Dear diarheaa..

Hi. I have been too cold, tired, busy, and so forth to really do anything notable or be online. Too hot during summer, too cold during winter.. why can't it be fall all the time?! Also my keyboard's backspace key is sticky/hard-to-press/fucked up and it's making me type very loudly and slowly.

Hey, have you played Slice and Dice? It's an indie strategy/puzzle game with the presentation of a turn-based fantasy RPG. It's VERY fun, and very good for bathroom breaks. A couple of the streamers I watch (skoottie, itsgng) were playing it and it convinced me to buy it. $7 is very worth it!

I uploaded another chapter of my Nightslade ao3 archive, focused on SFW Robin & Slade art. It has one new drawing, a couple of old ones, and short gag comics. We rewatched some Slade scenes from the 2000's cartoon, after recognizing Ron Perlman's seductive grampy voice in the 90's Superman Cartoon - it never gets old watching the camera zoom in on Robin as he squints and hisses "SLADE...".

I'm slowly chipping away at commissions with my frozen fingers.

• An 11x14 traditional dog portrait pair that I'm excited to start inking.
• Coloring a traditional ink sketch page (digitally!). Have the flats done.
• Coloring that Predator dakimakura, flats done and need to do details and armor side. With my et$y shop down, I can't order as many pillowcases as usual. May have to finally do pre-orders (along with the Ryo) when I'm done.
• Inking a RE4 Merchant dakimakura. This will go in the daki order after the Predator.
• Have 2 other commissions in queue, will start on those when the traditional art comms are done.

I've also done some Webbed Design type things, including an update to my storefront and making a lil HTML snippet for Shane to use for listing our art for sale online.

Listing deez nuts

Shane drew the pen sketch in 10 seconds, and I mocked up the above layout in the 5 minutes it took for him to go the kitchen and back. I'm REALLY happy about the clarity of thought I have now when thinking about ~*flexbox*~ layouts. And the fact that I can use my knowledge for something that helps my friends n' family makes me happy!

It's actually really nice to have a hobby that isn't my work (coughs at art), on the days it's hard to think it's easy to just type up a little in VScode and feel happy with a couple lines of code.

Now for boring store screenshots :)

Store redesign

Note: these are all done with Ecwid's default drag n' drop store builder and the css customization you get. When I was using Wix, there was a lot more flexibility in design. I don't know how to get fuller customization with Ecwid yet, though I know Ms. Boba managed that with the Fujoboard store.

But right now, I'm fine with drag n' drop. Especially cuz I can focus more energy on customizing my personal art site in funky rather than my commercial site. Plus they feed into each other as I grow my design sense and get a general gist of how things fit together to display information sequentially, rather than just dropping everything into a mess LOL. Hey, it's all comics in the end!

I thought there was too much information on the first stop crunched up on the first stop of the store. So I pushed that info down, and let the splash image breathe. Gotta show off the goods right? I still think those inktober pieces are swell! A very good Fall with a lot of inspiration.

Also, I feel like people forget about using the free shipping I offer, so I put that lil newsline on top to remind people. Even with a free shipping coupon people don't use it! Sometimes people tell me they they intentionally don't use the deals cuz they want me to get more money.. the thought's very nice! But it's also cool when people use the free stuff I offer >:)

As mentioned, the information that used to be sloppily overlaid on the splash image is now in its own section. Easy to read, no need for too many filters on the image to have it legible, and no one can miss it. Surely! Covid info hasn't changed in a while... ehhee. We'll see if the USPS continues to lose government support.


Categories used to be just text saying "Dakimakura" or whatever. Now they have images illustrating what's in the category. Maybe of use for non-english audiences, as well as attention deficit folks like me who can read a lot faster and easier with illustrations ;) Many of the thumbnails I'm using for the categories are from Shane's wonderful work on our December social media shilling images. I used his work, and was inspired to make matching thumbnails for categories that didn't already have transparent images with white outlines.

I don't have relevant thumbnails for the abstract categories like "all products" and "specials". Can't figure out visuals if it's not literal :p So I just reused the cats from my pet page LOL. They're cute, right? And all the sales go to benefit them!

The first attempt at the about section was rather lengthy. Especially when Shane pointed out how looooooong and vertical scrolly our page was. So condensing the information into clickable details seemed like a good idea. Plus I get to talk more about Shane, because he really is such an important part of our operations! I am the face of the art and store... but he is the tank engine powering my taint.

More of the about section, talking about our animals. They're also a huge part of the engine, cuz half of everything I do is to make their lives happier and full of food. The other half is for Shane ;) And another section talking about how I make paper goods in-house. I think that makes our store stand out a bit! I'm very transparent about where I outsource things, and how I make the DIY stuff, because I think it's cool to make things and attribute people especially when they help.

The commission section has been reworded, to solely focus on that part of my store rather than clogging it up with the "about" that you saw in the last couple of screen shots. I wanted to keep this photo of our Doug n' Jill. It's cute! And I guess it shows that we're physical beings that live on land and have animals? Rather than just faceless Content Creators pumping Content into the void.



And finally... the Newsletter shilling. Gotta get people on that especially if they don't use social media (especially that twitdder is dying!). I haven't gotten too many new signups since I switched from Wix. Cuz Wix had a checkbox for people to opt into signups, and its own subscription system :) Something about patterns and how it's easier to hook people during checkout, like candy next to the cash register. Eh, I don't care too much right now about MUH MARKETING and MUH DARK PATTERNS. Subscribe if you want to! It's for your own good!

I am currently pleased with how the store site looks. It has a slicker more generic feel than my personal site, but that's fine for e-commerce shit. Get the info you need and get out! And by out, I mean go to my personal site for a more personal experience!