I’m using an 11ty template and not raw HTML but I launched my new personal site this weekend and boy did I have to learn a bunch of fun new skills to get here. Still massively prefer this than doing anything on wordpress.
Also I’ll need to collect/make a bunch of 88x31 buttons to make the friends page more fun.
oh this is cool! I was literally just making mine in Aseprite
Besides what has already been recommended, these links have some templates/inspo you could use with the aforementioned tools.
Come check out the new and improved Chillscape website - complete with early 2000’s vibes!
Listen to an episode or two, sign the guest book, and see what other goodies I’ve included in there
Check it out 
i mean one time i tried neocities, and to this day my website remains untouched.. haven’t updated that thing in a long while
So I’m a bit stuck on the design aspect: how do you figure out how you want your site to look and how to go from there? I’m half way stuck in starting and I really don’t want to be stuck with a black and white page where I want to write on but end up spending my time in just making it something I want to write on.
Before I put it on the mind-shelf of “Maybe I’ll Get Back To This”, I was sketching out designs for my website on paper; having something to look at helped me break down the pieces into chunks I could actually think about implementing, instead of a big wall.
I genuinely can’t remember if I posted in here before or not, but I’m still 50/50 on some interest in hosting something again. The biggest issue is that I’d have to get another VPS and they’re not free. (I know I could run more on my current, but that’s setup on a way I’d rather not and I definitely want to keep the VPN and back-up separate from anything I’d want to link to other people.
I saw someone mention a way to push from git immediately to update stuff and that seems neat, presuming that’s not a github feature itself. As I ended up running something else, this also reminds me I really gotta finish my other project. And then actually create a reason to host somewhat of a website.