Askbox

that’s the best part: you don’t. have you ever looked at my history page? this is my fifth redesign (hence the v5), so we’re in the exact same boat.

the truth is, people like me (and maybe you? i don’t know) will never be satisfied with their own work. i get a lot of praise for my design skills (sounds like a humble brag but i legit have trouble saying thank you to every single kind soul in my guestbook haha) but in my mind my work is never enough. this design you’re looking right now? it’s barely over a year old and i’m already tired of it. i keep thinking of starting over again for the SIXTH time.

but i have decided to not listen to my inner critic and settle with this for longer. why? despite what i tell myself, this is good enough. i think i did a good job, and this current version, despite not being exactly like the perfect idealized version i had in my head, is good enough. if there’s something really bothering me, i can just fix that instead of redoing the whole thing.

and very importantly, i also learned that a website is only as good as its content. it could be really pretty, but if it has nothing to hook you in, then it’s just decoration. so that’s another thing i think of when talking myself out of another iteration: why not just add a new page or write a new blog post? add more meat to those bones!

we need to learn how to just let things… exist. they’re good enough already. we can make them better as we go.

thank you for the kind words Mike!

i host on leprd! i signed up for it in 2022, it is a truly amazing service and i am so grateful to Lysianthus for maintaining it. it seems like new applications are not open at the moment though, which is a shame…

leprd is great if you want access to php. for other hosts with php access there’s teacake and nearlyfreespeech. it’s funny for me to be using a php host when i… don’t know anything about php myself lmao, this website is built locally with an ssg. if you don’t care about php there’s other options out there like github pages, services like netlify and vercel (i was considering netlify myself before realising it’s overkill for me) and the two usual oldweb suspects neocities and nekoweb. 32-bit cafe has a list with more hosts.

uhhhh you might have not asked for any of this but ummm… yeah i like rambling

hi Leith! how are you?

i use a js library called glide.js! it’s great, very easy to use. i have assembled a quick codepen to show how i set up mine. oh, and if it breaks, it might be because you forgot to import the css for the library. (i speak from experience… two hours of my life wasted over this)

in many different ways, it depends based on the situation

• MUSIC. seriously i don’t think i would be here at all if it wasn’t for music.
• watching movies. watching my favourite movies always cheers me up
• spending time with my boyfriend and my friends
• cuddling with my cats because they’re very cute
• this one is weird, but being in moving vehicles and looking out the window. i don’t know, it just works for making my brain quieter
• if i’m really not doing well then i need to decompress my mind by emptying it and doing absolutely nothing for a while
• if i’m REEEEEAAAALLY not doing well then i need to hard reset my brain by sleeping lmfao

i do know how my body and mind handles stress very well and i know exactly what to do in order to cope. it is important knowledge to have.

hi Rese! okay, to everyone else: i have trimmed Rese’s question a bit, as it was part of a larger exchange (that we were having over e-mail). this question was sent here though, so i will be answering it here too.

the gardening thing was a throwaway line, haha. i just chose gardening because it sounded hilariously unlikely for me to have done, i’m not much of an outdoorsy person at all (wow what a shocker)

like i said in our e-mails, i’m trying to be less perfectionistic when it comes to my art (illustration and painting specifically). i don’t really have the time and energy to try many new things nowadays, sadly. all my irl friends are fellow artists and designers so uhhh yeah we don’t have many new interests to try together lol. my internet friends do have much more varied interests… way too varied actually, i am the black sheep amongst them lol.

i do have a lot of things i want to try. ive always wanted to make music. learn an instrument. (my dream as a kid was to be a drummer) do more animation and motion graphics work. learn 3d modelling. learn software development for real. afskdfosdkhkkmmhh fuuuuck why can’t i do it all???

uh wow i am getting stressed in the middle of writing this. yeah, i should stick to what i already have and try to stress myself out a little less over it. paint outside the lines a tiny bit, perhaps

thank you for the great question! the answer is quite simple: because i love writing!

i have always written a lot, i think. i have a lot of thoughts about a lot of things all the time (my head is severely overworked) and writing helps me make sense of all of it. be it my feelings in my diary or my thoughts about cyberculture in my study journal, i write a lot. just this week i had to write like 10k words to make sense of what i am feeling right now, lol.

i get worried about reception because my self-awareness is genuinely paralysing and because again, i am a perfectionist to the point of self-destruction. the latter is also why i spend a lot of time writing, too, my thought patterns are very disjointed and messy and i am very prone to going on stupid long ass tangents, so stitching them together in a linear, concise fashion takes a LOT of energy. (now that i think about it, i have always struggled with this, lol. when i was in school writing decent summaries was pretty much IMPOSSIBLE for me)

i am trying really hard to loosen up, having a stick up my ass like this does me no good lmao. thank you so much for the kind words!

when hell freezes over, it seems…

there are two problems:

• i have no way of accepting payments. best i can do for now is paypal, and that thing is a dox machine. i really want to get a vgen account but they make it next to impossible for me to get one because i don’t bother with social media.

• i haven’t been drawing that much. i need samples of my current ability to show clients what i can do, and it’s hard to pump them out when i’m in the middle of another decline in my mental state induced by Real Life, lol.

you are not the first person to ask about my commissions. i truly apologise for the inconvenience, i’m trying to see what i can do.

great timing! i have a whole blog post planned on this where i go over every medium i have worked with and provide objective and subjective data on each, but i’m still gonna answer this for you ofc

for now, my answer is both digital art and acrylic markers. i’ve finally learned to be more wild and loose with my digital work and it’s been so fun getting all sorts of crazy textures and colours that would be impossible physically. and for acrylic markers, i love how opaque they are so i can layer dark on light like crazy, how i can get very solid blocks of colour and and how they’re pretty much just paint except i can use them on thin paper and there’s no setup or mess to clean! (and they’re cheap which is very nice)

has this answer changed? YES. many times. i have spent over a decade trying all sorts of different media and my preferences have shifted over time. i had a coloured pencil phase, an alcohol marker phase, a watercolour phase… it’s a lot, better left for a blog post where i can ramble endlessly. stay tuned

oh this is about that status i had up for like 60 days right? i did, twice actually. the first time with my mother and the second by myself. i wanted to see it a third time before its theatrical run ended (that’s what the status is about) but i wasn’t able to

sure is. thanks for helping me test it

hmmm… i’m not sure with what you mean by this. obsessing over particular styles? i think my style has been the same as it’s always been. i like cityscapes at night, androgynous baggy clothes, swiss design, old rave posters, glitch art, the same as always… i’d show you my pinterest or my eagle library but it’s an absolute mess right now

actually this reminds me to make the “aesthetics” page i’ve always wanted to make, thanks for reminding me lol

hi anon who is totally an anon and not my best friend helping me test this askbox

as of right now i am redesigning haki for the 4239th time. progress has stalled because i burned out. when i’m done with her he’s next, his last full redesign is so old and he looks so shit </3 he desperately needs another one

you’re right he deserves better. i should give him the haki treatment and draw nothing but him for 10 years