9 months and 12 days.

That’s how long it took for me to get sick of my last theme.

This time, I’m using a personally modified version of Dannci’s Rostar. The structure of the main page remains basically the same compared to the old version but there are small changes here and there (gallery pages don’t include the sidebar anymore to better show the art, for example). There are still a few things I need to work on (navigation in single posts and tidying up the search results among others) but my newest theme is quite ready for prime time now. If something doesn’t seem to be working though, please be sure to let me know.

And, of course, I learned a ton of PHP and CSS stuff in the process, some of which I’m not entirely sure how it works.

Maybe I’ll fully understand those when it’s time to redesign once again.

PS: I think it’s amusing how the last posts before a redesign hit were both Team Fortress 2 related. But then again, maybe that’s just because I post about that game THE WHOLE TIME.

After troubleshooting for too long only to realize that I forgot to close a freakin’ <div>, I can finally unveil the fruit of my labor over the past few days. Ever since I started this site, I’ve made constant changes to the Elegant Box theme that I chose for the basis of the look of it. What looked something like this wound up looking like the image you see above and I kept going back and forth between decisions I had made about many aspects of the site, never quite satisfied with whatever I settled on. So what to do? Well, after seeing site redesigns up and down (including Joystiq’s and B4B partner-in-crime Mark’s) I took it upon myself to do the same.

I chose Andrei Luca’s LightWord theme as my starting point (because I’m not crazy enough to start from scratch) and took it from there. Not much has changed in terms of where things are located but I think it’s just ultimately more pleasing to the eye. There are still a few tiny issues that need ironing out but those will have to be tackled another day.

How long before I get sick of this and decide to start anew is still up in the air.

PS: Thoughts and suggestions are always appreciated.

Meet the Kindle killer.

The iPad, the oft rumored Apple tablet/e-book reader, was finally revealed yesterday. It’s pretty neat and all but this is relevant to me and to what I do because of what it might do to digital comics distribution. There hasn’t been a truly viable device with which comic publishers can deliver content digitally and this might be it. I won’t be getting one but I’m excited for the implications it might bring to the medium. Whatever gets comics in more people’s hands is a good thing.

A picture of Apple’s own book store for the iPad after the break.

These were my top 10 posts last year:

I had a total of 5,566 views from May 12th of 2009 (which is when I first started this site) up until December 31st of 2009 with an average of 24 views per day. On October 15th, I had my busiest day with a total of 147 hits. The top three search engine terms people use to find my site are “mario vs bowser,” “pikachu” and “drunk pikachu.”

My goal for this year?

Break the 24 posts per day average and get it somewhere around 30.

Chrome OS, Google’s upcoming operating system, was unveiled yesterday and there are two things about it in particular that I find really interesting. First is the fact that it’s based entirely around the Chrome browser, meaning there will be absolutely no external applications on it, everything will be web-based. Second is that all your documents are stored remotely on the web. So yeah, it’s an extremely internet driven operating system. Google is clearly not trying to capitalize on the desktop market with it (I personally wouldn’t use it unless I can run Team Fortress 2 on it) but I see Chrome OS being very successful among notebook/netbook users due to its lightness and ease of use.

Chrome OS is about a year away but I find some of the “outside the box” thinking on display here to be quite refreshing.

And it’s open source (free).

My current one keeps giving me problems and I just don’t have the patience for it anymore. I ordered a new computer with a good processor and I’m just going to gut my current one and put the RAM, video card, hard drive and whatever else I can in the new one. It’ll have Vista but I’ll get a free upgrade to Windows 7 when that arrives so I’m good to go.

In any case, I did the following piece of animation back in college:

I was looking at it earlier for some reason and I’ve decided that, once I get that new computer, I’m going to finally finish it.

Pencil test and more after the break.

The pitch is nearly done. All five pages are pencilled and inked (I’ll post previews of those once I’ve scanned them in) and the script for the first issue is completed as well. All that’s left is for me to work on the cover and some art for a website that we’re setting up and that’ll be that. My computer will arrive about a week or two from now and I expect to be completely done with my share of the work at that point. I’ll have free time. I’m going to get it finished.

“Macbeth with Ninjas,” as I titled the above animation, is the only short I did in college that I actually completed all the animation for, beginning to end. It’s quite possibly the best work I did during those years and I always wanted to see it finished. When I first presented it in college it was just a pencil test with audio (video embedded below) but I came back to it once or twice in the years after that in an attempt to finish it (resulting in the partially colored version above).

There’s quite a bit of work up ahead if I’m to finish it. The most time consuming thing will probably be the backgrounds. Most of the animation is already colored though and I will also need to add titles, credits and whatever else I can think of (background music maybe?). There are some effects that I still have to animate (the breaking window, the bullets, sparks from swords clashing, etc) and I’m thinking of either animating those in Flash or just keeping them really simple (2-3 frames tops) and doing them in Photoshop.

Below is the pencil test as I presented it back in college:

The gears in my head are already turning on how to go about finishing it and I’m looking forward to see it when it’s done.

It’s been a while but my computer got really screwed up again.

I won’t go into details but the good news is that I did manage to save pretty much all of my data. I gained a couple of hassles (I can’t sync my iPhone applications with iTunes anymore or I’ll lose all my application data) but since I was planning on reinstalling XP from scratch anyway, I went ahead and installed the Windows 7 release candidate instead. I’m liking it so far but I don’t feel like it’s a huge departure from what MS has done before. I do have to say that installation was a breeze, I did not have to install a single driver (except for my Wacom tablet driver, I think). Everything is done automatically, so props to Microsoft for that. Aside from that, I’m enjoying some of the smaller stuff like an integrated search and being able to shuffle wallpapers automatically after certain intervals. I hope someone comes out with a crack later so I don’t have to pay for this when the release candidate period ends.

Anyway, I picked up Green Lantern #43 which is a Prelude to Blackest Night, thoughts on that after the break.

The issue sets the stage nicely for the coming crossover. It’s an all Black Hand issue and writer Geoff Johns really gets under the character’s skin and explores what makes him tick. From an unhealthy obsession with death to subtle hints of necrophilia, Black Hand is growing up to be quite an interesting character that seems pretty much irredeemable at this point. What I liked the most though, was how much the issue reminded me of the various Rogue Profiles that Johns wrote on his Flash run. In the middle of this huge space epic that Johns is writing in Blackest Night, it’s so great to see him write the smaller character exploration stuff that he does so well. I mean, Black Hand’s costume being made from of a body bag? Awesome stuff.

Also worth mentioning is Green Lantern newcomer Dough Mahnke who is handling the art in book while Ivan Reis goes on to draw Blackest Night. I really enjoyed his stuff in Black Adam: The Dark Age and his work seems to have improved quite a bit. Some of the more awkward poses from his earlier work are gone and his style is so clean and slick that it’s just a joy to look at. I’m a huge fan of Ivan Reis (when he doesn’t rush his work) but if this issue if any indication, Mahnke has stepped to the plate without a hitch.

The last few pages, by the way, were classic Geoff Johns jaw-droppers. Without giving too much away, let’s remember that all the Black Lanterns that have been shown so far are deceased. Black Hand is very much alive at the beginning of the issue.

Blackest Night #1 comes out tomorrow.

I’ve been waiting for this story for at least 2 years.

Can’t wait.