Everything Louder is nearly a year old and when I set the site up I said that the site's future would depend on how successful it has been at its first anniversary. It took a while but it's starting to kick off and I think that more and more people are beginning to realise that the site exists and so today the domain name for Everything Louder was renewed meaning that the site will be around for another year at least.
Again the site will have its future decided on again this time next year, but until then I will endeavour to provide the Meat Loaf community with more screencaps and graphics.

I know that screencapping hasn't finished for Celebrity Apprentice as there's still one episode left but what is next for Everything Louder after this project is finished?
Firstly there is a half written review of the 'In Search of Paradise' documentary waiting to be finished and I imagine that'll be the next priority but since I can't concentrate on writing a review for huge amounts of time it'll be spaced in between screencapping MSO and Three Bats Live. Not only that but there will be a Celebrity Apprentice graphics set available at some point in the not too distant future. Quite what that set will contain is yet to be decided on but most likely it'll be some small icons, larger icons and banners and possibly a couple of desktops too.
Now Everything Louder has started to kick off we're not going anywhere.

The current version of Everything Louder is approaching it's first anniversary and the site has just reached a landmark. The aim of the website is to be the number one source for Meat Loaf screencaps and graphics and whilst that can't actually be measured accurately, the number of images in the gallery can be.
Today Everything Louder celebrated it's 500th upload and that 500th image is a special commemorative desktop.

I would like to thank everyone who has supported Everything Louder this year and I look forward to many more years of providing the Meat Loaf community with screencaps and graphics.

I'm sure anyone reading this blog already knows who made the final two in Celebrity Apprentice so this hopefully shouldn't ruin the surprise. After surviving yet another boardroom and making it to the final four Meat Loaf, along with the other contestants faced an interview with the three previous winners. The panel asked questions on their weaknesses, the things they had to offer the competition as well as the contestant they'd throw under a bus. Whilst I felt that one of the panel seemed to have it in for Meat, I felt he handled it well.
It came to the firings and the first to go was Lil' Jon who was fired because when asked by the panel who he thought should be in the final two he didn't give himself. With Lil' Jon gone Donald Trump went to focus on to Meat Loaf's emotions and although he said that he liked the fact that Meat wears his heart on his sleeve, his emotions weren't always an advantage in the business setting and Meat was fired.
Meat Loaf may not be called a 'winner' in terms of the show but I feel that sometimes that everything particularly if you're not true to yourself. Throughout Celebrity Apprentice Meat has demonstrated that he's a hard worker, is passionate about everything he does and his charity but is also someone that will stand up for himself if needs to be without making any enemies. I have more respect for a person like that than one who wins by backstabbing or cares only about making themselves look good.
Not only that but there are plenty of things that Meat has achieved in his time on Celebrity Apprentice, most notably the $204,580 he raised for The Painted Turtle. He also says that he's learnt so much about himself from doing the show and that too should be considered a victory.

A couple of people I know have asked me about whether Meat Loaf knows about Everything Louder and whether he approves of the artwork. I know the artwork hasn't had his approval and as for his knowledge that the site even exists, I don't know. I've never been contacted about the content and so all I can think is that he might know it exists. I try to ensure that the content of the site portrays him positively but at the end of the day it's a fansite. I created it for his fans.
I have thought about writing to him, telling him the site exists and if there are any issues with the content then I'd gladly take it down or swap it but I've been to scared to do it. After all, it's better to hear nothing than being told negative things from a person you respect so much about a site that you work hard on? If you get that kind of feedback, is it going to affect the future of the site? Some of my friends may know the story of some feedback I recieved a few years ago about a website I used to run. It was abrupt and without any kind of nicety to soften the blow of the errors they pointed out. I fixed the errors but because of the way they had asked me, I never felt the same way about the site again.
I know that Everything Louder is different from this other site simply because of the person it's dedicated to but the feedback may end up coming from an agent, who doesn't appreciate the efforts that fans put into projects like this. For now I think I will just carry on the way I have been and if Meat or his agents/managers have something to say about the site then they can contact me.

I mentioned in yesterday's post that I was adding a new page to Everything Louder and I said I'd elsborate more in another post. As we all know Meat Loaf is a charitable man with a big heart and we also know that he's currently appearing in Celebrity Apprentice to raise money for The Painted Turtle. Somehow in a discussion, the matter of us supporting his charity came up and one of the fans suggested using webspace to promote the book that Team Backbone wrote in Episode 2, that is being sold to raise money for Meat's charity. Everything Louder is a website, I have webspace to spare so why not put some of that webspace to good use and support this fantastic charity by adding just one more page to the site? So that is what I have done and now you can find the links to buy your copy of  'Not So Little Jon' on Everything Louder.
Meat Loaf and his Backbone team mates, John Rich, Lil Jon and Mark McGrath are also planning to release a song together to raise money for their four charities and when that's released the links for that will be added to the page as well.

Every time I go to add a new main page to the site it's the same story. It has to be added to the navigation structure or it'll be a hidden page and that's not really all that helpful if I actually want people to read the page. Adding links to the top navigation bar is reasonably simple as they're just text links but the main navigation bar has image links (I wanted a nice font) so every time I add a page I've got to make a new button. The trouble is I'd never saved an editable file of the menu button and the new button never looks quite like the rest of the set so I've got to remake the whole set. I've lost count of the amount of times I've had to do this so this time I've remembered to do an editable file.
The new page that I'm working on is not strictly a new page, it's reintroducing one of the old ones that was used for the Hang Cool Fan Campaign last year. I'll elaborate more on this in another post.

The Celebrity Apprentice screencaps will be online tomorrow.

I've not made a new desktop in a while and since I found a picture that I really liked I thought it would be a shame not to use it in some kind of desktop. The trouble is that sometimes pictures themselves don't give you much inspiration on how to make them into something more artistic so every so often I'll buy a Photoshop magazine. I never follow the tutorials in them all the way through, since I usually go off and do my own thing but they're a good inspiration. The latest desktop that I have made was inspired by one of these tutorials although if you'd have seen the image that I used as inspiration and the finished product, you'd have a hard job recognising any similarity between the two.

Something I find when reading tutorials for graphics is that they tend to result in a rather feminine looking end product and they usually use a picture of a woman or girl. That's not helpful for me so I had to learn to adapt. Sometimes it may seem that all you'd need to do is swap pink for blue but it's not that simple as tutorials are actually written with a colour scheme in mind and sometimes you've got to change the blending modes because of it. It's why I learnt to use these tutorials as inspiration rather than following them and I hope it's made me a better artist.