Thread "2016 Rant/Share/General Discussion Thread" in forum "Comic Talk and General Discussion *"

Posted at 4:08AM, Aug. 15, 2016

Switched to my data drive now. My system drive failed… utterly…

Tomorrow I'm going to have to reinstall a LOT of stuff to this machine. Still gotta wait 'til I can order an SSD for my computer, though…

On the bright side I can clean out stuff I either haven't used for a while, or the junk my computer downloaded behind my back (such as tutorials and instructions on how to conquer the world)…

Posted at 2:08PM, Aug. 15, 2016

ozoneocean wrote:
Do you think there'd be the demand to justify a custom store like that? Also the associated costs?
Maybe a pre-setup thing like cafe press would be better?
I just don't know.

——–

My old failure white sheep's fur busby is getting a new lease on life.
I took off the huge heavy outer fur cover and I've fixed up the old smaller inner original one with its bag and added a nice big skull. :)

The OUTER cover I'm turning into a GIGANTIC soft fur hat. It's really quite oversized. :)
I should finish it tonight.

Urgh. Life got ridiculously busy. Should have caught this earlier.

Cafe Press has crap quality is the problem. At this exact moment in time, I doubt there's enough interest or a big enough user base to justify it, which is why I said if you ever decide to in the future.

Right now, DD is facing down the fact that being a BBC forum-based community site makes the old girl a bit of a dinosaur and a hold-over from a past era in webcomics, before getting your own hosting and custom wordpress/etc. site was easy. I'd say finding a way to fix that is a higher priority. Personally, I could really easily see transforming the comic hosting portion of the site over to something like the Cargo Collective model, but for comics, wherein creators get to build their own stand alone site by picking from a variety of pre-designed site templates that they can then customize the CSS and HTML of, and in order to remove the link footer and use their own domain name, etc., they pay a small premium fee for the option that's still a lower cost per month than getting hosting of their own. That would bring more users in, generate revenue and allow you build up the community enough to start opening other revenue streams, like a DD store and adding the feature for creators to build their own personal site store via something like the Society6 model.

Posted at 5:08PM, Aug. 15, 2016

ozoneocean wrote:
You're still at the "costume" stage as opposed to work-a-day uniform stage.
Not at all. I call it "costume" because it's easier to communicate to people, also "outfit" and "getup".
Saying "uniform" implies a connection to a military unit, which I don't have and I don't want to mislead people, so I'm careful how I talk about that.
-i.e. I'm not pretending I'm a soldier.

The uniform itself is too familiar to me to be a dress-up anymore. I don't have to be careful how I move in it, it's comfortable to sit in, I'm not constantly adjusting fittings…

But it's harder than I thought it would be to TALK about it, also, getting lighting right and shadows UGH!!!! That's where it's a pain in the arse.

I'm going to redo all the vids when I have time- knowing what I'm going to say beforehand so I can eliminate ums and ahs, and I'll KNOW how to sit so my face isn't black with shadow. Bloody overhead lighting!

You mean actually write a script before putting something together? Whatever can you be thinking? Noone ever does that!

Now you know why some of us plan everything before hand. Something I learned about lighting for photos, the light should be aimed at your forehead. And the background should be neutral for interiors. You want the focus on you. Ideally it should a light color that reflects the light back.

It's all the stuff I've been doing in my comics all these years.

Posted at 8:08PM, Aug. 15, 2016

Iba wrote:

Right now, DD is facing down the fact that being a BBC forum-based community site makes the old girl a bit of a dinosaur and a hold-over from a past era in webcomics, before getting your own hosting and custom wordpress/etc. site was easy. I'd say finding a way to fix that is a higher priority. Personally, I could really easily see transforming the comic hosting portion of the site over to something like the Cargo Collective model, but for comics, wherein creators get to build their own stand alone site by picking from a variety of pre-designed site templates that they can then customize the CSS and HTML of, and in order to remove the link footer and use their own domain name, etc., they pay a small premium fee for the option that's still a lower cost per month than getting hosting of their own. That would bring more users in, generate revenue and allow you build up the community enough to start opening other revenue streams, like a DD store and adding the feature for creators to build their own personal site store via something like the Society6 model.

Iba, this makes a lot of sense! Not sure what kind of technological/financial undertaking this would be, but it sounds like a good direction to head in!

Posted at 4:08AM, Aug. 16, 2016

Mobile device optimisation is the single most important consideration at this point.

Posted at 6:08PM, Aug. 16, 2016

@Bravo- I'm uploading the new ones now. No script, but I'm talking better and have a slightly better camera position. Still not the best but way better than it was!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK9Uw8TwOps&list=PLG4b8RVwdVQr1Vm2dqW0m8BoOuB_L7DAf&index=6

@Ironscarf and lba-
Brilliant suggestions. Please write detailed proposals along those lines. I'm serious here.

Posted at 9:08PM, Aug. 16, 2016

It's better than it was? Yeek. Tripod. You have to get a tripod. I don't know anything about hussars, but the soles of your shoes are really nice.

And storyboard, notes, cue cards, anything. Still too many ahs and pauses. This isn't a Quackcast for heaven's sake.

Posted at 9:08PM, Aug. 16, 2016

:P
It's informal.

I'm not re-doing all the vids again, but future ones will have a better angle.

Posted at 11:08PM, Aug. 16, 2016

There is this great video I saw on Patreon about how to do a promo video. Really opened up my eyes on what I need to do before I put something together that'd I be willing to put my face on.

Here I am the author of some the worst unreadable drek and I would be ashamed to be attached to what you put up on YouTube.

I have determined that my digital camera hates me. Either that or I totally buggered the settings. Everything no matter what lighting comes out completely washed out. I put it on auto and still overexposed. I'm too much out of practice I guess, I haven't done anything in over seven months.

Posted at 3:08AM, Aug. 17, 2016

Maybe you can do videos about uniforms yourself, Ozone. And maybe get a Patreon account just in case you get a ton of subscribers. :)

Posted at 9:08AM, Aug. 17, 2016

ozoneocean wrote:
@Ironscarf and lba-
Brilliant suggestions. Please write detailed proposals along those lines. I'm serious here.

It wasn't actually a suggestion, just a statement of what I've learned working in website assessment. It just seemed appropriate to add as lba hadn't mentioned it. If you're looking to shoot the messenger, that's definitely the guy to aim at!

Posted at 12:08PM, Aug. 17, 2016

I FINALLY finished the prologue for the comic I've been talking about for forever. I have so many half-finished comics sitting on my hard drive, this is the first time I've actually finished an issue in years. Not very impressive compared to all the people around here who update regularly for months/years at a time, but I'm still feeling pretty darn accomplished.

Posted at 2:08PM, Aug. 17, 2016

Yay! New Star Trek! Even better, they're using the starship design Gene Roenberry had planned on using for Star Trek Phase II (it's the show he was never able to get off the ground). And it's going to have a female captain. My hope is that there's not so much technobabble in it…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHUOty8-Ty0

Posted at 4:08PM, Aug. 17, 2016

Ironscarf wrote:
ozoneocean wrote:
@Ironscarf and lba-
Brilliant suggestions. Please write detailed proposals along those lines. I'm serious here.

It wasn't actually a suggestion, just a statement of what I've learned working in website assessment. It just seemed appropriate to add as lba hadn't mentioned it. If you're looking to shoot the messenger, that's definitely the guy to aim at!

I just kind of assumed that'd be something you'd do along with that sort of site re-structuring and didn't think about it. To be honest, I had kind of assumed DD already had a mobile version. I never checked.

I can write a proposal, but like Banes kinda pointed out, it's probably a major undertaking. I'm not a well-versed enough code monkey to know precisely how much misery I'm proposing to dump on someone. I'm pretty swamped with work at the shop right now, but I can slowly figure out how to explain what I'm thinking if you really want me to.

Posted at 8:08PM, Aug. 17, 2016

@Hippie- Finally! I remember all the designs you went through for her rocket!

@ironscarf- With a mobile site it will need to be a total redesign. Every single part of the site will need a new mobile shaped version…
OR we can do what Shadowmyst suggested and make all of DD modular and adaptable so it can resize to ANY screen size.
That is complex, but probably the best way to go.

@lba- The thing is with DD now that we all manage it pretty much, I just have the ultimate control switches, but if big ideas need doing and people have them them they can work on them. I'm just a regular bum with all the same commitments and busyness as the rest of you guys.

You DON'T need to write a super detailed thing, I didn't word that well enough.
But a general description of how things should function would be good. A document that we can easily expand from. -Rather than broad ideas or suggestions I mean, instead you can write a "roadmap" explaining how things should go.

Like say, how I'd explain a nuclear reactor:
Rods of fissionable material naturally produce heat as they radioactively decay. They're put in a cooling fluid to slow down their reaction and remove the heat. That heat is transferred to water, which turns to steam and drives a series of turbines. That kinetic energy is used to generate electricity.

HAHAHA, perhaps not quite THAT simplistic, but I hope you get the idea :D

Posted at 11:08AM, Aug. 18, 2016

Schools in my district are now back in session and I am overwhelmingly happy to be working with children again. They bring with them this amazing energy that rejuvenates and adds positive energy to my life.

Last Tuesday, I subbed for a Spanish class at my old high school. It turns out that the the teacher was in a major car accident that occured at the local freeway that morning. Today I signed up for a job with a kindergarten class (currently on my lunch break). The kids are all so bright and adorable.

In order to balance out my other job on base, I now work from 0300-1130 in the morning. I really love the early morning day shift, get to work while the world is still sleeping, no traffic on the highway or on base, clock out of my full 8 hour day before lunch time. It is pretty spectacular.

Posted at 5:08PM, Aug. 18, 2016

kawaiidaigakusei wrote:

In order to balance out my other job on base, I now work from 0300-1130 in the morning. I really love the early morning day shift, get to work while the world is still sleeping, no traffic on the highway or on base, clock out of my full 8 hour day before lunch time. It is pretty spectacular.

And I have a full 8 hour day before breakfast. I like seeing the sunrise everyday.

@Lonne: most if not all of the Star Trek Phase II scripts were used in Star Trek: The Next-generation so in a way we've already seen what that series would have been. But this series will focus on an event that was mentioned in the original series that happened before Kirk took command of Enterprise? And remain within canon? Lots to play around with and after seeing the loving recreation of the original series in ST: Enterprise two part mirror universe episode it'd be nice to see them adhere to that design style.

Posted at 8:08PM, Aug. 18, 2016

Good on you Kawaii! You sound so busy. :D

It's Friday here in my part of the world. When I finally get home for the evening today I'm thawing out a peperoni pizza, adding juicy kalamatta olives to it and cooking it till it's crispy. Then I'm gonna watch a fun anime movie.
I did that last week and it was glorious. Best thing to do when You're feeling a little flat.

Loved doing that back in the '90s- going over to a friend's place, eating a tasty peperoni pizza, renting some anime vids and some games… Joy!
We used to have Streetfighter, Killer Instinct, Bomberman, and Goldeneye tournaments. Bomberman was the best.

Posted at 8:08AM, Aug. 19, 2016

I figured I was waiting too long to start on any projects, so I figured hey, remember that comic you started 6 years ago and never drew a second comic for? What if you suddenly just started working on that again? Hilarious, I'd update with a "Sorry for the lateness of the second page" and then start updating it regularly.

EXCEPT I APPARENTLY DELETED IT COMPELTELY A WHILE BACK. Something about staring at that one page of shame that never had a followup I guess got to me. Really ruins that joke, nice job pissing in my corn flakes, past me.

Whatever, I'll just remake it anyway.

Posted at 9:08AM, Aug. 19, 2016

Heeey croty! Pivit Comics or Portal Shark? I can delete what we have listed in the admin section so you can work on i again.

Posted at 11:08PM, Aug. 22, 2016

I just took possession of a lovely suit of satin silk striped pyjamas AND a silk dressing gown!
I'm a gentleman now…

I haven't had actual pyjamas or a dressing gown for many, many, many years. I can't stand to wear much besides undies and a T-shirt in bed in winter and just throw on clothes when I get out of bed.
But now I will dress in sartorial bedroom style when I get out of bed… at least on the weekends.

Posted at 10:08AM, Aug. 23, 2016

ozoneocean wrote:
I just took possession of a lovely suit of satin silk striped pyjamas AND a silk dressing gown!
I'm a gentleman now…

I haven't had actual pyjamas or a dressing gown for many, many, many years. I can't stand to wear much besides undies and a T-shirt in bed in winter and just throw on clothes when I get out of bed.
But now I will dress in sartorial bedroom style when I get out of bed… at least on the weekends.

I'm the same way! I own pajama pants for the sole reason that I live with other people and can't just walk around pantsless until I feel like getting dressed.

(P.S. What do people who call pants "trousers" call pajama pants? Pajama trousers seems really silly.)

Posted at 10:08AM, Aug. 23, 2016

HippieVan wrote:

(P.S. What do people who call pants "trousers" call pajama pants? Pajama trousers seems really silly.)

I call them PJ bottoms. #asyouwill

Posted at 1:08PM, Aug. 23, 2016

HippieVan wrote:
ozoneocean wrote:
I just took possession of a lovely suit of satin silk striped pyjamas AND a silk dressing gown!
I'm a gentleman now…

I haven't had actual pyjamas or a dressing gown for many, many, many years. I can't stand to wear much besides undies and a T-shirt in bed in winter and just throw on clothes when I get out of bed.
But now I will dress in sartorial bedroom style when I get out of bed… at least on the weekends.

I'm the same way! I own pajama pants for the sole reason that I live with other people and can't just walk around pantsless until I feel like getting dressed.

(P.S. What do people who call pants "trousers" call pajama pants? Pajama trousers seems really silly.)

Depends. Who's wearing them? I mean, in your case they're still pants. Only men wear trousers.

Posted at 4:08PM, Aug. 23, 2016

The quintessential British term I am told is "jim-jams "

I saw Patrick Stewart speak and he used that term to a mostly American audience and we were clueless.