The Earth-Toned Pill

Link: http://www.jonwalters.net/uploads/gitzo_2.jpg

Eco-Friendly

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Link: http://www.jonwalters.net/uploads/gitzo_1.jpg

Tis the Season

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Link: http://csshowto.com/layout/psd-to-csshtml-in-easy-steps-part-1/

If you're a website front-end designer who is unfortunate enough to depend on others for the actual coding piece of the site development puzzle, then this tutorial is for you!

The folks at CSS How To.com have a massively-extensive 4 part series dedicated to the task that will help get your skills up to par.

Check it out by clicking on the link above!

For those of you who never heard of the book Jennifer Government by Max Barry or of the popular browser-based game NationStates that it directly inspired, the long-awaited sequel to the game is now in open beta!

NationStates 2 promises to expand on the strengths of the original game while also formalizing such things as war, which in NationStates had to be completely roleplayed, or RP'd.

Part of the draw to nationstates is the fact that it can be as simple or complex as you like.

At its most simplistic, you can go and create a nation and watch it grow before your eyes, all the while you are given choices to make that affect your nation's policial and social freedoms, as well as your economy.

But the roleplay element is where NationStates really comes into its own, with each player having the ability to steer their nation through international affairs by way of writing posts on the forums, where proper roleplay etiquitte is strictly enforced.

For those who love to write or want to improve their writing skills while also having fun with others of like mind, there isn't a better way to spend a few hours here and there.

Unfortunately, my time is too limited to be able to post much on the forums. (I think I average a post a month) But for me it is a great thing to be able to hop on every once in awhile and work on my writing skills while also further developing the continuing story of my great little country, Tilsitsin.

If you have a few minutes to kill on the web, stop by and visit my country. (and even create one of your own!)

I've never been a huge fan of Jean 'Moebius' Girard's work (if for no other reason than the fact that I came to his work later in life), but I am quite fond of his character designs and storyboard work for the failed Jodorowsky film adaptation of my favorite book, Dune.

The picture above is one of his fantastic character designs for the film of the character Liet Kynes, the Imperial Ecologist of Arrakis.

Check out this page on DuneInfo.com for more of his excellent work on this unfortunately doomed project.

The Sardukar and the Baron Harkonnen in particular are great!

Link: http://www.helpthehoneybees.com/

A friend sent me the link to this Flash site today, and I was really impressed with the complexity and simplicity of the site Häagen-Dazs® put together for their save the honey bees initiative.

The colors are soft and natural, very balanced and in tune with the subject matter. And while it has a good degree of interactivity, it doesn't overdo it on the visuals at all.

Check this great site out when you get a chance!

Want to see some real PS painting skills? These should be enough to blow you away...

I'm a big fan of the web site deviantart.com for a whole lot of reasons, not the least of which is because it has a highly-active user community that fosters a high degree of cooperation and collaboration amongst users.

I was searching for a good set of Photoshop drawing brushes on the site (of which many exist and are free to use for non-commercial purposes, as long as credit is given to the creator) when I stumbled on this fantastic digital art tutorial by the user aquasixio. If you're like me, you'll knit-pick at the his spelling until you realize he's French and probably doesn't speak great English to begin with.

Anyhow, the tutorial taught me a lot of little things I thought I knew and really helped me get excited again about art in general and digital art in particular. Even better is the fact that deviantart is chock full of tutorials like this one, and although some are honestly of dubious quality or usefulness (an inherent weakness of peer-controlled content environments), all will serve to get your creativity going I'm sure.

And if you have time, stop by my little corner and say hi.