Site History
Well, all sites have histories, right? Turns out that we have one too. A VERY long one.SeaMonkey Who?
So, once upon a time in Feburary 2009, my dad got me a laptop. Amazingly, that one laptop was the thing that got me totally hooked on computers. Okay, fine, that laptop wasn't really a true "laptop". Why? It was too heavy to hold on your lap, it couldn't go 2 minutes without being plugged in, and it was the slowest thing ever. ANYWAY. Even though it sucked, I loved that thing like heck. My dad showed me SeaMonkey, a visual editor/browser from Mozilla (yes, the monkey is related to the fox in a way) and set it up in coordination with the FTP account so I could publish stuff from the site. I don't have an exact URL, I forget what directory my files and stuff were in. I didn't know a snippet of HTML or CSS, and I just kept with the visual editor. Looking back, my layouts those days looked like crap. It didn't have any good fonts either. Just the default Times New Roman font. Ugh. My webpage back then looked like this: A big heading in a different text color, then content. With a messed-up table for navigation. No one came to my website except for my friends, but pssht, do you really think I cared? It was pure heaven.The big move
WAY after the SeaMonkey era, I decided that I wanted a more decent layout, so I moved to the Freewebs site builder. I decided to make a Pokémon fansite called Pokémon Island. Isn't that so original? BACK ON TOPIC, I used the site builder and I got a better layout. It's still up (I've been too lazy to take it down) and you can see it here. Pretty suckish, right? That was about the best I could do back in the day. My screen name back then was chibi_lugia, and my drawings... they, well, sucked. Epically.I seem to enjoy changing names
Shortly after THAT, I found The Sky Temple of Lugia and Articuno. That totally got me riled up. I was all, "OMG, I can make a Lugia and Articuno fansite too!" I switched sites again, still in Freewebs. I can't show you that one because I got rid of it. The layout was one-columned again, and it was blue to represent Lugia and Articuno. I named it Lugia and Articuno's Sky. I also made a forum, but I used a more reliable host, Forummotion. It's still up, and if you go here you can see what it looks like nowadays. SOON after that, I wanted to add something to the name since I didn't like how "Lugia and Articuno's Sky" sounded like. So, what did I rename it? Guess what it was. No, seriously, guess. Fine then, and lo and behold, I named it...Lugia and Articuno's Sky Pillar.
No, it had nothing to do with Rayquaza, so sorry. I just thought "Sky Pillar" sounded nice. I renamed the site, and I was pretty happy, until...
HTML!
Sort of. I'd been browsing the web when I came across Achamo~Torchic, my soon-to-be first affiliate. I was looking at the Affiliates section when I came across Perish Song, now Kasumi, and I discovered the amazing layout templates! That totally got me excited. At last, a real layout! I decided to use the image editor on Tinypic with an image I found on Google and hurrah! I whipped up a halfway-decent banner to go with my layout. That was the best graphic I'd made in my life, or so I thought then. I sucked at colorpicking then, and my layout ended up the ugliest shade of blue ever. Now what? Time to attract visitors! I remembered the Achamo~Torchic affiliate thing, so that's where I went. I applied and was accepted, and I was really happy! Not only did I get my first affiliate EVER in the site's history, I also got a new friend in the process. Still, I was even MORE facsinated with Wishjirachi (Misakii)'s site, Perish Song. I loved the graphics and layouts and I decided that Wishy would be my webdesigning idol. Then, I found another site, Onogori PMD, another of Wishjirachi/Acchan's friends. I applied for affiliation there and was accepted. Soon after, I applied at Perish Song and also was accepted! This was the REAL beginning of my web designing career.
Photoshop Much?
So, yeah, for my birthday my awesome parents got me the BEST. GIFT. IMAGINABLE. It was a graphics tablet and Photoshop. I totally flipped out (in a good way), I had been always wanting a tablet but I didn't want to ask my parents for one because it WAS kind of big and they'd probably tell me to save up anyway. I spent the day doodling away. First, I drew on MSPaint just to get the feel for it, and then I transferred to Photoshop. Photoshop also meant something else-better graphics. I came across Piplup Princess's Photoshop Vortex Tutorial, and I tried it, and it WORKED. My first work of "art" with the vortex was this Articuno avatar. Might not look like much, but I thought it was totally EPIC.
Ze Great Hiatus
After LASP (Lugia and Articuno's Sky Pillar) was up and running for a bit, I decided to close it down so I could improve my Photoshop/web design skills. It was closed for a LONG time, I tell you. At first, I had planned for it to retain its status as a Pokémon fansite. My Photoshop skills were durastically better than they were before. I was also putting a styleswitcher on the site, and since the CSS got lost somewhere, I'll show you the banners I made. (Mind you, somewhere along the way I shortened up the name to The Sky Pillar)Emperor Empoleon l Torchic Blossom l Deep Dive l Pink Rose
That was the plan until I decided to move it to a sole graphics site, with only graphics and some tutorials/portfolio stuff thrown in. I sharpened up my Photoshop skills more, and then came...