First off, what is Creatures of the Creek?
Well, as you can see, it's not a whole lot of anything right now. But it started as a small dream back in 2004, shortly after my family had moved into a new neighborhood on the coastal side of my native Houston, surrounded by woods and featuring a manmade pond connecting to a large creek. A lifelong lover of animals, I was enthralled by the rich variety of wildlife; there were rabbits, nutria, anhingas, cormorants, snakes, turtles, magnificent spiders, ibis and spoonbills, coyotes, and even a resident alligator. I started doodling some characters and put together a really rough comic, and for a long time I always intended to do something more with it. Ideas ranged in ambitiousness from a webcomic to a fully animated Flash series, but none of that ever came to fruition.
Today, the site serves as a nostalgic hub for my numerous ongoing personal projects, most of which are in a constant state of half-completion. What is life, if not a work in progress?
So, then, who am I?
My name is Laura Carter. Hi! I'm a Houston-area native, but have lived for most of the last few years in southeastern Wisconsin, although I hold my homeland dear to my heart. I'm in my early thirties, and harbor a deep love for nature, travel, language learning and data tinkering. For information about how to contact me, go here.
What about the artwork?
The graphics and artwork on this site were drawn digitally in Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 with a Wacom tablet, both extraordinarily dated. But hey, if it ain't broke, don't replace it, right?
Now for the icky legal stuff...
All of the works on this site are copyrighted under a Creative Commons license unless stated otherwise — specifically, Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0. In summary, this means you can share and distribute the work, as well as adapt it, as long as you attribute it to me and do not use it for any commercial purposes. These conditions can be waived with my permission. If you would like to use any of my works commercially, contact me.
What about this site?
This site was born in 2004 as a birthday present from my parents (truly the gift that keeps on giving). It has long served as an avenue for me to explore web design (even if at my own glacial pace) and other creative endeavors, for which I am eternally grateful.
I utilize Colorbox, a free image viewer, to display the images in my various image galleries.
The fonts I use for graphics are Carolingia for the sidebar, Staccato222 BT for the headers, Dael Neu for the 404 and 403 pages (amongst other little things), and Clerica (OT1) for the home page, with an edited version of it on the Photo Gallery sidebar. The main text font is verdana, because verdana is awesome. Why I supply this information, I do not know (perhaps for self reference...). Carolingia and Clerica are from www.1001freefonts.com - this site has some great fonts.
And, really, that's about it. If you have any other questions about CotC, please feel free to ask me.