Metallic Valentines

Two main things today. The first thing is; it's Valentine's Day! That means you're supposed to be all lovey and shit, swoon your girl and then waggle your eyebrows (that last one might just be me though).

A different style, it took me a few days on and off to get this done. Was fun to do, hope you enjoy it. Either way, I hope you have a nice day with that special somebody.
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Next up I want to talk about Lutetium (collective groan). I've been working on eon for quite some time now, I actually started the folder icon back in november. Obviously I haven't made speedy work for lots of reasons. It didn't help that I changed how I do most of my icons and sizes nowadays, or that I wanted "proper" icons for each folder, meaning many hours.

So I sat down and thought about what to do, because I really do want to get this set done, out, and enjoyed. End result; redoing the folder icon. There are two reasons for this; the first is I want to separate Lutetium more from Minium. One of the first things Cary said to me when I showed him back in November was "Unless you out-Minium Minium, it's going to look very inspired by it." I didn't want the angle or similarities to loom over my head and make me paranoid about the whole set being too me-too-ish.

The second is the folder additions. Frankly they took a lot of time for each one. And when there's a heap to do, it makes it slow going. Now, some artists can do that; Take Lanham's Agua for example, I love that set, but a lot of the folder additions are quite simple. I'm quite certain if he'd been going for photo realism with the set, it would of taken a lot longer.

And so this is what the new folder looks like. You can see the angle is much more like classic Aqua folders and has more references -- with the seam -- to the old Lutetium theme. It still needs a few touch ups, but hopefully I'll have a few more previews to show you this weekend.

And here's the current what-if styles of the folders. I think I'll be going with the second or third for the first release (to actually get them out), and perhaps work on the first style. Rather like the previous additions, but simpler.

Hopefully you like it and it'll turn out to be more usable and help get eon out before '09. (Wink wink nudge nudge)