Doll Divine Blog

Puppy Maker

2010-09-02T13:50:00.003-07:00

Kamirah had done the drawings for the Puppy Maker in a week. My sister had coded it very well. However, I noticed that it didn't have the complete set of dog genetics that happens in nature... sooo.. I had to put a few "finishing touches" on it XD

But it's very close to done! I think it needs more accessories though.. what accessories would you like to see? (if they're easy to draw, i'll probably include them!)

ATLA voices

2010-08-26T19:28:00.005-07:00

So I just had to go online to see whether Sokka's voice actor was as sexy as he is and, *gasp*, he is!!! XD

And THEN I saw that Rufio does Zuko's voice, whaaa? :O

< /awesome >

(i'm on season 2, so no spoilers please!)

Status

2010-08-24T01:41:00.002-07:00

Hahaha, believe it or not, I don't mind religious and/or gay rights debates sprouting on the blog! Anything goes, as long as there's an open discussion. The worst thing is silence. :(

However, it is adorable that the discussion ended with kittens ~

RE: ATLA, I could see that it isn't about good and evil. It actually struck me very early on that each character was complex and human. The best example (as far as I've seen) was Jet. He was both the "bad guy" and the "hero" of the episode. In fact, I think the choices he made were very similar to ones that guerilla soldiers have to deal with in real wars.

About status, I had taken a few days off to make jewellery at my mom's place, but I'm back on track working on ATLA. Like Fairy Tale, if it takes a long time, it's due to the large number of items O_o

Airbender

2010-08-14T20:47:00.003-07:00

Awwwwwwwwww sooooooooo glad you guys are loving the Fairy Tale Chic Maker! Today it received a Daily Deviation on deviantart.com which is a huge honour! :D

It was long and painful putting those infinite items together, but it's pretty much impossible to say no to great art.

Thank you for the Roman Lady notification, lol! As soon as I saw that comment, I ran right over cuz I've also been waiting XD

I've decided now I'm gonna work on that secret Airbender project. I'm now watching the show so that I can do it justice. I was doing some Google research, and I came upon this picture:

Now, I haven't seen the film, and have no intent to. I wrote Shyamalan off a long time ago (altho I did enjoy The Village because I didn't guess the surprise ending.... aaaaaand I really wanna live in a village lol). So apparently there's controversy cuz the characters are Asian and the actors are white... Hahaha, well you guys know how i feel about representing races O_o

I'm only on season one, but I totally thought of Katara and Sokka as Inuit, not Asian. But yeah, duh, not white. I've actually given up hope on solving the world's problems a long time ago, but if nothing else, the film would probably be a lot more interesting if everyone wasn't white.

I think talent is #1 but sometimes you can just tell when an effort hasn't been made.... or maybe creativity is just lacking :\

Modern Mucha

2010-08-06T16:50:00.002-07:00

Sorry Fairy Tale is taking so long, but I've got some serious personal issues right now. It shouldn't be much longer though.

Luckily, in the meantime, Gasara finished the Modern Mucha dress up commission and I barely had to do anything to it, so it's up!

You might have noticed I put some new preview pics up. I'm pretty frickin excited about what's coming up :D

Airbender

2010-07-20T04:08:00.002-07:00

Ok, so actually there's great news on the Airbender dress up front. It's gonna be a surprise, and it's probably not quite what you think, but it's gonna be awesome nonetheless. Hehe.

Also, there's another planned collaboration that I'm ridiculously excited about, but don't want to reveal until it's more finalized.

Also, I will have internet on Mondays, but I won't necessarily update every Monday. I don't always have something interesting to say haha.

Fairy Tale Maker is going well, and quickly. But it's got so much stuff that it might bog down slow computers hahaha :(

Avatar is done!

2010-07-12T16:52:00.003-07:00

Sorry about the delays guys. I'm having some personal issues and staying at my mom's place so now I only have internet on Mondays O_o

Also, I'm getting less and less capable of keeping up with individual comments which is exciting, but very sad at the same time :/

So please, if you need a direct answer to a question, e-mail me directly at ola.rogula@gmail.com. Otherwise, I will read all blog comments, just not always reply.

Alsoooo, I'm releasing the Avatar dress up game. It's not 100% ready, but if I didn't upload it today, it would have to have been next Monday haha. Also, thank you very much to everyone who beta tested. Due to my internet problems, I was only able to read all comments once and probably forgot a lot of suggestions that I had originally wanted to include. The general gist though was more stuff for the guy, and colour changing options for both. I did all of that except changing skin colour because I ran out of time. Enjoy :)

As for requests, I probably won't tackle Airbender because I've never seen the show, and some other good reasons some of you touched on, and because there is indeed an awesome Katara dress up which I'll add to the site as soon as I remember to ask for permission (some of you have surely found it already).

About a timeline, I definitely want to do historical clothing, but it would have to be one era at a time because you know how I tend to go off the deep end with detail O_o

Avatar Best Test

2010-06-28T12:08:00.003-07:00

I just had a post about beta testing Avatar, but I've had a lot of responses now so I'll close the call for more.

...now if only people would start replying, lol. O_o

Updates ~

2010-06-18T13:34:00.002-07:00

Yesterday was my last day at work!

The next week and a half are gonna be quite busy for me though, but after that expect things to really ramp up. :D

As you might have seen, my sister is working on programming the Pin Up Maker and it is super duper awesome. Shouldn't be longer than a week for that one.

Avatar is going slow because I'm drawing the female's clothes and accessories and I just don't know where to stop haha. After that it should be smooth sailing.

In the mean time, be sure to check out Rinmaru's Hogwarts dress up which I couldn't help but snag, Azalea's Fantasia dress up, and shidabeeda's Plus Size dress up.

Oh, I'm also working on a secret project which is also super cool and will be revealed soon!

Anthro Maker!

2010-06-02T22:42:00.003-07:00

Yay, at last here's the Anthro Maker!

Artwork by setsuna22

And I think someone asked, the Elven Fashion is by questionstar

Pin-up's by kinkei

Puppy Maker, of course, by Kamirah

Fairy Tale, of course, by pixelledanddead

Fantasy Horse by dolphy

Dragon Maker by emryswolf

Nesty/Saloon by moemai

PS. about the "gay" debate, ladies, actually, you're both mistaken.

It's not considerate to use "gay" as a derogatory term, but it's also bad manners to point out others' mistakes, especially if you don't have evidence that they didn't mean harm ~

Choosing the layout

2010-05-27T15:57:00.003-07:00

Guys, the more I think about it, the more I realize that the original layout won't work.

First of all, I've had multiple people go on the page and NOT BEEN ABLE TO FIND GAMES. This is errr... pretty much unacceptable.

Secondly, the page will have more and more games... hundreds, and eventually thousands. Remember how two years ago the site only had 3 games? They can't all be on one page.

I think realistically, option 3 is really the only option. Thanks to all of you for your awesome feedback. I don't know what I was thinking trying out that second version without consulting the blog ;)

I'm gonna go with option 3 but it's not polished yet so I'm open to suggestions on it. For example:

- is the current colour scheme ok?

- should i replace the flowers in the logo with dolls?

- what should be added or removed from the section on the bottom of the pages?

- any other features you'd like to see? how bout in-progress pics of dolls as I work on them?

- more or less categories? which ones?

3rd Try :)

2010-05-26T20:19:00.002-07:00

To be fair to the third option, I made a sample of it.

(NOTE: I would make MUCH NICER preview pics)

Right now all the categories lead to a mock up animal page.

- I'm not sure if the category pages would have ads

- What do u think about those 3 pics on the top right of the main page and the new animal category page? Useful? Cluttered? I thought maybe if someone hasn't visited for a while, they might wanna know what they missed. Here's a version without them.

I'm still not 100% sure about categories, and I'm still listening to suggestions! Getting lots of great feedback. The games I find more confusing: warrior, pirate, adventurer, anime avatar, clockwork couture. Also, if categories are on separate pages, is it then ok to repeat games in categories? What's the reasoning for keeping games in one category only? (just curious)

More on the layout

2010-05-25T22:02:00.003-07:00

For those that can't see the new layout, click here :)

New idea:

What if I stopped trying to fit all the games on one page, and instead just had the newest games, future games, and big category buttons leading to other pages?

Then, say on the animal page, there would be Doll Divine games clearly on top, and other games below. Same with the fantasy page etc.

(the reason I'm re-working the site is cuz multiple people told me they were so confused that they never even opened a game!)

Also, I know the categories are confusing... anyone have any better way to categorize them?

Just for clarification, there's three statuses now because I've got 3 games in the works. I don't usually. Avatar was going so slow that I decided to squeeze the Korean Queen first. Also, I've roped my sister into coding for me so she's working on Anthro (and doing an AMAZING job!). Between her help and the lay off, next month things should really get going fast. :D

Playing with the layout

2010-05-24T12:57:00.002-07:00

Haha, you guys are quick! I only had the new layout on for half a day, and it's only being shown to half of my visitors (I'm doing A/B testing to see which layout performs better).

Didn't anybody notice the main thing: there are no ads? I removed all the ads. I thought people hated ads?

I've also had people asking how they can play the in-progress games, so I moved them to the side where I hoped they wouldn't confuse people.

Also, I had a poll on the deviantArt account asking which way my games should be organized and the #1 result, by far, was by category.

(those are the reasons behind the changes)

According to the statistics, the new page is working: only 40% of people leave from that page, and 60% leave from the old page. Clearly though, according to you guys it's not working, haha.

Sooo... what if I put the games by category, but doll divine categories first, then the other dolls? Wouldn't that be more cluttered? Talk to me!

Lay Off

2010-05-10T21:09:00.002-07:00

While the illusive thing they call a "jobless recovery" is apparently under way, I just got my lay off notice, and so did my boyfriend. (lay off = you lose your job because your employer can't afford to keep you)

This is actually great news for all of us because it means I'll get to spend all of my work time on MAKING MORE GAMES! I wasn't brave enough to quit on my own yet to pursue the website full time, but this makes me take the plunge :)

Haha, feel sorry for me? If you ever wanna help out, the best favour you can do me is to forward the site to others who you think might enjoy it... and keep coming back. Oh, and give me any advice about the site which might help keep others coming back :)

I'm working on the Avatar game now. I hadn't touched it for months, but now I'm all into it again, haha. If you hadn't seen the movie yet, see it! I'm not gonna tell you that it's a masterpiece or that it's perfect (it's quite cheesy) but if you like escapism and pretty scenes, it's a must-see!

I relate to James Cameron (the director) quite a bit. We're both people that started out with science degrees, but got bored with science and decided to do something more creative. He's definitely one of my idols!

Four Elements!

2010-05-09T20:59:00.002-07:00

As usual, I'm not dead, just working away. Finally got the Four Elements dress up game together.

Look out for the new hairstyles and bonus features ;D

Oh, and I put a preview for Avatar on the main page.

I can't right this moment, but I will answer everybody's comments :)

Element of Air

2010-04-25T17:56:00.002-07:00

Yay, it's finally done! The Element of Air dress up game!

Now I'll put all four together so that you can play them all at once. Hopefully it won't take longer than a week to do.

After that, what should I do?

Between the collaborations, I had a small vote on the Doll Divine Facebook Page and the clear winner was Anthro. That works for me because it should be a really quick one to make (Unlike the Fairy Tale Maker... pixelledanddead stuffed that thing with billions of options, lol).

I was gonna finish Avatar first, but now since it's already so late, what should come first? Avatar or Anthro? (see Anthro preview pic on dolldivine.com)

Status

2010-04-16T00:33:00.002-07:00

It's true, the status bars have moved, hehe. I'm just finishing off hairstyles for Air, and then I have to do backgrounds, and I think Azalea has one more background left. Then, of course, programming.

I've had a bit of a delay because my boyfriend had this idea for a website and made me carry it out. It turns out that the website is a HUGE hit and all the major Canadian news outlets want to interview us. Yesterday we did a radio interview, and tomorrow we're doing a TV interview! The website is this: Crack Shack or Mansion? It makes fun of the crazy prices the Vancouver real estate bubble has achieved.

But don't worry, I'm working on the game whenever I can :)

Element of Fffffire!

2010-04-02T20:36:00.003-07:00

Finally finished the Element of Fire dress up game.

Hehe, so no, don't worry, I haven't died or anything.

Anybody following Eurovision? Who are your favourites?

If you don't know, Eurovision is a big song contest in Europe. It's how ABBA got discovered (it's way older than American Idol etc.). Each country first votes on the best song, then they send the band to compete for the best song in all of Europe. They often fall in the so-bad-it's-good category and are very cheesy. You can go to YouTube and search for "Eurovision 2010" if you're interested.

Earth!

2010-03-20T17:23:00.002-07:00

As most of you have seen, the Earth Element dress up game is here :D

Regarding criticism, don't worry you guys, I welcome it! That's one of the best parts of having this blog. There's no need to apologize :)

Don't get me wrong; I'm a human and I have feelings, so don't write anything unnecessarily mean ~

And not everyone will like every single item in a game; that's the beauty of dress ups: you get to choose.

But definitely, if something seems off to you, please let me know. Odds are good that other people are thinking the same thing. When people are honest with me, the best progress happens.

For example, you guys didn't like that you can't remove Water's clothes by clicking on them, so I changed that in Earth. Water had her underwear disappear but I didn't realize people liked it so much so I didn't bother to add that to Earth.. but now I will! :D

(I'll probably implement all these improvements in the final 4-in-1 game)

Also, Azalea is totally kicking my butt in terms of drawing hairstyles, and it was thanks to you guys that I realized it.

Are you guys able to guess which items were drawn by which person? We each drew roughly half of everything.. Azalea probably a bit more, and I'm coding more. Does any item scream "OLa!"? hehe

Water!

2010-03-11T15:43:00.003-08:00

At last, at last:

Water Element dress up game :D

Lemmie know if you see some bugs or have ideas. Keep in mind, I'm not likely to draw anything else, but I can add/change colours and little stuff ;)

Hamster!

2010-03-05T13:48:00.002-08:00

Omigod you guys, check out my hamster. Isn't it the cutest thing ever?

Let's say it's a boy and his name is Mr. Nibbles.

Mr. Nibbles says "Feed me!!!"

In other news, the Water Element game is getting very close to done :)

Status of Four Elements

2010-02-26T11:36:00.004-08:00

I know it looks like there's not much happening with the Four Elements doll, but it's not true!

Even though there's two of us working on it (me and Azalea), you might think it should take half the time.. but wait! Since it's the four elements, there's actually FOUR dolls in one! So even with twice the people it'll still take twice the time.

Also, when I first divided the status squares up for each element, I filled them in in a really stupid manner, so now I've been waiting for the work to catch up to where I filled in. I think we're finally caught up.

Aaaalso, as you may or may not know, I live in Vancouver which just happens to be hosting the Olympic Winter Games. There's soooo much to do all over town! And even going to events is not as expensive as you'd think... My boyfriend has been to 3 hockey games, and I've been to a hockey game and the men's curling semi-finals (Go Canada!). I might even go up to Whistler and check out some events there this weekend.

Is it true that the news everywhere is calling it the "worst olympics ever"? Cuz there's been hits and misses, but I think the real stars have been the graphics! Consider:

- our mascots are super cute!

- the colour/graphic scheme is very west-coast and very now (all the stuff you see in the blue-green shades). At one point I had access to the Olympics graphics database and I was impressed overall (I just hate that helicopter with the dragonfly wings)

- in the Opening Ceremonies, the best parts were the impressive graphics, like the whales or icebergs, or trees.

- the footage you see is amazing! The picture is so sharp.. even the slow-motion is super crisp. And that thing where they super-impose two athletes and show them going at once? Genius!

I feel very privileged to be able to experience this.. it's a lot more fun than anyone saw coming. (I don't think that governments should sponsor Olympics though.. did you know that the Atlanta Olympics were fully funded by sponsorships? It can be done!).

What do you guys think?

Avatar - Call for ideas!

2010-01-24T22:25:00.002-08:00

After the 4 elements dress up, I'm gonna make an Avatar dress up. I was gonna do Star Trek, but I just saw the movie and know that I should really jump on the opportunity. I'm already late as it is.

But, in the meantime, I thought I'd put out a call for ideas. You guys always have good ideas, and since you know I don't always have the energy to go back and add stuff later, I thought I'd ask before :)

It's gonna be a couples dress up!

Please post any items/options you'd like to see in the game, and feel free to link to photos for reference.

I am also wondering:

How important is the human/army clothing? I would rather not add it, unless I hear protests..

How important is it to change the facial features? The Na'vi all look similar so I'm debating whether it's worth the effort.

Sailor Senshi Maker

2010-01-16T11:02:00.002-08:00

As you may have noticed, I finally finished the Sailor Senshi dress up game =D

Please let me know if you spot some bugs..

As some of you have noticed, Azalea just released a new game too so go check out her gorgeous Brigitte Bardot dress up! And as you may have seen on the main dress up site, I'm collaborating with Azalea to bring you a super robust Four Elements dress up game :D

Also, it's my birthday today! I'm 27.

So, as I reflect upon my life I have one piece of advice for everyone:

Understand economics.

Take any/all money-related classes you can, but do research outside of school too, and whatever you do, don't get your news from CNN. I just read "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" by Robert Kiyosaki and I highly recommend it to everyone. There's a lot of talk about being rich, but I think the more important lessons are about how taxes really work and why they don't teach you much about money at school. Kiyosaki's latest book is available for free online, so nobody has any excuses! And I don't wanna hear "I'm too young". I find younger people absorb new concepts faster and are much more open minded than university graduates who think they know everything.

~Cheers :)