dubiouslog

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what direction I’m taking in my personal development. When I think about it, my mind jumps to when I was nine and I made a drawing about how I saw myself in the future: taller, with boobs, and working as a comic artist. When I was a kid, it was more like a distant thought: “and one day, I’ll be publishing my own comics”. Now this goal is fully in my reach, and all I have to do is keeping those stories running and my technique sharp and sharper. However, when I was nine I had no idea I would have developed a plethora of other interests. I could have never seen myself entering the website-making scene, running Angeltower Page and later Blind Dreaming and studying the web and how it works. I’ve always loved videogames, but I would have never thought of gaming as becoming such an important part of my life. And I just didn’t care about finding someone to share my life with.
I expected my life to be a lot more linear. I could even say that my dream life was a lot less interesting or fulfilling than my current life. I’d like to work as a comic artist, sure, but also as an illustrator, a character designer, a web designer, a writer…Mostly freelancing and flying solo, of course. I might accept some very special group projects, but only if I feel like it.

Now, it comes by itself that if I want to work as a freelancer I’m going to need more exposure, and I think I know what to do in order to obtain it. First of all, I’m needing a proper portfolio and for all my personal websites to look their best. This leads me to the next point: currently, not all of my websites are up to my standards, both in terms of presentation and content. If I am to get in the spotlight I cannot allow my work to be just OK, it must be as close to perfect as possible.

This is the very foundation of a big project of renovation concerning all of my online work; it will span across several years so that I can focus on university work while I keep on with this project. Let’s break it down in steps.

Phase one

All of the phase one steps are not incredibly complex or time-consuming. They don’t need my full attention, so I can multitask between them and school work. This should be a rough guideline of my personal work from now to a year from now.

1. Clear Bell renovation. It didn’t really made much sense to have a fanlisting with two pages of content, so I’m turning this website into a full Pokémon Crystal tribute which also hosts a fanlisting.
   I thought that would make a good starting point for my project for a few reasons. First, there’s no way the new content is ever turning stale and needing to be rewritten, since we’re talking about information for a game from 2001 and thus pretty static at this point. If I will ever have to touch the content again, it’s going to be for only minor revisions. Second, I still like the layout concept, so I’m not needing a complete redesign; all I will be doing is upgrading some minor details. Actually, most of the layout changes are already online, so if you check Clear Bell right now you’ll see what I mean. Third, my tribute will be targeted to retrogamers and nostalgics, but will also serve as a museum for the years to come.
   I’m currently writing the new content. It won’t be long before I put everything online, three weeks in the worst case.
2. Remake the weasels fanlisting from scratch. There’s not a single thing that’s right about that website, from the name to the layout to the overall feel. Even with such a tormented development, there’s no excuse for that mess. Now, I happen to have a drypoint drawing of a weasel for school which should be on print on Monday; if the result is as good as I intended it to be, I will be using it for the layout. The new layout is going to be either white or in neutral tones. Also, I’d like to change the name of the website. I tried to find another one myself but the results were rather unsatisfactory. So I’d like to get some input from you readers. The winner gets a free artwork :B everyone can participate, it doesn’t matter if we don’t really talk that much.
3. Minor layout changes in the Angeltower Dex. Like remaking the Poké Ball and the Great Ball in the respective styles with a proper 3D software or refining the content styling. I should also make a Master Ball style soon or later. Also, I’m going to upgrade everything to HGSS and rewrite parts of the core code.
4. Minor layout changes in the Super Metroid and Fearow fanlistings. I’m not satisfied with some of the content styling in the Super Metroid fanlisting and I don’t quite like the navigation in the Fearow fanlisting, so I’m going to tweak them a bit. Nothing major, though.
5. New layout for Dark Claws. That website has grown a lot over time, and the current layout is way too small and the content way too understyled to convey how big that website actually is. Plus the layout is also quite old (from late 2007 I think), so it was about time anyway. I’m going to keep the current red and grey color scheme, but with another artwork. Content is going to be fully revised and the URL structure changed. For example, sneasel/shrine.php?page=general-information will become sneasel/shrine/?page=general-information, because directories are cooler. Here we’re already talking about plans for stuff I will be working on about a year from now, so I don’t feel like I can already give more details than this.

The phase two steps are still a secret! I will be talking about them in due time. All I can say for now is that they are going to be the beefier part of the renovation project, each taking from several months to a whole year of effort. They will be about Advanced Blanket, Angeltower Page and the portfolio I was talking about before. :D

There’s also a great deal of work for other people I’m currently working on. I’ve been spending the last few months on the redesign of a website which should be ready in November or December, I will be making a whole CMS-based website which should take a good three months of work, and I’ll be probably working on another website too. There’s so much stuff to do, and I’m still without Internet D:

Now, for something different:

as you may probably know by now, I literally obsess over web typography and I’m always looking for interesting articles and stuff, blah blah blah, I just found some great reads:

• The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web
• Five simple steps to better typography

Very long and very accurate, I’m learning a lot. I don’t even know if there’s people reading who care about these geeky things but well, whatever.

On other news, I’m doing some work for other people and I’m seriously considering to make a web notebook for myself where I can dump all those random short thoughts which I’d never post here but I’d be sorry to throw away either. It’s going to be something way more “personal” than this weblog, but at the same time I won’t give any context as to how those ideas came to be because seriously, I don’t want to share that much about me. I don’t get why my parents make all that fuss about the whole “YOU HAVE A PRIVATE LIFE WHICH IS PRIVATE SO DON’T POST PRIVATE STUFF ON THE INTERNET” cause heck, I AM a quite private person. I mean, there’s people sharing details about their sex life on the Internet - not that I’ve got anything against that, it’s just something I’d never ever do even if I were 101% sure only people I know and trust were reading. Just to clarify that. Well not that my parents are reading this anyway (even if they spoke English I don’t think they’d know about this weblog) but well

got a bit off track eh

I’ve been fishing into the web, let me show you the squids

Free resources

1. FEEL Resources has got a good number of high-quality textures and brushes. How many uses do you see for such a beauty? The website itself also has a neat design - I like how the previews are organized.
2. So I was looking for interesting photo textures to use in Advanced Blanket’s layout and well, I came across CG Textures. they’ve got some HUGE stuff. Texture Warehouse is also nice.
3. If you’re specifically looking for rust, metal etc., check Grunge Textures and Urban Dirty.
4. Mayang’s Free Textures kick some serious ass. This photographer deserves a LOT of credit. I’m not kidding.

Webdesign

1. A very interesting read: Web Designer Wall. That’s what I call blogging about webdesign, man.
2. Looking for something to feed my inner web typography geek, I came across this article. Web designers tend to not pay enough attention to typography and it’s always nice to see people who actually care.
3. While we’re at it, Flipping Typical allows you to have a look at all of your popular fonts simultaneously.

Inspiration and beauty

1. Most of the web uses light background with dark text. I tend to like quite the opposite. Guess what Light on Dark showcases?
2. GraphicHug is a place for everything beautifully designed. I spent the whole day browsing it.
3. Talking about beautiful designs, Peter Pearson’s portfolio is breathtaking. A true work of art.
4. Stepping into the more artistic territory: Furiae showcases some impressive digital artworks. Think that for a while I thought they were edited photos.
5. If you thought that art in Asia was all about manga and such, let me show how wrong you were.
6. I usually don’t care about photography but Chema Madoz’s work is just brilliant.

people have way too much to say about art.

hay guys, I’d like to ask you a few questions about a few issues I can’t make up my mind on.

I’ll be working on the new artfolio very soon. Should I call it Blind Dreaming or something else? Mind that blind-dreaming.net’s index page is going to stay as a gateway leading to this blog, the collective and the artfolio and that I already have a list of possible names in case I choose to not name the artfolio after the domain, so tell me.

Also, does the layout of the Hall of Changes look unfinished? Do you think it looks good as it is now or that something is missing? To me, it looks like it should use a background in the upper left corner to give it some more depth, but again, I don’t know if you actually like the simple look. Don’t take me wrong - I am very pleased with the colors and the overall organization, plus the layout uses an artwork I am very satisfied with. It’s that I don’t know if I should have stopped there. Please be honest while replying to this post, I need your feedback.

In the meanwhile, have an artwork:

I’ll be posting some PG-13 Volkner and Flint artworks later, under a cut. They’re not incredibly explicit and shouldn’t offend the sensibility of anyone I know, but I don’t want to slam them into your face either, so.

Service information: Majo, I’ve added your blog down here. :) Remember that though I don’t comment that much (if at all), I always read what you write. Go you!

Also, as for Blind Dreaming I just added a joined fanlistings directory. Now every time I spot a new fanlisting I won’t have to wait until I’ve finished working with the whole site (which by the way will take a lot longer than previously though, but meh).

But this wasn’t what I wanted to talk about. See the pencil submit button? While I was developing it I did a thorough search in the web for tutorials, just to see how other people dealed with the issue of working with 3D in a mainly 2D editor. I didn’t find anything especially useful for my case and I ended up developing my own technique from scratch, but I can’t pass on this great tutorial about how to create a mechanical pencil with Photoshop. It’s impressive to see how the pencil comes to life in a very plastic way; it can really be seen taking shape as more effects are added. Also read the ending comments, they summarize in a few words a very important idea in graphic designing.

Now my main idea was to end my post here but another issue came up while writing. It’s been less than a week since I’ve started working with Wordpress and I’m liking it as a publishing platform, it has everything for my needs, a neat coding and a neat concept, but let me say one thing.

Categories and tags. Aren’t they quite the same?
From what I’ve learned, categories should be used for filing the posts, while tags should be used to make a visual map of what your weblog is about increasing in size as you have more posts under a specific tag. Still, if you set the category list to display the number of posts each category has, they both give the exact same information - except categories can have a hierarchy and tags can’t. And while I’m at it, I wonder if someone has thought of an interlinked hierarchy system.
For example, let’s say I want to post about the making of a certain video game: I’d want to file it under “development”, and have the “development” category have a sub-category called “videogames” with another sub-category with the name of said game, so that if I later want to write about the making of another video game I can just add a new sub-category under “videogames”. This works with the current hierarchy model, but let’s say that some months have passed, the video game has been released and I want to review it. Where should I put the “review” category? Under “videogames”? Under the name of the game? They both have as parent “development”, but I’m not talking about development! If I reverse the structure and have “videogames” at the top, the name of the game as a sub-category and then “development” and “review” as third-level sub-categories? Yeah, and then if I want to review more than one game? Do I have to create as many “review” sub-categories as games I want to review? that’s just plain insane.
The only way this would work would be to have every game category linked both to “development” and “review”, which are single categories and not duplicates like in the last case. The whole system wouldn’t work like a tree spreading into branches, but more like a city plan where roads cross each other and all that matters is the distance from one place to another. This also leads to another issue, the idea of having a distance between categories that can show the relation between the subjects. In this example, “development” and “review” could have a medium distance from the name of the game, but two games from the same producer could be very near the one to the other.

Really, I’ll have to see if someone has already thought of all of that and how to put this into code.