Hello again all.

Sorry I dipped off the radar again but I lost all inspiration! Themer's Block I suppose.

I've just returned from Egypt & Jordan and I created my first new theme for months.

Sadly, I haven't tested it on my phone yet because Mr. Vodafone rebranded it following a warranty repair. Mr. V. kindly agreed to remove his stupid firmware and replace it with S.E. generic firmware.

I'll be getting my phone back soon and, if all is well, this theme will be posted.

Welcome back

Cheers matey.

By the way, I notice there's a Mobile9 group on Facebook but it only has 4 members. I think it needs a recruitment drive!

LOL! That's right. I created it, but couldn't get much recruitment for it, not my strong point!

Just posting it now. I fettled it a bit here & there. Shiny golden tabs, desktop (Anubis) given a blue hue and few other tweaks. I like it.

I've tried to make it as functional and as clear as possible.

BTW, Mr. Vodafone let me down. They claim they were unable to flash my k800 with generic software.

I suppose I'll have to do it myself using Davinci. What a load of messing!

Ah, well - they gave me 20 quid by way of an apology. Nice.

welcome back pdownes nice work on the theme

Cheers matey. I'm still short of ideas for themes. Given my total lack of artistic leanings, I have to wait for ideas to pop into my head. I think it's about time I wrote a new Everton theme, what d'ya reckon Demon?

Might have it ready for the derby match.

I've just thrown this new Everton theme together. I find it quite difficult to keep text menus clearly visible when creating footie themes for some reason. Maybe it's because they tend to be a bit cluttered and have multi-coloured backgrounds.


What about this one? Less content in the images but a cleaner result. The problem is that the average footie fan wants loads of pictures of players, managers, etc.



I've posted both of the above themes and I'll watch to see which of them is more popular.

Well, it's the uncluttered one by a mile.

The customer is always right so that's the way to go from now on.

I'm still trying.

My latest effort. S.A.S.

I've tried my hand at arty-farty with this one.

Not my cup of tea personally but one for the nature & arty types maybe? I dunno. What do you think? I would appreciate any comments.

Polar Sunset

My Polar Sunset theme is proving popular with the punters, so I've created a similar one in the same vein.

Northern Lights



I think I'm making progress. Any comments from exhalted ones would be appreciated. Be harsh! It's the only way I learn where I'm going wrong.

This one is unashamedly garish and should appeal to quite a few people, I hope. I was pleasantly surprised when I put it onto my own k800. It looks much better on the phone than I thought it would.
Adidas Bling

Adidas theme looks good...

Few things tho, if I may... you have some jagged edges in there and IMHO the navigation screen could've been darkened a little bit more for the better functionality... btw, what happened with the softkeys on the desktop?!

I do need some advice on the jagged edges. I use Jasc Paint Shop Pro and I tried several tools to soften the edges but none of them produced the desired effect.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

As for the soft keys on the desktop - I prefer the desktop without them. It's just a personal choice. There is only one key anyway (Select) so, to be true to function, one of the softs would be redundant. In fact, I believe the select key is superfluous. Who uses it when it navigating away from the main menu? Your thumb is already on the joystick and it just needs a push-down, which is what folk do in reality. That's the engineer in me I suppose. Am I wrong?

Maybe the nav screen is a bit too bright but it started to degrade from gold into its base colours as I darkened it. I went as far as I dared.

Thanks for your comments, Jas. I appreciate your time.

This is my most ambitious theme so far. Wallace & Grommit

It started as an experiment in engineering. I tried to imagine the phone's software as a mechanical device with polished steel shafts supporting menu flags, which slide up and down on bronze bearing bushes. They are driven by a pair of bronze pulleys and a wire rope, positioned as near to the flag ends as possible.

The tabs are open framed cylinders, which also slide along a steel shaft on bronze bushes.

Mechanically speaking, it isn't quite true to life. The Morelist flags can't be attached to the rope due to the bars' dimensions - so I have taken some license and left them free sliding. I tried moving the pulleys further inboard but it looked awful. You'll have to imagine some other drive device for them!

As it developed, it became increasingly difficult & complicated. Eventually, it was quite insane! I had yet to decide what the standby image should be but there could only be one choice - that mad, crazy inventor, Wallace and his trusty sidekick, Grommit.

I could find no suitable animated image on the web, so I created my own. It's a bit jerky but it's my first effort.

nice work dude! keep it up!

nice work dude! keep it up!

Thanks matey. I'm glad you like it. I wasn't sure about it and I thought it would be a bit too harsh on the eye. Thought it might have been a bit too mad also!

This is slightly more conventional and provided me with some more experience with animation. Nemo

I've found that animating images is not as difficult as I thought. However, it demands pixel perfect precision or the effect is ruined. It's good practice.

Nice animation for the nemo theme *just keep swimming~* ! And I just love the concept for wallace & grommit! great work!

Many thanks. I am already on my next animation, an abstract mathematical nightmare. It doesn't make sense. It's driving me mad.

Wallace & Grommit - COOL CONCEPT

mmmm.... except the Desktop - not so quite good...
_____________

Nemo is OK, ...

the Animation is very nice,

but could be maybe a bit better quality... it s a bit grainy...

but above all, it is very big... 1636kb is a bit too large...

Keep it on
____________

And Good Luck in... the "abstract mathematical nightmare"

waiting impatiently to see the result !

hey hey!! more tech themes to come!!!

Wallace desktop - you're right. It was one of the last pages that I created and, to be honest, I was quite weary of the whole project by then. I might revisit that one.

Nemo animation is quite big. I suspect the software (The Gimp) that I used for the ripple effect has been extravagant. (Wallace animation is individual png frames - Paint Shop Pro) The images are quite grainy, I agree. I will learn from that. In future, I will edit the frames individually in Paint Shop Pro after The Gimp has created them. It will be very labour intensive and time consuming but Nil Satis Nisi Optimum !!

You're really improving your theming skills lately... keep it up...

Few suggestions tho... W&G has some nice details, but the text is overlapping them in some areas... Nemo would look even better with some dark blue frames on th popups... all IMHO, of course...

Thanks. I really appreciate your time and suggestions. My artistic eye is still developing. Sadly, it's all uphill and I'm wearing big heavy boots!

...

"...Sadly, it's all uphill and I'm wearing big heavy boots! ..."

Take your time mate, cause your in the right way

Cheers. Think I'll get some practice in now to cheer myself up after Everton lost to Liverpool ( referee) and England lost the rugby World Cup Final. Bad day !!

great work on your new themes pdownes

Thanks and, hey - call me Downsie

I've abandoned my mathematical animation for now. It's far too complex and, frankly, I just don't have the spare time. I have a real-life job to do! I will return to it sometime.

I'm working on a simpler animation in preparation for me getting my new car - it will be a Jaguar so no prizes for guessing the theme!

... and here it is Jaguar.

I've returned to my engineering roots with Jaguar. However, our cars are a blend of art & engineering. I've tried to reproduce the feel of a Jaguar. Imagine that the phone is a car. Outside it's sleek, shiny and slightly mysterious (even sexy). Inside it's a sumptuous mixture of chrome, leather and burr walnut veneer.

Enjoy.

Interesting concept and nicely executed as well... Did you consider to add the frames on the popups as well...?

Yes. I tried that but it was a bit over the top; too much walnut veneer. The walnut is kept to a minimum in Jaguars - too much makes it look like a Victorian wardrobe!

I also tried chrome frames but they overlapped the menu bars and it didn't look right.

Thanks again for your comments. Really appreciate your time.

nicely done my friend

Thank you all for your time and suggestions.

The British winter is here and the days are short, miserable and grey. So there I was at work, stressed out, feeling down and day dreaming about the beautiful tropical beaches that are so far away ... and a theme was born.
Castaway

Great theme there pdownes, I think the text in your navigation is a bit unreadable and should have been replaced with a darker color. Not that I'm very good at theming

Again, excellent themes

True - but it was a compromise. Darker text was my prefered option but there is a dark patch in Tabs where the palm tree is. I tried every colour in the rainbow and the pale yellow was the best compromise. It is clearer on the phone, I'm glad to say.

Thanks for comments.

On second thoughts, I might edit the Nav screen to accept darker text.
Still marching uphill.

- - EDIT - -

You were quite correct, Azure.

I have brightened the dark palm leaves as much as I dare (25%) without spoiling the shadow effect. I've replaced the pale text with black text, which is visible over the leaves and it looks much clearer. Thanks for the prompt.

Oh ... and I threw in a parrot just for fun.

Also, the clock throws an unnatural shadow in the TIME screen but I will correct that before it's uploaded.
As the file is yet to be validated by admin, I can't upload the edit just yet. Will do that as soon as it's validated.

Great work, pdownes! your welcome mate

Ok - all done. I think this is finished now.
I had to put a thatched image into the Input 2 screen to resolve the unnatural shadow, which was cast by the clock. Not an ideal solution but I can't paint the shadow out. It's a firmware feature.
Castaway

By the way, if you're wondering about the ringtones, they're a childhood memory from the 1960s. Robinson Crusoe was a popular children's TV series in Europe and the show's music still evokes strong images and happy memories in folk of my age!

I love the Marx Brothers. So, just for a laugh, this is my tribute. Includes Harpo's horn for tones.

Marx Brothers

Hi there, Paul!
I've just dropped by here to wish you (and me of course) Good Luck in the TMG! Let the war begin!