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lookitzartz!
PointingDevice | 2:35 AM on 01.27.2008 12 comments


My dearest Destructoid,

It's been far too long, but I return with a renewed sense of vigor and candor. Trust me when I say I've missed you all, even those of you who don't know a thing about me. I missed you the most. For reals.

Anyway, the purpose of this post is to begin using this here c-blog as a repository for my efforts to find art again. I was an artist, and from what folks tell me, a pretty good one. But in the immortal words of Cursive, "We all know art is hard." True dat, Cursive, true dat.

So frustratingly difficult is it, that I inadvertently gave it up entirely. I can talk for many hours about the reasons why, but I'll try to keep it brief here. I started getting really into art around my middle-school age, though I'd drawn shit up until then. The thing that really grabbed me is what we all now know as Manga and Anime. I was head-over-tits for the shit and ate it up. Got really quite good at it, and argued for long times with my high school art teacher about how it was, in fact, art.

How wrong I was. If I can give any aspiring artist out there some really solid advice, fucking leave anime alone for 15 minutes and get the boring shit like real anatomy out of the way. I didn't, and it has stifled me as an artist in the long run. I'm just now getting to the serious stuff after 28 years of drawing, and completely refusing to deal with the classics. Foolish move.

Sure, I'll agree, anime is colorful and fun and all that, and there are some good lessons to learn from it, but it's a genre. A mere slice of art as a whole. A set style with it's own rules that are bent and changed to create new styles within it, but even these get their boundaries, and I think that's the issue.

Now, I know some of you are aching to argue with me about this, and that's fine. But I will boldly state that this is, in fact, not my opinion. It's goddamn fact. If you value your artistry and growth in whatever medium, understand that getting some good foundations in drawing actual life detail will serve you a lot better in the long run. Get that out of the way, and then go back to making your own preferred style. It opens up a shitload of possibilities, and that's a good thing. Especially if you plan to try to get a job doing art.

Ok, with that out of the way, I am officially announcing that today I arted. Yes, I have, for the first time in a little over 2 years, sat down and made something artistic. I'm pretty proud of it, overall, and of course there's stuff I think that could be better, but I'm not really looking for a critique. Just looking to share a really great experience with you, my dear friends. I hope you enjoy it. Additionally, I would like to explain that Itemforty recently explained to me the harrowing points-system featured here in the clogs. This is not a ploy to get more of those, because I don't know what they're for, nor do I care.

Thanks for your time. It's good to be back.

Artrage 2.5, Photoshop - 3 hours or so of playing around:



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11 comments | showing # 1 to 11

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Coonskin05's Destructoid Blog
Adam you are a badass.
itemforty's Destructoid Blog
Absolutely amazing.
Butmac's Destructoid Blog
Wow dude...that's really really good man.
bhive01's Destructoid Blog
2.5 hours!?

That would take me.... YEARS. Nice piece Adam. Reminds me of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.
Hoygeit's Destructoid Blog
Very very cool.
tazarthayoot's Destructoid Blog
Epic fucking win dude.
PointingDevice's Destructoid Blog
Wow, thanks everyone! I'm pleased you like it.

@bhive - Sky Captain is great. I'm a huge fan of Steampunk, and though that particular movie technically falls under Dieselpunk, I'm a fan of that also. Good stuff.
MeanGuy's Destructoid Blog
Meh.

Hahaha... I watched Adam finish this, and start another piece, and it was fantastic. Great stuff.

Go Dude!
atheistium's Destructoid Blog
beautiful :O!
blehman's Destructoid Blog
Awesome drawering Adam!
Rockvillian's Destructoid Blog
Nice dude. And congrats on stepping aside from the anime/manga. I was obsessed with "concept art" in college cause I didn't have to draw backgrounds and didn't have to use color, got frustrated when my professors said I should branch out, didn't do anything for 2 years...... then started artin' for the fun of it, drawin people on the metro, etc. And I'm sure you've seen my Advent Calendartoid thing I did last December.

Lookin forward to seein more of your stuff dude! Keep practicing!


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 about me



The Important Shit
Name: Adam
Age: 29
Location: Austin, TX

Email: pointdev@gmail.com
Steam Name: pointingdevice
Xbox Live: PointingDevice - Currently defunct!
AIM: TekTekBang
Sexy?: No.


General Information
-----
Adam "PointingDevice" McWaters was birthed July of 1979, in a sleepy military fortress in the hill-lands of Texas. At the time, this area was referred to by the locals as, "flavor country," however 2-6 years after his birth, "flavor country" was relocated to west Texas/Arizona/New Mexico.

Point is, that summer was hot as fuck.

Due to the extreme heat, Adam was taken almost immediately to the happy-go-lucky country of Germany, where he was protected from the terrible sun by a constant layer of gloom and cold. He would be 2 years of age before he would ever experience the fiery orb directly. This experience would not go well, and would further complicate life for Adam in the future, many times.

After 9 or so years under the gray skies of Deutschland, selling real Levi's to the unfortunate locals who had to deal with Turkish knock-off brands, Adam would find himself and his meager earnings in arcades across the land. In these dark secluded caves, the boy would learn that these machines were his true parents. These had cruely birthed him, stoic, into this world from whatever hideous canal or cantrip. He didn't know which one was his actual parent, per se, but it was probably a shmup of some sort, since he beat so much ass at those.

Or a Neo-Geo multigame cabinet. It's still really up in the air at this point.

Upon arriving back in Texas, he was delighted to find that arcades existed here too. Dark, dingy and smoky, he could continue his reign of destruction all over any dude challenging him to Samurai Shodown or what-have-you. Time passed in the peaceful struggles against lesser fools who didn't know what time it was... But for how long?

He did find himself suffering through many battles what existed outside the screens. Beyond the areas where he was tearing asses up. For years he fought against the tyranny of the Daytona USA machine's ever-present, ear shattering shrieks. The long lines at whatever Mortal Kombat machine was new. Rising costs per-play. Square meat patties on round buns. 8-year-olds, fuckheads that they are, spilling their Big Reds into any classic cabinet's controls. He arose as victorious as Conan over these motherfuckers.

Adam did do this for the good of all arcades across the world. For all those who respected the edicts and the old ways. He battled to ensure that those after him could get their chance to kick asses in at their favored games. He fought for the promises of sticks and buttons that react with snap and response. No sticking. No bullshit. No excuses. For these things did Adam "PointingDevice" McWaters bust heads.

But one black day, wounded from a difficult discussion with the giant blob of mankind that spilled forth from the Killer Instinct machine, and exhausted by years of sheer attrition, a dark shadow fell across the land. He looked up at the oncoming foe and realized his own death. There before him rose the great six-headed avatar of his childhoods' undoing. On each writhing neck, shadowy effigies mewled and gurgled and cursed him.

In one of it's many right hands held high a Revolution X cabinet and did consider it "classic." It's left hand was an enormous lobster claw which gripped a bag of play tokens that cost an uneven amount of actual money to acquire. Amongst it's 6 slathering heads was a floating crown of a DDR machine, upon which lazily danced a series of slack jawed man-boys. Each head a skeletal visage of the last 6 chosen Pokemon of the Beast. Their mewlings called forth and heralded the end of arcades as he knew them.

Their voices ringing in his ears like tinnitus. Like the Daytona USA machine's wretched call. Like a fever. Adam "PointingDevice" McWaters did fall defeated, and he crawled away heartbroken. Leaving behind the tattered flag of his youth, and the vicious screams of the Beast that consumed all it surveyed.

Since that terrible day, he has primarily enjoyed games on PC, and fully accepted modern consoles as "awesome," in one way or another. But a giant hole has been metaphorically fucked into his very soul. A hole which can never be filled again, no matter how much money some proprietor is willing to lose.

But the soul still burns...

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I've been having a blast, but miss you too, Dtoid!


 

 
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