"Grand" Return
HEY! I WANT TO UPDATE MY FREAKING WEBSITE!!!!!
Seems I spirited myself away for... four straight months? That's probably some kind of record for "longest time spent on hiatus immediately after saying 'my hiatus is over.'" Whatever, who cares. I've had ENOUGH of Vivarism's inactivity, especially when I spent so much time cooking up some delicious new CSS.
But.... this is PHP. UGH. I can't just write my diary and then upload my pages like I used to! There's going to be some dumbass extra steps that I have to do first, sigh. Whatever. I will figure that out in the morning, and for now just... write what I want to write. How about something calming? Yeah.
Look! I went to the beach!
It was a beautiful, bright, sunny day. I nestled myself into a tide pool, far away from everyone else, and laid in the water watching the waves. I love the sound of the surf coming in, and the silence of the sea with my ears submerged. For the first time ever, I learnt to float. Apparently people are more buoyant in saltwater, so I felt brave enough to try. Floating's easy once you relax, and it's impossible not to relax when you're in basking a warm, serene sea.
That was three weeks ago now. Next time, I want to try swimming for real, since I've got a new pair of fins to help me out. I was supposed to go back today, but it's been storming... and also I've been working.
Yes, I Am EMPLOYED.
Self-employed, but still. This is a momentous occasion— years of NEETdom coming to an end! I know you're not supposed to admit to using imageboards, and I most definitely should not be outing myself as a dedicated follower of Shayna Clifford's increasingly bleak antics, but this is relevant. I swear.
Some anon mentioned offhand that, even without a college degree, you could make a living wage as a freelancer. I thought, "bet?" Then did my research and well... the rest is history. I haven't gotten to the ~real work~ yet (my "launch" date is in early November, actually) but I feel more and more like a grown-up everyday. I am problem-solving left and right, and putting my everything into making a website that other grown-ups will enjoy looking at so much that they give me their money. Or their bosses' money, I guess. Whatever.
I JUST WANT TO GET PAID!!!! I'm tired of being depressed! I want to heal! And I want to make bank while I'm at it!!!! A $1,500 check is not going to cure me, but it will be a fantastic motivator for keeping my ass out of bed. And freelancing is definitely more difficult than just showing up to a wagey job like the one I had before, but it's much more rewarding— mentally and monetarily. Most importantly... I just want to try.
Other things I'm trying?? Art!!!
Sometime in September I discovered the DAD Gallery, AKA Do Art Daily. I was pretty lukewarm on the "daily" thing until recently, and just a couple days ago I broke my streak again. I was simply too tired to draw— it's exhausting being grown-up!!! But I guess I'm in a pseudo-manic state now and I want to Do Everything, so I doodled again tonight and will commit to doing it again tomorrow, too.
I'll probably be more active on DAD than anything else, so if you ever want to make sure I'm still alive, take a look at my profile here.
If you followed that link, then you may have noticed... Gokiburi-chan's redesign. Yeahhh, as usual I saw a BJD, fell in love, and stole her whole design. This time, it was Tali by Irrealdoll that captured my heart. I'd love to own her some day, or at least the wig she has in these promo photos. Hnng, if I could make a Gokidoll to match with my SANSDOLL... that would be the ultimate dream come true ││││ All the more reason to keep working so that I can fund my expensive hobbies!
Anyways, I'm not actually that good at drawing her hair yet. I need more practice! I've been using Simkray's Natural Hair Brush Set so I at least don't have to worry about replicating the texture. It's mostly the shapes that give me trouble, and mostly only because I'm still allergic to using references when I draw. If there's one bad art habit I'd love to kick, it's that one!
I'm not sure what to do about her ahoge, either. The most iconic feature of Goki's original design was her cute, expressive antennae. They were integral to the cockroach theme, too. I'm experimenting with giving her two long, thin tendrils that are more like feelers than hair, and still change shapes according to her emotions. So far, we've only seen them hanging down (neutral) and as hearts (IN LOVE WITH SANS!!!!) or... not at all? Yeah, I didn't draw them at all on this one, hahaha.
This whole image is a hot mess, tbh. My clunky Japanese, which turns to gibberish when read from the wrong direction. The fact that I don't understand hoods, sleeves, hands, or basic proportions. ... I'm really just nitpicking myself right now, aren't I? WHO CARES ABOUT ALL THAT!!! I tried my best! My art doesn't have to be accurate, consistent, or interesting. It doesn't have to be anything. I only want to have fun drawing.
Generally speaking, I only care about having fun
That's why my other projects are super self-indulgent right now. After my success with For the Love of Farming, I thought I'd try my hand at making a fanlisting for Sans, too. It ended up being way bigger than a fanlisting though— it's a full-blown fansite!!! There is a lot of content to write for Your Pal Sans, but I'm more excited than I am daunted. Lots to do in general... but hey! It's Sans! I can't get enough of that guy!!!
I had fun cooking up this layout. I did the whole thing in one night, sooo about 8 or 9 hours, I guess? I'm getting faster! I intend to write in detail about my design choices on YPS itself, so for now I'll just say that I'm thrilled by my webdev genius. It feels so good to be the CSS Princess...─┸┰
On the Vivarism side of things... Jesus, there's so much to do. In the past, I probably would've listed out all the pages that need creating, but at this point there's SO MANY that I fear the list would never end. It's better to do things one at a time, yeah? So... the thing I'm doing right now is writing this diary entry to accompany the launch of Vivarism 3.0!
When I'm done, I'll figure out how to get PHP working with Neocities, even if that just means redirecting every last URL to my real domain. Before I worry about getting an RSS Feed or pushing updates via G*thub or anything, I will just... finish writing this entry. Yeah. That's all I gotta do.
Losing steam.......
I've spent a couple hours writing now and I'm getting pretty tired... I want to eat something delicious and go to bed! When I wake up, I'll get back to work on my grown-up website. It's still so exciting, and I'm mostly just doing CSS and writing little blurbs, so it doesn't feel at all like work. I'm a bit worried about how things will go when I have to interact with people and Accomplish Tasks, but I know that I can do it. I feel very confident and optimistic.
I've got a good feeling about Vivarism, too. Eventually, I'd like to write about what this website is actually about... like damn, what is it for? What do I want to write about? Why have I kept up with it for two whole years? Oh yeah, happy birthday to Vivarism by the way.
I wrote a bunch about the concept of vivarism— the word, not the website— on my about page, too. I'm pretty proud of that page in general!!! I hope everyone will read it. God I'm so tired. My feet are falling asleep?! I'm dehydrated!!! I want a snack!!!!! I want to be in my bed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Sans lifts me out of my seat before I go full tantrum melty mode.)