We added some nice touches to the Relio site, one of them is a Christmas theme logo

And the other is a Christmas theme splash for the main-page

Do you see Santa ?

We will do more of both for each major holiday
I also added a new CSS feature (lightbox) to open the images with a faded BG, looks great.

Technorati Tags: Christmas, Relio, Toonz, WebHosting, XMAS

Popularity: 36% [?]

This one was a no brainer … it’s December.

The idea behind it was to make a cartoon where Leo is complaining he wont wear a clown’s red nose .. the idea behind the nose is so he looks like Rudolph.

I am amazed at how much people liked this one, maybe it’s the XMAS spirit.

The hasty sketch


The final Art

Technorati Tags: Cartoons, Christmas, Relio, Toonz, XMAS

Popularity: 36% [?]

When I was a kid living in Portugal, I used to love reading “Disney” comic books, used … nah, I still like them even these days :).

Anyway, one of my favorite comics of all times, was a series of stories published in the late 70’s, early 80’s entitled “Goofy Does History”, on those stories, Goofy played very famous characters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Midas, Marco Polo, etc .. and one of them was “Galileo Galilei” ..

Yep, this exact comic is on my bookcase

I remember that one of the great things about those stories was how for example, at such young age, I learned how Gutenberg published the first book ever, and that that book was the Bible, or that Galilei experimented that two bodies of different mass and weight would fall at the same rate on a vacuum (the “Falling Bodies” theory), these are things I would only hear about many years later in High School, but there I was at the age of 5, and thru comics, I was learning.

A fact that didn’t went unnoticed, so these days, I spend some time looking for those same comics in english, so my children can read them and while having a laught with them, they are also learning.

Anyway, enough nostalgia, our next cartoon episode, was based on my re-colection of the Goofy Galilei episode, where he tests his Falling Bodies theory by asking a heavyset woman and her puny husband to leap from the tower of Pisa into an old mattress to test his theory that they would both fall at the same time (hey, it was a cartoon book after all).

On this episode, we illustrate that sometimes you just feel like trowing the deadbeat customer’s server’s from the 10th floor, but hey, if you have to do it, might as well make a science project out of it and test the great master’s (Galilei) theory.

The sketch was done a big on a hurry, I had the idea on my mind and needed to give it to Paulo @ Yellowicon/Iconbase within 5 minutes so he could do the final Art; To illustrate how on a hurry we were, I had to capture the sketch on my MacBook Pro Webcam since I had no scanner around and there was no time to wait until I got back home.

The Draft

The final Art

In the end, I love the result, it’s a funny Gag, and I am sure Relio visitors and other friends will have a laugh at it , and who knows, a few might do a google on Galilei and learn something from it (especially those who wont have a clue what his theory was).

Technorati Tags: Cartoons, Disney, Funny, Galileo Galilei, Goofy, Pateta, Rea & Leo, Relio, Toonz, WebHosting

Popularity: 34% [?]

For this cartoon, I had envision a “mobile datacenter” based on a trailer.

Since modern trailers have an AC on top, you get your cooling system, they are off the ground, so it’s raised flooring, add a nice combination lock to the door, a $150 generator from Homedepot (B&Q), a Sat-Web dish for redundancy, a few DSL lines .. and “presto” .. you got yourself a datacenter that can outrun the hurricanes (or be taken by them).

My Original Sketch:

The Final Cartoon:

Technorati Tags: Funny, Cartoons, Rea & Leo, Toonz, WebHosting

Popularity: 27% [?]

Initially this was suppose to be a small side story that happens on Ep 2, the idea was to have a mice see and fall in love with a mouse, while Leo on Ep 2 answers the phone.

But Dirceu misunderstood my idea and started working on two storyboards instead, in the end it gave way to a cute short ..

Technorati Tags: Rea & Leo, Relio, Toonz, WebHosting, Work

Popularity: 23% [?]

The guys at everaldo have finished drawing the 3rd installment of the Rea & Leo Cartoons.

I had the idea of having Null beat up Leo because he wakes him up from a great dream, I remember when I was a kid, my dad to get up at 4:00 AM to get his Restaurants/Bars ready to open by 7:00 AM (yeah, people start drinking that early in the Azores), so he always took naps in the afternoon, since he was one of those that talks on his sleep, you could sometimes hear him talking about millionaire deals, try to wake him up, and you might get slugged

Yeah, it will come true someday.
Below is a very rough sketch I did t get the project going, it’s a bit messy, it was done in a hurry when the idea hit me, and my kids were all over me at that exact moment

My Sketch

Initially I was going to have Rea say “You woke him up, didn’t ya ?” .. but in the end, we felt this cartoon strip needed no words.

Technorati Tags: Funny, Rea & Leo, Relio, Toonz, WebHosting

Popularity: 23% [?]

This one was short and sweet, just an every day event that happens many times when you get short staffed.

I wrote the script and Dirceu from FastIcon did the Art.

I should have a bigger (like Ep 1) Ep. 3 ready by the end of the month.

Technorati Tags: FastIcon, Funny, NullMind, Rea & Leo, Relio, Toonz

Popularity: 25% [?]

Since the release of the New Relio Website that I have been nursing the idea of doing a cartoon feature with it’s mascots and the Crazy NullMind created by Thiago.

So less chat and more work and the first cartoon strip is here, this is just an introduction of the cartoon staff ..

The idea is, Rea & Leo are the Relio’s support staff (and their names sound like Relio as well), she is smart, he thinks he is smart, the boss is not a bad person, he is just a workaholic who believes everybody should work 23 hours a day like he does, he also does not subscribe to fairness or democracy on the workplace.

I have lots of ideas for future issues, hopefully we will release the next one by week 1 of next month.

Just for kicks and to have it saved somewhere, here is the original mockup

Technorati Tags: Funny, Rea & Leo, Relio, Toonz

Popularity: 25% [?]

This is my Pingz Ep. 2

I work with a new Artist, so the style is different that the first one.

The satire being that as soon as you install XP, spyware floods in …

click for larger version

Technorati Tags: Linux, Pingz, Toonz, Tux

Popularity: 25% [?]

For the past 3 weeks Arimateia (Webmotiva) and Zuba (from everaldo) have been working with me on a new design for Relio.

We are trying to create a site that is a little bit more “fun” than the norm … nowadays all hosting sites look exactly like a Template Monster template .. and if a site goes out of that style it’s considered a bad design .. mediocrity likes company I guess.

We going with a more “corporate toon” look, and I hope it works .. it’s a huge gamble, people might look at it and find it cheap or outcast

this is a test of a header so far

The initial concept


the current WIP design

It’s meant to represent the fact Relio has servers both in the US (represented by NY on the left) and UK (London on right)

We also got some new mascots .. a man and a girl, the idea is to make them a visual part of each site section, and present on some of the adverts we will run.

No name for them yet

Overall I am very excited, if this was my main form of revenue, or if Relio was on poor financial shape, I would not attempt a site this risky and different, but since it’s not, I feel I am at the liberty of try new things .. who knows .. people might like it, if they don’t, it’s back to the Template Monster look

Technorati Tags: Design, Relio, toonz, work

Popularity: 29% [?]