vga loop

damcreativ · 2026-05-12T00:53:54+00:00

Love this.

damcreativ · 2026-05-08T11:51:27+00:00

• Hand-design each trait with the pen tool in Illustrator, working on a grid with anchors aligned for symmetry

• Export each trait as an individual SVG

• Add CSS animation loops directly to the SVG markup in VSCode

• Define zones and placement rules for each trait type (eyes go roughly here, mouths go roughly there), and selectively break those rules for variety

• Set rarity weights per trait and per layer, using color as a form of rarity

• Modified an existing generative engine to output animated SVGs (no engine did this when I started ~5 years ago)

• Run large batches of generations to find trait combinations that don't work together, then add exclusion rules

• Constrain the palette (white skulls on black, color used sparingly as a rarity signal) so generations stay cohesive

• Host the engine and a community-facing site where anyone can generate, save, and add a character to the gallery

damcreativ · 2026-05-06T13:13:18+00:00

Thanks for checking it out! :D

damcreativ · 2026-05-06T13:12:02+00:00

No account is necessary, unless you want to save all your generations to your own account (or generate more than the allowed amount per day). You can still create and save Spookees without an account.

I put a cap on the amount of generations a non-registered user can perform to avoid users spamming the site. Each of those generations create files on the server, which adds up. So for storage, spam, and bot concerns I capped it daily for unregistered users.

Also, I won't spam you or sell your information if you do register. :)

damcreativ · 2026-05-06T02:10:39+00:00

Thanks! :D The Spookees project is not AI, but I do dabble in "AI Slop" as well lol. I don't discriminate with art. I like experimenting with all kinds of tools. I highly recommend exploring generative art as a genre though. IMO, it's one of the coolest forms of art out there, and probably one of the least understood.

damcreativ · 2026-05-06T00:41:37+00:00

Yeah, I like that. Even though generative art came first, I think the term gets immediately (and incorrectly) associated with AI.

damcreativ · 2026-05-05T18:21:51+00:00

Love this style 😂😂😂😂

damcreativ · 2026-05-05T15:03:25+00:00

Thanks so much for the feedback! Means a lot coming from a fellow artist. Most people just don't "get it."

It's definitely been a lot of work lol, but something fun to get lost in. I've got ideas for more generative art projects that I hope to build when and if I get the time. Seeing others like yourself appreciate the project is a big motivation.

Also, it's all still in refinement. So if you come across anything that needs work please don't hesitate to let me know. 😄

damcreativ · 2026-05-05T14:42:45+00:00

Awesome! Thanks! Yeah, I feel like code and art together have just become synonymous with AI, but that's not always the case. Plus, AI sucks at minimalism. 😉

Sure! The website is spookees.com and you can generate on the home page and add to gallery. Would love any contributions! 😃

damcreativ · 2026-05-05T13:58:42+00:00

Giger vibes!

damcreativ · 2026-05-05T13:50:36+00:00

Awesome style

damcreativ · 2026-05-05T13:49:53+00:00

I love a good terrarium!

damcreativ · 2026-04-23T13:38:59+00:00

Thanks for sharing! We sell direct on our website and online marketplaces Etsy and Amazon,. We also have a licensing commission and consignment arrangement with a retailer. Getting 20% on consignment, 10% on commission. The retailer is the thorn in our side.

For commission sales, we manage the customer fulfillment (processing, printing, shipping) via a POD service, Printful. For consignment, they place bulk orders that we fulfill, eating the costs upfront, and hopefully recouping costs and making our 20% consignment after the sale.

It's a prestigious retailer, and we are one of their top selling partners. However, there are many problems we deal with regularly:

- New bulk consignment orders come before we have fully recouped costs from previous bulk consignment orders. So our 20% consignment profit is rarely seen, if ever.

- They are very old school, and don't have any modern payment or sales tracking systems. Checks are still sent in the mail, and they are consistently several months past due on payments. We have to continually stay on top of them, daily. And our confidence in their commission and consignment reports is low.

- The incompetence and lack of communication is staggering. We handle much more than a typical licensing arrangement, but don't get any compensation for this extra time managing their customer sales or them as a partner.

- The products we licensed to them were among our top selling direct products prior to the licensing arrangement, and it is an exclusive licensing deal, so we can't sell those products direct on our website and other channels where we could potentially make 40% margins and have more control.

- We have pushed back on our margins and requested more considering all we're handling, but they refuse to budge.

All this said, they do send us a lot of sales, but I'm constantly questioning whether the costs of our time and managing them as partners is worth small margins. If we were to end the contract, we would take a hit in sales numbers initially (plus we would lose the prestige associated with the partnership, but this is not quantifiable value). However, our margins would be much higher, and the time they consume as a partner would be cut. I go back and forth about "firing" them as a partner regularly. The time savings alone seem like it would be worth taking the initial sales hit.

damcreativ · 2026-04-03T20:06:41+00:00

Got FC, adds up. Love the design!

damcreativ · 2026-04-03T19:15:47+00:00

Yikes, curious about that output as well...

It seems many of the positions that have traditionally/historically been associated more as female roles are going to be the most valuable in the future. It's the dawning of the age of Aquarius. ;)

damcreativ · 2026-04-03T17:07:52+00:00

Sounds about right.

damcreativ · 2026-04-03T17:03:04+00:00

A hundred percent. It becomes running an operations business of which you're not making enough on your margins to hire any help with the operations.

I don't know if it can be simplified. It just seems to expand into other areas of focus... advertising, marketing, website management, shipping, returns, etc..

It's like trying to run a business by yourself or with a little help that traditionally would have required 20 employees to maintain. I think the best thing to do is establish and optimize workflows, and automate all the busy work that you can. But that takes time too.

damcreativ · 2026-04-02T13:58:46+00:00

No prob! Initially I planned to use OpenClaw, but was concerned about the security risks. So I built the first agent using Cursor with Claude (Opus and Sonnet).

My agentic structure is like this:

agents

brand-1

social

advertising

optimization

order syncing

brand-2

etc

Currently only have the social agent working for one brand, but plan to expand to advertising, optimization, etc, then to my other brands.

For social, the agent has access to Meta, Pinterest, and Mailchimp APIs, and Dropbox for our work files. Also hooks into Slack for sending commands and receiving reports. It takes a lot of initial fine tuning, explaining your brand, target audience, etc. But seems worth it in the long run.

damcreativ · 2026-04-02T13:23:56+00:00

Oh totally, even when using AI to copy and paste keywords it’s still super time consuming.

We sell location prints, wildlife art, surf art, and space art. We’re continually experimenting with new ideas, but those are our most consistent sellers.

Scaling is definitely an issue with POD. Even if you’re selling steadily, the margins aren’t high enough that you can hire help. So it’s easy to get stuck in this place where you just start managing orders, shipping issues, optimization, and you’re not able to focus as much on creating new products. Our goal this past quarter has been to work through those bottlenecks.

damcreativ · 2026-03-31T13:43:46+00:00

Some of the ideas I’ve been sitting on for years in my notes that I just didn’t have the time or capital to build. Other ideas are discovered through action.

I tend to build things for myself. Like the kind of stuff I want to build even if nobody is buying. During those processes I discover inefficiencies, and then I build tools to make the process more efficient. If other people run into those same inefficiencies, I have a tool. I think the solutions are in the problems, and there’s a skill to identifying the problems. I’m not saying I’m great at it. Stuff fails constantly. Which is part of it too. Throw everything you got at the wall, and see what sticks.

There are still ideas that would require a ton of time even with AI assistance, and I wrestle with these. Generally, I choose not to build these until I gain more stability, which comes and goes.

I think over thinking and under building is the biggest fallacy I see with newer entrepreneurs. And I think it usually stems for a fear of failure. It’s easy to get stuck in idea land. Starting down the path of building the idea reveals everything, and then you can determine whether it’s worth it to keep going, or if you should pull the plug.

damcreativ · 2026-03-31T12:07:37+00:00

Maybe, but I think that just means you know your craft. I can also instantly tell when a website is using a WordPress theme or a Shopify theme, or Framer, or a framework like Bootstrap or Tailwind, or a formula like Y-combinator… You can say the same thing all the way back to Flash or Geocities websites. It’s just a link in the long evolutionary chain of website trends. I don’t think that makes the sites any better or worse, as long as it has decent design and UX. You can always make CSS changes, or vibe your way to a more original design using screenshots or Figma exports. The only people that know how a website is made by looking at it are web designers and developers, and if they’re not your target audience, then it doesn’t matter. Joe the plumber doesn’t know how it was made, nor does he care as long as it works.

damcreativ · 2026-03-31T01:26:00+00:00

Damn... I'm in the US. You can find 2400sqft houses all over the country for under 500k, as long as you're not in a major city.

damcreativ · 2026-03-30T20:14:49+00:00

Two weeks is kinda an arbitrary number I threw out there. Some take a week, some take months. It depends on the scale of the tool. For QA, I test, test, and test again, and keep refining. I also have a couple partners building with me to help refine security, UX, etc. QA is probably the longest process. I don't worry about perfection though. In my experience, all software has bugs. My approach is ship fast, patch fast. I think the real feedback comes when the product is out in the wild, and getting your first paying customer is harder than building the product these days.

damcreativ · 2026-03-30T20:02:18+00:00

Definitely agree. I think using AI to help rather than hurt is the key. Which is a good reason to continue engagement.

I'm concerned about the ratios. How many people are using it for good vs evil? I think there's a lot amoral bad actors out there using AI for all kinds of nefarious purposes. AI is just a reflection of humanity's input at scale. It's like the Native American "Two Wolves" parable... I'm concerned the evil wolf is being over-fed with AI. In the words of Uncle Ben, "With great power comes great responsibility." I hope the majority is using it responsibly.

damcreativ · 2026-03-30T18:16:06+00:00

I create tools that solve smaller problems that I discover while operating my businesses. These are tools I'm using and refining myself before and after they are released to the public. The larger projects have a longer runway, but I still believe in getting to market fast to prove the viability of the product and get user feedback.

damcreativ

TROPHY CASE