dubiouslog

Double love

( March 12, 2010 - 6:38 pm, filed under fanlistings, websites, tagged as , )

My deepest thanks to you all for the wonderful comments I’m receiving about Spark Needle. It’s beautiful to know that my work is making someone happier.

I also found out that the fanlisting for Mewtwo died, so…I can’t believe that I’m getting to apply for it. I’ll be waiting here with all of my fingers crossed. If I get it, however, I won’t make a shrine out of it - I thought about it for a while, and I don’t think I can add something worthy to the beautiful Mewtwo fansites around. I should focus on stuff no one else tackled before. So, the Ai website was shrunk into a more polished fanlisting.

It’s been about five months since that post about my projects and I’m glad to see that some things were done. I’m more or less satisfied with the changes made to the Super Metroid and Fearow fanlistings, Clear Bell has grown into a full Pokémon Crystal tribute, and well, Spark Needle is here. Now I’ll be working on stuff for other people, but let’s see what I should be doing after that:

These are important, then there are all those minor changes and updates here and there. And of course No Future. Hmm.

no comments

Spark Needle

( March 9, 2010 - 12:57 pm, filed under fanlistings, websites, tagged as , , )

It’s been more than a year since the first time I wrote in this weblog that I wanted to make a website revolving around Volkner and Flint from Pokémon. Today, that website is finally ready. Its name is Spark Needle, and is the largest shrine I’ve ever made.

Writing these lines give me an incredible feeling of accomplishment that can only be compared to the one I got when Angeltower’s Frozen Truth Version was released back in 2007, and it’s also a bit like reliving the day after the first kiss or after the first time making love. It also saddens me a bit that I will no longer have to nurture this website; I think it could be the same feeling a parent gets seeing their children growing up and leaving their house. It’s a mysterious thing.

Putting aside this emotional stuff for a moment, I can say that Spark Needle is my biggest feat yet, both on the personal and technical front.
With the death of Internet Explorer 6, the web is finally ready to bestow the true potential of PNG transparency and fixed backgrounds applied to elements other than <body>. Spark Needle’s layout features four types of fixed tiled backgrounds with the same pattern in different colors; when scrolling the page, the eye is tricked into believing the background is always the same with only the colors changing. The top looks very simple, but it features scrolling elements on a fixed background, and this is where trasparent-background PNGs come into play. The text on the navigation buttons has a trasparent background as well, and the hovers are pure CSS: there is no other part of the image, it’s just the background color changing into red. This makes the layout lighter and the coding cleaner.

For what concerns the content, the fact that there are 21 information pages should say everything. If gedit isn’t failing me, the total word count for all of these pages is around 14,000, and I was being concise. Other than a lot to read, there are also game pictures, artworks and screencaps from the anime.  308 screencaps, to be precise. Scary, I know.

Most of the fanstuff section has content you should have already seen if you’ve been following this weblog, but there are also some new things: two unpublished fan arts - which would be the suggestive fan arts I was talking about in my last artwork post, mind -, one short fan fic which is really about their friendship so you have no excuse not to read it, and 13 icons I made yesterday. There is also some submitted material :D

and now I can sit on my butt and feel accomplished.

5 comments

did it

( October 29, 2009 - 12:48 pm, filed under artworks, fanlistings, tagged as , , )

Ultimate Mission got its layout upgraded! Look at the brand new navigation with those little flashing screens. I always forget how much I love to make sprites :> The fonts got changed too.

I also solved the problem with Soaring Dread’s navigation by removing it completely and making that fanlisting into a single-page website. The logo was also remade and is now classier. I think.

This should do it for step four. 8)

Have some random crap

daevion-01.gif

I LOVE HOW THIS TURNED OUT
the pose was taken from a screenshot, but everything else is original

daevion-02.gif

tiny sprites are tiny

man I’d so like to make some animated sprites
I think I’ll start out with something easy like Volkner and Flint talking and then I’ll move to Daevion casting spells or Samus walking. I’d also like to do something with Pokémon but I really don’t know, I thought of Sneasel slashing but I don’t really know how to make it loop decently. Suggestions?

6 comments

Cakes are lies

( October 24, 2009 - 2:53 pm, filed under artworks, blind dreaming, fanlistings, web designing, websites, tagged as , , )

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:

kirby-dedede-01.jpg

2 comments

just to let you know

( July 6, 2009 - 10:31 pm, filed under fanlistings, hall of changes, tagged as )

The Fearow fanlisting is now open! I’m quite proud of the illustration on the right, I should put that much effort in all my art.
I SHOULD DRAW MORE AND MORE AND MORE

also the Hall of Changes got a new layout which may be my best ever so far. WHAT DO YOU THINK?

I’M PRODUCTIVE AS OF LATELY

11 comments

Electivire, fucking your Pokémon since 2006

( June 23, 2009 - 1:20 pm, filed under fanlistings, hall of changes, none of the above, personal, random, websites, tagged as , , , , , )

30+ IN CONTEMPORARY ART HISTORY FUCK YEAH. Especially because much of this success was determined by me making a large painting inspired from the work of Francis Bacon. The teacher was so impressed he even gave me a free book. So apparently my childish and anatomically impossible drawings are worth a 30+ and a free book. In your ass. :>

Even though I shouldn’t be taking such people too seriously, maybe I should really try and write down my views on art, especially as to why I deliberately choose to draw roughly and mostly ignoring anatomy. It’s not like I’m not able to make beautiful realistic drawings, you know. I just found a bunch of old stuff including a self-portrait I drew at fifteen and man, it does look nice. I’ll be scanning all that old stuff from 2004-2005 - those drawings that got lost with the HD failure and some which went lost ages before that (including the Sneasel pic who graced the very first layout of Angeltower Page). I’m also rescanning my old Pokémon comic whose pages seem to be currently located in the dark side of the interwebs - I even found some unpublished pages, so you may be in for a surprise.

And talking about comics, I’d really like to make another Pokémon comic. I’ve already been planning it out. It will be a comic divided in three or four short episodes each one focusing on a different aspect of the relationship between Pokémon and people.
The first one will take place before Pokémon and people became two different species and it will be about a little girl and his grampa. The old man discovers he can keep his niece’s life energy in a ball he created out of an Apricorn, so they play together with this toy - except that, with the passing of time, the old man becomes more and more scared of his child outgrowing their game, and ends up becoming eerily obsessive…
The second one will take place in the present and will be about a Trainer and a Fearow who fall in love for each other, thus compromising the whole training system and posing some interesting question on their relationship.
The third one will be about a “real world” girl playing Pokémon and getting emotionally attached to the creatures.
I do seem to have a predilection for real weird stuff. In case you were asking. :P

Also, I just got approved for the making of the Fearow fanlisting! Yeah Fearow. It took me a whole ten years to understand its greatness |D Sneasel is sticking to the position of favorite Pokémon ever, then Mewtwo, Porygon-Z and Fearow in no particular order. The fanlisting’s name will be Soaring Dread and it will feature an illustration of mine in the layout. I PROMISE IT’S GOING TO LOOK NICE

As for the new Hall of Changes layout I changed idea three times, then got what looks like my best layout ever. It looks so awesome that I cannot believe it was me to create it. It will feature Samus and the Orion Nebula! What can possibly go wrong? :D

Anyway, this post was really about…ME SINGING KAZE TO ISSHO NI. DUN DUN DUUUN. I would have posted Niji ga Umareta Hi too but the laptop mic wouldn’t record the high-pitched scream at the end which was supposed to show my leet singing skillz. Hahaha. As you will have understood by now, the recording is quite low-quality, but I’m so awesome so it should not be a problem. SARCASM.
Here’s the recording. My voice does sound weird in places but that’s because by the “ikutsomono deai, ikutsumono wakare” I was crying like a baby. Kaze to Issho Ni always gets to me. :<

Let me end this entry with my latest weird dream. Involving me saving a beautiful woman with long fair hair by a number of weird situations throughout some really colorful and detailed worlds. And having hot sex with her afterwards. Ten times. And because this dream was half-lucid, I could make her boobs larger whenever I wanted to. My dreams are, indeed, better than yours. Live with it. XD

11 comments

to a meaningful sky

( June 10, 2009 - 9:31 pm, filed under artworks, blind dreaming, fanlistings, tagged as , , , , )

jupiter.gif

Gift for PKergirl :) Again, game palette plus two more colors. I’m considering to make sprites out of some of my drawings, too :O these are so fun to make
As for Spenser with Fearow it’ll probably take some more time as the Ranger sprite palette utterly sucks and I’ll have to make a better one myself.

waste-land-01.jpg

For Majo, inspired by T. S. Eliot’s Waste Land; A3 size.

cynthia-01.jpg

Fun fact: this was actually supposed to fill a whole A4 sheet. I colored it and all, then went away; when I got back I noticed how out of proportion it was and cut away the lower half of the drawing. Also, her boobs weren’t large enough :|

wings-01.jpg

This looks so much better in real life, you can’t even imagine. Much more colorful, also here you can’t really see the detail of the green body feathers. Man, am I needing a decent scanner. Anyway, this means a lot to me. If you were asking: yes, the model is me - just with a different hair color.

As for my other projects: I’m making a fanlisting for Fearow :D how could I not notice how awesome it is for so many years. FEAROWWW
its name will be “Soaring Dread” and its layout will be sky blue with a drawing I’m going to make myself as there appears to be a shortage of decent Fearow pics

I’m also making a screenshot gallery for Dark Claws but it will take some time. I still have…five episodes and a movie to download. I should also get to buy the Sneasel TCG cards and the new plushies and figures, well, it’d help if I had a camera to begin with. I never noticed how little stuff I actually own until I had to move out two weeks ago; all my stuff could stay in two suitcases, two bags and two boxes, and it mostly was my Pokémon plushies and my art stuff. Unbelievable.

If you hadn’t noticed the note on Blind Dreaming’s index, I’m also making a new layout for the Hall of Changes. It’s going to have a huge top image on a dark carmine background and a reddish-gray content box. I still have to decide what I’m going to put in the top image though, but I think I’ll end up with Samus again or something Pokémon-related. It’s a fanlisting collective, after all, IT HAS TO DISPLAY MY OBSESSIONS

Also, I put online a little something on Blind Dreaming. Don’t ask if you don’t see nothing, it either means you’re not paying attention or you can’t just because of your screen. I don’t know, sometimes I have weird ideas.

8 comments

of the “shouldn’t you be doing something else?” series

( May 12, 2009 - 12:42 pm, filed under advanced blanket, blind dreaming, fanlistings, websites, tagged as , )

so hey stuff was done!

The weasels fanlisting is up and running. Man, what a weird development process. I mindlessly finished the whole layout in a single day, sent the application, received the approval, decided I didn’t like neither the layout I made nor the name I gave it, left it hanging around for ten days and then re-made the whole fanlisting from scratch in a single day again. Well. At least now I actually like the result.

Also Dark Claws got updated twice in two weeks because of a very nice person sending me loads of Sneasel-related stuff. :D NOW TO GET THE NEW SNEASEL PLUSHIES AND FIGURES

Blind Dreaming’s new index’s only missing a decent artwork. I already made one but it ended up looking too sloppy and not very related to my usual themes anyway, so I’ll have to think better. I’ll let you know as soon as I’ll be finished.

Advanced Blanket’s in a very advanced (lol) stage of development. The layout is gray and yellow just like in the index page, but it ended up getting a cyber/steampunk feel to it, there’s rust and scratched metal and bolts everywhere. Also that dark yellow became more like dark yellowish-orange to match. Currently, it’s only missing the artwork - which will feature two female robots. Specifically, a cute household robot who wants to turn on a rebellious and transgressive robot which was deactivated and rotting in a dump. YOU KNOW WHERE THIS IS GOING, ISN’T IT. It seems that characters about to do something incredible and meaningful are a constant in my art. That and the theme of rebirth, too.
Other than that, I only have to make the banners and write the about me, which seems to always be the very last page I write in whatever project. Heh. I hate writing about me.

and now, I’ll be working on that damned animation exam

1 comment

AND NOT A SINGLE MINUTE EARLIER!

( March 25, 2009 - 4:15 pm, filed under artworks, fanlistings, tagged as , , , , , )

DEAR GOD I GOT 27/30 ON THE BIG EXAM
VG BROUGHT ME TO THE JAPANESE RESTAURANT
MAJO WROTE THE AWESOMEST FIC ON THIS PLANET JUST FOR ME
I GOT APPROVED FOR THE SUPER METROID FANLISTING

A TRUCKLOAD OF WIN ALL OVER ME

HAVE SOME ARTWORKS TO CELEBRATE

sprouting-head-02.jpgrandom-01.jpgrandom-02.jpgrandom-03.jpgflygon-02.jpg

RANDOM STUFF ON PARADE AND A FLYGON

volkner-05.jpgvolkner-06.jpg

VOLKNER

A GAY DRAWING LIES IN BRIGHT SHADES OF ORANGE

3 comments

I command you to disregard authority!

( March 11, 2009 - 4:01 pm, filed under artworks, fanlistings, tagged as , )

I’ve got to study a boring book for a boring exam, and guess what happens? Inspiration strikes me. Thank you so much, I was really needing another reason to hate this exam. I guess inspiration is much like a hard-on, coming at all the wrong times…don’t ask me how I know. Anyway, I can’t study for twelve hours straight without taking a break, so this is it. Artwork post.

Before that, have a look at Story Experiment, a project of my cousin. I’ve linked to him in the footer. Read it. Or else. >(

falkner-01.jpgwill-01.jpg

I’m planning to do four artworks featuring each and every notable Pokémon character, broken down by generation. And because characters in second generation have less fan work than the others, I’m starting with them. These are some references as to what they look like according to Sugimori and, where applicable, the anime; from these, I’ll be developing my own take on them. I’ve already drawn references for all of the character in generation two, but you don’t expect me to scan them all, right? RIGHT?

rosy-aged-10.jpgrosy-aged-12.jpgrosy-aged-14.jpgrosy-aged-19.jpg

Drawing Kris put me in a sort of nostalgic mood, so I went back and drew all my Pokémon characters. From left to right, me aged 10, 12, 14 and 17-18-19-whatever. Man, the third one had a weird outfit. The last one is actually not much of a character than a self-portrait, as these are clothes I actually own.
also, the second one reminds me of how embarassing was having the body of a child and the boobs of a porn actress, lol (later I found a way to hide them but still lol, that must have been real weird)

flint-01.jpg

hello thar, shoddily-drawn Flint

volkner-flint-05.jpg

I’m going to hell for this
I must admit that Flint looks real nice as a girl. maybe my teacher was right, after all.

volkner-04.jpg

The golden rules of being a Volkner:

  1. Always act like you’re cooler than everyone else!
  2. Overdramatize on everything!
  3. Be vocal on what bugs you! Never stop complaining!
  4. Treat your very special friend who’d cut off his legs for you like he’s worthless!
  5. ???
  6. Profit!

This is it, I’m going back to study. rrrrrr

Not really useful information: I’ve applied for the Super Metroid fanlisting! we’ll see what happens. I’m not sending the application for Volkner and Flint because I’d like to wait for the US version of Pokémon Platinum to come out, you know, for the shrine side and such, and because I still don’t know how to name the site. I’m thinking about something with “spark” in it because sparks can be both from electric discharges and fire and spark is also a term for a lover (lol), but I don’t know, I need another word. Do you have a better idea than “Banana Spark”? :(

6 comments

« ten posts back •