Everything's coming together. I've been learning a lot and think I'm finally ready to start sharing my work.
Everything's coming together. I've been learning a lot, and I'm finally ready to share my work.
I've had a mostly solid horizontal slice of Blessfrey ready for a while, and this cycle of system revamps is finally able to support the sophistication of content I want. When I finish this iteration of skill systems and AI, I will be ready to make a real demo release of Blessfrey!
Welcome to Blessfrey.me, my online portfolio and design blog! After using it privately (or at least as privately as anything can be online) to practice webdev and biweekly blogging for a year, this site is ready for visitors.
I don't know why it never occurred to me that I don't have to hold back my website waiting on that demo, though. Releasing and publishing is an important skill in itself. I threw together No-Legs the Cat in a few hours, exported it, hosted it on itch.io, and embedded what is currently the crown jewels of my website. Finally! I have a gamedev website with a playable game on it.
All this time, my website maintenance skills have been getting stronger. I have a years' worth of content as a buffer. My artist's block has dissipated for the first time in years, and I actually enjoy drawing concept art and character designs again. I've also spent a year trying different languages and frameworks and improving across the board. The website's already a night and day difference from old versions, and I finally feel comfortable with where it's at.
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The last time I did any webdev was back when every website had custom HTML+CSS profiles, so I'm stunned by how far web technology has come along, both in terms of capability and ease of implementation. Man, I wish we had the CSS grid to lay out old petsite pages! I feel up to speed now, though. My confidence in maintaining and upgrading my website is solid. Same for writing articles. They're at a good length, level of organization, and readability. Writing for just yourself and writing for someone else are two completely different mindsets, you know?
This is my website, so I might as well use it however I want. If I have a website, I shouldn't have to rely on anyone else for image hosting or digital content presentation. There's no reason for me to have to pull up my phone all the time to show people what I'm working on. Blessfrey.me can take care of all of that for me.
Of course, I'm not saying Blessfrey.me is great, I'm saying I'm not ashamed anymore. People with a harsh inner critic understand what a hurdle that is.
From now on, I'll post fashion content here. I used to have a separate online portfolio for it and tried a separate blog from that once, but I was always struggling to fit into standard formats. Giving myself a blank section of my general portfolio to structure however I want is freeing. Some fashion designers like Kenneth D. King don't even organize their ideas into seasonal collections. The industry as a whole is moving away from the rigid structure of in-person runway shows in lieu of directly meeting with the press, releasing lookbooks of fashion photography, and shooting short art films. Why shouldn't a fashion blogger re-evaluate her portfolio, too? Maybe I'll add a section for general art here, too, someday. Who knows?
I'm going to take this somewhat professionally (I mean, I'm no business suit avatar "no offers under 100k" person), so I have a release schedule and content mix and everything. I'll get back on social media, too. All that pandemic news was hard to look at, but I miss seeing other people's projects and meeting fellow devs. My Twitter is @lilchimchooree, and I'll get on Mastodon, too. Twitter is big, but it has so many problems.
So please bookmark and visit every other Thursday (US time) for new articles! Also, message me on social media. I don't mind chatting.
I never really had a plan for how to use this site and was generally copying other portfolios and blogs. Having your own website is really cool, though. Unless I'm somewhere else for a community, there's no reason for me to still be fussing with image hosting services or any kind of content management tool. My server, domain, and custom code should cover everything. It should be the easiest thing in the world to show people what I've been working on, too - just show them my website, duh.
So what should I do with my website? Whatever I want. It should be obvious, but the drive to copy others and meet standard expectations is so hard to break.
First, I'm going to have embedded HTML5 applications. I'm not waiting for Blessfrey's first demo to do that, either. I'm making gamejam projects, prototypes, anything interesting, and slapping them right on the website. After all, a gamedev website should have games!
Second, I'm going to share programming and fashion projects. I used to have a separate fashion portfolio and a few blogs, but I was always struggling to match the guidelines for online content. It's more freeing to give myself a blank section of my general portfolio and a tenth of the blog to fill however I want. Some fashion designers like Kenneth D. King don't even organize their ideas into seasonal collections. The industry as a whole is reconsidering rigid expectations, experimenting with replacing in-person runway shows with alternatives like direct meetings with the press, lookbooks of fashion photography, and short art films. Why shouldn't a fashion blogger re-evaluate her portfolio, too?
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Best practice says to be an SEO zombie laser-focused on a niche, but that conflicts with my own needs. I develop websites, games, programming projects, fashion projects, interior design projects, pixelart, writing, and more, and people in my life ask to see them. I want to work for actual people, not an algorithm.
Blessfrey.me's needs are fairly simple - some static pages and a blog page. Blogging platforms are overkill for my purposes, and all those unused features would bog down the website at best and contribute to security vulnerabilities at worst. So I write and maintain this site from scratch.
It's plain fun to write my own platform. Besides, it just makes sense for my programming portfolio to be something I programmed.
I always thought PHP developers were so cool as a kid, so Blessfrey.me was originally written in PHP. That didn't last long. I could compare pros and cons, but PHP was unenjoyable to maintain. Its documentation is crazy, though. Each page has a comment section with 19-year-old posts criticising the language. So bizarrely negative and old!
Now I use Bottle, a Python micro web-framework, its built-in template engine SimpleTemplate, and raw HTML and CSS. It's deployed using Docker. Anything's more fun if I get to use Python.
That isn't to say the website's perfect as it! It looks pretty wonky on mobile and tablets, and I've only been testing in Firefox and Chrome-based browsers. It's functional and has a decent amount of content, though, so I'd say it's a-okay to take out of maintenance mode for now.
The website has plenty of room for improvement. It looks pretty wonky on mobile and tablets, and I've only been testing in Firefox and Chrome-based browsers. It's functional and has a decent amount of content, though, so I'd say it's a-okay to take out of maintenance mode for now.
Next I'm going to work with every resolution I can get my hands on and refactor my code a little. Also, I have a different vision for the formatting of most pages. The demo and fashion pages could definitely be broken into pieces. There should probably ultimately be a separate, permanent page for each HTML5 application. I also like having not just my Blessfrey characters but all my ocs here. It's like Toyhouse, but the price of custom CSS is already included in server costs. If nothing else, it'll be nice for when Artfight's sputtering.
Next I'm going to work with every resolution I can get my hands on and iron out the code. Each page is wordy and unstructured, but I'll rein them in soon. I'll also properly implement my character database, so I don't have to use clunky Toyhouse anymore.
Everything's coming together. I've been learning a lot, and I'm finally ready to share my work.
Blessfrey.me is my online portfolio and design blog. I've been using it privately (or at least as privately as anything can be online) to practice webdev and biweekly blogging.
The last time I did any webdev was back when every website had custom HTML+CSS profiles, so I'm kind of stunned by how far the technology has come along, both in terms of capability and ease of implementation. Man, I wish I could have used the CSS grid to lay out my old petsite pages! I feel up to speed now, though. My confidence in maintaining and upgrading my website is solid. Same for writing articles. They're at a good length, level of organization, and readability.
Of course, I'm not saying Blessfrey.me is perfect, I'm saying I'm not ashamed anymore.
I've had a mostly solid horizontal slice of Blessfrey ready for a while, and this cycle of system revamps is finally able to support the sophistication of content I want. When I finish this iteration of skill systems and AI, I will be ready to make a real demo release of Blessfrey!
I don't know why it never occurred to me that I don't have to hold back my website waiting on that demo, though. Releasing and publishing is an important skill in itself. I threw together No-Legs the Cat in a few hours, exported it, hosted it on itch.io, and embedded what is currently the crown jewels of my website. Finally! I have a gamedev website with a playable game on it.
All this time, my website maintenance skills have been getting stronger. I have a years' worth of content as a buffer. My artist's block has dissipated for the first time in years, and I actually enjoy drawing concept art and character designs again. I've also spent a year trying different languages and frameworks and improving across the board. The website's already a night and day difference from old versions, and I finally feel comfortable with where it's at.
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This is my website, so I might as well use it however I want. If I have a website, I shouldn't have to rely on anyone else for image hosting or digital content presentation. There's no reason for me to have to pull up my phone all the time to show people what I'm working on. Blessfrey.me can take care of all of that for me.
From now on, I'll post fashion content here. I used to have a separate online portfolio for it and tried a separate blog from that once, but I was always struggling to fit into standard formats. Giving myself a blank section of my general portfolio to structure however I want is freeing. Some fashion designers like Kenneth D. King don't even organize their ideas into seasonal collections. The industry as a whole is moving away from the rigid structure of in-person runway shows in lieu of directly meeting with the press, releasing lookbooks of fashion photography, and shooting short art films. Why shouldn't a fashion blogger re-evaluate her portfolio, too? Maybe I'll add a section for general art here, too, someday. Who knows?
That isn't to say the website's perfect as it! It looks pretty wonky on mobile and tablets, and I've only been testing in Firefox and Chrome-based browsers. It's functional and has a decent amount of content, though, so I'd say it's a-okay to take out of maintenance mode for now.
Next I'm going to work with every resolution I can get my hands on and refactor my code a little. Also, I have a different vision for the formatting of most pages. The demo and fashion pages could definitely be broken into pieces. There should probably ultimately be a separate, permanent page for each HTML5 application. I also like having not just my Blessfrey characters but all my ocs here. It's like Toyhouse, but the price of custom CSS is already included in server costs. If nothing else, it'll be nice for when Artfight's sputtering.