Inkscape howto: Drawing the webcomic titles

So the time for the so called "surprise" is now: a basic tutorial about how I do and how I should do the cartoon titles for my Fedora Weekly Webcomic (the tutorial is structured in two parts).

I had it in mind for a ling time and used it as a backup option in the case I have to give a public talk about FLOSS graphics and I don't have anything better to talk about. Time passed, I have not used it and no other talk is planned any time soon so probably it is a good idea to put it out now. Which may be useful from another point of view: there are rumours about some possible "competing" webcomics based on my building blocks, so leveling the playing field more should be good for everyone.

This is the end result (again, presented in two ways, both with an identical result) of the tutorial:

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Fedora Weekly Webcomic: The Way of the Ninja

The other day I said I will not do a webcomic special for Fedora's birthday and just move this week issue one day in advance and today will go with a surprise instead.

Well, I changed my mind and have to postpone the surprise one more day: being not very happy with the joke and having a [I think] better one, I decided to have today the regular webcomic: this time funnier (IMO), anchored in reality, more elaborated (two new characters) and more violent (so if you can stand some blood in a webcomic, stop reading RIGHT NOW). Of course, nothing is perfect, the downside it that this new one is also "more niche", so it may need background info, otherwise generating only a blank stare. But enough...

Fedora Weekly Webcomic: Which desktop?

As today is party day for Fedora's 5 years birthday, I had a dilemma: do a special edition of the webcomic or just move one time the publishing day from Thursday to Wednesday? I went with the later option as I expected to be very busy those days with not enough time for two webcomics.

If you are not entirely happy with today's issue, I have to reveal something: for tomorrow a webcomic-related goodie is scheduled!

Happy birthday Fedora!

If you want to celebrate 5 years of Fedora, here are a few buttons of various size which you can use on your blogs:

Note: if you want the source for a customized (translated?) version, just change the file name from .png to .svg

The swan song of steampunk

No, I am not into some lame poetry, I just try to not fight losing battles...

The other day I thought that "Bucharest Days" (this miserable city we all love to hate has 549 years of attested history) is a good opportunity for a shooting session. While I was not that happy with what I found there, I did some photos with [what I consider to be] a "steampunk" feel, a good closure allowing me to go forward.

Note: the set is larger, containing also medieval, traditional and modern stuff, the selection above is all about "steampunk".

Fedora Weekly Webcomic: EULA

All is well that ends well, and it seems now we have a happy ending, but the situation was (IMO) quite ridiculous.

Fedora Weekly Webcomic: Large RPM Collider

The [self imposed] curse of my webcomic is its regularity: the same day of the week at the same hour (as much as I can). In consequence, some topics may be delayed a bit, so I have a choice: go with a subject a bit later and risk redundancy or avoid some subjects, going for a weaker replacement.
I hope I didn't make the wrong choice this week.

Prater, Vienna

Going back from the FUDCon, we (Adrian and me) had about one and a half hour to spend in Vienna and being in a boyish state of mind, what were we supposed to do? Stalk the passers? No, we found something else: visited the Prater amusement park.

Monday afternoon, some of the fares were closed and not many people were in the park, but we liked it:

Day 3 photos

Yesterday was travelling day for me (expect some photos from Prater, Vienna), so the bulk of photos from FUDCon Day 3 are a bit late...

First I want to thank Max, I was in doubt and he ultimately convinced me to go to Brno, for what it was a wonderful experience. Max, you are great!

I didn't took many photos at the conference, as it was all the same as in the previous days, maybe a bit quiet and with less people:



After that, a group of us walked around the city (taking lots of photos):



And ended, of course, in a pub, for the real conclusion of the FUDCon:



So, here is a centralisation of my photos:

• Day One
• Day Two
• Day Three
• Highlights posted on flickr
• Tux is a nasty photographer and I want more Czech beer

Fedora Weekly Webcomic: FUDCon special - Size matters

As part of the hackfest at FUDCon, a "special edition" of the webcomic (there are tons of people with tons of geeky cameras):

Day 2 photos

Speaking aboutphotos, I should start by thanking Gianluca for the gift (a flickr account upgrade so I can upload more photos). Thanks!

The most awesome thing for me yesterday was the chance to meet Martin, my kicking ass colleague from Fedora Art. He worked a bit on the Echo icon theme:

And then together with me keep a talk about our woork in front of a small but friendly audience:



At the end of the day we went to the bar for the "social event":


That was a good opportunity to see him in an embarrassing posture and shame him on the web, look at the picture above, he's not drinking beer but mineral water with lemon! I am almost to revoke his geek card (but he's enough of an uber-geek, studying advanced physics at the university and contributing to Fedora hardcore style, so I'll forgive him).

But enough with the talk, let's jump to the meaty photos (I don't have many from the social event as I like to take "candid" shots, something hard to do with a flash in a dark place).

PS: do you remember the nasty photographer? There are a few photos which are not included in the gallery, not because I am afraid of another flamewar, just because I dont's want people to think I do publicity stunts for PageRank and AdSense money, but the guys from my table can see them on my laptop.

Lesson learned about Tux

While my photos from Day 2 are uploading, here is a lesson I learnet at FUDCon in Brno: Tux is a real babe magnet and I have photos to prove it:

To be honest, the girls in those photos are somewhat half-geek (one is the girlfriend of a geek and another the sister of another one) but I swear (sorry, no photos about that), last night in the tram when returning from the social event. a couple of completely stranger, non-geek, girls were totally checking-out the Tux hanging on my backpack.

(the photos are still uploading, everyone's online in the room...)

Lot of photos from Day 1

In the end I managed to track and stop the funny little guy who took over my camera the other day, maybe a bit later, so he had plenty of time for a lot of nasty photos and beers until midnight, but the important thing is that I have my camera back (and I am nor responsible for what photos he did):

My flickr account is a free one, I don't have a lot of space there si I uploaded to the "official" photo pool only a few highlights, the hbulf of the photos (some of them are not that bad) are available in a scpecial gallery on my own space.

Wild photographer on the loose at FUDCon

This little guy is on the loose, he stole my camera and is taking nasty photos all around at FUDCon, I am left onlu with my phone... But I'll catch him!

Virtual T-shirt

I received a lot of undeserved praises for some minor modification applied to Mo's design made for the Boston FUDCon, so this virtual T-shirt is for her:

Expect a large number of photos from day one but until ten enjoy a sneak peek.

Fedora Weekly Webcomic: No punchline

Thanks to the marvels of technology, this strip is partly true: at the moment it goes online I should be in a bus travelling to Brno, the blog engine is supposed to take care of scheduled publishing.

Note: last week I received complaints of my webcomic not showing in Google Reader due a style="display: none;" - I swear, it was not my fault, probably the image file name triggered some ad-blockers.

For the unfortunates...

Following a request on #fedora-art I did this blog button (no worry, I am still going), so use it if you feel like:

CreativeCommons Romanian launch

Yesterday, 2 September 2008, the Creative Commons licenses were launched in Romania. I was invited and used the opportunity to take some photos.

The main talk was delivered by Bogdan Manolea, the main guy behind this initiative (Bogdan is well known for his website about internet and legislation):

There was also some interesting words from Florin Grozea from HI-Q, a band that seems to really get the CC stuff (too bad that I don't care about their music and too bad that NC make their stuff useless for me):


Ioana Avadani, both an established journalist and blogger, representing the host, Center for Independent Journalism added her opinions:


There was also Razvan Rusu, from (ex) Travka, the first Romanian band to license their entire album under a CC license (I have to confess this was the first time when I heard about them):


There was crowd:


Presentations:


Debates:


Swag:


And even the national television:


Of course I saw some downsides:

• I was not happy with the time, at 16:00 a working guy like me had to take a couple hours off from work, not everyone is freelancer or student
• I was amazed to see how the audience was unaware about the Creative Commons licenses, like they were living under a rock for all those years, I can't understand how one can use the web and not know a bit about CC... maybe if all you know about web is hi5, aman2 and pitzipoanca...
• I was somewhat outraged by the questions from the audience about how to add more restrictions on top of the CC licenses, I felt the need to scream "guys! you get it wrong, CC is about freedom!
• It is like the only clause is NC, everybody is concerned about stopping anyone from making some money, the HI-Q guys were looking at me like to a strange animal when I said I will release my photos as CC-BY-SA

I abstained from talking (even if Bogdan tried a subtle invitation) as, coming from a FLOSS point of view, I can be quite radical regarding NC and ND, with large potential to scare the audience. And I could be very technical in the matter, much above the intended level of the presentation.

Fedora 10 themes Round 2

The second round in the process of creating a visual theme for Fedora 10 ended yesterday, those are the proposals meeting the requirement and which will pass into the third (last) round (listed in chronological order):

Gears

Neon



InvinXible



Solar



Note: you will find the names of the people behind them on the individual pages, I left them out here on purpose, this is not a personal competition but a team work.

Going to FUDCon

The First Meet-up of the Art Team

As both Martin and me will be present, we probably will pompously claim the first meet-up of the Fedora Art Team (Mo suggested the title): probably the first time when two active members of the Art Team will be in the same room, so join us if you are interested, this will take place most likely Saturday and we plan to keep a session about Fedora Art (F-10 themes, Echo, Nodoka, Art Team in general).

Me and the hackfest

I plan to act as a mobile hackergotchi creation station: if you want a hew hackergotchi, look for me, I will take a photo and then gimp it. I also plan to work on an unnamed surprise (a special edition of something). What I won't do (due to uncooperative hardware, but I wish I could do) is take footage for an I am Fedora video.

Here is my almost ready gear (expect plenty of photos from me):
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FLOSSCamp

As planned, I attended the Romanian FLOSSCamp, a nice offline summer escape in the mountains.

The weather was not our best ally, it was rainy and somewhat cold for this time of the year:

But we got a good friend in the fire (Open Source):


And enough booze to keep us warm and happy:


We were a bit over a dozen of guys participating in various projects (some of us never met before), like Grupul pentru Software Liber (believe me, that is written on their back):


The ubiquitous Mozilla and Firefox:


Ubuntu/Kiwi, Fedora (shame on me for not wearing a proper T-shirt) and Debian (shame on Andrei for the same):


And beside the community thing, drink and fire, we also talked about FOSS: contribution and local promotion:
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When leaving, we encountered a "Cheese and Ţuică(moonshine!!!) Fair" but due to lack of time had to hurry to the train station and spent very little time here:


A lot of photos from those 3 days can be found in the Romanian Fedora community photo gallery (ask for hi-res versions).