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This is my Design Blog for my Pixeldrive project in University. This blog holds the updates to my progress on building the site, how I am getting on etc.

Week 1

To help with the Pixel Art designs, over the break between semester one and two, I though I should look for some books.  There are plenty of tutorials out there; however I wanted a reference book.  I looked through many books on Amazon on illustration; however I wanted something specific on Pixel Art.  Unfortunately there were very few illustration books based on pixel art, many being of a very basic nature or focusing on a specific subject of pixel art.

I found a book called 1 X 1: Pixel-Based Illustration & Design by by Sebastian Mendez (Author), Vasava Artworks (Editor).

Initially I thought the book would be based on the whole subject of Pixel Art, however upon receiving it, I noticed it was an art work book.  In other words it held lots of examples of Pixel Illustration, rather than the technical background behind it all.  I initially was about to send the book back, however I have found that the examples in the book have become very useful and have found most of the technical information provided on the internet to be adequate.

Along with the use of two books for web development, my library for PixelDrive is sitting at three books. See below.

One point I must note about the 1 X 1: Pixel-Based Illustration & Design book is that after the fist time I opened it, it has gradually started to fall apart. The spine has split and the pages are starting to come loose, never a good thing.

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As part of some self marketing, in accordance with this portfolio, I have ordered some business cards for myself. They should come in useful.

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Week 2

I have just got the email addresses setup for Pixeldrive and my portfolio site NeilMagill.co.uk. I usually just use my gmail address, however I guess it would be a better idea to use the email address associated with my own domain. I just realised I have to change all my email links on this site, my University site as well as the holding page on Pixeldrive, i'm off to do that now.

Pixeldrive is running a catch all email address due to a basic hosting package. This is fine as the hosting required is not advanced by any means. However NeilMagill.co.uk has its mail email address setup as neil @, with this same address being the catch all too.

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I have now developed some elements for Pixeldrive that I can use within the Pixel Art based scenes. I will keep doing this to build up a library of objects for my scenes. See the example below.

You can see the process I went through to create this building below. I was following a tutorial to build this object from PixelJoint.com. You can see as I progress I have my colour palette and library of objects to the right of the building. For ease of navigation, if you hover over the image, a next button will appear that if clicked will take you to the next image.

Step: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

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Eventually I am reasonably happy with my Pixeldrive logo. I may give it a few more tweaks, but generally it is finished. I found that the Fixed SYS font was very suitable to the Pixel Art style of illustration, using this style in the logo ties it in quite well to the theme. See the logo below.

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Week 3

Chris had mentioned JewelBoxing in a lecture.  This are like Jewel Cases for CDs and DVDs, however they have been taken a big step further.  They are very nicely designed and made cases that have a very high build quality compared to the usual flimsy covers.  They also come with templates that allow you to neatly design and fit inserts into the cases.  The presentation of a CD based product is vastly improved over “traditional” methods.

As Chris had said, they would be great for the Major Project, rather than just the usual standard Jewel Cases.  This is something I would like to get ordered, though I hope to split the cost with a few other people if possible.

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This is another object I have drawn in PixelArt. A lamp post! This will be used throughout my road illustrations.

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With gaining more and more experience of Pixel Art you become an awful lot quicker and drawing things and adding detail. This Bin was again based on a basic cube, which with various cut’s had legs and openings appear. Shading then was introduced, then detail.

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Week 4

A friend Jenna said to me this week about splitting the order of some Moo Cards. This is one thing that I would like to order, for both the PixelDrive project and as an alternative to my "formal" business cards.

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As most of my time is spent drawing pixel objects, here is some more examples of my work.

These two examples below are people I have drawn in Pixel Art. These were built following tutorials from RhysD.com.

Below you can see the various stages I went through in drawing the person below.

Step: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

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Week 5

On Friday the postman left me a nice little package when I got home, my business cards that I had ordered several weeks ago. They only cost me a few quid for 250. Bargain!

I looked through the leaflet that came with the business cards, the company also does brochures. I thought this would be a great idea for my PixelDrive project.

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On Friday, I had a chat with Nick in the lab about my PixelDrive project and my portfolio website.

I was very eager to get his opinion on this portfolio website to see what could be improved or done differently. Nicky gave me loads of ideas and opinions on the site, as soon as he finished, I wrote them all down and raced home to get stuck into the work!

Regarding the PixelDrive project, I showed Nick some of my illustrations that I have been working on in Pixel Art, as well as the software I have been using to draw the objects. Again Nick had some good tips and mentioned I needed to get my blog up to date.

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Photobox have a great deal on at present which allows you to get 30-60 free prints for simply signing up.  I followed a referral from Amazon, which gave me an additional 30 free prints, that’s 90 free prints.  Needless to say I ran out of photos to print at 58.

The problem is now that having some of my photography work printed, I have been looking at Photography Portfolio or Photo Books.  I have had a brief look on the net to see what I can find and also asked some photographers, the only half suitable item so far is the image box by Multi Print Imaging.  However after getting further information on it, it is very expensive for what is basically a card box, with your photos placed onto sheets of card.  While I am happy to spend money something that is useful and professional, I will keep looking to see what I can find.

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Week 6

I took a break from uni work, just handed in an RSS assignment today. So I spent a few hours outside cleaning my car, OCD?? YES!!

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Now that I have a lot of prints of my photography work, I have been looking out for a suitable portfolio holder for them. I spoke to Chris and Nick about this, Chris had mentioned that I should not directly look at photography portfolios, instead look at different containers that will do the job and still have a fresh appearance. Chris also mentioned that I could make my own. Taking all this on board, I had quite a few ideas I wanted to note down.

I have a bit of experience with wood working, so I could make something out of wood or as Chris said perhaps buy something that would do the job. I will have a think and see what ideas I think are viable.

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As I mentioned in the previous entry, I have been thinking of creating my own photography portfolio. I have been leaning towards the idea of making something out of wood as this is an area I have some experience of.

Over the weekend I took a trip down to my local “refuse site” to get hold of some reclaimed wood. I found a large headboard that should be suitable.

I washed it down and split it up into pieces that would I feel I could use. Needless to say it was very well made and an introduction to a hammer didn’t make things easier. See the wood below.

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The legalities surrounding a site that has anything to do with driving and road safety is a large concern of mine. Very early on in my thought processes surrounding the site, a disclaimer was one aspect I thought was essential to include.

I spent a bit of time researching disclaimers much of which was another language to me. Many were so complicated that it seems just the thought of reading them, would put people off trying to take any legal proceedings against the site.

However on my searches on the internet I found Taming the Beast. As a warning this website has nothing to do with self motivation, pick up lines or bestiality… Taming the Beast provided a great tutorial and lots of information on disclaimers.

This clarified quite a few things and using their site, I found this disclaimer to be suitable for PixelDrive:

"The information contained in this archive is provided 'as is' without warranty of any kind. The entire risk as to the results and the performance of the information is assumed by the user, and in no event shall PixelDrive be liable for any consequential, incidental or direct damages suffered in the course of using the information in this archive. Use of the information contained in this archive are governed by their respective license agreements and may contain restrictions on use."

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Week 7

I mentioned in a previous entry that Jenna had mentioned Moo Cards to me. Following her idea, I ordered some Moo cards.

I decided to get some Moo cards for my portfolio. This may help me in some self advertising and hold some prints of photos I have taken. They also hold an email and web address for myself.

Should I be happy with them, I will get some Moo cards printed for PixelDrive.

I will update this blog when they arrive.

Below are (to scale) previews of some of the Moo cards I have ordered.

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When my Moo cards arrive, if I am happy with them I will order a set for PixelDrive. In preparation for this I have been working on the logo for PixelDrive. You will see I have now added a car drawn in Pixel Art as part of the logo.

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I have now developed a splash page for Pixeldrive, which uses the new logo and has some contact details on it.

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Over the last six weeks or so I have been seeking employment. I have been looking mainly at Graphic Design based jobs, this is something I have a great interest in, could learn more on and have some relevant skills and experience on.

However there are not many jobs available and I am sure competition is stiff. This is one reason I am working on some self promotion items; business cards, moo cards, photography portfolios etc and also a reason I will keep developing this portfolio site.

I am an awfully decent chap if you (as an employer) would like to offer me a position.

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Week 8

During some searching on the net on some Pixel Art websites, I came across PixelTees.com. This website is short and sweet, it allows you to create and sell your own PixelArt designs on T Shirts.

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Another change to my logo. Nick had pointed out the logo looked a little pixelated round the text of the logo. This was to do with the Anti Aliasing of the text; it was trying to smooth the text, which wasn’t helping me! Anyway a simple fix in Photoshop sorted this. I have also tweaked the design of it a little. See below.

I believe that playing with the font has made the logo a little cleaner. It makes the logo marginally harder to read, however the logo looks more together and it’s keeping with its Pixel Art style.

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I have been looking at presentation options for a while now. These presentation options should be for Moo Cards, Business Cards and for a Photography Portfolio.

I have found some slide top tins from a company in America that will ship several over rather cheaply. I found identical tins in the UK, however the mark up on the tins was notable and it works out a lot cheaper to bring them from America.

These tins will be for my Moo Cards and for my Business Cards. I am looking at a company that develops wedding albums etc, as they have some very sophisticated solutions to hold photos together in a portfolio.

I will update when the Presentation Tins arrive from the US of A.

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My Moo Cards have arrived, see the thumbnails below.

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I have been quite impressed with the Moo Cards I ordered based on some Portfolio work. I have now ordered some for PixelDrive.

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Week 9

I am glad to say I have got my presentation out of the way.

I was happy with how I put myself across, however I would like to have had some of my own illustration scenes. This would have had the presentation focus slightly more on the illustrative aspect of the project, which of course is what it is all about.

I did however have a close call with my Moo cards. They arrived on Thursday, the day before the presentation, cutting it fine to say the least.

However organising the content for the presentation has made me focus myself a little more on the project. It’s time to start putting more of my images online.

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The tins I had mentioned I ordered have arrived from America. See the photos below, they also include my Moo Cards for PixelDrive.

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Week 10

Week 10 had most of its time dedicated to my Ajax assignment for my Interactive Multimedia Computing.

It was a pretty hard going assignment that took loads of time, but it got done and now I can go back to concentrating on PixelDrive.

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One section I wanted to include on PixelDrive was statistics. These statistics would be based on road accidents and other information provided from the Department of Environment Northern Ireland.

This information is available online at http://www.northernireland.gov.uk/news/news-doe.htm.

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Week 11

I am doing the vast majority of my work for PixelDrive at home. I find I have fewer distractions at home and it’s a bit of a better working environment.

Due to this I don’t have much of my work in on Friday’s to show Nick my progress. He has mentioned getting as much of the progress work on my blog as possible, especially at this stage.

As I write this my blog has now been updated with content that I have been working on.

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This is the basic site layout I will be using for PixelDrive. It is functional, in terms of it linking to pages, just to show it's operation.

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Week 12

As one of my final additions, I wanted to create a contact form using PHP, obviously for the contact page. On this contact page, I wanted to give the user a set of pre defined subjects; this would mean that I could organise any contact information sent from the site. The subjects I decided upon are:

• General Contact
• Feature Request
• Technical Support
• Bug Report

With some investigation into PHP contact forms, I noted that several options must be supported or enabled for the majority of the forms to work. These options were:

• register_globals - This must be enabled in the PHP server.
• safe mode - this must be switched off.

I discovered a quick way to check these settings on my server was to create a simple PHP file, with this single line of code in it <?php phpinfo() ?>. This will query the PHP sever and a phpinfo page is displayed, this shows the current configuration of the server.

You can see the result on my PixelDrive sever (here).

I used a free PHP contact form from I D B Host. Apart from a main advantage of being free, I can also easily modify the code, it has some validation based on the information entered or not entered onto the form and as a security feature, it hides my email address.

I modified the labels, subject options etc all to be more suited to its usage on PixelDrive. I also modified the look and styles of the PHP pages, so they all look part of the site. A confirmation page is displayed after the user submits a message using the form, this was a very basic black and white page, I have not added my own CSS to the page, again so it looks part of PixelDrive.

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Links

Pixeldrive.info

University Portfolio

© [2007] Neil Magill | All rights reserved.