Many of the members on this site have used some of the different themes that are available and have their all time favorite theme up now. Are you one of those many members? Or are you a member who has heard about the CoE Themes but do not quite understand what it is about? For a long time I had no clue about the CoE Themes, much less all the themes you could choose from. I hope to enlighten you a little on the topic before the end of this article!
There are various different themes to choose from! There are themes for all kinds of the Lord of the Rings material that you may be interested, in such as Professor Tolkien, Mordor, the Dead Marshes, the Halls of Moria, Rivendell, the Shire and so much more. From villains to heroes it is all there and just a click away.
Would you like to contribute to this section of the site but do not know how? An excellent way to contribute is to give the CoE Themes Admin some of your opinions on what the next theme should look like or you could simply post up your thoughts about the themes in existence. Either way, going to this thread would be a good idea.
Go and have tons of fun with what the many different themes have to offer, I know that I have! They really do make the site that much more fun.
Interview with the CoE Themes Admin Vipergx:
Vipergx has kindly stepped up to answer a few additional questions I had concerning the Themes section of the site.
Morlothwen: How would you describe the actual process of making a theme?
Vipergx: The first step in creating a theme is to pick a topic, whether it be a place, person, culture, etc. It is often hard to pick just one at a time since there is so much one can do with the Lord of the Rings material. After picking my topic, I consider the mood I would like to set. If I did an Elven theme for example, I would want it to look mystical, otherworldly, beautiful. If I did a Sauron theme, it would be the complete opposite, but no less appealing to look at.
After visualizing what I would like my theme to look like, I create different compositions in Photoshop. I usually make about three or four different ones and when I am satisfied, I announce it to the admins so that they may take a look and decide which theme they think would work best. After the vote, I begin the coding, which is probably the most difficult part, for me anyway, since I am so new at it.
Morlothwen: How much time do you usually spend on a single theme?
Vipergx: It really depends on the theme. How many colors there are, the layout, menus, they all play a part in the length of time per theme. I may get stuck on something or something may not work right and then I have to take the time to look for the bug and fix it. Sometimes I cannot fix it on my own, and that is when I get in touch with Veaglarwen, who has been a real help to me.
Most of my time is spent on coding, which can vary from simple to very complex. The design part of it is my favorite and usually does not take that long, a couple of hours at most, unless I have a complete brain freeze, which has happened before.
Morlothwen: How did you come up with the coloring and pictures for some of the themes?
Vipergx: The first theme I did for the site was the White Tree theme and I knew I wanted this theme to look completely different from all the rest. I chose the image of Faramir first and expanded on that. I also did not want to make the theme white, even thought it was called the White Tree theme. White does not work well on the internet, so I wanted to stay away from it and I chose instead a very light color for the background and a light gray for the menu boxes. I actually picked these colors from the image I used of Faramir. In fact, for all the themes, including my upcoming ones, I have chosen all my colors from the colors in the image(s). I find it works better than just playing around with colors until I see one I like.
Also, I want to make sure I use images that are not often seen elsewhere, so I spend excessive amounts of time online browsing through thousands of images until I see one that sparks my interest.
Morlothwen: Are there any themes in the making at the moment?
Vipergx: Yes, at the moment I am finishing up my latest theme, which will be an unconventional look at Arwen. I really hope people will like this theme, as it strays away from the Arwen we have come to know. This theme will hopefully be up very soon and after that I have already got many, many ideas for themes lined up.
Morlothwen: Thank you for your time, Vipergx!
by Morlothwen
