dubiouslog

MEWTWO MEWTWO!

…no, it’s not ready yet. But the fanlisting side is open!

Look what I finished today!

This is one of those websites that I planned to made ages ago (literally, as in 2006/07) but, for one reason or for another, never saw the light of the day. Today, this project lives :>

There are also some new drawings…

…but this is not really new. I drew this a month ago and forgot to scan it |)

Same for this one…

I seriously have no recollection of even drawing this. WHAT.

Nevermind…

I’m currently working at the Sableye shrine, which will be named Lithovore. If I manage to keep up with the schedule, it will be ready in ten days max, hopefully less so that I can work on Mewtwo. However, yesterday I ended up working on something else, namely the revamp of the weasels fanlisting. It’s now online. As you can see, it’s no longer just a fanlisting; it’s more of a minitribute - a weasel manifesto, if you wish. Actually, the revamp has been ready for about a month, but I never got to upload the new version because I never felt like making a top artwork for it, then I remembered I already had a weasel illustration lying around and used that one instead. I know, I’m beyond stupid.

Have some mouse doodles:

hello there
why are you in this pose

This is a random weasel I drew earlier, after uploading the new layout for the fanlisting. experimenting with colors, of course.

apparently I sent the application for the Mewtwo fanlisting not only to The Fanlistings but also to The Anime Fanlistings.
because I just got the approval to make the fanlisting to the anime version of the character.

let me spell it out: I’ve been waiting for this moment since 2006
AND I DIDN’T EVEN REMEMBER I APPLIED FOR IT

WTF, SELF.

The point is that, since I thought I had already been rejected, I also applied for Sableye and got approved for it. Now, you must know that I like to make shrines which also incorporate a fanlisting so that the ones looking for the shrine will also have the chance to join the fanlisting and the ones looking for the fanlisting will find much more content than expected. So, my idea was (and still is) to make a Sableye shrine as my submission to the Pokéthon.

As for Mewtwo, in the past I said that there was no need for me to make another Mewtwo shrine since I couldn’t add anything worthy to what other people wrote, and I still think it’s true. However, this works in the case of a text-based tribute. All I need to do is changing perspective. So, I’m going to make an illustrated tribute to the character of Mewtwo. Think of the possibilities. It will be a big project, but I think I can pull it off. Long story short, if I manage to finish both websites in a month and half I can submit not one, but two shrines to the Pokéthon. 8D Let’s see what I can do.

Lately I’ve been doodling a lot with friends on IM and discovered that drawing with the mouse is fun. So, have some stupid fan art. Irene, I’m blaming you for these.

interesting uses of that dangling belt #1 - drunk piggyback rides

interesting uses of that dangling belt #2 - cruel and unusual punishment

interesting uses of that dangling belt #3 - musical instrument

interesting uses of that dangling belt #4 - catapult

HERE WE GO

you know what’s amazing? my consistency is amazing. I just remade a website which wasn’t even on my last to-do list.
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

well I’m way more pleased with it now. the layout uses the same concept as before, just that now it’s an actual layout instead of a blue background with a pic on it. also, as the banner should show, now the website is no longer just a fanlisting, it’s a fanlisting with a one-page tribute in which I make a series of somewhat weird yet perfectly reasonable deductions while still managing to spam a sexy picture of Spenser with his sexy Fearow. EVERYBODY WINS

Seriously though, I really like that pic because of the way Spenser’s left leg is still completely legible beneath his pants. Interesting Fact about me: I have a fetish for wrinkles in clothing, especially pants. Once I was in a train and there was this hot young man sitting in front of me and all I could do was staring at his crotch because of the wrinkles in his jeans. 8D

anyway, after this I’m going to finish revamping the weasels fanlisting, the finished site has been sitting there for something like five days because I didn’t feel like drawing the top image and then I ended up working on Soaring Dread because I’m stupid.

(why do I always try to save the draft on wordpress with ctrl-s?!)

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:

• REMAKE THE WEASELS FANLISTING ASAP
• Redesign Dark Claws; add new content
• Work on the Angeltower Dex: rewrite the core & upgrade to HGSS, upgrade the styles
• Redesign Advanced Blanket, current layout sucks

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

Edit: Haha, seems like I didn’t get Mewtwo. WELL. I TRIED :D

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.

I’m sorry! I can’t shut up about Volkner and Flint lately. Even though I can see how someone may want to smack me in the face just to make me stop, you have to understand that I’ve been through some very rough times as of lately and these guys somehow managed to give me the strength and to bring a smile to my face. I feel really thankful towards the people who were involved in the making of that episode, and I wish they could know to what extent their work affected my life.

Anyway, I’ve been spending these days working restlessly on the shrine to them. I missed working on a website so much. I never thought I’d ever say this, but when I’ll be finished I’m going to miss working on it as well. This website also made me rediscover one of my passions that I’ve been neglecting in these last few years: writing. How much time has passed since the last time I wrote a long page about something? And what about fan fictions? I don’t even know if people will read them, but at least I’ve had fun writing them, and I think I will keep writing fan fics for this website for a long time. And then I will make some fan comics, too. And at least one AMV; yesterday I’ve come across this song whose lyrics relate very much to their relationship for how I see it and I just have to make something with it. Right now the play count is at…138 D8 if you’re curious, the song is Emptier Still from Dark Tranquillity. One of their “lesser” songs, but I find it to be amazing. Anyway, I’d also like to animate something myself, but that could be too much for me. I should at least try, I don’t know. And then I want to make a figure with them, but I have no idea as for what I could use to make them. I suck at modelling stuff with water, but I’m good with wax-based materials…too bad that most of them never really dry and get covered in dust after a few days. If anyone out there knows what I could use…

I really hope for this website to attract the fans. I really want to exchange mails with other people following my same shipping, since I seem to be the only one caring here. :<

(no one needed this entry to begin with! what am I doing?)

I’ve been feeling really depressed as of lately. My housemates won’t let me use the table, so I cannot draw nothing but sketches on my legs, which means that I cannot make illustrations for school, which means that I’m behind with my classes, which means that I’m getting more and more worried. I really tried to draw on my legs, but my back acts up after about thirty minutes. I need to buy a foldable table, but I also need help to carry it home, and people is busy, not their fault.

I don’t want to be with my housemates anymore, they won’t understand that being sociophobic is not something I can overcome by just being with people, and even like this I’m not the talkative type anyway. They think I’m just being an asshole to them while I just don’t find anything to talk about with them. Plus, I don’t want to be in the same room with them because they’re always smoking, doing drugs or cooking smelly stuff. Strong smells make me sick. I need to move alone, but this takes time. Plus the laptop is still under repair so I can’t work on websites or talk with friends as often as I want, and without a computer I can’t look for houses either.

Plus I won’t be able to see Jacopo for another two weeks. :<

BUT BUT BUT

the ep with Volkner and Flint has been announced for February 25 and I’M SO HAPPY
I just want to see them together doing stuff and teasing each other and I want to hear their voices and asfghjkasdl
The best part is that I know that even if I find them to be a bit different from how I imagine them to be I’m not going to be disappointed :D I just have fun shipping them and love their characters, that’s it

This also comes at just the right time, since I was already planning to make a shrine for them. It’s about a whole year I’ve been wanting to make a website about them and I’ve been working on it behind the scenes, but I was never satisfied with the result. It never seemed to live up to my expectations, yet I wanted to make something for them SO badly. After all, they are the only shipping I ever supported.
Then there was something that gave me the kick I needed to get started and finish everything with a strict deadline…which happens to fall after February 25, so I’ll have enough time to make the layout with a screencap from the episode and put a screencap gallery online and and and 8D

Talking about shrines, I’ve been playing Riviera: The Promised Land again. The idea was to write down Serene’s lines and make a shrine to her, but while I was playing I discovered that my favorite character in that game is really Malice. So…expect something about her in the near future. She really is a very interesting character.
The website will be named “No Future” and the layout will use this wonderful artwork of her. I still have to decide if I want this website to be a shrine or a fanlisting plus shrine.

Have a meme. Stolen from Irene, but since she skipped some questions I looked for the original and answered to some of the ones she left out, then followed her template, then got bored.

(more…)

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: