graphics

Nothing cures a case of the "Mondays" like doing something thoroughly unproductive for half an hour, right? Here's an idea... I love playing with avatar creators, because I'm no good at drawing, and I'm too cheap to hire someone to make me a custom caricature. Now that WordPress has built-in gravatar support, you might be looking for a new image to use when you're out and about in the bloggy neighborhood. Here's one for you to try, from gamedition. It doesn't build a whole body for you, but you can customize a cartoon head for yourself. There are even some cute and quirky accessories, like a pirate eye patch and 3-D glasses. [EDIT: I had initially linked this post directly to the flash file for the avatar creator, but GamEdition has redirected that to the main page, which contains thumbnails to games that are not G-rated. Just thought you should know before you click.] Here's what I came up with after about 30 minutes of messing around with it. I think I like it!

Well, despite the late winter blizzards we've been having here in the midwestern US, spring is officially just a week away! You know what that means: spring cleaning! Do you need to freshen up your online home a bit? Is your background stale? Want to make your badges and banners a little more 2.0? Here's a fun, free online tool that you might like. It's Stripe Generator 2.0. You may be thinking, "So what? I can make stripes in my sleep." Okay, yaay for you! :-) For the rest of us, this is a great shortcut. You choose the colors, angle, width, frequency, and gradient of your pattern. View a small sample, or try the full-page preview. Tweak the settings to your heart's content, and click the preview update to see your changes *snap* just like that! When you get it just the way you want it, download it. The best/worst thing about the stripe generator is that you can do whatever you want with it. If ugly colors and sickening angles that don't tile well are what you like, you can do that! But, please, don't put them where I have to see them. For page backgrounds, I like light colors with soft contrast, so as not to distract from the real page content. Of course, there times when you need something bright and bold, too (see my sample above). I was thinking of spring tulips. What do you think?