In Which I Look Back At An Old Website...And Other Stuff

I've always been interested in design and graphics, well, for at least as long as I can remember. I've dabbled in so many different programs that I feel like I'd used them all before I hit college. I remember downloading Paint Shop Pro (version 7, IIRC) from KaZaA on my brothers computer when I couldn't have been older than ten. I remember upgrading to Photoshop, though I can't remember which version. I remember a friend in my Computer Science class in high school passing along a copy of Dreamweaver and Fireworks to me at my request. It's actually kind of funny, because I still have the disc, even though Macromedia, who created the programs, no longer exists since Adobe bought them out, and because they are cust so old. Adobe released CS5 last year, which means that they are, at least, five versions past due. But it's funny to look back on it.

I remember downloading 3D Studio Max, which is a three-dimensional rendering program. If you don't know what that means, imagine Pixar movies, they are made with that type of program.

Now you might be thinking at this point about all the programs I've stolen and how I'm a bad person. Sure, it was wrong, but considering that I was like ten I feel like I probably shouldn't have the hammer come down on me too swiftly. Also, 3DS Max costs like $3,000-$6,000 if I remember correctly, not exactly in my budget at the time. Besides, I was really just taking them for a test drive, it's not like the companies were losing money from me.

I also used the GIMP, briefly. I never took to it's user interface, and I really had a problem with it's ugly name. The GNU Image Manipulator Project (that's more or less what it means). Essentially, the GIMP is Photoshop, but free and open-source. It does almost everything Photoshop does but it's supported by hundreds of people who devote their time to make it better.


In college, I quickly realized that I didn't enjoy life at school. The campus was beautiful at times, and ugly at others. There was some really awful modern looking buildings like the Javit's Center, but the campus was 1,300 acres of real beauty, marred by giant blobs of concrete. The newer architecture wasn't so bad.

Old, ugly architecture. That's a cube on stilts in back.

The Wang Center, yes, really. It's actually an amazing building.

Anyway, at some point, I decided to make a website. Apparently, I felt there weren't enough websites around for teaching things. Most likely, I created it moreso for myself as a sort of archive of what I'd been teaching myself. I didn't know much, but I decided to put what I did know to work; besides, it was more fun than going to class.

I decided to call the website Hugging Bunnies. I can't tell you why, specifically, that was just what came out. Though, I like cute things, I always have, so I'm guessing that has something to do with the naming. My AIM screen name was always imalilchoochoo, so you can see where I might come up with Hugging Bunnies. Above is the header of the "Graphics" section. It's kind of cheesy and in no way what I would consider good or professional, but I liked it. It fit the site. Besides, I had no idea what I was doing, really. Well, sometimes I did.

This is the main page, the index, or the front page, whatever you would prefer to call it. The page looks especially cool with my custom shell for windows, which I am not going to get into, that is really, really too nerdy to discuss here.

As you can see, even then I was a tab-a-holic, always multitasking beyond recognition. I also had Dreamweaver open, for creating the site, obviously. Next to that is my AIM window, because I was always chatting to people. And I has SSH open to upload the site to my student server space. Eventually, I bought a domain and had the site hosted at huggingbunnies.com, which is now, sadly, defunct.

The website had a lot of flash, because I was trying to teach myself how to flash (*giggle*). The flash was subtle, though. I like the design though, it's very clean and streamlined. I think the big black blobs were placeholders, because they totally clash with the design. The icons are pixel-art based. I like the black and white style with the splash of aqua for the links. On the left was, I believe, random quotes made by professors and students. From what I recall, my professors had pretty good senses of humor. Some of them were just downright crazy.

I remember making a lot of desktop backgrounds. I recently came across this one. While it is very plain and simple, and not particularly special in any way, it's neat. I like blue, I always used a lot of blue, I think. Sort of how when I paint I use a lot of a certain shade of green because it seems woodsy.





Also, back in the day I was the administrator for a BBS, (basically a web forum). I don't know why I joined it, really. I think I liked the name, although the forum was far too pink and frou frou, it needed some testosterone. I remember doing lots of graphics and stuff.

Eventually, I completely overtook the site and made a few friends (and probably some enemies). I learned a lot during that time; mostly about 4chan and the annals of the internet, which is kind of ironic considering the power puff girls feel the forum had going.



I created banners and stuff in my spare time, which I had a lot of due to the whole hating school thing I had going. This one was a ninja themed one. I like it, it's neat. I'm sure there are some cliches and I'm sure it's terrible, but considering my circumstances at the time, I think it came out okay.



Pink! Although, I like this one. It's more magenta or fuchsia, which I like. And the text makes it look kind of dorky with a modern twist.



This one is tiny (at least on my screen), but it's pirate themed. I remember having a thing for ninjas and pirates back then. I'm a boy, so it comes with the territory, I suppose. But the whole ninja-pirate thing was kind of popular then, too. Not that it isn't now. It's like velociraptors, they're never not cool.

At a certain point, my friend Jote and I ran the site, but basically used it as a testing ground for other, cooler projects we wanted to start. I remember there being all kinds of random projects, and it was fun. The radio.blog was one of them. I liked creating banners back then, so any excuse to make one was fine by me. I also love music, so a radio.blog skin seemed destined to be made. This is my favorite:



I never much cared for the RIAA, because they are a horrible organization pretending to care about the musicians they pretend to represent. This was how I decided to express that frustration. It seemed fitting on so many levels. And the little boy reminds me of myself. Though, my teeth aren't that bucktoothed.

This was another header for the radio.blog. I went through a squares phase. I guess it was related to the pixel art phase, just expanded and blown up. Again, I used blue because I'm a dork and I like blue. In fact, I'm wearing a blue shirt right now.



Last, but not least, and likely not the last new old art I'll dig up and post here is this render I made in 3D Studio Max. I suppose it's only fitting that I would end up playing with and using rendering software later in college for my most favorite of all my classes: Computer Science And Art taught by George Hart. George was a really cool professor and a genius. But he was also amazingly creative, which I admired about him. In a strange twist of fate, the rendering program we used was actually Maya and not 3DS Max, oh well.

I remember doing a bunch of renders. I can't find any but this one, though. I remember spending hours fiddling with it only to have to wait hours just to render the image and see the result. Well, usually it was quicker, but the final image always took a few hours or more to render.



I like it, though. It's pretty generic, and I probably followed a tutorial of some kind, but it's kind of amazing to design something at the computer and then have the resulting image turn out so realistic. I remember doing an indoor scene, too. And I made a table, that took more time than one would think. In Maya, I remember making a character with an abnormally large head.

When we were done, one of us got to have our model made on a rapid prototyping machine, but alas mine was not chosen.It's okay though.

Despite the fact that school sucked and I hated almost every second of it, there were some bright spots in the abyss that was my time at Stonybrook.

For the record, in 2005 it was rated the second unhappiest school, and  by 2008 it had been knocked down to fourth or fifth, so I'm sure that didn't help my distaste of the whole environment any.