Logo Version 1

I made this initial logo with Adobe Photoshop elements, the stripped-down, somewhat user-friendly version of photoshop.

I didn't use my regular Paint Shop Pro because it doesn't work with the tablet Christy got me last Christmas.

I'm just missing the "and."

Ascent Stage: How to create a LEGO mosaic

Ascent Stage: How to create a LEGO mosaic

After I got done with my hammer icon, I wanted to create something for the ARCH baby blog (Christy and my initials can be arranged as ARCH and CHAR-we're "CHAR" only if we're in an evil mood, muahaha).

After drawing with Paint Shop for a little, I thought "hey, this'd be cool in Legos!"

So I started up the Lego Creator and made a few designs. Starting with a simple "ARCH" and ending up with a more arch-like design.

The legos reminded me of bitmaps, of course, so out of curiosity I googled "lego dithering." I wanted to at least consider, if not really create, how detailed a lego logo (hehe) I could make.

The search pulled up this lego mosaic blog entry. Great stuff (was that first comment ["dude, you're killing me"] an inside joke, a compliment, or one-upsmanship, I can't tell)! I searched for dithering instead of anti-aliasing because the basic lego colors aren't close enough in color tones to pull it off.

I tested it on our dog Mocha and tried a few options. I guess I'll need to get the starting plate and the legos!


Which version do you like?

Source image was this one:

Some notes about creating the bitmaps...

• The extreme close-up and crop increases the resolution for Mocha's face. Otherwise, if I did more of the picture, less detail would be seen for his features


• I had to modify the instructions (much thanks to blog Ascent State's author John Tolva for the inspiration) to Paint Shop Pro.


• Mainly Effects > Distortion Effects > Pixelate instead of Mosaic, setting block width and height ("cell size") to 10


• I wasn't sure how to make a custom pallete, so I just decreased the color depth to 6 colors and then changed it to gray scale.


• View > Grid shows the grid in Paintshop


• 
  You can get help counting the colors by using view > palletes > histogram to see the colors. Normally the historgram would be used to tell if your picture's distribution of colors or contrast was correct at a glance. In this case, we can actually count how many lego pieces we need!

Want it done professionally? Check out Brick Workz.

How to add a personalized favicon (favorite icon) to your Blogger blog

How to add a personalized favicon (favorite icon) to your Blogger blog

I'm looking to create a nice little createandbreak icon for this blog. Maybe a little hammer icon or a screw driver perhaps. I'll start with just a hammer. I tried a screw-driver crossing a hammer, but that looked too much like an icon for "tools and options." That and it's hard to manually do the anti-aliasing by hand (okay not too hard, just time-consuming).

I made the following with paint shop pro (version 8.10, mind you) just drawing around in the bitmap of a 16x16 256 colored image. I did use one of their preset gradients, but besides that, it's all me!

Not super cool just yet, but I'll keep at it. At least it's my very own icon. (You can even tell by searching for "hammer icon" and seeing the definitely more professional icons out there)

Here it is in-action in Firefox (2):


Not showing up in IE7 yet-possibly because it's the wrong format (gif instead of .ico). I set it as a favorite, but maybe it takes something else to make it work.

The fun things about bitmaps is the illusion anti-aliasing does.

Maybe I can pick better color-choices, but look at how "crude" the actual pixels look zoomed in.



I picked up this drawing "skill" back when I tried to make bitmaps of the USS Enterprise using just MS Paint. I found that filling in the corners with differing shades of grays and colors made that blending effect. So instead of jagged lines, we get nice anti-aliased diagonals and curves. Basically brightered colors seem to be bigger while darker colors seemed to make things shrink.

It kind of blew me away the first time I saw a program do such lines in real-time. If it wasn't for old school MS Paint and other basic draw programs, we'd take it for granted that angled lines just look "normal."

FractLOL! | robburke.NET

FractLOL! | robburke.NET

I consume yur brains with big imgz.

Day 3 of Munkey's Bday Week

Mmmm ommmelet

Madcookie introduced me to Alton Brown, who first reminded me of Bill Nye, The Science Guy (though I don't think Alton appreciates the comparison much). So here's my version, minus the insights, instructions, and before-pictures that MadCookie would normally do.

Code Hacking and Evolution

The term "hack" also has a (semi-) positive connotation that refers to trying out code you're not familiar with or in a language you're not familiar with to... make something happen. :-) This contrasts with the "hacking" as in breaking into or disrupting a computer system.

It's not a completely positive experience or process because, well simply, you're not sure of what you're doing!

I'm compelled to point out a parallel between code hacking and biological evolution. At the end of the day, when you have your hack working, you've taken so many different routes, and had so many different dead ends, that you mimic a kind of evolutionary trail. A giant "bushy," multi-pathed decision tree where there can be more than one "right" way to make a viable solution. There's probably many more "wrong" ways, as well.

Just like in evolution, the solutions can range from basic organisms, to the more and more complex. Code (hacked or "properly done") as well, can be of varying levels of complexity, elegance, and so forth.

So in the end, with my hacked solution, I can look at it and marvel at the number of successful and failed iterations. And be utterly confused how I arrived with that particular solution.

Hello World

Off to uncharted lands! Ok well, maybe the "blogosphere" is a very charted arena, but this will be my first foray into the wilderness of this kind of web publishing!

That's my beautiful significant other pointing at... actually, I'm not sure where she's pointing.