Loreleice

Last year was hectic for my creative projects. It was almost full of art challenges (DTIYS, art collabs, and year-long illustration prompts) from other artists. So, it had scarce personal projects.

This year, I'll focus on my creative project backlog and my future plans as a carefree adventurer on the Web. Also, I'll be joining less art challenges than last year.

By the way, here are my creative goals for 2025:

1. Release a new digital sticker pack. While I've already finished my sticker pack inspired by a past art challenge, I just need to make some profiles and reference sheets for my future original characters.
2. Set up a personal website. I started becoming interested in personal websites because of Neocities, IndieWeb, and other realms dedicated to hobbyist website creation. Since I got inspired by other people's work on their online spaces, I decided to handicraft my future virtual home and do some side research about personal websites. Although I still have a Carrd page as my main home, I'll probably relegate that website to a simple link directory for my official platforms.
3. Migrate my blogging activities to Hugo. Another moving arc incoming? I'll consider self-hosting my blog at some point. Also, I'm slowly archiving my blog posts from Blogger and WriteFreely for my future writing space.
4. Get accepted into INPRNT. Although I tried to apply there one time, I feel like I still need more time for personal illustrations. One application per quarter should be enough to enter the realm for art prints.
5. Open some commissions. That one has been my recurring goal! Once I finish my creative project backlog, I can set up a dedicated commissions page via Carrd and design some social media images for this creative goal.

Throughout 2024, I drew 30 phone wallpapers for Go at Your Own Pace (an art challenge by Mimimoo Illustration). In that art challenge, I could complete all prompts there for a single month or an entire year. Of course, I chose the latter.

Here are the following prompts and their designated wallpapers:

1. Bees and flowers: A Fiori
2. Cozy morning coffee: Shinri's Koiffee
3. Ladybugs in love: Yarrow Love
4. Ducks on a walk: Lakad ng mga Papan
5. A lovely rainbow: Rainbow Hearts
6. Bear in a sunhat: Sunflower Teddy
7. Best friends: Joey and Chandler
8. Garden at sunset: Sunset at the Red Bridge
9. Enchanted forest: Enchanted Redwood
10. Afternoon treats: Honey Butter Treats
11. Mouse on an adventure: Nezumiho
12. Butterfly garden: Farfalle
13. A nice surprise: Fidough Rises
14. Daisies waking up: Daisies at Sunrise
15. Tiny home in a mushroom: Enoki Home
16. A cozy evening: Sleeping Lovebirds
17. Hedgehog picnic: Spiky Snacktime
18. Baking cookies: Korone's Cookies
19. Happy birds: Winged Happiness
20. The tiniest holiday: Janthina Island
21. A colourful cottage: Floral Cottage
22. Starry night: Astral Journey
23. A walk in the park: Blossoming Chaos
24. Reading a book: Kiki's Readings
25. A bunny in a flower field: Lost in the Black-eyed Susan Fields
26. Beautiful trees: Planting Saplings
27. A cute celebration: Celebratory Cubes
28. Up in the clouds: Swablu Trio
29. A house for a mouse: Mini Maushold Melancholy
30. Animals having a party: Party Animals

All of my wallpapers are downloadable for free at Mastodon and Ko-fi Shop. You may also get them by paying your desired amount on the latter. Remember, these are for personal and non-commercial use only.

Although I mostly did art challenges and collabs this year, I managed to draw a few original pieces as well. I also drew more artworks than before, which was mostly because I joined a year-long art challenge from a fellow artist.

Here are some highlights for 2024:

1. Got noticed by other artists and a few VTubers because of my illustrations for them! For the latter, I even got ecstatic when I heard Jurard T Rexford's kettle noise (which is included in one of my pieces) during his post-birthday celebration.
2. Participated in some art collabs within the social media and VTuber communities. It's nice to support each other through these group events!
3. Published my first e-book, The Surrealist from the University. This poem collection was supposed to be released two years ago, but it was shelved temporarily due to work and life stuff. (Slowly catching up with my creative backlog...)
4. Explored some alternative platforms for sharing my creative portfolio. If I ever get (really) tired of mainstream yet enshittified socials, I would just go to those sites instead.
5. Started to draw using Clip Studio Paint! Ever since I drew Cherubi there (and got myself another tablet), I felt like making use of this art software more.

2024 was the year when I pushed myself further into creative exploration. It was also the start of my Glaze era, where I let the program add some subtle artifacts to my illustrations. I hope that 2025 is the year for more personal projects and creative catch-ups.

As always, thanks to everyone who has supported my creative journey!

I finally deactivated my Facebook page! After four and a half years of activity there, I decided to finish my algorithmic struggles and ignore any generative bullshit in that platform. Also, I didn't like the complicated page management anymore.

Although Facebook is so prevalent where I live, it's just a barren wasteland for me, especially in terms of engagement. I feel like it's now a privacy-intruding platform that enables mass-produced creativity (often in the form of AI-generated images and captions) and mass-engaged toxicity.

I don't know if I could re-emerge on Facebook again. Either I could give it another chance or abandon it completely.

Although I had a hectic schedule for life stuff last week, I got four sticker packs (two from GeekJack and two from Common Room) along the way. Half of them arrived during a recent out-of-town trip, and they were received by one of my close friends at home. Another half were purchased during my travels.

holoEmblem (HOLOSTARS)

These holoEmblem stickers are inspired by character designs of various members of HOLOSTARS English, an all-male VTuber group from hololive Production.

I bought two sets of stickers featuring Banzoin Hakka's design. I think they look perfect in a journal spread that's dedicated to my favorite VTuber in TEMPUS.

Pokémon

I went to my nearest branch of Common Room, a shop for assorted items handmade by Filipino artists and makers. As I found some Pokémon-themed stickers there, I got some adorable packs from Studio Dondon and Sab Geid.

Studio Dondon's stickers depict nine Pokémon from Generation I: Pikachu, Jigglypuff, Psyduck, Charmander, Bulbasaur, Squirtle, Meowth, Mew, and Eevee.

Sab Geid's Cute Monsters stickers feature every Eeveelutions in existence (as of this writing): Espeon, Sylveon, Eevee, Vaporeon, Jolteon, Flareon, Umbreon, Leafeon, and Glaceon.

For now, I still keep these stickers in a small purse (where I put product tags, paper scraps, and other stuff that can fit there). One day, I might use them to decorate a simple journal page or a Pokémon-related spread.

I finally made a custom CSS theme for this blog and LorelOCs. This simple WriteFreely theme is based on the main color palette from my virtual persona and Carrd page.

Source code

/* Virtual Writing Pad */
/* Copyright 2024 by Loreleice */
/* Licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0 */

/* Blog title */
#blog-title a {
    color: #336d80;
}

#blog-title a:hover {
    color: #69a0b2;
}

/* Blog description */
header p.description {
    color: #69a0b2;
    font-style: italic;
    font-weight: bold;
}

/* Navigation buttons */
.pinned {
    color: #336d80;
    border: 1px solid #336d80;
    padding: 12px;
    font-variant: small-caps;
}

.pinned:hover {
    color: white;
    background-color: #336d80;
    border: 1px solid #336d80;
    padding: 12px;
    font-variant: small-caps;
    text-decoration: none;
}

/* Blog posts */
body {
    text-align: justify;
    border-radius: 10px;
    width: 800px;
    box-shadow: 0px 0px 10px #69a0b2;
    margin: 100px auto 100px auto;
    padding: 10px;
}

.book.e-content, .e-content {
    color: #666;
}

/* Links on blog posts */
a, .post-title a.u-url, #title {
    color: #336d80;
}

a:hover, .post-title a:hover {
    color: #69a0b2;
}

/* Date published */
.dt-published {
    color: #666;
    font-style: italic;
}

/* Image borders */
img {
    display: block;
    margin: 0 auto;
    border: 8px solid white;
    box-shadow: 0px 0px 2px #666;
}

Since I barely used WriteFreely (specifically this instance), I decided to make use of this blogging platform going forward.

Why did I consider moving my blogging activities here? I want simplicity when it comes to writing and managing stuff here. Also, I want to worry less about scrapers who want to utilize my creativity (often in malicious ways). Maybe I want more control with blog management and customization.

This blog will serve as a replacement for the old one from Blogger, which will become an archive for my blogging activities from 2020 to 2024. As usual, it is my personal space for creative writing pieces (such as poetry and prose) and random thoughts.

So long, my old blogging spot... Welcome there, writing freely (and responsibly).