Wisedocks

I Got My Feelings Hurt

This week on FartDump someone left a secret saying how they like the site, but hate that it is AI. That hurt my feelings. While I have used AI to help me learn JavaScript, the website has been a labor of love for several years now. So, I commented that the website is not an AI generated slop site and someone else replied that it is the icons that kill the sites aesthetic. 

FartDump.com is designed to look like an early 2000's website, but with some modern day functionality. However, I realized they were talking about all of the AI generated icons that I generated for the games and other features.

They were absolutely right. I spend so much time working on the code that I forgot somewhere along the line that people don't see the code nor care about it. They care about what is right in front of their face. The icons break the sites theme. They were suppose to be temporary, but I keep chugging along and forgetting about them. Somewhere along the line, I became so use to seeing them that I forgot the original intent. Well, that changes now.

Quick Update: This is the finished product, what do ya think?

I also updated the sprite sheet for the game as well. I think it needs some more work though. It is the same image but I tweak the green exhaust a bit and in the sprite sheet, it doesn't look cohesive. Sprite sheets are something else I need to improve on as I plan to use them more going forward.

I Want To Build A Pixel Based Canvas Game

This is the perfect time to learn how to draw... well, anything. I am no artist. Quite the contrary, I think more analytically. My brain struggles to be creative when it comes to creating art.

For my next game on FartDump, I have been wanting to build a pixel art based canvas game. But, that is hard to do when I can't even draw, lol. I downloaded Libresprite a while back and played around with it. It is the precursor to Aseprite which has much more features. Libresprite was my first inclination to rebuild the icons, but I quickly became frustrated. It's an easy enough program to use, but doesn't have the same familiar functions I am use to. 

So, I gave up and started using Photopea, which I have been using for awhile now and really like. What I am doing for now is taking the AI generated images and loading them up and creating a new layer on top of it and then tracing the outline. I then can use the eyedropper to grab any colors I want from the layer underneath and paint them on however I want.

It is working good for now. I have found it to be rather fun for which I am grateful. Truth be told, every time I sit down and try to draw anything, I normally get frustrated quickly and give up.

There are still tons of images that need redrawing, but I would like to thank the users of FartDump for the useful feedback. It has really given me the push I needed to get the icons drawn badly instead of AI generated. For a site like FartDump, that's actually a good thing.