New layout!

Yes, it's obvious. Expect if you're reading on mobile. The blog has gone through major overhaul.

The old layout was white-grey gradient thing. Pretty bland actually. On other hand it gave focus to the MOCs but honestly, it was easily forgotten among other LEGO-themed blogs. I think this interface is memorable. Heck, at least by now you should recognize that yes, you're reading Cyclopic Bricks!

I'm hugely grateful to Crudelis "Manfred" Diabolus who did hours of work on the technical code side of the layout. Actually he tweaked the original one (based on "Nautica" by Deluxe Templates, and it's still somewhere down there) too. I would have never known how to make all the buttons and frames and other thingamajigs and doodads and whatnots. Luckily Sir Diabolus knew. Well done, that man(fred). He also does music that you can check out on his website, if you dare.

Most of the graphics are done by me. I can't really draw on computer (I don't have a drawing pad and who can draw anything with mouse?) so I drew everything with pencil (2B), scanned it in black-and-white mode and colored on photoshop and added some effects. Steampunk influences are heavy, but I wanted to avoid general cogs and gears. Ever been in a steam locomotive's cockpit? There's a full maze of pipes, tubes, valves and meters, but no gears. It's about pressure, that's it. So I went with the tubes.

The theme used here is actually based on a drawing below I made when I was on my civil service at the local police station. There wasn't lot to do, so I had plenty of time to read Discworld novels, watch Father Brown in the backroom and draw things (On other hand, I also drove police vans which was quite cool). The idea was actually inspired by a cartoon by local satirical cartoon artist on the newspaper, with interesting pipe-maze-machine representing some political or economical process. The image was also used on Salsa, The Official Klaanon Card Game, as the image of place card of The Shipyard, the base of most of my characters. I also made a printing sieve of it and printed some T-shirts.

 I first made the new logo that appears on some of the banners; I wanted it to have something LEGO-like on it. I ended up with a tan headlight brick, the one I usually use for eyes. You know, Cyclopic Bricks? One-eyed-mythical-creature-like bricks. So it has a one eye. You know?

The good-LEGO-bricks-in-sand-green-circles motif continued through the side bars. They loop and their visibility depends on the resolution of your screen. I also made a frame for the interchangeable banners, frame for my new portrait (taken in last November, including telescope-eye-thing, Swiss Railway Station officer hat, old Finnish mantle... ) and icons for links on the top bar (including my Brickshelf user on "older works"  - Proceed with caution) aaand icons on the right side (The frames were composed on my graphics by Mr. Diabolus). The new font is, I think, Sahitya.

The blog still features some interchangeable banners composed by Don Valentino "Uncle Rubber" Delucci, powered by coding by Nenya (You know, like Galadriel's ring). They deserve a thank you here: Thanks!