Launched: 7 Nov 2021
Homepage of a webtoon creator and old web enthusiast who also needs somewhere to put other ideas. Pixel art, web buttons, 3D modeling, HTML and CSS experiments, and maybe other things that catch my interest. My flagship project is in the Projects section and that's where most of my effort has been channeled, but I was going to get back to this.
Expect retro tech references, puns, pop culture and history references, and retro art! The background of the banner was made in MacPaint 2.0, and the moon and 3D text were rendered in Infini-D 3.0!
Most of the pixel art I made was made in Krita, and my vector work that will be featured was made in Inkscape!
The design is inspired by sites from the 2000's. From the username I chose, it was the most fitting for the color scheme to be inspired by elements from the early Macs.
This layout is the second version, and is still a work in progress. The first was quickly put together and very minimalist because I needed to put something up for an index page that'd link to any other projects I wanted to host. The spin-off site for my main project was my main focus for Neocities! This home page was nearly an afterthought, but as I saw more 2000's-style sites on Neocities for inspiration and got more ideas that went beyond my main project, those sites inspired me to revamp the layout of this one.
The "Best viewed with a computer" button isn't just me being snarky. The redesign of this site that uses divs, and the only way I was able to get them to display properly on my first try was by using absolute positioning. Another revision made the layout responsive by using percentages, but it works only on desktops. I need to keep adapting this layout to also be responsive on mobile devices! ^^;
Aside from help I got with how to use divs, and the menu rework which came from a free tutorial because I needed to start learning HTML 5, the rest of this site was coded by hand in TextEdit!
My username is Synergy Eclipse/30, which uses one of the most overused corporate buzzwords with one of the Classic Mac codenames. The abbreviation is named after one of the most iconic Macs from the Classic era and username was inspired by the naming conventions of many vaporwave artists. I've been a fan of Vaporwave aesthetics and music since 2019!
My main project that I have been working on for years is Magical Renegades Anathema to Commonsense! A magical girl webtoon that has branched out into spin-offs from extra ideas! Working on this webtoon led me to using Neocities in 2021, first through creating a 90's web-inspired spin-off site and then creating this site. Most of my 3D modeling and art is related to Magical Renegades.
Most of my practice 3D modeling with Blender comes from modeling backgrounds for Magical Renegades episodes, and most of my art challenge drawings are related as a way to expand on the lore using prompts that I wouldn't have considered before! Using Blender to model backgrounds while I learned the process helped me keep focused on a path when I struggled to practice modeling in Blender without a clear path.
Click the banner to read more!
I made some web buttons that are free to use!
Other projects are listed on my Projects page.
This is a long section, so hold on! The Old Web was part of my childhood. I remember frequently browsing sites on Geocities, Tripod and Angelfire. Many were fan sites for things across the web. I could spend hours just browsing and finding new things! These sites tended to not look as polished as the average modern web page, but had a uniqueness and expressiveness to them that a lot of the modern web doesn't.
Modern websites look a lot more polished and it's easy to make them that way, but a lot of them feel so same-y. There's a standardized look that developed, and a lot of the customizability that used to be common disappeared! MySpace was customizable but later social media sites that surpassed its popularity developed a standardized look that set the stage for other webpages to develop them that are more focused on SEO and monetization.
This didn't happen overnight. It was a gradual shift that started around the late 2000's and through the 2010's. Fast forward to now, or really since I joined Tapas in 2016. It's a very convenient platform to host a webcomic or webtoon, no coding skills required, but it's not very customizable.
Some webcomics and webtoons have their own sites that were made from scratch, and have extra pages for characters or blogs! I would've liked that for the customizability, but coding has never been my strong suit (see the design problems I mentioned above), and I've had to juggle everything with my webtoon along with a full-time job and other duties. The modern web and its limited customizability on many platforms that don't require any coding is very convenient and time-saving. This convenience of mainstream social media came at several costs though, and others can explain those costs better than I can.
The angle I'm writing this is about how these potentially time-saving platforms to help creators get their ideas out there became practically essential in this era of the hustle, keeping up with algorithms, keeping up fast update schedules and frequent engagement! Why? Art is very competitive, and social media displays so much material or "content" at once that it competes with every viewer's attention and every creator needs to make themselves and their work stand out!
I tried to keep up with the grind in 2017, but soon I had to come to terms with the fact that I just couldn't. It was painful. Even when I had all of my free time after work to myself on my best days, it just wasn't enough time to do everything; drawing, writing and promoting without having to keep putting any of them off. I had a short stint on twitter in 2017 when I tried to promote and network.
Perhaps I could have if I cut a lot of corners with drawing everything (I don't have any assistants for the lineart, coloring or anything), but I wouldn't have been happy with those results. I often overexerted myself, felt like a failure and that any hobbies I have that I can't monetize are worthless although they give me enjoyment. It was easy to feel guilty over hobbies I enjoyed but couldn't monetize. I didn't think that of other people but I thought that about myself. Trying to keep up with the algorithms and a fast update schedule were the only ways I had a fighting chance at success. I saw making a living off of art as success. At least I was good at my job and I can take pride in that. The work I got paid for, but had nothing to do with my creative visions.
Work on my webcomic, which would restart as a webtoon in 2020, still continued because I was more determined than ever to make the webtoon reboot the final regardless of whether I monetized, but I still sometimes worried about it in case I was no longer able to work a traditional job. The episode format helped me write more material for the blog. I created the blog for supplementary material, and found WordPress to be a good compromise between customizability and convenience without having to learn coding. However, I forgot how much I was missing out by not having a site that's fully customizable until I was introduced to Neocities in 2021!
I saw many sites there and they were inspiring that I wanted to make one. They emphasized fun and self-expression which I missed when I was trying to keep up with the grind in 2017 (and again in early 2021). I think I was too corporate, but it felt like the only way to be. My first plans on Neocities were to make a site for my webtoon, but I still needed to break free from the mindset I had. I understood why most of the webcomic and webtoon creators I saw on twitter promoted their works on their personal account, or had a personal account along with an account for their works. To be less corporate. To present a personal touch to what is consumable content in the eyes of the social media giants.
Before I launched a site on Neocities, I wanted to decide on a username that's not just for my webtoon. A username that conveys something and isn't tied to it or any other project I was planning. How could I imagine myself, separate from my work? I turned to vaporwave for inspiration and to find my answer!
Making a site from scratch is a lot of extra work, and a trade-off, but it's been a lot of fun since I started!