ 204 ╠ 205 ═ 206 ╬

Imagination counts most. This is an indoor scene but stageplays are ideal for comments posts so using outdoor items is no problem. This is not at the limits for the comments - there is room for a caption.

The Guncraft materials though rough looking in the market work well here. The gcred makes good fabric and the gchardwood forms continuous timber. Blur and Kolona also work well for the sides.

The good part about stage (regular plays, musicals or even pantomime) is that it allows comical scenery like goofy trees. You can apply the same thinking about scene-setting to TV or film scenes and can use either ASCii or Zup frames to make an outline of a screen.

Both films and stage can utilise speech bubbles well like the musical bubble emote symbols but emote words would work well too. There are more emote words and background items in my art guide.

Sample ideas:

• ASCII floorplans in an archtectural style
  
• A cluedo style crimescene, possibly using crime scene tape
  
• Recreating a favourite interior like Sherlock's Baker street
  
• A simple Dollhouse
  
• Cultists in an old mansion

How about you use a matching set of emotes to express yourself in chat like a signature? Each entry shows one image but links to a themed group. There are just too many good usable sets to list singles.

These may be the most fun and will need a lot of resources displayed since there are many options:

Retro games.

I will cater for what I can, mainly in resource tables since you all grasp how to make your pic once an image is in your head. My job is just to throw out some ideas and tools. Recreate an old game or just make a new game altogether. An angry Karate master taking vengeance on hated mushrooms?

There are many types of classic retro games or platformers, the usual 2d fighter setup and shootemups. A good effect might come from a simple bat and ball game.

I will stick out some sample resource tables, starting with fruit. A lot of games (and gambling machines) use fruit as a bonus system then there are also some emotes for powerups.


Consider ASCII shapes - retro games used a lot of basic lines. Concentrate on getting the impression of what you want out there rather than a perfect image. For example, a yellow smiley will do for pacman and small circles or dots for his munchables - ghosts and fruit will make the rest work.

Some shooters were side scrolling like Defender and R-Type or even central like Asteroids and Sinistar but most aim up the screen so most of what we have are fit for Invaders or 1942 style, and a few tanks. There are also Asteroid emoticons but I will not take up limited space with them.

Fleets (Each is a set with one image shown.)


Solo


When it comes to munitions you might want to use ASCII - basically keyboard type symbols - there are various lines and sequences of dots in addition to solid pieces for bases etc. Defender might be possible if you take the time with this. Personally I just use a couple of ASCII pieces to complete a basic Space Invaders setup but a centrepiece could use more.

An alternative is to take the whole thing and put it in a Zup frame or even an ASCII one but this will be harder if you use ASCII or keyboard items inside the image as emoticons have a defined space that does not gel with typed portions. I could see a Zup frame round a shootemup working, with a retro controller in front of the "screen".

Your info summary box can go 96 icons wide but its best kept to a max of 80 to allow about 5 rows.

Now, what are we going to do with it?

Planes, trains and automobiles!

I will just give one basic example but then I want to list resources - I know people will be able to do far more than I can. All kinds of pictures are possible but the character limit is the real challenge. I get so many squares in the one shown since most of it is :bbox: ie 6 characters including the colons. If you use the con-tricks for blank space like :pepedetective: you will run out of characters very quickly.
The detail does not matter here but if you click image you can see it normal sized - on the profile you would not need to, it is that wide normally. The info section with the bordered "Racers" at the top left is what appears on the profile page before they click in further.

Okay so what are our options here? I am just going to list the ideas that came to me:

• An aerial dogfight with planes
  
• A balloon race (blue skies, grassy fields, houses - see art guide for those parts if you need them)
  
• An ocean scene with boats on the water and fish in the water?
  
• A rocket ship weaving through planets?
  
• you could throw in an old biplane with a banner
  
• A comical scene with a golfer at one end and an injured man at the other?
  
• Trains. Good lord we have lots of trains.
  
• A scene from Mario or another 2d retro game.

I recommend any of these are made left to right or right to left.

Lets start with some Training...

Papertrain is really trim with 2-3 of its own wagon. At first glance you would think just link one set of 10 plasticy emotes together but you can mix them all.

Up, up and away!



Let's go surfing now

Some of the special items need good frames. Some of them make good frames. While pictures usually want every bit of space open to them, a joke comment or image has to get one daft thing across. Everything should help and never take away from the point:

The one-liner.

Your joke may be a quip under the image, a caption embedded in it or just a combination of it all.

Here are some effects for emphasis. Some are obvious but some may be new to you.

The elephant in the room is Zup Frames - the main problem is that our main places to post will be chat and comments, where the Zup frame will have breaks in it on each row.

You can use spacing with :bbox: and :pepedetective:. If you have sufficient contrast in your image you might not need a space at the start and end of a framed image or caption. You have to consider this on a case-by-case basis but try it without the space first. A one-line caption for example needs a 5 line box if spaces are used but only a 3 line box if no spacing required. That means you can do a lot more - a longer line or multiple lines within the frame, add a spoiler text section underneath for a witty comment.

I am going to just list some alternatives rather than show pictures using them. If you really want to see some then go to my profile comments but I think you can judge from the emotes themselves.

1) The obvious is to run an image round the outside of your little picture or caption. By running an image round, repeated (and I recommend one image not a variety) you get effectively a colour frame but one that is not affected by row separation. Less perfect is more perfect.

2) Top and bottom framing. This can be effective; advantage is it takes less space than #1) where you need to add 4 columns - left border, space, (image), space, right border. That can be a problem in the limited 1000 characters comments box, remembering that 1000 characters is not 1000 letters or symbols, it is the total length of the string. :bbox: is 6 long and that is just a filler icon.

3) For horizontal images, normally captions, you might want to look at the 2 continuous wall types, which link together for a nice effect. Anything will work but try to keep a simple clear image so you do not pollute your main effect. Work with contrast and colour.

4) For images more than a line of text, you might try the pillar kolona, blur, gchardwood, various stone effects but all of these will only work properly in boxes where vertical breaks do not apply such as custom info and items for trade. I prefer fires, glowing orbs, regular simple bright shape but as long as it is repeating, simple and contrasts, it will work.

There are many sorts of things I would love to point out as frames but since space per section is limited, we will use this section for Flags (which can be used as frames or just in general as spot details) and Pointers which can form a framing effect - not by surrounding but by defining the space.

Items like walls can be found in the main art guide but I will save space here for anything interesting. Virtually anything can be used as a frame if we hammer it in with repetition, especially if the image resonates with the main picture - maybe a visual pun.

We can never list them all but here are some odd ones I like.


You could use dice to make a display of a dominoes game or there are a few Mahjong sets.

Google Chrome. I only use it some of the time but it is essential and free. So download it now.

Games have a Game App ID number we will use on Game Collector and Favorite Game showcases. Find this number on the URL for a game on its store page, usually a number 5-7 digits long.
You can also find the Steam App ID for any game from https://steamdb.info/apps/

• Open Google Chrome & Steam
  
• Edit Profile, select Favourite Game & Game Collector showcases
  
• Open the Console (either Right click - Inspect or Control-Shift-J)
  
• Paste/edit a line of text from below, press enter then put in next line (5 total)
  
• All done - save changes to profile and you can leave Chrome if you want.

Steam have now aligned all the app id codes with the listing images from the Games section from your Profile (not Library) so it is easier to pick ones accurately but the process has removed the old memes.

So I have listed 5 lines of code. One is for Favorite Game and the other 4, left to right, for the slots in Game Collector. To change to any other game image just swap the appid before pasting.

FavoriteGameShowcaseOnGameChange( this.parentNode, 6, 0, {appid: 445730})

SetShowcaseConfig(2, 0, {appid: 485690})
SetShowcaseConfig(2, 1, {appid: 448630})
SetShowcaseConfig(2, 2, {appid: 338110})
SetShowcaseConfig(2, 3, {appid: 468310})

But these are all pictures - with graffiti all over them.

So what was above has been seen before. What follows is the purpose here...


You will see other games with subtle writing, fancy writing, some vitally contribute or form a key part of the image. A choice had to be made here but you have the tools to go any direction you want. Some beautiful images like Dreamcage Escape have had to stay out of this.

Stylised layouts are possible. Some images have split colour on them - The Age of Decadence could sandwich between Fragile Ball and They Breathe. Or just pick some pretty ones.

I am going to suggest here that you make a guide. Wait, wait, wait. Read on a little first.

If you want to present artwork you get a showcase. Yeah one showcase. Then it is up to people to browse. There are workshop items too. So 6 more slots over 2 little showcases. I see. Then your avatar section. So on your profile you can have 11 free pictures assuming you are level 30.

A guide lets you display multiple sections and upload up to 8 mb of images. For free. Steam level 10 gives you a showcase that allows you to display 4 guides at once.

I think you are on board now.

So I know that you are all keen artists who enjoy using emoticons and backgrounds, want to combine them in clever ways and share tips on how you made these images with others. At first glance, a guide that seems a little like a gallery then. With lots of pictures which as you know "paint a thousand words."

Well what we do not want to do is to go off-topic and link this guide we make onto a game it does not relate to so use this in your browser (not regular Steam):

http://cs2bus.com/sharedfiles/editguide/?appid=753

753 is just the identifier for Steam. It simply puts you at "Make guide for Steam" and once you enter some basic details you can leave that version if you wish and use your regular desktop one.

Sometimes the easiest way to work is to open browser Steam and regular Steam at the same time and copy/paste. You can be signed in to your account on both on the same machine.

Ok so how those pictures are made. One method is basically free, zero cost. Most will involve a little cost. We can make art cheaply as we build resources and go on from there to tackle other projects.

For any kind we make we will probably be using Paint so here is something to skim as a reminder:

https://www.wikihow.com/Use-Microsoft-Paint-in-Windows

As an example that image uses the "quote" function to make a frame - click on "Formatting help" to see a list of features. Your image will be a line of code that looks a bit like the URL above when you are editing your gallery/guide but all you do to insert that code is click on the picture and specify how you want it to appear. Experiment a little with the ways an image can insert.

You can upload images of emoticons, badges, clip art and modify the whole lot in Paint without ever owning any of it. Now wait, when you upload artwork you tick to certify you created it. Well you don't in a guide. I am not saying the intention is to copy anyone but all those little images on Steam are perfectly usable in pictures as long as the pictures are in the guide, without ever having them.

Then there is ASCii art which can again be melded into emoticons on the guide for free or fairly cheaply on Steam properly since the bulk of what you are doing is pressing keyboard codes.

Geometric shapes, squares, cones, stars, circles, triangles, etc can also be used to make cheap art outside the guide since you can basically give the impression of anything. I am not even talking fuil pixel art or even the frankly disgusting use of outside programs to make images.

If you use large pictures then you will run into a problem, the space required for them can test your 8mb upload limit for the guide. There is a fix for this - feature the small to medium size pictures and maybe a couple of the big ones - they will be part of the 8mb limit. For the rest:

WIDGETS.

The interesting thing about this is that because you are then linking to regular art uploaded to your artwork section, it does not count as an upload for our magical limit. Also, widgets are tidy and small compared to the space that a larger piece will occupy. Besides, Steam width will limit the picture size till they click into it anyway so a widget is not worse at all.

I am no artist but here is an example of a widget:
https://cs2bus.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1906267254
All I have done is click into the uploaded picture on the Artwork section of my account and once the URL comes up on the pop-up box copied that here and pasted.

From here, it is up to you. Remember that any gallery/guide you make can be unpublished and worked on by yourself and other contributors, published to friends only, hidden altogether or open to the world.

This is what I have so far on my own gallery - it is growing every few days as I tinker with my profiles or modify the screenshots from them. It will expand as I develop other parts of what I do and this is the idea - the gallery will not be something that you make and then walk away from or publish once it is complete: publish it once you have 3 pictures! Let it grow and blossom from there. Anyway:

https://cs2bus.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1906168510

Some links to show what I have been up to and other options I have been playing around with.
People are crazy, each in their own way and my mad little world might be nothing like yours.

There are lots of places for expression but I like to play in my comments section:
https://cs2bus.com/profiles/76561198142366455/allcomments

https://cs2bus.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1814025223
https://cs2bus.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1840245914
https://cs2bus.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1860014407
A big shout out to Psider, Eagles Fly and some other kind passing souls in the Emoticon Collector group. When I was starting this guide I had sections I wanted to include but they were more on the basis of not fitting in the other guides. These guys have helped, inspired and encouraged me with a lot of this one, in particular finding lots of odd little emote sets that link up together.

It is not just what you find though; sometimes when you talk to someone and bounce ideas around you discover that what they see is not what you see and sometimes you have to go wow, why didnt I think of that? An example would be mixing an underline __________ with a pencil emote. Dang. After all the thoughts of giant tanks with ascii combining with emotes, I missed that our keyboards have tools sitting visibly. Concepts too - the parts about linking lines of images was already there in part for a "framed" section but it expanded as we got together.

What I am saying here is of course thanks to the guys that have and will help but also this:

Find other people and brainstorm. It works.