Selfscapes

Selfscapes blends art and wellness through guided self-portraits, persona tools, and a safe, inclusive space for self-discovery, confidence, and creative healing.

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What inspired Selfscapes?

Hi! I’m Panje, a digital artist who has been practicing the healing art of self-portraiture for the past three years. This journey started as a personal exploration, but over time, I felt a desire to share it with others. One day, I posted an unfinished self-portrait on Instagram and asked my community to suggest prompts for completing it. To my surprise, the response was more than I had expected! People were engaged, curious, and happy to help me out with finding ideas. That’s when it clicked: What if I turned this into a community challenge? I created a prompt list based on the responses and invited others to join me in a self-portrait journey. A challenge for my community, by my community. And just like that, Selfscapes was born—an app inspired by my community's responses and my desire to make self-portraiture more accessible, healing, and fun.

Growing up, I struggled with low self-esteem and an unstable self-concept. I couldn’t stand looking at myself in the mirror. I felt invisible, unattractive, and unworthy. That kind of thinking slowly chipped away at my confidence. And when your confidence is low, it’s easy to miss out on opportunities—you hide, even though deep down, you wnat to be seen.

Come 2022, I started drawing myself more intentionally and realized I don’t need to look outward for validation. It starts with me, the person in the mirror (like Michael Jackson once said). But even though I saw myself every day, I didn’t really SEE myself. I hadn't learnt to slow down and really appreciate myself.

That’s something so many people can relate to—feeling unseen, unworthy, or disconnected from their own identity. And it’s more common than we think. Low self-esteem and confidence can take a real toll on mental health, and there are many people who struggle with self-love and body image.

Through self-portraiture, I began to reclaim my sense of self. The benefits were both artistic as well as deeply emotional and even therapeutic. And I’m not alone. There’s growing research on how self-portraiture can be a powerful tool for healing, reflection, and transformation.

But not everyone feels confident picking up a pencil or brush. A lot of my Instagram followers aren’t artists—they're mothers, students, people with busy lives who may want to dive in but don’t have time to learn all the techniques. That’s why I created Selfscapes: a gentle, guided space where anyone can explore self-portraiture.

Whether someone wants to learn the process, use ready-made templates, or create a persona that simply feels like them, Selfscapes is here to meet them where they are at. It’s a celebration of identity, creativity, and community.

What Selfscapes does

Selfscapes is a creative wellness platform that empowers users to explore their self-concept, image and emotional well-being through guided self-portraiture. As the Lead Product Designer, I architected an end-to-end experience that combines art therapy principles with accessible design systems.

The platform offers a diverse set of entry points—from tutorial libraries and customizable self-portrait templates, to AI-powered coaching with June and Aaliyah, two distinct virtual guides. June supports mental wellness exploration, while Aaliyah offers contextual feedback around composition, creativity, and self-expression.

A central feature of the product is the Peppercorn Persona Creator—an SVG-based avatar builder that allows users to craft and customize stylized representations of themselves. This expressive tool fosters playful reflection while lowering the barrier to entry for those who might be new to self-portraiture.

Our community challenge, launching in August, invites EVERYONE to engage with one another through guided prompts and shared portrait stories. Social features like the Selfscapes Feed and integrated blog allow for creative dialogue, personal storytelling, and visibility into each other’s journeys.

Ultimately, Selfscapes is a transformative product ecosystem designed to support self-discovery, boost confidence, and build a nurturing, art-driven community.

How Selfscapes was built

To bring Selfscapes to life, I led the product development using Bolt.new as the primary low-code environment, enabling rapid iteration across frontend interfaces. For the backend, I integrated Supabase to manage user authentication, database operations, and the storage of modular SVG assets used in our Peppercorn Persona Creator.

The persona creation experience was handcrafted from the ground up—starting in Procreate, where I illustrated each asset by hand. These assets were then refined and converted into scalable vector formats using Figma, allowing for dynamic layering and real-time color customization within the app.

To create a truly immersive and emotionally supportive environment, I brought two AI-powered guides to the platform. Aaliyah, our creative coach, was developed and embedded using Tavus, while June, our mental wellness companion, was built using Dappier’s Ask AI widget, tailored to support users on their healing journey through interactive prompts.

To ensure visual polish and responsiveness across devices, I incorporated layout templates from 21st.dev, which helped streamline the mobile-first UI and maintain aesthetic consistency.

Challenges and Obstacles I ran into

Oh my goodness—where do I even begin? First up: RevenueCat. I’m pretty sure just trying to implement a paywall cost me upwards of 30 million tokens! It started with an invalid API key error. I eye-balled that API key like there was no tomorrow to make sure I'm copy/pasting the right thing, and still no luck. After finally resolving the invalid API key error, a new error popped up... and then another. Eventually, I had to pull RevenueCat from the MVP and save it for a future update.

Another challenge? Layering assets and working with SVG paths. This was my first time working with vectors, so understanding how each piece fits together and gets rendered dynamically was a whole learning curve on its own. The logic behind the persona layering is still a bit finicky, and I’m planning to revisit it after judging to make sure we’re 100% ready for our big August 1st community launch.

Honestly, nearly every feature came with its own challenge, which was a great opportunity to learn new things, and I’m proud of how I pushed through. This whole process stretched me in the best way.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

The biggest win? Aaliyah is live! She gave me so many headaches during setup (I probably should’ve mentioned her in the challenges too), but seeing her come to life in the app was so worth it.

I’m genuinely proud of how functional everything is—even with all the hiccups. Dappier is running smoothly, the persona creator works (with dynamic layering and coloring!), users can log in and engage with the feed, and there’s real personality in the UI. Considering this all came together in just a few weeks, it honestly feels like magic.

Creating Selfscapes was about bringing a personal vision to life. Literally, Bolt made my dreams come true! Thanks to Bolt, Supabase, and some scrappy determination, I built something I thought I'd have to spend years building and paying other people to build.

What I've learnt

I learnt about so many new technologies that I'd never heard of before! I wanna try them once the judging is complete. I learnt more about software architecture because of all the planning I had to do for the build of the app. I learnt how to use supabase, and make migrations manually, and check for migrations that might not have been applied correctly (this was very cool!). I learnt how to debug because literally almost every step had a bug. I had to dive into the console logs, troubleshoot and use the process of elimination. I also learnt how to use figma a little bit more when converting my PNGs into SVGs. I learnt how SVG paths work and how to set up coloring for those paths! (super cool!). I learnt how to upload images to a bucket in supabase. I learnt how to set up Tauvus and a Dappier widget. I became a better prompt engineer!!! I learnt that paywall tech integration needs very delicate planning because any small misstep causes so much pain! The top thing I learnt is that I can do anything I put my mind to and I had a lot of fun! so much fun! Moving forward, I know how to tackle projects and Bolt and I hope to create mighty applications that help solve real user issues.

What's next for Selfscapes

As Selfscapes continues to grow, the next phase of development is focused on deepening user engagement, expanding access, and building long-term sustainability. Key initiatives on the roadmap include:

Monetization & Value Expansion: Introducing tiered access with paywalled Pro features, such as premium persona assets, advanced portrait prompts, and AI-powered feedback. This supports sustainability while still keeping the core experience free and accessible.

Community & Programming Growth: Scaling the community through curated events, live workshops, and seasonal challenges, with a focus on inclusivity, mental wellness, and creative exploration. We'll also be nurturing user-generated content and spotlighting creators through a rotating “Hall of Fame” and blog features.

Platform Capabilities: We're planning to progressively enhance the app into a full PWA, enabling offline access, installability, and improved performance across devices.

User Personalization Tools: Introducing the ability to edit personas post-creation, allowing for iterative self-reflection without having to start from scratch. This includes layering, color adjustments, and saving multiple versions.

Account Management & Security: Implementing core features like password change/reset flows and session persistence improvements, ensuring a smoother and more secure experience across login states.

Insights & Feedback Loop: We'll be integrating light analytics and feedback tools to better understand user behavior and continue shaping the product based on actual community needs.

Ultimately, Selfscapes is evolving into a hybrid creative wellness platform dedicated to helping people grow through self-exploration.

For the Judges

To log in, use email: numbinambao@gmail.com, PW: Bolttester123# if you wanna see admin view: charactographies@gmail.com, PW: Bolt123#

Email I used for Bolt

I used Panjenambao@gmail.com for building in Bolt.

Built With

  • 21st.dev
  • bolt.new
  • dappier
  • figma
  • procreate
  • supabase
  • tavus
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