Dev Blog Update #12: Part 1 – Website Evolution!
on February 13, 2013 at 8:05 amWelcome to the new Crazy Sunshine website!
I am a strong believer in artistic evolution, and ever since the start of 2013 I have been working incredibly hard every day to redesign and improve the website, characters, and more. In this blog entry, I’d like to talk about changes to the website.
- Title banner
The new title banner embeds the previous Crazy Sunshine logo onto a giant, mechanical tower that showcases a main character on each of its panels. The giant, golden “orb” in the centre represents the sun. I wanted to create a smaller banner that can be easily customized while still retaining the same “base” image. This way, I can change what is shown on the machine’s panels, or even add more!
- Background
The previous background was a bird’s-eye view of two areas within the Crazy Sunshine universe; Solemn Skip and Massive Metropolis. Combined with the comic’s transparency in certain panels, this background would appear in the distance. However, due to the comic’s colour scheme changing every week, sometimes the site’s background would clash with the atmosphere I tried to create. I would like to use less of this effect, and keep the background unrelated to the comic as I try to improve my colouring skills. This new background compliments the title banner, keeping the site’s “mechanical” theme consistent.
- Navigation Arrows
The navigation arrows have also been improved, with colours that match the title banner, and unlike the previous set of buttons, detailed shading to make them really stand out. They now have a depth rollover graphic to give the feel of pushing a physical button, and on the First and Latest pages of the comic, are shown with transparency instead of not showing up at all.
- Theatre
There is a new page on the Menubar titled “Theatre”! Here, all the Crazy Sunshine Artcam videos and (in the near future) even more videos will be posted for you to watch. The Youtube page has also been updated so please, check it out!
- Extras
- Video links have been removed from the Extras page and put into the new Theatre page mentioned above.
- New fan art has been added.
- New CS: AGES timeline artwork has been added.
- Links
- Links have been cleaned up and sites that do not link back to Crazy Sunshine have been removed.
- If you would like your site to be added, please return the favour!
- New ad designs have been added. If you are an affiliate, I urge you to please replace your old ads with these new ones! Thanks!
- Gallery
- The old wardrobe images have been removed and replaced with new ones. Currently, new costumes are still a work in progress but old ones can still be seen on Deviantart or Tumblr!
- Old illustrations have been removed.
- Cast
- The cast page has been updated, naturally! Now with even more stats!
- Social Media Buttons
Redesigning the cast of Crazy Sunshine meant the site’s infamous social media rollovers also needed a change, but are still similar to their predecessors. Give them a try!
- To be Continued…
Thanks for reading! In Part 2 I would like to talk about changes to the cast of characters. Please, give it a read and don’t forget to leave a comment!
You were right, I was mind blown! Absolutely loving the new site. Everything looks great!
The whole site is on another level of epic!
I’m sorta fan-boying at the minute..
Do it! Fanboy away! I am slightly concerned about the page load times with the new background but nobody seems to be complaining so far…
It’s only 5kb bigger than the last one….!
Way ahead of you! ;D
I haven’t really noticed the loading times at all. Might be because I’m still in awe. But, it seems fine to me!
I haven’t noticed any changes in load times with high-speed DSL so I can at least report that anyone with a good connection will probably notice no difference at all.
I guess I will have to adapt to the new website. Not that I’ll stop reading.
I’ll miss the old one, though…
Don’t worry. I put a screenshot of it on the Extras page in case anyone got upset about it. ;D
I’m going to miss the “city-scape” in the background for the transparency effects but can understand your reasoning for abandoning it for a more simple and less clashing style. At the very least the dark purple color makes it look like night rather than nothing.
Two things for the cast page. 1: For Mochi wouldn’t his occupation be parasite or is he THAT much of a sword enthusiast? 2: For Rock Candy is it the soft yet crunchy centers (humans/beings) of buildings or the actual buildings themselves?
Just interested for the ladder.
Otherwise nothing to complain about and it all looks very nice.
1) The cityscape (well more of a skip) was nice, and took me ages to draw, but as I said it clashed with a lot of thing, especially when the comic is set in an area miles away from the skip.
2) Mochi’s sword fetish will be explained at some point! Maybe I’ll make a back story about him…?
3) Pretty sure Candy only likes smashing buildings, not killing people…!
Will Mochi’s back story be in grey scale with everyone having monocles/lorgnettes and top hats despite it being completely inappropriate for the location/period?
No way it’ll be in this style: http://cdn100.iofferphoto.com/img/item/892/818/71/o_Samurai-Assault.jpg
Nice improvements! I only missed Daifuku & Mochi from the “Social Media” part… You need find something for this duo!
But there isn’t anything else I use :I
Plus, on a typical 4-panel layout, the social media icons are lined up perfectly. I don’t want to ruin that.
I like the improvements a lot! But still, here are some things I think could be done better:
1) It would be very cool if the header panels changed like the social media images
2) Shelbie needs to look completely incapable again. She’s not as funny if she looks like she should be able to accomplish things.
Thanks for your ideas!
1) The title banner is one .png, if I made it a rollover it would change all the faces at once. Plus, if everything was “animated”, the social media icons wouldn’t stand out as much.
2) Shelbie’s design isn’t going to change. Sorry!