Villians

Weeeeeeee’re back!! Hope you guys like the fresh coat of paint! Wow, I’ve never seen weeks go by so quickly. The time spent with the family was a blast and my wife and I even had a chance to visit Washington D.C. That’s one heck of a town filled with amazing art. I only got tazed once while trying to jump the White House fence.

The days were certainly busy but fortunately we’ve been able to get plenty done during our time away. Aside from the website redesign (which you can read more about here) Greg and I have been planning out some new content. We have some designs and webcomics in the works which you’ll see updated regularly. It seems as though we can’t stop giving ourselves things to do. I blame Greg.

We’re excited to be back and hope you all had an awesome holiday. I guess we should get started on 2010. Onward!

CreatureBox 2.0

We began CreatureBox two and a half years ago almost as a dare. Could a couple dudes with stupidly busy lives pull off an art blog on a regular basis? We really didn’t have a clue but foolishly jumped into the deep end anyway. Thankfully for you guys, we’re still swimming.

Over the last year we knew the site needed a significant makeover. The previous design was getting more claustrophobic and the creatures didn’t have much room to bounce around and stretch their tentacles. Ultimately we felt a hybrid magazine layout would do the trick so we checked out some themes and began down the looong path of rebuilding the ‘Box.

Creature Features

The new digs provide us with an opportunity to group and post different types of content side by side for three times the creatures, all up in your face. The major sections include our illustrations (with the newest being “featured”), articles (like what you’re reading now), and comics. We also plan to explore new ideas that would have been tough to pull off with the old site.

In addition to layout adjustments, we’ve added a few more bells and whistles. The comments now support Gravitars and are “threaded” which allows everyone to respond more directly to the comments made around the site. We’ve also incorporated nesting pages which allows for more growth including gallery divisions and video. Finally, on the mobile side of the fence, we’ve installed WP-Touch to provide a simpler version of the site for CreatureBox’ers on the go.

As far as content, there’s plenty hidden throughout the site. So take a look around and see what might be lurking in the other pages.

Browsers

We did our best to support as many browsers as possible. Firefox, Chrome, Safari and IE8 all run great. IE7 runs well for the most part yet due to a lackluster javascript engine, the initial page load may take some time. For the record, IE6 is not supported – thank goodness.

At the end of the day, our goal continues to be focused on fending off hordes of intergalactic zombie squads, dismantling rogue robot battalions and providing the best experience possible. We’ll be working around the clock on new content, including new designs, articles, FAQs, and comics in the coming weeks so be sure to keep your eyes peeled. If you have any comments on the site (including bugs), please let us know, we’d love to hear them!

Ok, enough code babble. Time to dust off the drawing table.

That Time of Year

It’s tough to believe, but December is right around the corner yet again. For the last couple years, Greg and I have made a point to take a break from the site to spend some quality time with our families. This certainly doesn’t mean we’re disappearing – this is merely our “Summer Break”. However the good news is we have some big plans for the site.

Over the next several weeks we’ll be putting the finishing touches on CreatureBox 2.0. We’ve been meaning to refresh the site for quite a while but life has a way of filling up quickly. The new site will allow us to stretch our legs a bit and offer a clean way of displaying a range of content. We hope you’ll all join us for the launch at the start of next year.

In the meantime we’ll be updating our progress via Twitter so if you have an account, we’d love to have you on board. Also, now would be a great time to subscribe to the RSS feed to get all the latest happenings with the ‘Box. We’ll also still be checking email so feel free to drop us a line anytime with the Contact Form.

This has been a wild year and Greg and I can’t thank you guys enough for the support. The sketchbooks were a huge success (all sold out!) and we look forward to making ground on the 2010 book during the break. We hope you all have a wonderful holiday – keep it safe, and we’ll see you in 2010!

*Update*
For those who are still interested in the 2009 sketchbooks, head over to our friends at Stuart Ng Books (in the U.S.) and The Labyrinth (in Canada). They should have some copies. Thanks!

Moleskine Brush

As Greg mentioned a couple weeks back, we’ve been playing with ink and brush pens. It’s been a good deal of fun and lessens the guilt when I’m plopped in front of the television – blast you Netflix PS3 Disc!

We get emails from time to time about how to get started in concept art. The response tends to be the same and almost always starts with “observe and draw from life!” To that end I’m really trying to follow my own words and have taken to carrying my sketchbook around. I lucked out and found the perfect bag at the perfect size – though some would say it could double as a purse. At least now I have something to smack a mugger with.

*Update*
I’ve been getting some requests for more details on the bag so here’s the scoop. If you head over to Amazon, you can find it as “Travel Portfolio Bag“. There are several independent resellers offering the thing which can get a bit confusing. I went with the Olive Drab to hold on to the remaining shreds of my masculinity. The bag doesn’t have the best construction, but it’s been great for me so far.

Tricks and Treats

It’s been a wild and crazy few weeks – sinus infection, computer upgrades, Halloween – but at least life is an adventure. This was our first Hallow’s Eve in the house. The turnout was pretty decent but we still have enough candy left over to bury in our bomb shelter. At least if the world ends I’ll have a great excuse to down those mini Nestle Crunch bars.

On the computer front, I’ve made the transition to Windows 7 x64. All went kinda smooth though I’m hitting a few bumps with Sketchbook. I’m finding that disabling the windows tablet services get the strokes nice but then the “Open” and “Save as” dialog boxes stop working. I’ve been able to use ACDSee as a work around but is anyone having any luck with this?

Alright, time to soak in the new time change darkness!

A Mild Case of Sluggy

I’ve been sick for what feels like a century. I thought I was out of the woods yesterday but I was greeted with another sore throat this morning. What gives? What kind of Wheaties do the bacteria eat out here? In any event, there are many far worse off than me so I will now stop my griping. I feel as slimy as the dude in this post – a critter from the upcoming Ratchet game. October 27th folks!

In other news, I’ll be migrating to Windows 7 64-bit next week. Woohoo! RAM! Solid state hard drive! Anyone else taking the plunge?