How to Create Funky 3D Springs in Illustrator

Step 1

Create a new document. With the Ellipse Tool (L), make a circle 25px by 25px. Fill it with red and no Stroke.

Step 2

Select the circle and go to Effect > 3D > Revolve. Enter the values as shown in the figure below. A Revolve angle of 180 degree is to make a semi-ring. An offset of 100pt from the right edge adds a distance between the revolve axis and the path on which the object will revolve.

Step 3

Now we’ll duplicate and Send to Back. Alt-drag the ring to make a duplicate copy as shown. Use Command + Shift + Left Bracket to send it back.

Step 4

With the duplicate copy still selected, open the Appearance palette (Shift + F6). Double-click the 3D Revolve effect, as shown below.

Step 5

In the 3D Revolve dialog box, change the z-axis value to 10 and offset to Left Edge. Keep rest of the values as it is. The two basic elements for the spring are now created.

Step 6

Now we’ll match the faces. Hold the duplicate copy and place it exactly behind the right face of the original one. Use the keyboard arrow keys to do so. See in the image below how this is done.

Tip: Go to Edit > Preferences > General (Command + K). In the dialog box, reduce the Keyboard increment to 0.05px or even less. This is helpful in achieving more accuracy when you are shifting the objects with the keyboard arrow keys.

Step 7

Select the rings and Alt-drag to duplicate. Send “ring 4″ to back (Command + Shift + Left Bracket key).

Step 8

Now select “ring3″ and “ring 4,” then match the left face of “ring 4″ exactly behind the left face of “ring1.”
Tip: Use Shift + Arrow key for larger increments and simply push the Arrow key for normal increments. As we know, there is no way to join 3D faces in illustrator; the overall quality of the final result will depend upon your hand’s precision. So, try your best to match the faces.

Step 9

Follow Steps 7 and 8 to extend the spring. This can be done either by duplicating one ring at a time, or duplicating the entire set of rings. Let’s do it with an entire set. Select everything and Alt-drag to duplicate. Send “ring 6″ to back (Command + Shift + Left Bracket).

Step 10

Now we have two sets and we have to connect them. Key logic: Match the bottom-most face of “set 2″ with top-most face of “set 1″.

Step 11

Now we want a stretch in the spring. For this, duplicate “ring 8″ by Alt-dragging, and connect it with “ring 7.” Assume this as “ring 10,” as we will make “ring 9″ in the next step.

Step 12

Duplicate “ring 7″ by Alt-dragging and open its 3D properties from the Appearance Palette (Shift + F6). Change the z-axis rotation to -4, as shown in the image below.

Step 13

Connect “ring 9″ to the right face of “ring 10,” as shown below.

Step 14

Duplicate “ring 10″ and change its z-axis rotation to 14. Do this by clicking on the 3D Revolve properties from the Appearance palette. Next, connect it with the left face of “ring 9,” as shown below.

Step 15

Following the same procedure, duplicate “ring 9,” change its z-axis value to -8 and connect its right face to “ring 12.”

Step 16

Similarly, duplicate “ring 12,” change its z-axis to 18, and connect its left face to “ring 11.”

Step 17

Now duplicate “ring 11″ and connect its right face to “ring 14,” without changing anything.

Step 18

Select “rings 13″ and “ring 14″ together and duplicate them. Send “ring 16″ to back (Command + Shift + Left Bracket). Now join the resulting rings at the left face of “ring 13.”

Step 19

Now duplicate “ring 16″ by Alt-dragging and connect it to the left face of “ring 15.”

Step 20

Carefully select the rings 1, 3, 4, and 6, then duplicate them. You may need to lock some rings (Command + 2) to select the desired ones.

Step 21

The final step is to connect the resultant set of Step 20 to the right face of “ring 18.” The final result after successful placement shall be like this.

Conclusion and Scope

With this basic technique of spring formation, we can obtain creative results by simply experimenting with the rotation values in the 3D Revolve option. The only drawback with this technique is that we can not join the 3D faces. This affects the overall quality of the desired result. However, at 800px sizes, these errors are not legible and we can easily use the results in icon designing. You can try this technique in creating shock-absorbers and Spiral CFL (Bulbs).
The image below shows some experiments done with this procedure. You can find the rotation values for each result in the source file. Thanks everybody for your patience and valuable time. Hope you enjoyed this tutorial!

How do I host my own website at home

You can host your own website at home, and I'll tell you exactly how! But it might not save you much money, and it definitely won't save you time. So give it serious thought before you proceed... unless your goal is simply to learn about the technology and have fun! The best reason to host your website at home is to learn how it all works. 
Warning: running a server of any kind at home is a security risk. Security problems are sometimes found in server software, and these can be exploited to gain access to or damage your files. Your computer must be kept absolutely up to date with Windows Update or the equivalent for your operating system if you intend to run a web server on it. If you choose to run Apache instead of Internet Information Server, you'll need to keep your version of Apache absolutely up to date too. This doesn't eliminate the risk -- it only minimizes it. You run a server at home entirely at your own risk. If you do choose to run a server at home, I recommend finding an old PC on the curb and setting it up as your home server, reducing the danger to your own computer.

Procedures for other operating systems are similar, and most of these steps actually involve your router, so this article should still be helpful to non-Windows users.

Here are the steps to follow to set up a website hosted entirely on your own Windows PC. First I'll present the general steps, then I'll break down the details for you:
1. Make sure you have cable modem, DSL or another high-speed connection. A dialup telephone modem is NOT good enough.
2. Get a DNS hostname for your home Internet connection.
3. Get a static local IP address for your computer within your home network.
4. Configure your router to correctly forward connections on port 80 (the HTTP port) to your web server. Even if you think you don't have a router, you probably do— many popular cable and DSL modems include wifi or wired Ethernet jacks for multiple computers, which means they contain a built-in router. If your ISP blocks port 80, choose an alternative port number and forward that (or get a better ISP that welcomes websites at home, like Speakeasy.Net).
5. Configure Windows Firewall to allow your web server to communicate on port 80.
6. Get Apache, a free, high-quality web server program. If you have Windows XP Professional, you also have the option of Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS), which comes standard with Windows XP Professional. But that option only allows you to host one site. I recommend Apache.
7. Test your web server from your own computer.
8. Replace the default home page with your own web page. Now the site is your own!
9. Test your web server from a computer that is NOT on your home network to make sure you followed all of the steps correctly.

"I followed all the steps and I get my router's login page instead of my home page!"

You are trying to access your website by name from behind your router (from one of your own PCs). With some consumer-grade routers, this does not work because the router automatically assumes any web connection to itself from inside your network is an attempt to log into the router's configuration interface. It's a pain, but this fail-safe mechanism does prevent you from locking yourself out of your router's web interface. So test from outside your own home network or have a friend do that for you. If you can access your home-hosted website from someone else's computer, then you don't have a problem. If you want to access your site from a computer behind your router, you'll have to access it at its static local IP address instead of by name.

And that's it! Now I'll present detailed information about each step. Step One: Broadband
Get cable modem (from the cable company) or DSL (from the phone company and various other companies). If you can't do that, you'll have to host your website in some other way. Your computer must have a fast connection to grapple with video and audio files anyway. You don't necessarily have to go with your phone company's DSL offering. Check out broadbandreports.com for independent reviews of cable modem and DSL companies. Upload speed, not download speed, is the most important feature for hosting websites at home.

"How fast will my home-based website be?"

The main limitation will be your upload speed (uplink speed). Most DSL or cable modem connections have an upload speed between 128kbps (128,000 bits per second) and 384kbps (384,000 bits per second). So how long does it take to load your home page? Add up the size of your home page (in bytes), the sizes of all of the images on that page, and the size of any Flash movies (.swf files) or CSS style sheets (.css files) referenced by that page. Now multiply by 8 and you'll know how many bits make up your home page. Divide that by your upload speed and you'll have a rough idea how long it takes to load your home page under ideal conditions. There will also be latency delays slowing things down, and multiple users will of course slow things down and make it take longer. There is no fixed limit on the number of users who can access your home-based website at the same time - things just slow down.
For more information, see my article how fast is my website?

Step Two: Dynamic or Static DNS
Other people can't talk to your website if they don't know the address... and if you have a typical cable modem or DSL connection, your address changes often. You can solve this problem by using a dynamic DNS service. Even if your IP address doesn't change, you still need someone to host a DNS server for you, unless you are willing to put up with giving users a URL that begins with a string of numbers. This is a common requirement both for hosting websites at home and for hosting torrents, so I've written a separate article explaining how to get a hostname for your computer at home.
Step Three: A Static Local IP Address
If you have a router... and you do, if you have WiFi (wireless access) or more than one computer... then your computer receives a new local address on your home network, or Intranet, every time it is powered on. But to forward web browser connections to your computer, you need an unchanging address to forward those connections to. This is also a shared requirement both for hosting websites at home and for hosting torrents, so I've written a separate article explaining how to give your computer a static local IP address.
Step Four: Forwarding Port 80
If you don't have a router (and you know by now, if you have been following these steps...) then you can skip this step and move on to the next. If you have WiFi, or more than one computer, you definitely have a router and must not skip this step.
Now that you have chosen a static local IP for your computer, you're ready to configure the router to forward web traffic to your computer.
Again, this step is needed both for web hosting at home and for BitTorrent hosting. So, once again, there is a separate article explaining how to forward ports from the Internet to your computer via your router. Just follow the steps in that article to forward port 80.
Step Five: Allowing Web Traffic Through The Firewall
More firewall issues? Didn't we already do this? Only in part. Yes, your router serves as a firewall, but your computer also has a built-in firewall. You'll need to configure that firewall to allow traffic through on port 80 to reach your web server software. This step is also common to both web hosting and torrent hosting... so check out my article explaining how to allow traffic on specific ports through your computer's firewall.
Step Six: Get Apache Or Internet Information Server

Mac and Linux users: you already have Apache! MacOS X users should read Kevin Hemenway's great article on onlamp.com. Linux users: install the Apache packages and look in /var/www/html or a similar location for your website folder.

Apache is the most popular web server in the world, with nearly 70% of all websites running Apache as of January 2006, according to the netcraft web server survey. Why is it so popular? Because it's free, open-source, high-quality software. And you can run it on your Windows box at home! If you have Windows XP Professional, you can also run Microsoft Internet Information Server. It comes free in the box... but only with XP Professional (and high-end server versions of Windows). If you have XP Home, or an older version of Windows, go with Apache - and consider upgrading to at least XP Home for better network performance.
I'll cover Apache first. Then I'll look at Internet Information Server, which is also excellent and is available if you have Windows XP Professional or a high-end server version of Windows. It will only host one site per computer on XP Professional, though.

Windows 98 and Me users can use Microsoft's "Personal Web Server." However, this software went away with the release of XP Home, and it's not a popular choice. Since you can run Apache for free - the world's most popular web server, for businesses and individuals alike - I don't recommend suffering with PWS.

Apache Quick-Start Guide
Although Apache was born in the Unix/Linux world, it runs great on Windows too. In general, the newer your Windows, the easier it is to install Apache. Those with older versions of Windows, even Windows 95, can still run Apache but will have to jump through a few extra hoops. For complete information, check out the Apache Foundation's Microsoft Windows Apache installation tutorial. Since that article is a little old, you'll just have to bear in mind that instructions for Windows NT or 2000 also apply to Windows XP.

The following quick-start guide applies to Windows XP, but users of older versions of Windows can run Apache too... if they follow the extra steps spelled out in the Apache Foundation's Using Apache with Microsoft Windows tutorial to prepare their older computers to handle modern software installation and networking.

Upgrading to Windows XP Service Pack 2
Microsoft has fixed problems in Windows XP that create issues for Apache. Use Windows Update to upgrade your Windows XP system to service pack 2. You have probably already done this. If not, you need to do it in any case to fix many important security problems that have nothing to do with Apache!
Not sure if you have service pack 2? Do this: click on "Start," right-click on "My Computer," select "Properties" and look at the information presented under "System." You should see "Service Pack 2." If not, visit Microsoft's Windows Update site, using Interet Explorer, not Firefox... just this once! The Windows Update site uses special Active X controls to update your computer. Normally I don't encourage the use of Active X, but for upgrading Microsoft's own operating system from Microsoft's own website using Microsoft's own browser, it's OK!
Downloading Apache
Visit the Apache HTTP Server Project home page. In the column at left, locate "Download!" and click on "from a mirror." The download page will appear. Scroll down until you locate the link to download the "Win32 Binary (MSI Installer)" distribution of Apache, not the "Win32 Source." That's raw source code for programmers - probably not what you want!
Click on the link for the "Win32 Binary (MSI Installer)" and wait for your browser to save the file to disk.
Installing Apache
Once the download is complete, you're ready to install the software. Double-click on the file you just downloaded on your desktop (for Firefox) or in your downloads folder (for Internet Explorer) to launch the installation program. The "Installation Wizard" window will appear.
First you'll see the "Welcome to the Installation Wizard" page. Click "Next" to continue.
Next, you'll see the Apache license agreement. The Apache license allows you to share the software freely, including the source code. Select "I accept the terms in the license agreement" and click "Next."
The "Read This First" page appears. Currently this page doesn't offer much specific information for Windows users of Apache. Click "Next."
The "Server Information" page should now appear. Be sure to enter the correct information:
1. For "Network Domain," if you registered a hostname such as myname.made-up.com with a dynamic DNS service like freedns.afraid.org, enter just the domain name portion (made-up.com).
2. For "Server Name," enter your full hostname, such as myname.made-up.com.
3. For "Administrator's Email Address," enter a real email address for you that actually works. Users will see this when things go wrong. Bear in mind that spammers might discover this address, so use an address that is already publicly known if possible.
4. For "Install Apache HTTP Server 2.0 programs and shortcuts for..." select "for All Users, on Port 80, as a Service." This ensures that the software is always running, no matter who is sitting down at your computer. And a website that is not always running is not very useful! So pick this option and click "Next."
The "Setup Type" page appears next. Select "Typical" and click "Next" to move on.
You'll see the "Destination Folder" page. By default, Apache installs in the folder C:\Program Files\Apache Group, creating a sub-folder called C:\Program Files\Apache Group\htdocs to keep your web pages in. These are good choices, so click "Next." Don't click "Change..." unless you know exactly what you're doing.
Finally, the "Ready to Install the Program" page appears. Click "Install" to kick off the installation process. The Apache server software will be copied into place and the Apache service will start up in the background. Along the way, a few Windows Command Prompt windows will flash up briefly. This is normal and you should let these windows do their thing and go away on their own!

If you do receive error messages, the most frequent cause is that Internet Information Server or another web server is already installed and "listening" on port 80, the standard HTTP port. Disable the other web server software and reinstall Apache.

The "Installation Wizard Completed" page should appear. Congratulations, you have a web server! Click on "Finish" to complete the process.
Internet Information Server Quick-Start Guide

You need either Apache or Internet Information Server (IIS). You do not want both.

Microsoft's Internet Information Server is a solid choice, and it is included free with Windows XP Professional. If you don't have XP Professional, or one of the server-oriented versions of Windows like Windows Server 2003, then IIS is not an option for you. Installing Internet Information Server
1. Make sure you have Windows XP Professional! Click "Start," then right-click "My Computer." Choose "Properties" from the menu that appears. The "General" tab will appear. Under "System:" you should see "Microsoft Windows XP Professional." If you see Windows XP Home, Windows ME, Windows 98 or Windows 95, you will not be able to use IIS. Follow the Apache Quick-Start Guide instead.
2. We're ready to install the IIS software. Select "Start," then "Control Panel," then "Add/Remove Programs." Select "Add/Remove Windows Components" from the left-hand column.
A list of available Windows features appears. Check the box for "Internet Information Services (IIS)" and click "Next." If prompted, insert your Windows XP installation CD.
That's all it takes! Installing IIS is very simple because it is a standard component of Windows XP Professional.
Step Seven: Test Your Website From Your Own Computer
Is the website working? Let's find out! The first test is to access your site from your own computer. On the same computer that is running the web server software, access the URL http://localhost/. You should see an example home page provided with your Apache or IIS web server software. If not, review the appropriate quick start guide above and figure out which step you skipped! If you received errors during installation, you need to resolve them before your website will work.
Step Eight: Make Your Own Home Page
You have a web server, but right now the "content" on the site is just the default home page that came with the server software. Time to fix that!
All you have to do is move your own web pages to the appropriate folder. If you followed the Apache quick-start guide, your web pages belong in this folder:
C:\Program Files\Apache Group\htdocs
If you followed the IIS quick-start guide, your web pages belong here:
C:\Inetpub\wwwroot
First, remove the files that are already in those folders. It's not smart to leave "default" files lying around. What if a security problem was found with one of these common files? Then your website would be vulnerable.
Next, copy your own web pages and images into the folder. The "home page" of your site should be called index.html (not index.htm). Both Apache and IIS are smart enough to know that when a user visits http://yourname.is-a-geek.com/, they should act as if the user asked for http://yourname.is-a-geek.com/index.html and do the right thing.
For more information about making web pages and graphics, see how do I set up a website?
Step Nine: Test Your Website From The Outside World
We did a lot of work here to give our computer a hostname on the Internet and forward web traffic through the router and firewall. Did we do it right? Only one way to be sure! Access your website from a computer that is not on your home Internet connection, or have a friend try it.
If it works... great! If not, you probably made a mistake in dynamic DNS, port forwarding, firewall configuration or local static IP configuration.

"I followed all the steps and I get my router's login page instead of my home page!"

You are probably trying to access your website by name from behind your router (from one of your own PCs). With many routers, this does not work because the router automatically assumes any web connection to itself from inside your network is an attempt to log into the router's configuration interface. Test from outside your own network or have a friend do that for you. If you can access your home-hosted website from someone else's computer, you don't have a problem. If you want to access your site from a computer behind your router, you'll have to access it at its static local IP address instead of by name. Another possible cause of this problem: you may have turned on your router's "remote router access" feature by mistake. People turn this on by accident because they think it has something to do with hosting a website at home. It doesn't. Turn it off, it is dangerous! You don't want other people accessing your router and changing configuration settings.

Congratulations! You have your own website on the Internet, hosted entirely in your own home. Just remember: your computer must remain on, and connected to the Internet, all the time. Without a web server, there's no website. That's why, if you choose to host at home, I recommend picking up an older computer off the curb, dusting it off, popping in at least 128MB of RAM and firing it up as a web server. Your own PC doesn't wear out, and if security problems are found in the web server, they are more likely to be confined to the less important computer.

How to make an awesome logo

Introduction
Back when I began my ventures on computers in 98 on AOL, I was one of the many mesmerized by the world of AOL "proggies". I began to code my own with VB and I remember one of the things I loved to focus on personally, was the whole intro art. I saw a few, I can't remember the names now, but their amazing fire effects with their lightening bolts blew my mind away. Thus began my journey of design.
I've designed for approximately 9 years now and I've learned a lot. It has also helped me make money online. From mainstream corporate professional design, to fun gaming design, to adult design. The accumulative experience of all these avenues have really helped further my abilities when I confront each new project.
In this tutorial, I will start and finish a logo while documenting the entire process. I encourage you to open up photoshop and follow every step, it will help you learn a lot more than just reading it.
I've used the technique I will be teaching to develop a lot of logos. Here are just a few: 

Adobe Photoshop
I will be using Adobe Photoshop CS2 to design this logo. Many swear by illustrator, but I believe for the purposes of making a tutorial, it'd be best to use photoshop as it will cater to a wider audience. More people have used photoshop than Illustrator. Besides, I've created 95% of all my logos in Photoshop, so take what you will.
Let's Start : The Project
A buddy of mine runs a gaming website, bluelaguna.net, and he has wanted a new logo for some time, so I agreed to do it for this tutorial. So let's take a look at the current logo:

(Note: The image above isn't a logo, it's an entire header. The actual name bluelaguna.net along with the slogan is the actual logo. I thought it would be a good idea to show the entire header though to see how it reacts with the overall design.)
One of the most important things this logo lacks is readability. When a user visits a web site, or visits any medium in which a logo is displayed, the first thing that hits them should be the logo. And for some reason or another, the first place us humans look is the upper left hand corner of a site. The current logo is placed in the middle of the header and the small font and the dark blue in "BLUE" is hard to read.
There's also nothing exciting with this logo. For a logo to be effective, it has to "brand" an image, it needs to stick in your head. All this logo is is times new roman on caps lock.
Now that we've gone over why their current logo is not suitable, let's begin with the actual tutorial.

Gathering Information
It's important to always know the specifics of what you or the client is looking for before you start. Generally for most projects, I only need to ask the client 5 questions:

	1. Name of the service/product:	BlueLaguna.Net
	2. Any slogans to use?:	"Your #1 Source for RPG Media"
	3. Any specific color schemes in mind?:	Match the current design
	4. What are you trying to convey through the logo?:	Serious game-related site.
	5. Any other specifics:	You don't have to use the current header design. Get crackin'

Pretty straight forward, now we know what we have to work with.

1. Setting up your Document in Photoshop

• Once you have photoshop open, go to File -> New. Then specify the name of the logo, and a width of 600 and a height of 500.
• Then click "OK" (Refer to the screenshot below).

After you click "OK" Your setup should look like this: (I'm on a 1600x1200 resolution.) For the menus on the left, I have the layers view, and the Characters in view.)

2. Experiment with Font Selections
As a starting point, I always experiment with a font that I think will work well with the logo. You have to develop an eye for what font will or will not work, with the specifics of the project in mind. Since for bluelaguna we're trying to focus on a serious yet gamer'ish feel, a serious font selection might be the best bet. Having yourself an arsenal of fonts is very important. I have several thousand myself.

Select the Text Tool on the left menu: (As shown on the image to the right) Adjust the settings on the Text Properties at the top to match these settings: In the character window to the right, set AV to -60 as shown below: (This simply shortens the space between each separate character, I like starting out with this setting, I don't know why :) Type "BLUE LAGUNA" in the document space (First, be sure that the background is white, you can use the fill tool for this. And I've decided to go with all caps to start out with, since all caps is generally deemed more serious). With the type tool selected, and layer 1 selected, select the font list menu (where it says Arial): You can do this next section in either three ways. - Hit the "Down" arrow to change the font view of "BLUE LAGUNA". - Hit the Down Arrow of the Font List to see the list of available fonts with a tiny preview of the font. - Download a font viewing program. I personally just use the first method, although I sometimes use a font viewing program. Our goal here is to find fonts that might work with the logo. Once you come across a font that looks like it could work, you should Duplicate the layer in the Layers Window to the right, and then hide the previous layer (The layer you right clicked and selected "Duplicate" from. This way, you've saved that font selection (the hidden layer), and you have a new layer to find more fonts from):

3. Good and Bad Font Selections
Since our goal with this particular logo is to be serious, we need serious looking fonts. It simply takes time to develop an eye for what is serious and what isn't.

Here are a few examples of bad font selections for this project: The first logo (the top), has a very laid back, fun / unprofessional tone to it. The second logo is simply "goofy" looking, and it's generally always bad to select a logo that has an inherent shadow. The third logo is way too "ragged" with its frills all over the place, definitely a no go. Calligraphy logos are generally outdated, especially ones with weird "drops" coming from them. The last logo you can hardly even read. Remember, a logo should be easily readable.

Here are a few examples of good font selections for this project: All of these logos with the exception of 4 and 6 are pretty much similar. #1, 2, 3 & 5 are all very simplistic and serious in appearance. Logo 4 still appears "serious" even though it is significantly different from the rest. I chose this just in case I want to experiment with piecing together fonts for the word "Blue" and "Laguna". Logo 6 is a very bold / italicized logo that says nothing but serious.

4. Finalizing a Font Selection
Once you have some possible font selections, each in their own layer, you further analyze them and see which works. With logos that have more than one word, most of the time it is good to separate the appearance of the words from each other. Since this particular project has two words, "Blue" and "Laguna", we're going to want to separate them by possibly choosing two different fonts. You can also separate words from each other by keeping the same font, but changing the color. So I'm going to experiment with the 6 good font selections above.

This is what I've come up with: Although I didn't use one of the 6 fonts I selected initially for the word "blue", I simply used an unboldened version of "LAGUNA", which keeps a consistent feel but also allows for separation of the two words.

5. Adding in a symbol
Sometimes logos work well with only the use of fonts, but most times adding in a relevant symbol of some sort will really make a logo stand out. When I say "symbol", I mean any part of the logo which isn't actual text. So let's start with the first font selection from above:

Now here is where having an eye for design and experience is a really big help. We need to begin contemplating ideas of what exactly we can add to this logo to make it awesome. So, the first thing I do is just sit there and stare at the font selection and think of what exactly the product/service/site is all about. Well, BlueLaguna.Net is about gaming, more specifically speaking, it's a site that offers RPG media (Role Playing Game) media. Therefore, we have two things to work with: RPG and Media. What exactly can we associate with both RPG and Media? Well, we don't necessarily have to convey both RPG and Media through the logo (if you try to get too complex, the logo will become cluttered). We can choose one or the other if we want. I think it'd be most logical to focus on the whole RPG aspect, as you can find media all over the place and it isn't an entirely unique concept.
So let's do some research on Role Playing Games. We need to figure out a symbol which can really represent RPG. The current BlueLaguna.Net features a 3d female, perhaps that has something to do with RPG? Well, let me do a search on images.google.com for "RPG". The results turn back a few different female characters, Hmm! The first few results, keeping in mind the 3d female character on the current header of bluelaguna.net, seem to suggest that depicting a female in the logo might be the best bet. It also seems that weaponry / mystical environments are associated with RPG as well.
Now that I know what I can associate with RPG, I can come up with some possible ideas for a symbol. I think maybe featuring a face of one of these RPG'ish females with maybe a hint of mysticism.
The Pen Tool is your Friend
The most important tool when it comes to logo design is the pen tool. If there is one tool to thoroughly understand, it should be the pen tool. The pen tool allows you to create any shape(s) you want, and maintain vector format (which is very important if you ever want to size your logo up n' down (for professional print or whatever.)
It's always good to draw your logo by hand without copying over a picture (vector tracing), but if you aren't very talented and don't have much experience, it might be your only option. So for the sake of making the biggest impact on this tutorial, I will teach you all an awesome technique for creating great looking symbols for you logos.
Finding a suitable picture
If you're going to trace, I always suggest using a site like istockphoto.com to find the image and pay for it. This way you won't be using copyrighted images to trace over. Or taking your own picture to trace over. Unfortunately though, istockphoto has nothing with RPG or "anime". So I just went on images.google.com and found a picture which I think is suitable, here it is:

When I came across this picture, I got the idea that I can vector trace over her face and hair to create what I want, and then integrate it along with the font selection in some unique way. So once you've found the picture you want to trace (if not the same one), save it to your hard drive, open it up in photoshop, CTRL-A, CTRL-C to select it and copy it, and go back to your main logo document and CTRL-V. Now you've imported this picture into your logo document. Once you've imported it, with her layer selected, you can cut off the bottom half of her body. (Select the first tool in the upper left corner of the tools menu, Rectangular Marquee Tool), select the bottom half of her body and hit the delete key. Your screen should look something like this by now (You can hide the text layers behind it).

Vector Tracing
Now select the magnifying glass in the tools menu and select around the girl, it will look like this zoomed up to about 400%:

Now select the pen tool in the tools menu:

Make sure that the foreground color (the black square at the bottom of the pic to the upper right ---^) is the same dark blue color of the text we specified.
In the layers window to the right, select the little round circular > icon on the upper right corner of the window, and click on "Create New Layer" in the window that comes up. Hit "OK" and then in the layers window, with the new layer selected, change the Opacity to 0%. We do this because once we start tracing over the image, we don't want the dark blue color hiding the picture of the girl below.
And with the pen tool selected, click a point somewhere on the outline of the hair (at the top), and then click to make another point somewhere on the hairline where the line will begin to form. You can hold down and "direction" the angle of the line to create a certain type of curve. It takes awhile to get the hang of, but it's very easy once you get the hang of it. After plotting points of an entire section of hair, yours should look similar to this: (Note: I've lightened the opacity of the girl to illustrate what your lines should look like so far)

(opacity 100%)

It's not perfect, but for now it's a good start.
Now I'm simply going to continue creating more shapes, like the facial features. After 15-20 minutes or so of creating the different facial features and the face itself, here is what I have come up with:

As you can see, I specified a different color for the face (light blue). And by now I have around 15 different layers. There's a separate layer for the top portion of each eye, the bottom portion of each eye, the middle, and the small glare. There's also a layer for the face background, and the ear. So let us continue and add some shading...

After about 20 more minutes of shading, this is what I've come up with: There are a total of 3 different layers for the hair. It's somewhat of a tedious process to do hair shading simply because there's a lot of strands of hair! But you have to just condense them and get the general idea of the shading and it will work out well. Then I did some light shading work on the face and the neck. Now I consider the actual draft of the symbol complete. Let's make our initial text layer visible and see what we can do to integrate the symbol with the text.

First, you will want to select the very last to the very first vector layer that you created (you'll have a couple dozen or more), hold down the shift so you can select them all. Then in the layers window click the little circular round button and select "New Group From Layers". This will put all of the layers of the girl, into one easily manageable layer group. This way, you can move around the one group and it will keep all of their positions together so it won't break up her face.

Now this actually doesn't look too bad, in and of itself. But the proportion of the anime head is too big, in relation to BLUELAGUNA. So we will want to scale down the head. Let's try moving it over to the left, and adding the slogan + the ".net" text. This is what it looks like:

Now it looks pretty damn good eh? The only other thing I did, was with the pen tool, I added a white shape over the "B" in "BLUE" so that the face doesn't collide with the B.

Unfortunately I messed up and didn't design this over the dark blue'ish background that the bluelaguna.net has. So I'm going to change the colors of the logo to fit a background of an appropriate header for the site.

As you can see, simply changing colors around can really change the look and feel of a logo. I'd consider this logo a winner.

6. Conclusion

I can pretty much guarantee you that if you're a first time user of the pen tool or photoshop for that matter, it won't turn out so pretty like mine did. It takes some time and patience to really get the hang of it. It's all about getting a little creative and working at it for awhile.