Inspiration

My work laptop, an MSI GE75 Raider. I picked it up when I had no space for a new desktop. Now that I have a proper office again, it gets to be more stationary.

I love computers and keep several in my home office. Each does a different job like maintaining backups, filehosting, printing & gaming. It makes me happy to give older pcs new function and purpose.

Much of my inspiration came from the video games I grew up with. Raised in the 8-bit era, I spent most afternoons immersed in some Nintendo or SEGA title. Not many of my friends were artists, but everyone loved games. Whenever someone asked where I wanted to go as a kid, my answer was almost always the arcade. I keep a list on Backloggery of games I've finished and am currently working through. .

I didn't have a computer at home until I was a teenager, so any digital art had to be done at school. As soon as I could get a copy of Photoshop, I took books out from the library and studied as much as I could. Despite owning several tablets, I still create the vast majority of my digital pieces with only my mouse. I've become incredibly efficient with it and can work faster with a good quality, high dpi mouse than any tablet I've tried.

The process of making pixel art is especially calming to me. I work one pixel at a time with sprites, gradually shading and adding texture, color and life. I have a massive folder of MSPaint doodles that I dig into when I'm in need of something relaxing to work on. Some even turn into refined, complete pieces. I also make a lot of quick, silly emojis and memes. Art lets me be playful and explore different themes, which is something I love.

My largest project is my Furcadia dream, Club Nimbus, which has been ongoing for over a decade. I've enjoyed my time working on it, even if it's no longer being maintained. Come check it out if you're on Furcadia.

I built my first website when I was 13 using an html editor found on one of those disks that used to come with PC Magazines. It taught me the basics of site building and from there I was able to learn CSS and Javascript.

At 16, I picked up the Assembly language and tried my hand at making a little dungeon crawler-type game. It was honestly terrible, but I had fun putting it together. I'd later learn C++ and Python, both of which I'd have a smoother time with. When I joined Furcadia, I had no trouble with its DragonSpeak language which let me build Club Nimbus from the ground up. Lunati and I collaborated on entries for the Spring & Summer Dream Contests, the latter of which included a unique rpg battle system. Both of our entries won 1st place and my art appeared in an article on Kotaku.

I've been commissioned by more than 500 separate clients for all varieties of art including digital paintings, acrylic & oil paintings, full-color pencil work, pixel art, clean sketches, dirty sketches and everything in between. But unlike many artists, I never wanted commissions to become a full-time job. Not when I have so many fantastic characters of my own begging to have their stories told.