dA's Guide to the Galaxy Full

Oct 5, 201133 min read

Deviation Actions

Shroomkin

Published: Oct 5, 2011

1.9K Views

Hello Everyone!

Please visit the deviation version of this guide here, and it to come back to it easily! Try to spread the word if you can!

So one night I was trolling *clears throat* browsing dA and I decided I wanted to polish off my already stellar HTML skills by making myself a little HTML guide I would save to my drafts in notes. But as I worked, an idea took shape in the back of my head: "How about I made a giant guide for EVERYONE on dA?" Far fetched, eh? Obviously not, 'cause I did it!

UPDATES!
August 29th, 2011- As suggested by jorobins, I have added a short description to each of the categories!
October 2nd, 2011- New deviation file made by Badass Motherfucker EmmaL27
October 3rd, 2011- Added stafflist to the DD section of the guide.
October 4th, 2011- Removed the list of Muro brush packs. Replaced it with a guide by Gashu-Monsata.
October 4th, 2011- Made the llama groups :dev links instead of :icon's for ease of seeing the bullets.
October 4th, 2011- Added the "Llama Trading Game" to the Llamas section.

And so, without further ado:

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)

Hypertext markup language, better know as "HTML", is an essential part of dA's galaxy. Quoted from Dictionary.com: "HyperText Markup Language: a set of standards, a variety of SGML, used to tag the elements of a hypertext document. It is the standard protocol for formatting and displaying documents on the World Wide Web." So basically it makes things a lot more organized, eye-catching, and appealing. Like this guide! It's absolutely chock full of HTML formatting!

Check the official FAQ HTML Guide here .
This guide was created by Member SweetDuke and is a little bit more in-depth, and pretty well organized.
Chu-Cheshire's "HTML guide for dummies" blog has some extra HTML's (in a simpler viewing format as well), along with a few symbols.
deviantCSS has an "HTML Limitation Guide" that has some useful own tags.

Llama Badges

Llama badges, added to dA April 1st, 2010, are what I feel like brings the dA community together! You find an artist, like his work, give him a llama badge! Of course, it isn't really like that anymore, people just do the llama trade now. "Give a llama, get a llama" is the llama code that most people adhere to. And of course, collecting llama levels is incredibly amusing! I have listed a llama levels guide below as well for those of you who want to know. So, it is a very cool badge, and I recommend you all check it out ASAP!

Glittercandy made an excellent tutorial of all things llama, found here.
If you'd like a more direct approach to llama levels, MrBurnZ has a complete list as well as the number of badges required for each.
Want moar llamas? Follow CigsAce's tutorial to llama trading success!
You can also offer points for llamas via dA's official Llama Trading Game!
- Just click this to find the game or do it the hard way by going to your badge page, and looking at the bottom-right hand corner. There should be a picture of points, an arrow pointing to a llama, and "Trade points for Llamas?" next to that.
- You can click on that and then it will redirect you to a page that will tell you all about the game. It's just basically where you can offer any deviant a certain amount of points for a llama. Since it's global, you get llamas nearly instantaneously.
- People who are offering will be listed on your badge page, but be quick! Offers go fast!
Here's a listing of current llama-based groups over 100 watchers on dA, ordered in descending by number of watchers_{(some avatars aren't working for some reason)};

KEY-

= General llama-trading groups.

= Specific types of llamas.

= Points for llamas type groups.

= Custom llama badges.

Custom-Llamas

If it comes to anyone's attention that there are more llama groups than the ones listed, please note me, Shroomkin!

Emoticons and PLZ Accounts

OK, I'll start with emoticons. Emoticons are known everywhere as ways to express an emotion or feeling without the need to type it. They're very fun to use and sometimes hilarious. For example, if someone said something like, "The first president of the United States was Calvin Coolidge." You could just type out, "I am holding my face in my palm right now." But that wouldn't be nearly as funny as the emote:

People design all types of emotes all over dA, as I'll show you below! So now let's discuss plz accounts! Plz accounts are basically avatars of unused accounts made by deviants to give people some extra ways to convey a message without speaking! They usually have "plz" in the account name somewhere to show that this is a plz account. You can also chain together plz accounts to make dividers and things like that. I'll show you the plz account version of facepalm here:

Emotication is a that specializes in all things emoticon. Tutorials, information and resources for all levels of emoticon artists can be found here.
Display your newfound emote artistry skills at Emoticiety, the largest emoticon group on dA! Check out their affiliates for others!
dA's Emoticon FAQ tells you where to find the "Emoticon Legend", and how to use it as well as all other emotes.
Gallery moderator FantasyStock published a news article March 16, 2011 that has everything you need to know about PLZ accounts. She also lists one of the largest dA PLZ databases on the net, helpplz.info
Here's a few more databases, this time, in-site.
PLZ-Database
icon-listing
collect-icons
lalist
plz-WhosWho
27d
Moar-PLZ-Accounts
Here's some more emoticon-based groups, in no particular order:

News Articles

I've already explained this in the bullets!

The best help I can give you on this one is search "News" in dA's "Help and FAQ" section, found here.
But I can offer you some help myself. Although I am not an avid "News-Poster", I can tell you the basics;
- News articles are made to advertise an event, contest, project, and anything else dA related!
  - People post news articles in categories of all types _{(find the categories and sub-categories by clicking around in the news page, here.)}
  - If you're looking for a contest, news articles is by far the best place to find and post them!
  - Another cool thing about news articles is the ability to them! With this wonderful power, you can go straight to the article you faved just by clicking on it in your Fave News widget! Fantabulous, right?
- If you have any more information you think would be useful for this section of the guide, don't hesitate to contact me or comment below!

Daily Deviations (DD's)

Daily Deviations are given to artworks of outstanding quality or are extremely helpful. Basically deviations that receive a DD are the best of the best. I tell about the process involved in receiving or suggesting a DD below.

As with news articles, the best place to find information concerning DD's is found by searching "Daily Deviations" in the "Help and FAQ" section, here.
If you want to find the daily Daily Deviation _{(lol "daily daily")} listing, look here.
You can do that manually by clicking on "Daily Deviations" under "Find More Art" in the drop-down menu next to dA's logo at the top-left corner of your web troller *clears throat again* web browser.
The only two groups that you need to know for this portion of the guide are the unofficial (but totally official) ones:
DD-Catalogue
GetDailyDeviations
The only way to receive a DD is to have someone suggest it. Your suggestor will see your fantabulous work of art and exclaim, "Wow, that's amazing!" They will then click on over to the gallery moderator responsible for the category of your deviation, note him/her with your deviation linked or thumbed, give a short explanation as to why they chose your deviation, and then, if you're lucky and your work of art is truly badass, you will have yourself a DD! The DD certificate will appear below the description of your deviation along with the suggestor's explanation!
If you want to find an updated gallery moderator listing, check out stafflist! He has complete and updated listings for every administrator! You can find Community Relations administrators (gallery moderators) about half-way down his homepage.

Shroomkin, explain the "pt. 1" in the title!

Well, basically I ran out of ideas for things that deviants would be confused on and/or want to know more about! That's where you come in! I need you guys to comment below, note me, comment on my profile page, WHATEVER! Just gimme some more ideas! Once I have accumulated enough ideas, I'll make a part two, and then both parts will be combined into one gloriously awesome guide! Oh, and all the people who had guides, groups, or otherwise participated in the guide will be acknowledged in pt. 2!

For those of you who are wondering what the picture is, it's a photo I took in Gran Turismo 4's Photo Mode and it's of a Fiat 500R.

Thanks so much!

Hello Again, Fair Deviants!

I am ~~Prince Charming~~ Shroomkin, and here is the final installment of dA's Guide to the Galaxy! I decided to add another little intro to the this section because I feel cool when I write intros.

Please tell me in the comments if there's anything missing you feel should not be missing! It's very important to me that you do this, because this guide is not for me, it's for the whole dA community and I want to know what you want to know!

dA Muro

dA Muro was released August 7th, 2010 as dA's 10th birthday present to everyone! Muro is basically a digital drawing program, designed with opacity, smoothness, and density settings in every brush (there are 21 in all).

You can find the complete list of Muro brushes and their functions in a guide made by Gashu-Monsata: MURO-An Ultimate Premium Guide.

Muro has spawned many groups and guides. I would recommend my friend Gashu-Monsata's guides, because I learned from a guide he made especially for me that was incredibly helpful.
- Check out Gashu-Monsata's Muro art and resources folder to view Gashu's incredible Muro art and the many guides she's made, including the one she made for me, Muro speedpainting video-Ocean.
- If you're curious, you check out my (horrible) attempt at waves here.
Look into the official deviantART Muro release news article! It tells you about the purpose of Muro, and contains a special note from spyed.
Here's a few of the largest Muro groups in order of watcher size:

dAmnIT

dAmnIT is basically a place to post funny quotes you witnessed/heard/made while chatting! It's fun to ~~harass~~ be empathetic for the poor guy who just got pwned, though generally it's not at someone else's expense. I have actually just learned about dAmnIT (a play on words; I'll leave you to figure out what it means, and no it's not just the word "damnit"), so I didn't post any of the several hilarious situations I've been in. But, hopefully, you won't have to lose those hilarious conversations by learning now with the next section of my guide!

There's actually not much to tell about dAmnIT, so the FAQ section would be best, this one in particular.
The most quotes are listed here and they'll really make you laugh!

Chat Network (dAmn)

dAmn, the revolutionary (not really, just wanted to say that) chat network on deviantART has got thousands of deviants talking (pun intended)! Just click on "Chat" in the drop-down menu next to the dA logo at the top of the page, and away you go, to new worlds and new opportunities! Just scroll around on the chat menu, and find the chatroom that you connect with! There's lots of diversity among chatrooms. There's chatrooms for just chatting, role-playing chats, contest chatrooms and more!(Wow I've used lots of ! in this description...)

PoetryOD created a guide explaining how to use the chatrooms! Here is the guide.
You can also create your own chatroom! It's very simple. All you have to do is go to the chat homepage, click "Create a Chatroom" at the top-right corner of the page, name the chatroom, and then describe it.
- I was originally going to to provide a link to a specific FAQ in the help section, but then I found Tachy-on's two lesson news article guide that has it all.
  Tachy-on's Lessons:
  First Lesson
  Second Lesson

Forums

The Forums on dA is a place to to talk, fix problems, greet people, get jobs, and more! There are many different thread categories, and you can check them out at the forum main page, here. There are even special threads for Senior Members and Premium Members, which I have not had the opportunity to check out because I am neither of those.

Anyways there's also a thumbshare feature (for both premium members and regular ones) that allows you to showcase your artwork by basically trading thumbs. You start a thread with a couple of your deviations thumbed (you can find your deviation's thumbcode on the right side of the deviation), but in exchange you view some other people's artwork which will be thumbed in the thread! Very useful and helpful!

Little-Vampire's guide, "Forums for Dummies", is a very straightforward and comprehensive guide that goes over everything you'll need to know about the Forums!
Although the Forums may look complex, but it's actual pretty easy to navigate around, so that was basically it for the Forums!

Symbols

OK, so I'm sure that most of you dA newcomers will not know exactly what the symbol next to your name is and what it means, and maybe some of you not-so newcomers don't know the connotations of each symbol. Basically, there's only one guide you need to see for this one:

mushir's "deviantART Symbols Explained" is a fun and thorough guide that explains (and jokes) about every symbol in dA existence.

Critiques

Critiques are, to put it mildly, incredibly useful. They give an artist valuable help and information that they can then put to work in the following art pieces they make. Critiquing is the most powerful and quickest way to improve as an artist. Although critiquing is a premium member feature, regular members can still make your own critique in the comments. This section of the guide will show you how.

The Help and FAQ section is actually a very good resource in this topic. Here's the FAQ.
If you're a visual learner, check out liiga's two part guide to giving and receiving critiques!
Giving a Critique
Taking a Critique

WELL FOLKS, THAT'S IT!

It's been a month and two days since I started this guide, and it was well-worth the time! I hope you newcomers learned a lot, and you veterans at least learned a little!

So thank you for checking out my guide, please show my news articles and deviation some love here:

News Articles
dA's Guide to the Galaxy pt. 1
dA's Guide to the Galaxy pt. 2
dA's Guide to the Galaxy Complete!

Journals
dA's Guide to the Galaxy pt. 1
dA's Guide to the Galaxy pt. 2

Deviation
dA's Guide to the Galaxy Complete!

Citations

_{In order of appearance
Some places are repeated in different sections, so I didn't list them more than once.}

</ul>