MKSCOMMENTARY #1: THE SITE
The origins of my website and how it came to be how it is today!
ORIGINS
PRE-SITE (January-February 2023)
I started posting on the Internet at the very beginning of 2023. My first artwork was a Cure Chocolat fanart that looked pretty stiff with a totally ripped background (no I'm not going to show the image because I don´t like it).
In my first text post, I remember saying I didn´t mind the attention I´d receive. Well guess what: that –unfortunately– was a big fat lie. Why? Because since late 2022 I had a persistent emotional down that quite literally made me behave like someone with PTSD and Depression due to a pill I was taking until June, and as a consequence, I posted my older art in order to gain more attention while publishing my newer stuff too. Suddenly, one day lost access to my account out of nowhere and couldn´t log back in, so I had to create a new one and a text post saying that I was only going to repost whatever I found important. However, after I lost access again I immediately gave up and disappeared.
BEGINNING OF DEVELOPMENT (February-March 2023)
After that happened, I realized social media wasn´t good for my art and thus looked for advice in the art academy I went to at the time. A classmate whom they claimed he was wise on the topic told me to post on Amino instead, but I was weirded out by that considering the goals the site had. Though what really clicked was when the teacher told me to create a website instead and advised me to use Google Sites to develop it. However, as some time passed, I realized that I wasn't comfortable with it because I felt like the tools were limited.
Then in late March, I stumbled across some tutorial on YT that used Wix as a background, and out of stupid impulse, I immediately made an account and started developing the site we know today.
AESTHETIC
PRE-SITE (June 2022-April 2023)
I didn´t have an aesthetic for my works until early 2022, but I’m not going to talk about it because it won’t be related to the site itself, so we’re going to do a timeskip to June of the same year, which focuses on the brand. The design was based on my tastes in art so I added them to make me proud of the result. I knew I liked bright colors, screentones, blocky shapes and sharp edges. But why isn’t the color blue in the list? To tell the truth, I still didn´t have a favorite one, yet I just thought it looked good. Who´d tell me I´d be so obsessed with it to the point I even dress up all blue. No, I'm not kidding.
(This was from July, read further to know the reason)
After I created my banner, I can remember I experimented a bit with it by adding a lil´ bit of lore (I unfortunately can’t show it because it looks like I deleted the files when I was looking for them… I don’t even know why I did that in the first place). I also used the same background but with different colors to match the character I was drawing as you´ll see in the following artworks (warning for crappy old art):
However, while I had those aesthetics, the avatar I used at the time didn’t match them at all.
I created it in February 2022, but the image you´re seeing right here is from July (again!). I wanted to make an avatar inspired by Aimkid´s former miniature one since I liked her animations at the time, but unlike hers, which was probably some random creature (idk), mine was a pixie. This one was so persistent that I even designed a gijinka based off of a Miitopia Mii I made. Shame for that sona who thought she was going to be here forever.
I had another one but I’m not going to talk about it because it won’t make any sense.
DEVELOPMENT (February-September 2023)
When I started developing the first site, I reused the old banner and put it on the homepage.
(NOTE: Since this is a different version of the banner, I don’t know the creation date of this one, but I am 100% sure this is NOT the original one from June 2022.)
This used to be like that until I switched to Wix the next month, given that I started with a template and I didn’t really like the color palette it offered, so I made my own, but there was a problem: although it was clear that I was going to use blue like the in previous one, I didn´t have any ideas, making me go to a color palette generator site (not AI, it existed WAY before the fiasco) and modified the colors a bit to my liking. Then, I searched for tutorials on how to design an avatar. The information I recompiled from them was:
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Make it look like yourself.
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Use a color palette and aesthetic you like.
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Add some elements that resemble your personality (hence the iconic red ferret, which at the time my mind was a never-ending creative factory and I would even get inspired by the smallest thing).
Since my mind was blank, I designed it in a character maker app and here it came, the first design of myself (another warning for old art again, this one’s worse).
Then in April, I made an icon and a new banner to reappear on the Internet on Tumblr, but I didn’t gain any attention, so I quit again (bad old art again!!)
Even after both the palette and the avatar were made, the site’s layout was still blank until July. While I was developing it, I felt like it looked dull, so I added the background, improving it as time passed.
And when I joined Newgrounds a month later, I wanted to make a new icon because the previous one was obviously really bad, while the old new avatar still stayed, aside from being improvised.
In September, I realized my sona would be kinda difficult to draw, but I was too lazy to do a concept the day it came to my mind, so I did it a few days later. And thus came the MK we all know today.
INFLUENCES
A huge part of my website was influenced by Japanese artists’ ones, such as Nebulamancers (which is where most of it comes from), Funamusea’s (NOTE #1: I don’t support her), PoYoPep (NOTE #2: I am not influenced by her art anymore due to unknown reasons and I don't support her either) and the Official Makemon´s, which is Bayachao’s franchise. But that doesn’t mean it’s only Japanese ones; in fact, there were (only) two (lol) western sites, which were Ashido and ZArt Gallery (which are some of Zarla’s personal sites, the first one being the main) and Lastworry111’s long defunct Neocities.
