Time for a Change

So if anyone has been following my blog since my first post (not likely) you'll know I've been meaning to re-vamp my website for a few years now. It was cool back in '06 when I made it, but it's now 2009 and in web time three years is an eternity. I think since early 2007 is when I decided I really needed to start thinking about a refresh, but at that time I was really getting busy with my artwork and custom toys. Needless to say that's been consuming all my time, so even though the website was always on my mind, it was buried far in the back.

Fast forward to late 2008. I started to think I should ditch my Flash site and Blogger blog, and go back to HTML and install Wordpress on my server. Since I'm a web designer and was a Web Developer/E-Commerce Technical Manager at my old job for a handful of years, I also figured there's no excuse for me using a canned blog sitting on someone else's server. Needless to say, the lack of time once again trumped me getting my act together and getting a real Reactor-88 blog, and in turn updating my website.

Now fast forward to two months ago. Seems everyone is opening an Etsy or Big Cartel store. I usually don't have much stuff to sell (most of my work sells through galleries or are direct commissions for clients), but I do like to make custom minis and throw them up for grabs once in a while. I also have a handful of older customs that didn't sell, and I'd like to do some other fun stuff like t-shirts, small prints, and maybe even some original resin figs and other goodies. So I thought it was time for me to look into setting up an e-store. After a little research, it seemed Big Cartel would be the best option for me, though far from perfect. The basic version of their store is free, but it's really limited and didn't have enough functionality for my needs. The pay versions were better, but since I would only put things in my store a few times a year I determined it would actually be a waste of money- and I don't have a lot of money to waste these days...

With that, I figured now was definitely the time to get Wordpress and a nice shopping cart system running on my server. I just finished a big freelance Flash/Web project (and promised myself not to do any more serious freelance web work for a while) and I've already cut way back on the number of art shows I'm doing this year. So 2009 is mainly about commissions and getting this web overhaul completed. I was conerned configuring this stuff and getting it up and running would be a pain, but Media Temple made it super easy with their "1-click" installs of Wordpress and Zen Cart. Thank you Media Temple. Hopefully the local setup will be almost as easy- I'm putting a lot of my faith in MAMP...
So I will officially be moving my blog to my own domain/server soon, as well as setting up a real webstore which I'm guessing will take a bit longer. Following will be a new website- possibly Flash again, or maybe a mix of DHTML/AJAX/Flash- I've yet to figure that out.

So to make a long story short, this will be one of the final posts on this blog. I will make a final announcement here when the switch over happens. But some of you might be wondering, "Hey, when/where are you going to sell that last batch of custom Dunnys you made?" "This was the only reason I read your dumb blog!" Don't worry, I will be posting information on how to purchase the Dunnys on this blog soon. Thanks for your patience.