Journaling | 2026 in 7 Articles
Seven articles, six months, and the structural pivots I'm making for the rest of 2026. A quick catch-up and a survey as we hit the heat of July.
We are half a year into 2026, and I have managed one article per month. I enjoyed every bit of writing them. Every article gives me a platform to note down my thoughts and experiments and share them with you. Now, with the first six months gone, it feels like a good moment to stop and review with you together what I wrote here.
The Articles
Resources | Stop Guessing Your Rates
The year started off strong with an article about my free tool, creatorpricing.com, specifically made for creators but also usable by any type of freelancer to base your rates on what you need, not the other way around. Keep it fair yet sound.
BTS | Traveling Patronage Chapter I
A behind-the-scenes article on my visual travel diary that potentially could turn into products. I showcase the entire process from how I gather ideas to how I nitpick elements of these ideas and project them into final scarf designs.
Journaling | From Zero To Three
After I had built creatorpricing.com and creators & friends gave me really positive feedback, I decided to listen to more of the problems creators had described to me in past conversations, and I additionally built creator-branding.com and creatorcontractbuilder.com. All tools are available for free and are open-source. Enjoy testing them, and I am happy to receive more feedback. At this point, creatorpricing.com is also available in Spanish, and I made a detailed YouTube tutorial about the branding one:
BTS | A Vibe Coding Prompt Strategy
At the end of December 2025, we added a new family member: Neptuna, a street dog whom we came across while walking our other two dogs. It made me think about how adoption works here in Peru, and I decided to vibe code a virtual "shelter." It is live and running, and we even have some small successes to report at this point. Check it out here: adoptame.pe. The article details the full process of prompting the page, including the admin panel, and, of course, links to the open-source page. So feel free to use it and adapt it for your country!
Journaling | My Virtual Me
A thought piece on virtual avatars and the process of creating them. In this article, I focus on the creation and re-creation of my avatar NOVA, the different ways of creating the 3D mesh, and an inner dialogue about the fine line between ethnic appropriation and admiration.
Gaming | The Look & Feel of Infinity Nikki
My second article on the game Infinity Nikki, and how it feels to walk through Nikki's open world, or should I say "float?" The focus here is on the game's immersiveness and its toolboxes, be it the wardrobe or the built-in camera.
Resources | ComfyUI vs Substance for 3D Textures
This is my most recent piece, and a lot of you showed it tremendous love! Thank you so much for that. The last week has been a difficult one for me, and seeing this made me extremely happy! In addition to the article, I made a comprehensive tutorial showcasing a locally run AI PBR texturing workflow vs. a much more precise one in Substance Designer, even creating my first ArchViz rendering. Check the YouTube tutorial out here:
The Topics
Thanks to Paragraph's new analytics tool and productivity dashboard (currently in beta testing), I have accomplished much more and get many more insights on articles. The dashboard enlightens me on what works and what doesn't. Even so, I don't feel like ditching any of my current topics; instead, I'm merging them and trying to grow a more diverse audience.
My current topics are Gaming, Journaling, BTS (Behind the Scenes), Review, Event, and most importantly, Resources.
My worst-performing pillar is my favorite one: Gaming. None of you seem to enjoy gaming in as much detail as I do, yet the articles on resources, creative experimentation, and tools seem to really hit the nail on its head.
This made me think of adjusting the topics to make them more concise for you. So here is what you can expect for the second half of 2026:
Journaling - keep as is, but let it merge with Review and Event.
Resources - create more around that in tandem with YouTube tutorials.
BTS - keep as is since you guys really seemed to enjoy the ones I did before.
Gaming - yes, gaming will stay, but I might make it more practical, and with every review, there will be a tutorial on how to accomplish a specific effect yourself, for example, in Unreal Engine, Blender, Marvelous Designer, or Substance Designer. I feel that may give this topic the edge it needed all along.
Here we are, six months into 2026. I am proud of myself for staying on top of things and publishing here regularly while actively working to complete the DAO infrastructure for The ALANA Project, but I want to do more and deliver more resources to you guys.
So here is my question: What are you looking for? Is there any topic you would like me to tackle and help you wrap your head around? Which articles did you appreciate or like the most, and which ones the least?
I am genuinely curious, and while I appreciate the new Paragraph tool suite, I would really like to hear from you directly:
Share your thoughts in a quick 1-minute survey.
Thank you in advance and for reading along.
More is coming your way in the second half of 2026, pinky promise 
!
Best
Stella*
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