Welcome to my moss patch!

So, what's this about? Well, my online handle is just_a_husk (or Husk for short) and this is my personal website. Kind of like a blog, but better. Neocities profile so you can follow me from there if you've got an account too.

"In the late 90's and early 2000's, personal websites were a popular sight on the internet as home computers became more and more common after the pop of the dot-com bubble. Eventually however, tech companies got their act together and started their internet takeover again. Since then, the worldwide web has become a lot more sterile and corporate. It's become less of a place to connect, and moreso a place where your data is stolen and sold to advertisers. In my opinion, that is a net loss. I want to help rebuild the old internet."

~ me

About Me

I'm a pixel artist and CS engineering student who is making a pokémon fangame... and making the game engine for it too. Chances are you came here from one of my social media accounts (Bluesky, Instagram, Tumblr, Eevee Expo). I very much dislike social media algorithms, and I like working with them even less. This website will become my main place on the worldwide web, as I have crafted it with my own hands and am very attached to it as a result.

Things I like:

• Making (Pixel) Art
• Creature design
• Programming
• Teaching
• The RPG-genre
• Arthropods
• Pinkish Red colors
• Italian dishes without seafood
• Slovenia

Things I dislike:

• Olives
• Big Tech companies
• Generative AI
• The exploitation of the working class
• My neighbour's chimney

My Stuff

Some more context about my projects for first-timers on here, the links are neatly placed on the left (or at the top if you're on mobile).

> Six Stars

Let's tackle the big one first. Six Stars is a pokémon fangame I've been working on for quite a few years, with university often interrupting my progress. It's a game set in a region based on Slovenia/Croatia, with plenty of new fakemon, regional variants, and much more. Although I've lost interest in official Pokémon in the past few years, I still pick up Pokémon Black 2 sometimes for yet another playthrough. As such, Six Stars will look and play like the Black 2/White 2 Pokémon games.

Making a 2.5D engine from nothing in C++ is quite a challenge when doing it on your own, and I've recently made the choice to dig into CPU rendering to make the game as accessible as possible (certainly doesn't make my endeavor any easier). That said, I have a reliable team who want to see this project through with me, and I am extremely grateful for them. I've even began learning a bit of Slovenian as well!

> Pixel Art

I originally started learning pixel art in February 2022 to make some fakemon sprites, and those are still my main gig. As of writing this, I'm quite close to a 4-year anniversary, and luckily for me you can see it in my work too. Pixel art to me is one of the most underrated art forms out there, with a lot of neat and barely-known aspects to it that make a big difference in how the artist approaches their works.

I haven't done many animations yet. I'd like to, but I need time for that first. I did however make the mediocre font you see here, so I'm very proud of that.

> Fanarts

Occasionally I'll make fanarts or participate in art contests with my pixel art. To me, those double as a way to try something new and expand my skillset. Please don't ask me to make fanart of your stuff though; as with most of my art, I can only really excel at it if I'm 100% up for it.

> Guide to the small web

By clicking the link "Internet Guide" on the left (or, again, at the top if you're on mobile) you'll go to a page where I explain how I traverse the internet. There's a lot in there, from browsers to search engines to devices. I was once just a kid on the internet using almost exclusively Google and Microsoft products. When I chose to pursue Computer Science engineering just because I liked programming in Python, I got cast into a massively complex world that hasn't even existed for 100 years.

Though it was definitely not the subject of the courses I took, I began looking into the ethics and practicalities behind it all. I found some wonderfully efficient and creative inventions, but also a still ongoing tale of technology outrunning morality at the expense of everyone else. Modern technology is almost always a transaction of giving up ethics in exchange for minor comfort.

My take on the internet and software isn't a common one, but I hope that through documenting it I might help people find better alternatives to the current status quo.

> Writing

As you may have guessed, I like writing. I don't have much to show for it yet on this website, but I'll probably put up a page for it eventually. I'm currently writing an informal paper on generative AI and the lack of accountability in the industry (informal paper solely so that I can say fuck and so that it reads better than a tax return document, unlike most formal papers).

> Handy Websites

I got introduced to web directories by Neonaut's own web directory. I'm very fond of the idea of listing useful websites in one centralized space rather than using a search engine for it (I've got my opinions on search engines). I'm always looking for neat tools for niche use cases, so if you want to add to the list with a website you know, you can contact me anytime!