Topic: New to the forums, and a little bit baffled...

[nathandelane]

So, to introduce myself a little bit, I am new to these forums and have been using GIMP and Inkscape for about six years now almost exclusively for all art I do. I have also dabbled in Blender, but most of my 3D experience is in other products, i.e. 3D Studio Max, Art of Illusion (open source Java 3D), POVRay (open source procedural 3D), and a couple of POVRay IDE packs, whose names I now forget. I also have a bit of Fireworks, Photoshop, and Illustrator experience. But my favorite tools for art are by far GIMP and Inkscape.

I am member to several forums including DA, InkscapeForum, GimpTalk, Gimper.net, Lombergar.com, and now GimpDome. I really enjoy messing around with art, but I am by no means very good. Still I like to create. I am also I programmer by hobby and profession and have been programming my life away for nearly twenty years now. The latest is that I work as a web developer for Vehix.com.

Baffling

The thing that I'm a bit baffled by is the fact that many of the people in these forums choose to host their images on common fluid resources such as ImageShack, Flickr, and PhotoBucket, and then either eventually remove them or delete their accounts, leaving the forums now scattered with numerous "Image not found" images all over. That is pretty annoying, and while I like the other content on these forums much more so far than any of the others I belong to (save for DA), I really wish that I could see what work other people actually did, even if it was years ago that they created it.

Excited

Also I'm excited to be here, and could somebody please explain why signature images are so popular in forums? I really don't get the value of such images, especially when most of them are photo/image manipulations of their favorite Anime cartoon characters. I'm not saying that I don't like them at all, I'm just getting the feeling that there are better ways to show off art than by making such a small piece of art that is often copied. I don't get it. I never have, and maybe...I never will.

[v0id]

welcome! sounds like you've got a lot of computer experience under your belt

my take on the signatures/photomanipulation is it's a way for me to still express my mental artistry without my physical artistic limitations (i.e. i can't draw) limiting me.  i make stuff from scratch too (and indeed prefer it), but sometimes i'm just not artistically gifted enough to put what's in my head onto the computer screen

[istarlome]

sig are an easy way to practice gimp functions.  much easier than a large design.  that's my opinion.

welcome to the best gimp site on the net...

[Damascus]

Greets and welcome to GD!  This forum will be going through an overhaul and hopefully the broken links and images will be taken care of.

I myself find little value to sigs other than to practice certain skills.

[HippieKender]

Welcome to the Dome.  Can't wait to see your creations.
For me, signatures are a way to express my interests, personality, and GIMP (or Inkscape, or AOI, etc) work all in one place.

[nathandelane]

Thanks for the explanation about the sig thing. That helps me understand a bit. I'm glad to be here, and hopefully I will be able to introduce my creations. Let's see if I can get it from my head to the page 

[Darth_Gimp]

Welcome to the Dome! Seems we share some memberships as I too have membership here, DA, Gimper.net, Inkscape Forum, and GimpTalk.

Originally I was quite the Adobe fanboy but like you I have preference with Gimp and Inkscape. If you want to further your Blender tinkering, join me on http://www.blenderunderground.com sometime. Good people there for sure.

As per the sig thing.. let's face it outside of these forums sigs are of little to no value. I doubt you would find the folks at ILM or Pixar messing with sigs as many in the forums do. That said, and as my Fellow staff have shared, Sig are an amazing way to practice things. Kind of like a digital sticky note if you will. I have to admit, I have seen some amazing skill on such a small canvass. In the end though I do wish more sig artists would step out into the larger Graphics world and start creating their own resources.

Welcome to the Dome, I think of this as home and I hope you will come to feel the same way.

[z3matt]

welcome