Okay... So I waited about 24 hours for my site to be uploaded and when I got on this morning there was still nothing... So I browsed google asking why that might be and found help through this site;
It says that if there is too much content then it may not upload. So, I got rid of all the animations on there and replaced them with the youtube vids I had uploaded instead and tried again and.. *click one of the pics below*
WOO IT'S DONE!! That's one of the four projects completed... (the others being the dissertation, summer pitch and some outstanding art I need to draw for my friends).
IT'S BEAUTIFUL!!!! :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
I think at some point in the near future I might also make some business cards and whenever I go to conventions or even meet up with people randomly, begin handing them out. No sense waiting til I graduate.
I must say that it's been a long long time since I've needed to use HTML and CSS and all that.. about 5 years to be exact so I'm very out of practice and that just makes this all the harder! Here is the last site I made, it was on my neopets account hehe...; http://www.neopets.com/~paputaka But aside from using neopets, I remembered that the last time I made a site it was with 'freewebs.com' (can't remember the address now though...) so, before trying out iWeb or DreamWeaver I thought I'd give that a go. Man was I wrong. Here is my failed attempt at a website!
Honestly I didn't understand the navigation, everything had changed around and it wasn't like before when you type in CSS, now everything is templated which restricts your freedom! I gave up after half an hour. What a headache.
Next I gave DreamWeaver a try but I had the same problem and, in my opinion, the templates were all ugly! hahaha Sooooo I went onto iWebs and that was much nicer. I'm starting to get the hang of navigating my way around the program now and my website is slowly taking shape but I think I need a few more hours with it before it's ready. I have a couple of problems though..
The first is that I have no idea how to get my own domain.. And the second is that my MAC needs to be connected to the Internet to be able to upload the file onto the site!! And we don't have wireless internet so I'll either have to get a cable or find a place that has wireless internet.. maybe the library. Or.. worst-case scenario, wait until I'm back at college and the internet is set up on my MAC. Oh yeah.. And I'm also having problems uploading my animations onto the site so instead I'm uploading them to my youtube account (http://www.youtube.com/user/pluschan)and once the site is up with use the embedding thingie to post them in a type of blog.. or something. Like so;
Post Production Piece completed in the first term of the second year of our Animation Practise course.
My part of the George's Marvellous Medicine Project.
Something done in my free time, practising ball bouncing.
Seeing what's already out there... A lot of my favourite freelance artists have their own webspaces to portfolio their art. Most of these are manga-driven sites and they have beautiful layouts. Here are examples of sites I could find, some I like and some I'm not as keen on;
These first three are all japanese artist's sites so they may be a little difficult to navigate but this is the closest to how I want my own site laid out. With a nice opening illustration and on the side all the different links you could want to explore, including a blog.
http://tonic-art.com/artworks I don't like the layout of this one as much as any of the others but it's good to look at various ways to do things rather than just jumping straight into the first one. Too much scrolling on this one though!
http://www.kenart.net/ LOVE the layout and the way you click the thumbnails to open the picture bigger, but I don't think I'd want all my pictures on one page, I want there to be different sections on the sidebar you can click on.
http://www.ulimeyer.com/ This one is the website of a 2D animation company I did work experience for last summer and because it's a company website it's obviously a bit different from the others but it's something to think about overall anyway. The layout used to be slightly different with a mouse in run cycle that you had to click on to enter but it seems they've gotten rid of that now..
Thinking about my own site... What I would like on it is a blog so that I can write various things and talk about any new pictures I post, a section for animations, a sections for any comics I make, one for original characters I have designed, a sketches/storyboards and life drawing section (maybe or maybe not on the same page...), and one for digital art, both original, observation and fanart! Also a link back to my website and contact details of course...
Asking friends for help.. One of my friends is also trying to set up a website at the moment and has given me some useful tips on it. There is a program on the MAC called 'iWeb' that is very useful for this sort of thing. 'It's realllly easy to use plus it lets you add ads if you want, they're safe google ads and they give you a lot of features. For a web host, google "1and1" it's about £2 a month for a .co.uk domain or £12 a year for a .com domain.'
So there's one way to make a website.. I also asked another friend of mine from Canada how she made her website and here is the correspondece;
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Michelle 'Shrimp' Vinall 15 September at 10:52
Hallo Betty!~
I know this was awhile ago now, but I remember that you used to have your own portfolio website that you put all your art on. Was just wondering whether you used a program like iWeb to make it, or whether theres a place you can go that gives you a template or whether you made it yourself..
an example of what i mean is kurot's site here ;http://moecon.net/area27/ just wondering I want to start making my own site atm and need some help D8 Sorry to disturb you. Hope you can help me and I hope you are well! :)
Betty Kwong 15 September at 17:05
Hi Michelle! :D
I just use basic html to build it LOL. I use to have some much free time, I would look up html tutorials like (http://www.lissaexplains.com/) and just use a notepad to build it from scratch. LOL OTL;;
Another way I know how to build websites is use Adobe Dreamweaver. They provide a lot of templates and layouts for you. I had to do a simple one for class in University www.ecuad.ca/~bkwong/ and that is what we used. I hope that helps a bit! :<
Thanks Michelle! Good Luck to you!
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This was perhaps the most useful information I've received so far about it so I will continue with the website progress later!
