What are YOUR thoughts?

Regarding material for the new site again, I'm working on the About page and I'd like to have a little..."testimonials" section, if you will, with people's comments about Geoweasel (mostly from other animators, cartoonists, creators, etc.). So if you have just a few thoughts or a mini review about the Geoweasel cartoons in general, let me hear 'em, whether they're good or bad! You can post them here, or send them to my email: niko@cartoonsdammit.com.


Also, I went through three different computers today to gather up all the fanart I could find, and now they're all here in one Flickr album! There are a couple that I'm not 100% sure who did them, so I didn't put the name, but if it was you, or you know who it was, tell me. And don't forget to send in your own if you have any!

Happiness, accomplishment, and fear

Happiness.
It may not seem like much, but certain gestures can really put a smile on my face. In this case, it's regarding the Nite Fite drawing I did a couple days ago. Today, I received the following comment from Dan Meth:

Niko, That is AWESOME. Fantastic interpretation of Penalty & Lloyd (and the whole Nite Fite look in general). Maybe Big Wease will get his shot in Season 2!

I would be truly elated if something like that were to carry out, but the comment alone just made my day. When people I look up to actually see and comment on stuff that I do, that’s one of the best feelings in the world. And it doesn’t happen often. I’ve sent things to many people who are higher up than I am, and while it’s clear that they’re busy and can’t respond to everything they ever get, it’s rare that you even get acknowledgment . At least in my case. Frederator has probably the only group of people who actually take time to not just listen, but interact with their fans, and that’s important.
I just thought I’d get that off my mind, heh.

Accomplishment.
I spent a large chunk of time today finally tackling the new design for the site's main page. Between drawing up the designs and layouts, cutting them into their own individual images and buttons, and then putting it all in HTML, it took quite a while, because I've never done anything like that before. Even though the vast majority of it is finished, I'm still making adjustments; in fact, I made some that already make that screenshot outdated, haha. Also, not shown there is an update blog powered by Tumblr, which was really easy to add and will be very convenient.
Additionally, there were more things that were going to go on that menu, so there were also drawings of Sapphire, Dr. Schnoz, and Robospaz, but it made the menu too wide and hard to fit all the options, so I had to leave them out (I didn't even finish 'em; Robospaz is missing the S on his body). But here are the designs if you're interested:


And finally,
fear.
I'm losing my eyesight. I would just like to say that I am not joking, nor am I exaggerating about that statement. My eyesight is really getting worse, and it seems to be happening fairly quickly instead of gradually, which is odd. I'm normally near-sighted, and I've been like that since I was two (or maybe before then. That's just the age I first got glasses). But more recently, I can't even see things up close anymore, much less far away, and this is with the aid of glasses and contacts even. Luckily I had an eye appointment last Wednesday and I'm trying out not only a different prescription but a different kind of contact entirely. The downside, it's really not doing anything for me. My eyes keep going buggy and giving me blurred and sometimes double vision. I can't even do normal things like read, watch TV, play video games, etc. I've been needing to get surgery on my right eye for a weak muscle for a couple years now, but because of everything that's happened depression-wise, we could never do it. Now I'm thinking I might need a more intense surgery. Man, I don't know what's going on with me...

Evening Argument

I daydream a lot, mostly about my cartoons, and I’m surprised that I didn’t imagine this scenario until Nite Fite premiered as a series. I would be elated to actually see something like this pan out, for several reasons. For one, doing the improv with Dan and Mark would be an awesome (and probably hilarious) experience, and two, seeing one of my characters in a show animated by pros would just simply be amazing as opposed to seeing them animated by…well, me. Plus I’ve always liked crossovers like this; like Nite Fite would be a show that other cartoon characters would watch. But yeah, I just drew this to see how it might look.

Nite Fite, Penalty and Lloyd © Dan Meth and Frederator.
http://nitefite.com

More HTML-ing

I spent a good couple hours trying to create a new episodes page for the site from scratch. If you click the image above, you can see kind of along the lines that it's going. I haven't decided if I want to do the episodes in chronological order, or reverse order (as it's shown above). I may also still change some things around, but for the most part, I think that's about all I can do. I like this much better than any of the previous Flash menus for several reasons. You can see a little image from the episode, along with a synopsis, and it's much easier to update and add new episodes. Next I need to tackle the About page (which is fairly easy) and, of course, the front page. But I'm going back and forth between site design and cartoons so who knows when everything will come together.

Construction ahead

Well, I gave the main Geoweasel site a major face-lift this afternoon. Nothing major to gawk at, just a fill-in page until I get the real new page done. That will be put up when the first new episode airs. Speaking of which, I'm on the fence about releasing the episodes. I don't know if I should just release them as I finish them because it's been so long, or wait a couple weeks until I have more completed so I have a bit of a buffer zone to work with. I'll figure it out eventually. And I've got time; I have to do some non-cartoon work this week and I don't think I'll have time for a whole lot else. Oh well.

Logogogogo

I really can't decide on a good color scheme or texture for this Geoweasel logo. The simple red to orange gradient seems plain, but everything else I try is even more boring, or way over the top. Input is appreciated, because I'm terrible with decision making.

A good, clean fite

Nite Fite, Dan Meth's new spinoff series from The Meth Minute 39, premieres today, if you haven't already heard me screaming this from one end of the internet to the other. They have three brand new episodes, one of which I was lucky enough to see at the screening back in June. But seriously, stop wasting your time here. Get out there and FITE!

http://nitefite.com

Tumblring down!

I finally went and got a Tumblr page. That doesn't mean I'll stop using this, because I'll probably embed the Tumblr onto the main Geoweasel site when I fix it all up and use it for updates and stuff, while this will contain actual production work and quasi-personal stuff still.
Check it out here.

Geek at work

For some reason, for the past couple of days, I've wanted to put together a time-lapse video of me working on Geoweasel set to the battle music from Mario Kart Double Dash as like...a promotion or teaser for new episodes coming (yes, I actually have been working). Even though I have a camera, I have no way of uploading video to any of my computers because the camera is somewhat outdated. Oh, and I have no idea how to do time-lapse anyway. Just one of those side ideas I'll probably never do.

Upon closer inspection of that picture...I need to friggin' shave.

Old comics

I've been trying to salvage some stuff off of my old computer because it's likely to kick the bucket sooner or later, but I found these two comic strips that predate the original Geoweasel pilot. It was based more on my personal life, replacing the people with the characters from the cartoon. They were part of a blog and the strips were going to run alongside the animated series, but that obviously never happened. Probably for the better anyway.
And then there was this...


...which is really never going to happen. But hey, at least I got to make use of that image on the old test DVD.

Pictures out the wazoo

Just for the record, my Flickr account has sort of been revived. Even though I mainly use it for image hosting when I don't want to link from my own site, there is some other unseen stuff on there that I felt didn't really lend itself to DeviantArt or being blogged about here. I thought maybe one or two people might...care.

...what the hell's a "wazoo"?

Goals

So I've been mulling over a lot of different ideas for Geoweasel cartoons and some are starting to actually...turn into stuff worth making. Most upcoming episodes will be more spontaneous in the writing section, basically meaning it's not an idea I've had for a long-ass time that's gotten stale. I just need to put up some stuff. I don't like to promise or predict things because they never come true, but I'm hoping we'll see a new cartoon within this next week.
Additionally, I've really been wanting to revamp the site to something more HTML-based rather than all Flash menus and stuff. This is mainly to make updating easier. I'm not really an HTML wizard, though. I know a good amount of stuff, but probably not enough to make the site look spiffy without Flash. So who knows what'll happen there.
And finally, I'd like to have the first DVD completed by the end of this month. Or before I go on vacation (which is somewhere around August 9). Even if it's just a prototype, I really want to get that going, so then by the time I come back, it'll be on sale (if not before then). That's more than enough time to put it together, really. The stuff that takes the most time is really troubleshooting with converting the Flash files. As far as DVD material goes, it will obviously have special features such as never-before-seen episodes, deleted scenes, unfinished episodes (such as The Janitizer and some others most people haven't seen), and commentaries (probably audio commentaries, unless that proves to be too difficult or boring to pull off with just one person. If that's the case, there will be separate commentaries with me). I would also like to put on some other kinds of features, such as behind the scenes stuff and whatnot, but I don't really know what to put. So if anyone has any ideas or requests of extras they'd like to see on the DVD, I'm open for suggestions.