Search Engine Optimization

SEO is a term I just heard a few years ago. I actually did some animation work for an SEO company last year some time and started to wonder what this "SEO" thing was all about.

Turns out it's not really a relatively new idea, just a new term that sounds slick. Or maybe I myself had just never heard it

Search Engine Optimization is a process of making sure a web site gets the best possible positioning in search engine results. It's always been about keywords and content within the site, but as time marches on in the internet, it also includes other factors such as links from other sites, traffic, and a variety of other tactics and techniques used to drive traffic and improve placement in search results.

A good explanation of the process of search engine optimization (should I be capitalizing the phrase?) can be found in this article written by Denning E-Solutions LLC. I pop this here to bookmark it for myself as I just found it moments ago.

I don't do a whole lot of web design at this point, but I teach a bit of it and have learned a thing or two. I've also found a terrific service called SEO Keyword Ranking that measures ranking of a site in a set of keywords provided by the user. In fact, I've found that I can even use this to compare my site to various competitors--and yeah, the net is just crawling with sites that have biker cartoons...

Not.

At any rate, SEO Keyword Ranking has three levels of service available for pretty affordable rates, depending on how many projects and keywords you'd like to be measuring. If you're clever, you can use this to outsmart your competitors and get ahead in the rankings. It's easy and can be set to send you regular reports on the site or sites you want to measure.

My hope is that I can employ some tactics to drive more traffic to Cartoon Thunder and start developing more sales. Sales are bound to be pretty lame right now while the economy is in the toilet, but this is the perfect time to establish some virtual dominance in marketing. That and more content...

Check ya later.

Follow up on midnight musings on perspective

As much as I needed to sleep yesterday when I was exploring concepts in elliptical perspective, that turned out to be time well spent.

One of the things I read by Scott Robertson was somethign along the lines of not getting too scientific and templated in my use of ellipses. A wee bit of practice made me more comfortable.

When I went to apply my practice and learning to the page, the result seemed extreme. Against my better (?) judgement, I persevered and when where the orthogonals (perspective lines) led me. Sure made the front wheel pop! Now it seems my fork tubes need to show some convergence as well. I think I can get that in the next layer of tracing paper. Then I'll work on the background, which I haven't really chosen yet.

Somehow I really want to put tall buldings around it. Living in Hollister, a tall bulding is three or more stories, like the old bank building downtown.

Another good reason I was up drawing is it allowed me to let go of a house we'd looked at that day. It had what I thought was the perfect combination of "bonus room" (office) off the garage to make the Cartoon Thunder home office near to my very own chopper. The rest of the house was lame for my family, however. By the time I got back to sleep I was obsessing about the house we'e made an offer on a week earlier.

...which was accepted some time Monday. So it shall be that (if all goes well) the Cartoon Thunder head office will indeed be moved from the garage to the comfort of an indoor space, a great room in a great house in a great neighborhoos in a great town.

I'm grateful.

Things that rumble in my head at night...

Sleeping is what I should be doing, but once awake a few hours ago, my brain refused to deactivate again...

I counted the fins on my shovelhead engine yesterday and found there are something like 17 fins from base gasket to rocker box. On the head there are seven, and of these, four are split for the spark plug on the left side. All of them are indented on the right to accomodate the push rods. That leaves ten on the cylinder, and if I remember right, four are broken up around the head bolts.

When you count the fins on pan and shovel you find about seven fins on the heads and seven on the cylinders. Evo and fathead engines run closer to twenty, apparently to get increased cooling. Probably not news to serious gearheads and mechanics who read releases from the Motor Company, but I am approaching as an artist. I've never actually taken the time to count the fins, and I found it really helps. You'd think I can't count that high, because I've been drawing from bikes for a few years now...

I'm working on a drawing that I plan to paint in larger format. This design is somewhat influenced by the bikes at Southern Speed Shop in Valdosta, Georgia, where wide is the word when it comes to tires and wheels, both front and back. Dig the Polecat, for instance, which features a front tire nearly as wide as the fork sliders will allow.

Drawing a wheel and tire of this proportion forces me to think about the geometry and proportion involved. It's safe to say that for me, the most challenging and visible part of a bike drawing is in the front wheel. Maybe in a few years I won't think so, but lining up the planes correctly and getting the shape of the tire, the width of the rim, and the combination of ellipses in wheel, tire, and brake rotor takes a lot of planning and focus. And to be honest, my knowlege of such things is somewhat limited in spite of several excellent books on perspective.

A quick look into my copy of Thom Taylor's How to Draw Cars Like a Pro (I'm missing my copy of his book on drawing choppers...) shows me the idea that different degrees of ellipses is based on (I think) the degrees a given cylindrical shape is angled from a line between the viewer and the vanishing point. Not sure how to put the idea of degrees in an ellipse into practice without an ellipse template, which would surely be marked by degrees. Probably not a bad idea to get on of those, though I resist using templates and even rulers when I'm doing a drawing.

Okay, so I Googled "degrees ellipse" and found this Word document by Scott Robertson that explains the ellipse very well, but doesn't really mention how the major and minor axis might relate proportionally. I'm actually quite certain that I'm missing something in constructing a square in proportion correctly, and I can show you the section of my perspective book that continues to vex me.

Robertson, I should note, is one of the top designers around, and consults with businesses in a variety of industries where design and drawing are central to success. His instructional DVDs are available at the Gnomon Workshop.

Okay, enough talk. Time to either draw or sleep. I'm thinking sleep, if I can shut off my brain first...

Street Rider Sketch

I might like to try a more developed version of this on canvas, focusing more on color and texture than in my last painting (see previous entry). I sketched this up during a board meeting. I was at the meeting last night to promote my department and be sure everyone remembers the importance of the arts during these difficult financial times. Thanks to our trustees, our district is in fairly decent shape while many districts are hurting. At any rate, I can't last through three hours of anything and stay awake unless I've got my sketchbook.