Creative Tools
You don't need an Adobe subscription to make art. You don't need a degree to write code. This section collects the best free, open-source, and accessible tools for creators.
Quick Navigation
Digital Art & Design
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
| FireAlpaca | Lightweight, free digital painting software. Great for beginners and older computers. |
| Krita | Professional-grade, open-source painting program. The best free alternative to Photoshop/Corel. |
| Ibis Paint | Fairly robust free mobile drawing app. Contains ads. |
| GIMP | Image manipulation program. Steep learning curve, but can do anything Photoshop does. |
| Nightshade | A tool that "poisons" image data to disrupt AI models training on your art without consent. |
| SauceNAO | Reverse image search tool. Excellent for finding the source of artwork or anime screenshots. |
| Paintbrush | A simple, lightweight paint program for Mac (similar to MS Paint). |
Web Design & Revival
| Resource | Description |
|---|---|
| Web 1.0 Hosting | Free, static web hosting designed for old-school sites (no PHP/SQL, just HTML). |
| Sadgrl.online | Web design resources, layout builders, and shrines to the old web. A bible for Neocities users. |
| 32-Bit Cafe | Community hub for the "Small Web" and web revival movement. Great forums and guides. |
| MDN Web Docs | The absolute authority on HTML, CSS, and Javascript. If you want to learn to code, start here. |
| Betty's Graphics | Neocities collection of retro web graphics, backgrounds, and buttons. |
| Blinkies Collection | Large collection of pixel art "blinkies" (those little flashing badges) for your site. |
| Lospec Palette List | Database of pixel art color palettes. Essential for retro design. |
| ASCII Art Archive | Massive collection of text-based art for your site or terminal. |
| Tiny Tools Directory | Directory of small, single-purpose creative web tools. |
| CSS Grid Generator | Visual tool to create CSS grids without writing the complex code manually. |
| Animista | CSS animation generator. Pick an effect, copy the code. |
| GifCities | Search engine for the GeoCities Archive. The best place to find vintage 90s/00s GIFs. |
| Ezgif | Powerful online GIF maker and image editor. Crucial for resizing and optimizing images for the web. |
| Transfonter | Online CSS font-face generator. Upload a font file, get the web-ready CSS. |
| Oldschool PC Fonts | Collection of classic BIOS, terminal, and IBM PC fonts. |
| Solaria's A11y Guide | A beginner-friendly guide to making Neocities sites accessible (WCAG compliant). |
| Error Message Generator | Create authentic-looking vintage Windows error messages and pop-ups for your website. |
| W3Schools | Reliable tutorial site for learning HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. |
| Make WordArt | Recreate that nostalgic Windows 95/98 WordArt for your website headers. |
| Oyone (オヨネ) | Japanese site featuring pop-style free materials, dot icons, and wallpapers. |
| Mococo (mococo) | Animal pixel art materials and web assets. |
| Coco's Pixel Safari | A Neocities collection of pixel art animals and safari-themed web graphics. |
| FOOL LOVERS | Japanese resource for free web templates and customization materials. |
3D Modeling & VTubing
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
| Blender | The industry standard for open-source 3D modeling, animation, and rendering. |
| VRoid Studio | Free character maker for 3D anime-style avatars. Easiest way to start VTubing. |
| VSeeFace | Free face-tracking software for VTubers. Works with standard webcams. |
| Low Poly People | Tumblr archive of low-poly character models (like Animal Crossing style). Great for references. |
Game Design
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
| Twine | Open-source tool for telling interactive, nonlinear stories. No code required. |
| Bitsy | A little editor for making little games, worlds, and stories. Runs in the browser. |
| Godot | Advanced, free, open-source 2D and 3D game engine. A lightweight alternative to Unity. |
| LÖVE (Love2D) | An awesome framework for making 2D games in Lua. Free and open-source. |
| Novelty | Visual novel maker. (Note: Older software, but still useful for VN creation). |
Knowledge & Archives
| Resource | Description |
|---|---|
| Project Gutenberg | Library of over 70,000 free eBooks. Mostly older literary classics in the public domain. |
| WorldCat | The global catalog of library collections. Find which library near you has the specific book you need. |
| Marginalia Search | A search engine designed to find the "weird web"—non-commercial, text-heavy, personal websites. |
| Textfiles.com | Jason Scott's legendary archive of BBS text files, anarchy guides, and internet history from the 80s/90s. |
| Wayback Machine | The Internet Archive. See websites as they looked in the past. |
| iNaturalist | Identify plants and animals. Citizen science project mapping global biodiversity. |
| Smithsonian Open Access | Millions of public domain images from the Smithsonian collections. |
| USGS Geologic Map Database | Massive archive of geologic maps. Incredible for reference, texture assets, or understanding your local terrain. |