Hey all,

It's been forever since I used my Live Journal! I've been meaning to get posting again here for some time now and this week I decided it was finally the time to get back into things!

So what am I looking for votes for?

Well there is an Irish Transformers website that started up this year and they are running a competition to design the mascot for their website.

I decided to enter this, more as a means to test my art skills than anything else.

The thing about competitions like these is that it very rarely comes down to artistic merit, often it's the guy or gal with the most friends willing to vote for them that wins!

That's fair enough and simply part of the process I guess.

However I certainly would love some of your votes. First thing to do is to cast your peepers at my entry which I have included below. That's Celticon that is! Get it Celtic, Celticon! Choose your words carefully cos my beloved wife came up with that one!

Anyway Celticon himself is what I have decided it a Stadiumformer! Cos he turns into a Stadium! I came up with that! Insult away!

If you like what you see then all you need to do to vote for me is to send an email to tfirelandonline@gmail.com with the number '8' in the subject line.

This will get me a vote!

So other than that is there much else new with me? Not really, I'm still working on websites in work, now having been promoted to Web Manager, and I still continue to develop and work on my art in my free time.

Oh yes and I am saddened by the recent finale of Battlestar Galactica as it was quite possibly one of the most amazing things that I've ever watched on television. Plus the fact that All Along The Watchtower was a key plot point for most of the show just goes to show how far removed it was from 'traditional' sci fi!

That's it for this post but expect me to be updating this bad boy more often from now on!

G

Oh and all the entries for the competition can be viewed here: http://tfio.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=tfiocontestsspecialevents&action=display&thread=161

Hey all,

Well a happy belated St Patrick's day to you all! I hope that you all celebrated in style! Me? My wife came home from meeting a friend and next thing i knew we were off buying bathrooms and kitchens! Dam the bright weather making her all pro-active!!

Well best not get too hung up on things, the bathroom and kitchen do need upgraded!

So this week i am bringing you 2 verisons of an image i just finished. Some of you may remember that i volunteered my services to a fan run project entitled Transformers Mosaic. Simlpy put Transformers Mosaic involves a collaborative effort in which the final product produced is a single comic page, fully coloured and edited. A Mosaic can be set in any one of about a billion Transformers continuties and can be worked on by any body that wants to.

The Mosaic itself is written by a fan (or in some cases professional TF writers have contributed) and the script is then submitted to the guys that run the project who in turn release these scripts to any interested artists. An artist can draw and colour the comic if they desire or they can draw and ink it and then pass it on to another artist for colouring. This is then passed back to one of the guys running the project for editing at which stage the speech bubbles, if not already done so, can be added.

The range of talent is considerable and varies greatly between Mosaics. Some are badly written, some are badly drawn, some are badly coloured, some are completely bad! Then some are outstanding! It just depends on the talent at hand really. Once submitted a writer has no say in who draws their Mosaic (although there are several instances where a writer and artists have deliberately teamed up to produce one) so the results are something of a lottery regardless of the quality of the script!

I have 2 Mosaics in the pipeline at the moment. One i am about to start on, that the images below relate to, and another where the writer sought me out and requested that i draw one of his scripts (who was i to say no).

So this month and last the little free time i have had has been spent working on the central character for the first Mosaic. This character is a little complicated as he was never a part of main TF line. He features in some obscure expanded universe story so reference material is rather scarce. I decided to redesign him to fit in with the current Transformer aesthetic as seen in the mainline comic.

I took my time with this image to get it just right. I have made mistakes in the past and tried to avoid them this time. I was also very careful with the inking process and applied techniques that were passed onto me by someone way better at this than i am!

So without further ado i present Tap-Out:




Tap-Outs alternate mode is loosely based on the new Honda Civic Type-R. As mentioned before i will shortly be in the market for a new car and would love one of these, however my budget probably won't stretch that far.

The following image is the same as the one above but this time i applied some grey to the image and stuck the character in front of traditional Transformer gridlines:




I have no intentions of taking up colouring so adding the greys is kind of a cheat! Although i do think that it creates a nice effect and lifts the image a bit.

So now that that's out of the way some progress updates:

1: New banner for GB's website
Banner is finished and has been approved by GB - I will upload this when i get a chance after work.

2: Redesign for Nadia Williams website
Sorry Nadia - i still haven't started this. I'm still working my way through some new design tutorials that i want to use in your redesign - but i will be ready soon.

3: This months IDW Transformers Lineart Competition
Not sure if i am going to enter this comp. I had originally planned to but in all fairness there aren't enough hours in the day. However i said i wasn't going to enter last months and ended up knocking something up in the last few hours.

4: Transformers Mosaic
Now that i have settled on the design of the title character in my first Mosaic i have started roughing out the storyboards and will start it soon - this takes priority over the monthly lineart competition.

Well folks that is all for this week. I will check in again next week with my progress and what not!!

G

Ok so it's a bit after Monday but i am trying!!

Not much to report at the moment! So here is a design i did for a Transformer i am developing:




Here is the same image coloured by the guy that will be colouring the comic page that i will be doing:





Then here is the same picture coloured by a different person who actually did a damn good job but in general wouldn't be as good a colourist as the first guy! Still the lightning flash and the eyes in this are way cool!




And finally, just to round things off, here are 2 rough concept sketches of the robots full body. I am developing the one on the left into the finished article. His alt mode is one of those new Honda Civic Type-R motors! I likes them alot!

Peekaboo! Hah! Whassup peeps?

I've been busy in work as usual and am finding it tough to sit down and churn out blog LJ entries like i promised i would! So what!? Who cares! Sue me! Blah da yadda!

Any i am going to try and do a weekly post here starting with this one. You'll hear all about my wonderful life and the many interesting things in it! Actually you won't cos i'll probably not post again until next October.

But seeing as i'm here now i may as well post some stuff. So first up is my entry for this months lineart competition that is held over on the IDW Publishing forums (they do the Transformers comics these days).



I'm still not winning anything but i do think that i'm getting better! And they say it's the taking part that counts don't they? Losers!

And speaking of losers, ya boo sucks to all you peeps what didn't win one of Mike Stones enticing carrots when he ran his Mickey Mouse competition! Hah! Seriously Mike, i was out of the loop there so apologies but i'm definitely on track for ordering your publication. I don't read much so i may as well read something written by you as anyone else!! Oh and i do also plan on getting GB's PODCE!

So other than that what else is new? Well i started watching Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and have to say i have been pleasantty surprised! It's actually pretty dam good and totally sticks 2 fingers up at Terminator 3 which i didn't think was very good! What they've done is got themselves some good actors and written a dam compelling show. Plus it's no bad thing that the main Terminator is played by sexy-as-hell Summer Glau (she of Firefly/Serenity fame). Anyone who liked the 1st two Terminator movies should dig the new show.

So what else to say? What about a wee list of things i'll be working on this month? No? Well tough!!

1: New banner for GB's website
Sorry Gerard, i haven't this done yet but i'll get a crack at it soon.

2: Redesign for Nadia Williams website
Nadia has a strong sense of where she wants to take her new website and i hope i can deliver on what she wants!

3: Next months IDW Lineart Competition
They want us to draw a classic grudge match encounter - as always this is Transformers based. I've an idea that will take me totally out of my comfort zone but surely that's a good thing!

4: Transformers Mosaic
I'll explain about this another time. But here's a wee website to look at Transformers Mosaic.

Right folks well i'll knock this one on the head for now.

See you all next week.
G

Date:	2008-01-23 13:58
Subject:	Transformers Design a Cover Contest
Security:	Public
Mood:	happy
Music:	Alas none

Hey all,

Just checking in with ya! Hope all is well. I'll not go into detail too much about it but Heath Ledgers death was a bit of a shock. Those idiots over at Ain't It Cool News though have reassured us all that Heath did in fact complete his work on The Dark Knight so don't be concerned about that! I wasn't, i was more concerned about the fact that a young male father has died in what appears to be a suicide when he had, in my opinion, a bright future ahead of him.

It's very sad... as are all such thing.

But i won't dwell on it.

A while back i said that i was going to enter a competition to design a cover for a Transformers contest. Well i decided to enter and submitted my entry last week. The polls have been posted on the IDW web forums and things seem to be in full swing. I'm not doing well but that's no surprise. There are several pieces miles better than mine and with everyone only having one vote each they're obviously going to go to the better ones! No harm, no foul! At the end of the day i entered this thing to have a bit of fun and it has been! It's also kick-started a desire to start drawing again which has also been fun! I'm actually in the process of doing an entry for the IDW monthly Transformers competition.

For those of you interested here is my entry:




All things considered (which, for the record are that i have only drawn 4 TF pictures in the last 10 years, that i have only got back into drawing in the past month, that this is my first stab at an original TF picture and that this is my first ever entry into such a competition) i don't think what i came up with was too bad. Sure it's no contest winner, and it's by no means even a close 2nd to the best entry in the group BUT i do think that is shows potential and hopefully if i continue to develop my skills, rather than start and stop and go nowhere like my last attempt then i should be a better contender next time round!!

For those that are interested the thread for my group can be found here. Look at poor me with no votes! But check out some of the other entries, some are exceptionally exceptional!!

Thanks guys,

Gareth

Just wanted to nip on and wish everybody a happy new year!

Also here's the inks for the last pencil sketch i did!!




Maybe next year i'll post something more appropriate!

Date:	2007-12-21 14:21
Subject:	Optimus Prime Coloured!!
Security:	Public
Mood:	chipper

Hey all just thought i'd share the following with you.

I went and signed up to the web forums over at the official publishers of the current Transformers comic run. These are the guys that are running the Transformers Cover Contest that has resparked my interest in drawing again!

Well since joining i've met a lot of really nice and helpful people and in general am having a bit of a ball! They been very positive about my work and have offered tons of brilliant help and advice! Basically exactly what i need right now!

Well when i posted my Optimus Prime picture over there, the guy running the competitions liked it so much that he asked my permission if he could colour it. Well i off course insisted that he go ahead and do it. So he did! And boy am i ever happy!

I think he's still learning how to be a colourist himself but from what i can tell he's improving all the time and i love what he did with my pic!

I hope you all like it too!!

Hey all,

Well i'm really getting into this drawing carry on now! What i've posted below is the pencils for my next piece. I just spent the last day or two working on the details and i have to say i am very happy with what i've come up with.

Now this isn't the finished 'inked' piece but rather the initial drawing. Some people claim to like seeing this stage of the creative process (not anybody on LJ mind you - this is an opinion i've gathered from lurking on a few art forums) so here it is:

There will be quite a bit of tidy up between this and the final inked version so anything that looks odd in this will hopefully scrub up a bit better.

So without further ado i present Predaking! This guy is so cool! He's a super robot (gestalt i believe is the correct term used in the fandom) made up of 5 individual Decepticons called the Predacons - they like to hunt stuff and each transforn into robotic animals - like rhinos, lions, giant bird of prey type things,tigers and bulls - this is the end result of them all getting their swing on!!

First of all, i just saw this:

Top film of 2008 for me s far

Holy crap! I cannot wait to see this bad boy!

Now moving on. I'll make this short cos it's late and i need to get things ready before i hit the hay.

Below is the latest 'prep' piece in my efforts to renew my interest in drawing. First thing i'll say is i ain't as happy with this one as i was with the last piece i did.

I ended up kind of rushing this and it shows. The biggest problem in this one for me were the wheels on young Bumblebee's shoulders. They don't match up for a start, but then in the original image they don't match up either and that was drawn by a professional so i guess i can use that as an effective enough excuse.

I also cheated in this one by introducing some cross-hatch shading. I think this works in adding to the beaten and battered state of the subject matter, but realistically if this was going to be coloured then the cross-hatching is a waste of time.

Another problem i had here were the lines, especially around the eyes. I messed these up big time. This would definitely be better if i had of taken my time. Cos i'm inking this on paper before scanning onto the computer any mistakes i make cannot really be undone so i need to try and 'salvage' the line using whatever means i can. This is why some of the lines look thicker than the should.

However all this aside i am happy that even this piece is adding to my overall development with my drawing. I'm looking forward to getting stuck into the next piece, which i will definitely go slow and take my time with. I've posted a teaser of the next image below Bumblebee. For those of you that know Transformers that's Predaking i'm going to tackle next! Yikes!!

Incidentally a mate of mine that works in the local Forbidden Planet shop told me that people will actually pay to have commissions done of their favourite transformer characters... this interests me!!

Anyway i'll sign off for now. As per usual all your comments and feedback are welcome.




Next week's teaser (NB - finished piece will be much larger):

Date:	2007-12-12 21:56
Subject:	One shall stand, one shall fall
Security:	Public
Mood:	jubilant
Music:	Transformers 2007 soundtrack - i am such a geek!

Hey all,

I'm getting excited about the prospect of doing some serious bot drawing over the next while. I have finally accepted the fact that it is now time for me to totally indulge in my long since abandoned love of drawing!! So i might only draw robots and cartoon characters, but that's what makes me happy. Although if i get the bug proper i might be out and about town with my sketch pad in hand drawing what i see!

( Read on for more blabbering and some pictures )

First of all, it's my birthday and my darling wife bought me one of these:



She knows me so well!!

Anyway moving on. I said that i'd go ahead and enter that Transformers competition so i've gone ahead and done that. I also said i would post some TF artwork this weekend. Well that still might happen.

In the meantime i'm posting this:



I wanted to very quickly knock up a sketch, then ink it on paper and colour it on the pc. I wanted to see if inking on paper would work so that i could bypass having to ink on the computer, which takes ages.

Whilst the results are rough at best i think that there's potential there. Plus the drawing itself is scrappy as hell which doesn't help matters! Also i haven't bothered with shading or lighting!! Maybe next time!!

Anyone that's interested can also consider this image a teaser of the big project i have planned for next year!

The background in this sketch is lifted from deviant art. I just cropped it and added a little blurring in photoshop to make it look like a camera is focusing in on the main image rather than the background.

I also wanted to use this image to allow me to test some colour schemes. The uniform here was intended to be a combat uniform but i couldn't get any combat-based colour schemes to work with the design. When i settled on these colours as being complementary of each other i felt that the uniform looked more like a pilot flight suit than a combat suit. So that's what it now is!

I like how the orange contrasts against the dark blue!

2 posts in 2 days! What the hell is going on?!?

As some of you know i once had to make a decision between throwing myself back into my artwork (purely for fun) or throwing myself into web design. I decided to engage myself with the web design thing and a year later here i am designing websites for a living.

Now that my job involves working on web sites and improving my skills i'm finding myself less and less inclined to spend time on the computer at home working on developing my web skills. After all i get paid to do this in work. I do still dabble with some tests and tutorials and things when at home but not as much as i used to. Also i still have a few websites that i look after for friends that will continue to support and develop.

The bottom line is that as time goes on i'm finding myself with alot more free time in the evenings and at night than i ever have before. At the start of this job i didn't have much free time as the back log of work was so high that i ended up having to work alot of late nights.

So i'm thinking that the time is right to maybe reconsider getting back into my artwork. I have an idea in mind for a project that i would like to complete during 2008 and am at the moment working on ideas for it. I will reveal more about this in due course.

In the meantime though i came across this competition over at a Transformers forum today and i am seriously thinking it would be a fun thing to do.

I love Transformers and i think that this would be a nice project to wet my teeth with. I'd be under no illusions that i might actually win. At the end of the day i've seen some fan art on that particular forum that in no uncertain terms blows some of the official stuff out of the water! But i still think it'd be a fun project to be worth committing some time to.

What do you guys think? If i go for it i'll post my progress here so you can see what i'm up to!

Date:	2007-11-18 20:19
Subject:	Well so i got married...
Security:	Public
Mood:	cheerful
Music:	Transformers 2007 Movie Orchestral Soundtrack

Once again it's been a while since i checked in with a post on the ol' LJ!

It seems that i keep making dramatic claims to bouncing back into LJ after longs abscences with promises of regular updates only to then disappear for about 3 months before the next post!

I'm not saying that things will change with this post but i've decided to try and start blogging (blarg! who blogs??) again!

So what's happened since last i posted? Well obviously the most important thing is that i got married! It was a brilliant day! We got the weather for it despite the week leading up to it being somewhat chilly and miserable!

As i didn't have my camera handy on the big day i don't have too many images to show. I did however manage to track some pics down on the odd Bebo page (as many of my friends seem to have one) so i can at least show you guys some of what went on! By the way the images below are in no particular order (and most are tiny)!!

First up is me and the best man! This is somewhere near the end of the night! You can tell cos i've no waistcoat on or funny tie thingy! But the best man doing the job he was asked to do is in full gear right until the end of the night!




Next up is me and the wee wife! Yes this too is nearer the end of the night! Sorry folks but even though i have some of the official photographers snaps i'm under orders to not show them to anynody until we actually get the album in our hands!




This is a bit more like it. This pic was taken after the official snapes were taken out at the local landmark! So in this pic i'm in my full wedding gear and the wee wife even has her veil still on!




Here we are cutting the cake! Not much to say other than this, that cake was damn nice! I swear to god when we got back from honeymoon i lived on that thing! It was dam tasty! For about a fortnight after the honeymoon i wound down at night with a mug of hot tea, a big slice of wedding cake, and an episode of whatever i could find recorded on the Sky box! It was good times!!



Ok, ok! I am going to cheat! Here is a sneak peak of 2 compositions from the wedding album! If wee wife finds out she might just kill me but she can't hold it against me if i want to show off how wonderful our day was!!


Wedding Album Preview #1: The lovely couple! It took paying out big bucks but we finally have photos of me and Mairead together now! It took 7 years but it was worth the wait! It took so long cos we hate having pictures taken of us!




Wedding Album Preview #2: Pillow fight action!!




Wedding Album Preview #3: I love this photo! The full wedding entourage! Hyper dynamic!




Well that's it for now! I've loads of honeymoon photos to show, but i won't post them now! We bought a new digital camera in duty free before we left on the plane and took over 400 photos throughout the course of the holiday. However about 80% of those were of landmarks, landscapes and other inanimate things so i'll not bore you with ALL of those. When i post next i'll show a handful of the good ones!

But here's a teaser...

This is me and Mairead as we exit the Cu Chi tunnels in Vietnam.




There's also more to say about the web job that i applied for before the wedding. Well i got it and am very happy with that! My work load has doubled as i am in a transitional phase wherein i have to phase out my old duties in favour of the new ones. This is turning out to be harder work than i though i but it'll be worth it in the end.

Also i got a brand new kick ass PC! Those of you who know me well will know that this is indeed a good thing!! Yup! But i'll not post about that either!! Ah who am i kidding, here's a wee pic i took of my new desk setup:




I actually bought a flat screen off gerardbrennan sometime ago when i helped him get a new pc. I just so happened that the monitor i got with the new pc was the same make as the old one! So without meaning to i have this really rather cool dual monitor setup! Now i can have Photoshop open in one monitor and dreamweaver open in another when i am working on my websites! Whoopie!

On the topic of desktop setups etc, if i started a post on it would anybody contribute to a topic on showing a picture of your home working setup! I know that most of you work in some capacity from a home machine and it sure would be interesting to see your setup! It's cool cos it can reveal so much about a person that enhances existing knowledge... or also it's for nosey people!

Hey all.

Well i've been a little under the weather lately but have been working away at the new website.

You can check it out here:

Steel Samurai

It's all php powered now which means the driving force behind the website is database entries rather than hardcoded html! Yah me!

Most of the work has gone into the user admin end of things which you all don't get to see sorry (except for GB)!!

So far functionality is limited to only blog entries. So you can post comments and read blog entries but that's about the height of it. There's a wee blog intro that explains it. Have a look and post a comment. It's only the test version of the database as i'll be tidying it all up before going live.

The next move will be to create the database tables for the movie review side of things. There'll be similar functionality in that side of things. You'll be able to view reviews and comment on them. There will be a mechanism that will let you know if blog entries relate to movie reviews plus the homepage will list the latest reviews (not currently developed).

Once the movie review functionality is up and running i'll be finishing off the rest of the site using special tables for basically every page on the site which will allow me or another administrator the ability to manage the content of the whole site without needing to edit the html. I also need to learn how to upload images so the site might be a little image light, even when it goes live.

I also need to go over the finished site and tidy up the CSS and html that controls the stylistic elements to make sure they conform to the w3c standards and accessibility guidelines. And there'll be a little javascript thrown in to allow users to control the text size of the various pages without having to use browser controls.

Well that's it for now folks. I look forward to hearing your feedback (GB check your emails).

p.s. Saw Transformers! Loved it in all its over the top craziness! Still would only give it 7/10 cos it could have been sooooo much better!!!

Hey all!

Much in the same manner as all my writing chums post their word count and progress update i have decided to do the same with the latest re-working of Steel Samurai.

So i've completed 40,000 words of code and after an interesting twist with a central piece of the document flow i decided to restructure the final function to better clarify the point of view of the main protagonist...

...nah, i'm just kidding!!

What i've really done is made the html-mockup version of the original image i posted in my last, um, post!

Check it out here.

I don't think i did too bad at all! It looks pretty close to the original design. There are slight differences with font pitches and pixel sizes depending on which browser you view it in but all in all pretty good!

I still plan on having another go at the banner before the site goes live but for now my focus lies on getting the functionality in place for the database.

I'll update when i get some more done.

Bye for now.

I've just finished putting together the Photoshop mockup for the new version of my Steel Samurai website and i thought i'd jump online and show it to you all.

I'll talk (write) about it first then post the preview image at the end of this update.

The first thing that might strike some of you about the design is that it looks quite 'templatey'. What this means is that there's nothing really outstanding about it and it looks no better than some of the free templates you can get with Wordpress, Blogspot, Live Journal and some of the other online blogging sites out there. The reason for this is that i want to make the design as accessible as possible and as such have decided to use CSS for the layout. In the past i have used table based layouts that have allowed me to do so funky stuff but with CSS i am limited in what i can do as i have just started out with this area of design. So i need to keep the design simple in order to be able to produce the site.

As i improve my CSS skills i'll be able to revisit the design and produce something a little more exciting. However even though this design is simple it will still be annoying to put together using CSS! I will look back in a year and laugh at my feebleness!! Also keep in mind that the main driving force behind this site is the Php/MySQL database back end and that's primarily where i will be focusing my energies in this project.

I decided to pick one distinct colour to build the website and that's the blue used in the main site banner. Using this as a backdrop i have taken the same font as the current site uses and reworked it slightly. I'm quite happy with the final results here.

The sketched image on the banner is from the Optimus Prime drawing i did a while back. I wanted to have a very minimalist design for the banner and felt that a sketch would work nicely. The only thing is i haven't done any Samurai sketches worth talking about so i had to use the Prime one. Perhaps when the site is tested and works the way it should i will go back and do a dedicated Steel Samurai sketch for the banner.

The main area of the page is split into 2 columns. The left hand column features the blog/news posts and the right hand ares is dedicated to sidebar text.

The blogs will be posted by myself and the Steel Samurai team as we add movies and feel like Shooting our mouths off! Basically i would have it in mind that whenever a new review is added that there will be a post to notify visitors about it. However this is not necessary as the sidebar displays the 5 newest movie reviews.

The sidebar includes the following:

Welcome text: Basically a brief of what the site is about. There is a dedicated 'about' page that will go into detail on the history of the site and what drives it but i feel that this 'intro' text on the home page will aid newcomers to the site.

Latest Reviews: This area will display the 5 most recent reviews (or more depending on how it looks in the final site).

Subscribe: I now subscribe to RSS feeds from certain sits and understand the sense in including an RSS feed for the site! How i go about doing this i do not know but seeing as how Steel Samurai is as much a learning tool for me as it is a movie review site i am not currently bothered by this.

Blog archives: Not included on the image below but i will need a means for people reading archived blog posts if the so desire.

Javascript control panel: This panel is to allow people with visual disabilities to control some of the onscreen characteristics of the website. Whilst i will do my best to code the site behind the scenes to the standards of the W3C i have decided to include some options for people who do not rely on screen readers. The options available will be:

Text Size: Ok, so this feature is built into most web browsers but not everyone is aware of them and might not use them. This feature makes it obvious to anyone using the site that they can change the size of the text to suit them (this is where coding the site correctly is important - as the text size increases it will force certain elements within the page to stretch and expand and the page needs to be able to cope with these).

Style Switcher: What this basically does is allows the user to click a link that will dramatically change the colouring of the web page to use contrasting values. This will allow text to stand out better for the reader. They can also switch back to the original colours.

Reset: The visitor will at any point be able to reset the webpage back to it's original settings.


The bottom of the page then includes the usual 'footer' links and copyright text - as well as a small nod to myself, the site designer!

Well as always feedback and criticism strongly encouraged!

Was sitting with the missus last night, half asleep, contemplating the notion of maybe moving or at least shifting my body weight from my left side in the chair to my right side, when...

i saw my first proper actual Transformers TV spot... actually on TV!! My TV! There were freckin' Transformers on my freckin' television set!

One of them was Optimus Prime!!

Frack, freck and feck!

That is all, you may go!!

Actually while i'm here some of you may be familiar with this: Steel Samurai.

It's a movie, games music entertainment review site that a once friend of mine thought would be a good idea to do. So off i went and learnt about web design, hosting, domain name registration, wrote about 50 reviews, built the website, pretty much did the whole thing myself! Said friend during the period of time that i did pretty much absolutely everything wrote a small handful of reviews amounting to no more than 2 paragraphs per piece!

Then gerardbrennan got involved and contributed a ton of well written and amusing movie reviews.

Anyway i've been neglecting the site for a long time now but plan on bringing it back purely as a movie review site before the end of the summer!

Actually my immediate aim is to have it ready in time for Transformers so with a bit of luck we'll get there and the first new review for the site will be a review of that movie!

Part of the problem with the old site is that i designed it with too many pages that had to be created if a review was added! It was an error on the part of me but as it was my first site i didn't really know about things like MySQL or Php... mostly due to the fact that the idiots at Queen's University that taught the web design module thought the only thing you needed to be a web designer was Notepad and some very basic HTML! I don't care that i did a web design module at Queen's, i'm self taught! Recently a buddy of mine finished a dedicated Web Design course at the same university and when i asked him about what he covered turns out it's still a fecking crap course! But they did replace Notepad with Dreamweaver MX 2004! So happy days for some progress!

SO the new site is going to be database driven. The home page will be in the form of a blog and then behind this there will be a database of movie reviews. People will be able to visit and leave comments on the movie reviews and the blog posts.

My long term plans are to try and create a community based website so at some point there will be a forum. I'd also like people to be able to submit their own reviews so each movie reviewed would have it's own 'official' review with it's own score and then there'd be user reviews and scores.

Now this is nothing new i know. The idea is that the website will be a means of me developing my own web skills. As i learn new and interesting things i'll add them to the site if it enhances it. If the site turns out to be successful then that's a bonus! It didn't do too well last time but this time round i am going to market it a bit better and get on board the Google Analytics train.

I have to say though it would be nice to have something unique about the site. In it's original format it did have kind of a unique idea behind it in that the music reviews were all heavy metal or rock albums and the movie reviews were mostly kung fu and martial arts based. The game reviews were intended to be mostly PS2. Also the idea was that the music section would detail local gigs in the area and have reviews of underground and local bands and their gigs.

But as much as i liked that i think that the scope that it entails is too big for a small group of people to support. Plus since starting the site i've moved out of Belfast so wouldn't really have access to the contacts i once had. Shame really!

Still at the very least the site will be for me and my buddies (web based and otherwise) to compare notes on movies and perhaps open each others eyes to potential great movies that we haven't yet seen!

Although feel free to suggest ideas you feel i might be able to add to the site.

TF isn't far away and i've alot of work ahead to get it done but i think i'll get there.

Greetings one and all!

It's been a while since i've posted anything. This is mostly due to me really not being arsed to be honest with you... but also it's to do with work being busy and me not having anything really important to say.

Unlike many of my LJ colleagues i am not currently involved in the development of any piece of literature and what i am working i seem to find excuses to put off! I put this down in large part to my upcoming wedding. I'm so focused on the big day that i feel like i'm just waiting to get married and everything else can wait until that's done!

But off course this is totally unproductive so it's time to get stuck into stuff once more! This post is kind of a snapshot of where i am currently with things and what the next steps i have planned for various aspects of stuff-that-i-do!!

By the way sorry to everybody, i haven't had the time to spin round everybody's journals to post comments, and i also owe a few people some emails. I 'll get onto this shortly!

( Click here to read on )

Web Design

Artwork

Tranformers

Fitness

The end

So i'm getting some physiotherapy done on my ankle (torn ligament) that i wrecked about 8 weeks ago. It's being done by the fiancee of a girl that i work with which basically means that i'm getting it done for free.

However this guy is looking a website done so i volunteered my services in repayment for his free physio treatments. One of the things he is also looking done is a logo design.

His brief was that he wanted a square blue box with a white line running through it to represent the Lagan river in Belfast. So i took that brief and came up with this:



I then goto all Photoshop on its ass and came up with this:



The idea is that it looks like a wee glossy button!



And then i went bit loopy playing with text effects that i will never use in this particular logo but that i still like in general anyway:



All in all i'm quite happy with it! Some of you might see that i have used here the same colour scheme as my own Applecore Studios logo. What can i say, i like blue!!

So what do you guys think?

Hey all,

Well my next post should have been about how i implemented that super efficient productivity system of mine but as i'm still working out the kinks and testing a few bits and bobs i'm not quite ready to post that entry just yet.

In the meantime however i am posting a little Applecore proof of concept that i just put together.

Now i know that it's far from perfect and there are numerous flaws but you gotta forgive a guy still rusty from having done no serious drawing in quite some time and someone who is far used to drawing cartoony style characters than the more tradtional Marvel or DC style! This is all very new to me.

Anyway i think i might have got someone to help collaborate on a new Applecore comic so i'm posting this to show him next time i'm at his house. It sucks cos this guy is actually a class artist and will put any and all work i do to shame so it'll feel weird asking him to colour my work. I am however thinking of doing more than simply asking him to colour for me as this guy might be able to help with other parts of the project. It could maybe even be a 2 artist collaboration if i can somehow not look so negatively on my art in light of his... some chance!!



By the way you can check out my potential partners work at his website here.