How char got into graphics

A long, long, long time ago my time was divided into 5 sections: eating, sleeping, neopets, HP RPGs and school. (hp rpg = harry potter roleplay games). Everyone on these RPGs had a signature, and I didn't have a clue how they got them there or about how to upload images. I asked them, and they told me about photobucket. I was so obtuse and stupid that I thought this was a program, and said "err.. I don't have photobucket.". They explained it was a website. So I uploaded a signature, which was just the image of my character.

Later on, I asked someone to make me a signature with the character's name etc.s on it, but I got bored of these and attempted my own. They were all paint made and a bit rubbish. This got me started on doing it more creatively and better, so I started trying to use the effects on a freeware program from a long way back, PSP7.

After a while signatures got boring (and never really looked that good) so I moved on to bigger and better graphics on neopets. My first coding experience was a very crude freewebs website on a Harry Potter guild on neopets. I coded my ravie's common room, which was basically a dark blue background with a few "banners" which were just images of text on a blue background and 2 pictures of alot of beds (dormitories, duh!) aswell as the addition of a chatbox from cbox.ws. Nevertheless the guild didn't last very long and soon everyone became inactive.

I can remember I had said that I could code blogged layouts, and someone asked me to do a splat style layout. I learnt how to code blogs from coolcherrycream.com, which somewhere along the way I had found from a fellow neopets member.

I don't quite remember the sequence of events after that, except that I decided I wanted the latest PSP, which was at the time, PSPX. I downloaded a free trial and started offering to make graphics because I thought the program alone would make me invincibly fantastic at graphics. Ofcourse it doesn't work that way and ofcourse, I failed at making decent graphics :P

After a few tutorials...maybe...I can't actually remember being any good with PSPX. Anyway the trial ended, and I went back to PSP7. My coding expertise seemed to develop faster than my ability to make good graphics, a fact which actually managed to help me get accepted with applications for making guilds with other people, for example audiorade, I remember my graphic examples weren't good enough but she accepted me because I said I could code practically everything, which I wasn't lieing about :P

Audiorade however I think was after I met rob, which seems to introduce my next header, dun dun duuuuuuun!

Rob and patterned

I don't quite remember the date I met rob. I can remember that he had made a board the day after he created a site on freewebs called patterned. He needed some help with his site, and was looking for some staff. I was accepted and quickly solved the problem which wasn't actually anything too big, and became a sought of co-owner. The reason I say that meeting rob was probably before audiorade was because when I was in audiorade my graphics weren't too bad, just not as good as the other ownies. Whereas when I was at patterned in the begining, my graphics were shameful. Really, shameful. Rob, however was like amazing at graphics. The site layout impressed me 10fold, seriously it was amazing.

Anyway so we stayed on freewebs for a few weeks, and then rob applied for hosting with eve at aetherius. So we turned into Patterned.aetherius.net, and learnt the valuable skill of FTP, which isn't too hard to learn :P but still, practically every site uses it.

Our life at aetherius lasted a fair while, and eve was a pretty good host. I didn't really know her that well, I would say rob was closer to her than I was. I hadn't ever really seen that many sites, but eve's site impressed me. One of her layouts inspired me and I made a layout from shapes for audiorade. Probably my only decent layout. So I would say I was kind of scared by eve. Not scared as in horror scared, like she was horrible or anything, but because I didn't know her and she impressed me, I felt...lowly I suppose. So I had her msn address, but there's this thing I find with msn is that if initially when I add people, I don't talk to them that often, like only when I or they need something, it's hard to have a friendship with them. Hard to approach them. This is probably not the same for other people, just for me, a scared, underconfident midteen from england, but still it's difficult to overcome.

It was during our "stay" with eve that I met rob's friend lintun, aka phoebe, altho neither of these names are her real name. She helped us when we first started with our cutenews because neither of us had any idea what we were doing. She was also at the time, one of eve's hostees, with a staffed site called "gramminated". We still are friends but well...not really that close friends. Personally sometimes I feel like she's a bit too interested in what I do and my sites. But enough about that.

Anyway, in august, 2006 just after my holiday to...err...where was it that year? Last year was sardinia, the year before was...probably norway or crete...nono, it was france. Well before my holiday I had asked mum for paid hosting, and after it I kind of rushed into hosting at hostmonster. Unfortunately, we caught hostmonster a few years too early, as at the time the space was only 30GB, and now it is unlimited, a bit like my host, but my host is cheaper :P Me and rob had shopped around a little, but eventually yes, we went for hostmonster, which funnily enough is where Amanda just recently bought her site hosting from. My mum bought patterned.biz. The plan was intended to last up until this august, but I managed to break a rule (that sounds like it was purposeful, but I can honestly tell you it wasn't.) and had my account killed off. In this time both me and rob had been playing MS, which we were introduced to by lintun. Anyway, I left messages on the site and on MS for him to be more active at the site, but alas, he was too addicted. I eventually told him there was no longer a point to him being a staff member and as a goodbye he made me a layout.

After patterned

Patterned ended...april 2007. For a few months before this I had occupied myself with being an online dj for VMR, and also making graphics for george's site after this, so I wasn't actually too miffed. I had started to become inactive at patterned, which had turned into my personal blog, much like this place.

Disfunctional-day

Around about may 2007 for some reason, and this is why I say phoebe is a little too interested in my personal sites, phoebe started asking if I was to make a new site. And yes, after pressure from her, I did. I first made a portfolio on freewebs which had a few thrown together non nr blends and layouts in it. I will admit they were god-aweful, and I don't know why I got accepted. I searched for my hosts on despair.nu, and found emz, who is at dreamhost and gets 500gb which is expanded by 2gb per week (I know because I looked at dreamhost as a possible host until I noticed that you have to prepay 10 years to get a 5.95 dollar rate :P), so she was offering alot of space and other features. So I applyed to her and a few other sites, and after a few weeks, she accepted me. By the time I actually got round to getting everything set up with her, it was july. But nevertheless, it began.

Why didn't I just get mum to buy me new hosting? because I never actually told my mum that I had broken the TOS. I didn't want to upset her and I knew she would probably scream or make me feel bad about it, so I saved that as a secret from her. She suspected a little when she recieved a bill for the months I had been there, but after being reassured I still had my hosting, she said nothing else till a few months ago.

Emz was a fair host who's site stayed up for the most time. I felt as if I would be able to approach her because...well, my skills had improved. They'd improved alot, and so had my confidence despite being hurt during a particular 3way arguement between me rob and phoebe. well it was more of me and phoebe versus rob, really. Basically he attacked my graphics and said that I used rubbish brushes with naked babies on them all the time, but let's not get into that :P

I was pretty much happy with being a subdomain, altho I did try multiple attempts to win free domains, none of which I won, 1 of which I was thrown out of for breaking the rules :P tssk, naughty char. I knew I couldn't ask for new hosting until the 2 year period had passed, or else mum would suspect something, so I continued valiantly to keep blogging and updating my site with...well...originally I think it was just tutorials. Perhaps a few blends here and there. I think I only started adding photography after my holiday where I took like a 250 photos, which I have only just completely organised today (a year later or so).

So around a month ago mum asked when it was ending, and I said august. I managed to push this "ending date" back in her mind to mid july, and thus, she bought me hosting after a few reminders. Aah. So that's everything dating back to the dark ages when I had no clue what I had to do to upload things to the internet, let alone code them or design them well.

Affiliates

Char

Resources

Disclaimer

Disfunctional day

Layout

Hostees

Radioblog

Statistics

How char got into graphics

Rob and patterned

After patterned

Disfunctional-day