I'm not doing the countdown thing lol. The deadline for me to finish everything is still August 20th though. I'll release the full-ass update alongside the new site's release.
So basically: it'll be done when it's done, but no later than August 20th (assuming nothing crazy bad happens that makes me unable to code or smth)
I've been working on this website ever since 2024, and it's been one of the funnest and most freeing things I've ever done. It's allowed me to express myself in ways that I never could before. It's gotten me into working on other types of art such as logo design and 3d modeling. It's helped ease me into the coding process, which is great as someone who wants to get into game design. It's helped me explore myself, my interests, my style.
But alas, it is time...
TO START A NEW SITE!
It's gonna take some time to finish all the preparations, but I think now that I've found myself and improved at web design, I wanna re-invent myself and open a new site. I know what aesthetic I wanna go with, what things I wanna add to the site, and much more! I'll also be going under a new name: "Cocoa★Nova" (or something very similar). Using my real name just feels ehhhh to me nowadays, and Sunseed was only there because I had a big fixation on Pikmin back when Pikmin 4 dropped. It wasn't even THAT good, I just got stupidly excited bc of how long it took to come out and I wanted it to do well lol.
Aaaaanyways, this site may have had a good run, but it's not over JUST yet. I'll be making some updates for the next few months until the 1 year anniversary of the site (August 20th). I wanna get this site to a complete state, and also give myself time to get the new site in a good state.
After that time period this site will no longer be worked on. Though, maybe there will be a reason to come back to this old place afterwards? Nahhh, totally not, it's not like something will take over this place while I'm not looking lol.
That's all for now, though. I got stuff to do today, but I'll put out a small update with a countdown sometime this week. Byebye! ^w^
SO my mom was out of state for a few days, and my older brother's out of the country, so it's just been me and my little brother.
Imagine my surprise when I gained a shitton of energy simply from being left p much on my own for a few days.
My motivation was through the ROOF, I was doing so much work that it's actually kinda insane. I cleaned almost the WHOLE kitchen, moved stuff around, wiped things down, just A BUNCH. And I even got back to drawing!
No wonder "spring cleaning" is a thing, its bc ppl just get the sudden urge to clean during the spring! Spring never fails to prove itself to be the best season of the year (truth and real).
Anyways yea thats all I wanted to share lol
Finally gonna face my very stupid fear of social interaction.
I've been hurt in the past, and I've hurt others in the past, but I'm not gonna let that stop me anymore!
I'm gonna take it slow and easy though. For now, I'm gonna go under a pseudonym (or fake name), "Nova". Just so I can get used to interacting again, without the fear of saying something stupid and having that stick to me forever and ever and ever and ever and-
yeag
Edit: Nevermind on the "Nova" thing, I'm now realizing that's kiiiiiind of a stupid idea. So Imma just interact as myself.
Hi hi! Sorry for the hiatus, I got wayyyyy too sucked into Roblox's event, The Hunt: Mega Edition. Got very drained and honestly kinda stressed from that.
BUT! I'm back on my feet, I'm now in my lock-in arc, and Imma come with some BIG updates as soon as possible.
I've been working on some BIG pages, and y'know what, Imma show some little preview stuff from my time making them! Do note that everything Im showing is from development, nothing's final.
PagePreview1.webp
I'm finally making an OC Page!!!
This has been something I've always been wanting to do ever since the very, VERY beginning of this site, but I didn't really know what I wanted to go for with it's look, nor how to achieve it. Of course, I could've made it basic, but to me, this website is an art project. One that's made out of complete passion, one with no deadline. So I wanted to take my time and truly figure out how I wanted to do this, and thankfully I figured it out!
About the page itself, it's based off of menus from the Sonic Riders series, namely Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity. The usage of icons is inspired by the Super Smash Bros series, as well as more directly inspired by SiIvagunner's King For Another Day Torunament (as well as other music tournaments that spawned from that, such as Mashup week and Another Unnecessary Tournament).
I'd talk about the OC featured on screen, Harmony, but I think it's best I let the gal herself introduce herself in this next preview!
PagePreview2.webp
This is a small snippet from Harmony's dedicated info page, very much so made to look like an old version of Roblox's website! (probably difficult to tell from this screenshot alone, bit I wanted to focus on the character portion lol)
Anyways, I'm running out of things to say, so uhhhhh thats all! Very excited to finish all this and release it! Ehehehe!
Byebye!
I feel like rambling abt something random 2day lol.
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Fuck it, when in doubt, talk abt site ideas lol
Something small I wanna do at some point is rename the Extra Goodies page to be more of an Operating System name. Yk, to fit the whole desktop look of the page. Smth like "Xtra O.S." or something. Probably not that exactly, but you get the idea.
I have been making small progress on completely redesigning the homepage to be more of a scrolling format, where I can put a bunch of info and stuff on there. Buuuuut it'll take a long time, I still haven't finished the Art Gallery, and there are a ton of other pages I wanna make ontop of that; like OC pages and character/series shrines, among others.
I've yet to make more fake ads for this page, so that's smth I wanna get to eventually. Same with making other original graphics for the site. Also making a true music player (it'll be difficult to figure out how to code all that tho =w=). Theme switching is something I'm kinda 50/50 on implementing. On one hand, it sounds really nice, buuuuuut w/ how unique my site is visually, it'd be so much work for smth that isn't really needed. Maybe I'll make an extra page for me to test themes.
Bugs are also smth I wanna fix. There's especially this one specific bug (or coding oversight?) on the Extra Goodies page, where clicking anywhere in the body will make the background change, when I just want one button to change the background.
Ofc, I'm not gonna pile all of these things up at once, but it's good to reflect on what all I wanna make. It helps me remember what all I want to add, plus it lets you all know what's planned for the site's development!
Winter's finally starting to come to a close, and I couldnt be happier about that.
Two days ago, we had beautiful, 50 degree (fairengheight or whatever its called lol, too lazy to look up the spelling). And it was beautiful. I actually felt happy, I actually felt like doing things, it was actually amazing. It was the day I put out the latest update, in fact! I could've drawn that day, but I realized I really needed to update the wishlist page of this site, so I decided to just chill and do that (and release some of the smaller updates that were on the backburner).
I havent been like, totally depressed, but this was the first time in a while where I actually felt GREAT! AMAZING! ACTUALLY ENGAGING WITH LIFE!
And this kinda happens every spring. I realized last fall that I have seasonal depression, so I expected it to be the same this year too. And I was RIGHT! LOOKING OUT MY WINDOW AND SEEING RAIN INSTEAD OF SNOW, THE DAYS OF NICE AIR, ITS GENUINELY AMAZING!!!!!!!
Fun fact! When I was playing around with new usernames, one of them was LilySprings. Obviously, because of my love of spring as a season. But also because like, c'mon, "Lily Springs" sounds like a beautiful hot spring! Part of me sorta kinda maybe wishes that I kept that username for the theming alone, buuuuuut I like the slight strawberry thing I have going on here, and the Sunseed Berry (the name of strawberries in the Pikmin series) fits that PERFECTLY!
...
...
...
...Whats this? I forgot to finish this a few hours ago?
Well, here's something extra then.
The latest Pokemon Presents just concluded, and not gonna lie, underwhelming as a presentation.
BUT! The Legends Z-A trailer was fucking awesome! I LOOOOVE the new gameplay they have for this entry. As much as I'd love for them to put this kind of innovation into the main series, I do kinda see why they won't do that. The mainline titles are made to be simple experiences for all demographics, after all. REGARDLESS, IM GLAD THEY'RE INNOVATING ON THE POKEMON FORMULA!! THIS IS GONNA BE AWESOME!!!!!
i swear to got if the people crying about "ohhh the graphics are bad wahhhh" are also people who agree with the statement "i want shorter games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less", i will actually strangle them. trust.
Like COME ON, WHY DOES IT MATTER IF THE TEXTURES ARE A LITTLE LACKING OR SOMETHINGSOMETHING POP-IN OR WHATEVER?! SHOULD WE NOT BE MORE FOCUSED ON THE ACTUAL GAMEPLAY????????? URGURGHGHRGHRGHRGHRHGGHHGAGHGHRGHRAHGHARGHRAGHGHGHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
...
Aaaanyways. Thats all 4 me 2day!
TLDR; Spring is coming soon, and I am really happy 4 that. And the Pokemon Legends Z-A trailer looks AMAZING!
With all that outta the way, it's time 4 me to hop off (and sleep bc my sleep schedule's ass and i stayed up longer just to watch the pokemon presents lol)
Soooooo buh-byeeee!! ^w^
Hellohello! Anyone who's visited this site before might notice that something's changed. Well- that EVERYTHING'S changed! So what's up with that?
Well, I planned to keep updating the old style and layout, but I realized something... my code just DID NOT work well. And more than that, I just kept struggling so much to work with the old layout itself, a big part of that being the code.
Of course, I couldve just worked to update the code, but I just wasn't having fun with working on this website anymore. So I just threw it away (metaphorically, of course), and took some time to figure out what I was missing. What made this not fun for me?
Well, a big problem was something simply with myself. I tried to be the best version of myself, tried to put myself in a box, stick to one thing. But I should've just been, well... me! So I completely rebooted, and spent the past few months to truly make something that fit me.
If you look at the site back then (which you can in the site archive, as visually interesting and clearly non-corpo as it looked, you can probably tell (at least in hindsight) that it felt almost closed off. I talked about interests a handful of times, but it felt more focused on the image of me, rather than the me that was on the inside.
But now? from the very moment you enter the page, you see three interests of mine: Kirby, Deltarune, and Siivagunner. Then you get to the home page: Yume Nikki. Digital Diary? Siivagunner again, both in visuals and posts. Extra Goodies? Windows 95 aesthetic (tho, this was in the old version of the site). About The Artist? Tells way more about me than any intro I've written in the past. There are even more pages that are just me putting my interests first.
Point is, I really took my time to really enjoy the process of making this new version of the website, a version that fully represents ME, and all my interests, creations, passions, inconsistencies, etc. I added things that I've always wanted for the old version: mobile-support, single page for all blog posts, credits page, archive page. I STILL haven't added everything I want, but I'm gonna take my time with releasing each thing, to make sure things are functional, High Quality, and most importantly: fun for me!
And, if you're new here, I wholeheartedly welcome you! And I hope you enjoy this site!
Soooo, it's been a while.
A lot has happened between now and the last post, so I'll catch you up a bit.
I started posting on Bluesky more (kinda abandoned tumblr tbh, it's too weird to use for me). I played Sonic x Shadow Generations, which is a BANGER game btw. Thanksgiving was nice, Christmas was even better. Made a new friend sorta. Uhhhhhh thats kinda all for 2024, at least that I can think of off the top of my head.
Now for THIS YEAR! At the end of last year, I made a big list of 25 New Years resolutions, which I call "25 Quests in 2025". Some quests are big, some are small, most have Bonus versions which are kinda just extensions of the original quest (like if I had to do a spin, the Bonus version would be do a spin 5 times or something, just a little bonus challenge if I wanna do it).
My biggest goal in my list is drawing everyday. Might seem difficult, but it's only gonna be doodles with a pixel brush tbh (unless I have a big ol piece that's for something else, of course). I've definitely gotten close to failing a few times (mostly due to drawing late, and putting a lil too much effort in it).
Anyways, yeah! That's all for now! Byebye!
I went to work with mom today, it was nice.
Im tired asf bc I only got 2 and a half hours of sleep lol
But it was nice yea..
I was rlly productive, finished 4 sketches. One was a study of head resting on hand, wanted to learn bust drawings bc of some secret lil thing I have planned. It was actually fun learning it tho, which surprised me a bit.
CocoaSketch1.jpg
Another was an alternate dimension Cocoa; Cocoa Meadows. Not a final design I dont think, just sorta the groundwork for it. I always wanted Cocoa to have a more fall-themed design tbh, but it simply didn't fit with the more purple aesthetic I wanted for everything. So the whole universe thing is my way of getting both, having two cakes if you will.
CocoaSketch2.jpg
I did another study, trying to combine human and animal features in an uncanny way, without it looking suuuper ugly as shit. It's specifically for an OC that *is* a human-furry hybrid experiment thing.
OcSketch1.jpg
And finally, I redesigned one of my favorite ocs (who was a sona I used for a veeerrrrrrry long time). I tried "redesigning" them once before not too long ago, but I got tripped up on the colors so I never ended up finishing it. Redesigning is in quotes bc I actually kept it very faithful to the original design, so it was more of a "remaster" of sorts? Regardless, rlly like this new design.
OcSketch2.jpg
Thats not aaaall I did tho. I actually started digitalizing the resting-head sketch to make it an actual drawing, bc Cocoa pretty and I love drawing her and the world can never have enough Cocoa Nova frfr.
Speaking of Cocoa, I did a liiiittle work on her model. Well, I actually changed it a lot from the first version I posted, but I haven't given an update on it in a while. I had actually remodeled the whole thing, using a bit of a different reference than what I had before, with it using more straight lines instead of being super smooth and round, which has made visualizing the end product a lot easier. Anyways, I did work on the hair. It's very uhhhhh flat, literally, but I'll round things out later on... also literally.
That's abt it I think. Overall just a rlly productive day that was mostly relaxing (aside from the sleepiness I had to fight, along with a burst of bad thoughts here and there.)
This'll go up tomorrow, I'm too eepy to code this thang in the blog, just writing this in my notes app lol.
(Note, it went up 2 days later lol, oops -w-)
Sooooo I've been working on some doing 3d modeling! (and a bunch of other stuff bc ngl Im all over the place with my projects lmaoo)
I tried to do it sometime in the summer, but uhhhhhh I naively did the donut tutorial... BIG mistake bc it was so long, and boring, and greuling, and I barely remembered anything from that.
BUT! Sometime in september I saw a post on twitter abt someone wanting to get into 3d modeling or smth like that, and someone replied to it mentioning that donut tutorial. And omg like all the replies to that reply were talking abt how it's NOT beginner friendly, and that helped me feel open to trying it out again. Almost coincidentally (or the uhhhh data trading creatures crawling around on every social media) a blender tutorial by Crashsune appeared on my youtube recommended.
Lemme tell ya'll, that whole tutorial series by Crashsune was like a GODSEND for me. It's like night and day comparing my experiences with those tutorials. I'm sure the donut has its place and all, but it really isn't beginner friendly in my experience.
ANYWAYS! I did that tutorial, it was really fun, had a blast. And NOW I'm working on making my own 3d model for my sona, Cocoa! Which, here's my progress so far:
3d-Cocoa-WIP.jpg
I think it's going pretty good so far! Tho one thing is worrying me... the hair. I really have no idea how to do any kinda black or lumpy hair yet, and unfortunately there's little to no low-poly characters from back then that *have* that kinda hair. Worst part is, I can't find ANYTHNG that I'm looking for when looking for low poly characters with curly hair. Sighhhh. I'll probably seek out help with that after I do the arms.
Since it's been a while since I last updated this site, here's another post abt what I plan bc I like rambling about this stuff lol
So! I finally pinpointed some things I wanted to do for some of these pages!
To start with the first page of the site: the Main Menu, I wanna add some more style to it. Especially some cool style stuff at the top and bottom of that page.
The changes I wanna make asap is sourcing my images on neocities itself, rather than storing them on a storage site and risking them getting completely deleted if the site goes down. Plus, it just makes thing infinitely easier.
The OC page and Extras pages are my next orders of business when it comes to the BIIIG stuff. The OCs page, I want it to look kinda like a fighting game screen, with all the tiles with characters in them. And for the Extras page, I ofc plan on adding more pages in there. The only one I have an idea and for is a Sound Test page, with a little fella dancing when the music plays (similar to the Sonic Advance games)
Thats right! I got a Madotsuki plush! Madotsuki plush real and true! Hell yeah! Yippee!
Fr though, I LOOOOVE this plush. It finally arrived yesterday and omg, it's so cute, and I'm so so happy to have it!
The plush is made by Frisk Wong, someone who makes a lot of Fumo-styled plushies of characters. They mostly make Touhou plushies, but they also have DDLC character plushies, and ofc Yume Nikki (with Madotsuki being the only one rn). They also have Natsuki from DDLC and Poniko from Yume Nikki coming sometime in the future.
Here are 2 pics I took of the lil gal yesterday
Madotsuki-Plush.jpg
Madotsuki-Bangin.jpg
So uhhhh, idk what to say here yet, this is p much just a test post. But uhhh... Actually idk what to talk about. I mean- I guess there IS something, and it's that I wanna say that I have BIG plans for this website. I want these pages to have more of individual themes, and just more charm and character overall. One idea I have is having the OCs page be similar to Sonic Advance's, though I dont have the skill for that yet, which is why it's currently under construction. I'm also thinking of having it be like a fighting game kinda character select? But again, dont have the coding skills for that yet. I also want more of these pages to have late 90s - early 2010s influence. Ofc, I gotta do all the basics and lay the foundation for the site first, before I move onto all the larger-scale stylistic flares and experimentation. I also wanna have a lil sound test room, with a lil guy that dances to the beat. That'll definitely be difficult to impliment I think. But yeah! Those are my current plans that I can think of! Thanks for reading! I plan on posting here like once a week at least.
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