+ Interesting Websites +
+ Artists +
Vampire Killer - Ayami Kojima Scans
My favourite artist in the world is Ayami Kojima, but a lot of her work is hard to find, especially since she works traditionally and a lot of is tied into concept art. This site has a tonne of scans avaliable to look at which is super helpful.
Ayami Kojima Process
The site for Ayami Kojima's artbook, Santa Lilio Sangre. It has information on her process of painting, which for Kojima is extremely rare. She's basically impossible to find online, I think she just prefers to work in peace away from the eyes of the internet, which is fine. But it's also a shame, since she has fans who just adore her art and her work on the Castlevania series (essentially creating the entire aesthetic).
HR Giger
Giger is probably my second favourite artist. I can't stress enough how much of a genius that man was. If you're not familiar, his art features lots of dark/erotic fusion between humans and machine. He worked on the Alien film series, so you might have seen his style there. I have a huge framed print of Giger's 'Torso NY City VI' above my mantlepiece. It's just breathtakingly gorgeous. (and peturbs guests who fall into my lair.) It's the kind of thing you do not want to look at while on acid.
Miura Etsuko
A Japanese dollmaker who has a style which is both dark and incredibly beautiful.
John Santerineross
(Some nudity and 'disturbing' imagery) My favourite photographer. I just adore his work.
Koitsukihime
A Japanese dollmaker who makes absolutely gorgeous dolls.
+ Miscellaneous sites +
Alice Search
An interesting Japanese site which is an absolute treasure trove of little gothic and alternative sites. It's worth a look if you enjoy picking through things for hidden gems.
Wayback Machine
If you weren't aware of this tool, you're missing out. It's absolutely invaluable for people (like me, lol) who love to pick back through old websites, of which so many have been almost lost entirely to time. Lots of old sites are archived here. Just paste the broken URL into the box and if it has been archived, pick a date and a capture.
Ayakiri
Made by the artist Bel. My absolute favourite old website. It's a complete maze, and the art is amazing. Have fun getting lost. I won't spoil too much, I'll just say, click on random things that look interesting.
Ayakiri's Pixel Dollmaker
(mild nudity) Bel also made a dollmaker. It's just beautiful. Not much to say. God, pixel sites and pixel dollmakers were literally my childhood. I could ramble on for ages about them. 'TheDollPalace' was the site that I kind of grew up on, and I love when I find other people who did to, it's so fun to share nostalgic memories. It was like, my MySpace. (GaiaOnline was the next haunt of mine, which consumed my life for multiple years. I love and appreciate that both inspired me a tonne.)
eLouai
Speaking of pixel dollmakers, this is one of the last places on the internet you can still find them. I played the Candybar ones a lot as a kid.
LolitaHistory
Tonnes and tonnes of old lolita scans.
Neocities
Neocities is the revival of the long gone 'Geocities' web hosting service. Obviously, it's how I made this site! Geocities was a sprawling web of unique sites created by anyone who wanted to, long before social media became the norm for using the internet. Personally I really mourn the loss of the individuality of those personal sites, and the culture of having your own webspace to do with entirely as you please. (Even though as someone born in '97, I only ever experienced the end of that era.) It wasn't perfect at all, it was clunky and people had to form web-rings to share URLs around. You also needed basic HTML knowledge to even just start a site in the first place, but it led to such wildly different sites and expressions of personality, and they weren't having their activity tracked in the absolutely sinister way that it is today. People had longer attention spans, people wrote detailed long-form entries which I think encouraged creativity, people could easily document, categorize and upload lots of useful information on things like hobbies and media, and they weren't completely consumed by the need to get likes and retweets like we are now. Geocities started in 1994 and closed completely in 2009. At least 38 million mostly user-written sites were deleted and lost.
+ Music +
Igorrr
Igorrr is more popular these days, but his music is fucking amazing. Listen to Tout Petit Moineau on the Hallelujah album. There are just minimal words to describe it.
Odaxelagnia
I really love this band. They span quite a few genres so click around and listen to different albums, I just really like this one. Also, I just found that Odaxelagnia is a fetish for biting or being bitten, lol.
Binary Marionette
Just found this musician recently. It's lolita themed which is really cool.
Lamia Vox
I love Dark Ambient. Inlumaeh is music to perform rituals to, music to lie in the forest in pitch black and worm your hands into the soil to.
Goreshit
Music for murder. I've loved Goreshit for a really long time, I recommend clicking around on different albums because he's got a lot of different sounds.
+ Shops and Brands +
AkaTako
A directory and shop of loads of the unique and wonderful Japanese alternative artists. Click 'artist info' at the top for the directory, or browse the shop to buy art and merchandise from the artists themselves.
Parabolica Bis
A Japanese art gallery and shop selling loads of great artists things. I just recently bought some leggings from the artist Lhiannan:Shee. If you don't know how to buy from Japanese sites, look up a shopping service like Zenmarket (who I highly reccomend, as I've used their service a tonne of times and never had a single problem).
Atelier Pierrot
The lolita brand Atelier Pierrot also stocks a bunch of other brands too which is cool.
