Talk: How I Do ASCII Art

      How I Do ASCII Art, by Dan Strychalski (dsk...@cameonet.cameo.com.tw)

Questions about how we do ASCII art have been appearing frequently in
alt.ascii-art and rec.arts.ascii. Here's a brief description of how I do it.

   I  (1) get an idea, or get bored and decide to combine different characters
   to see what they look like; (2) start up WordPerfect or WordStar in MS-DOS,
   or Joe in Unix;  (3) hit <cr> to create a few blank lines, then (sometimes)
   hit <sp> a few times in case I'll need more room on the left; and (4) draw.

I have a small collection of downloaded art, and I learn basic techniques by
studying others' work (all artists in all genres do this), but I NEVER copy,
and I diddle others' art only if they request it. Here are some other tips:

   (1) Never use tabs.  (2) Never go to more than 79 character columns.  (3)
   Learn to do everything -- select, move, copy, undo, redo, etc., -- through
   the keyboard (I never use a mouse, and I use only old-style keyboards with
   Ctrl in the home row, to the left of the A key. What people do on a Mac, I
   don't know; great machine, though. Dinwoes I avoid at all costs).

There you have it. This works for me and many others. It's worth a try.