Jaleho
Today's Iron Chef Challenge: Deoxyribonucleic Acid
I could post a regular “I'm new here” post with a brief overview, then follow it up with a hundred messages fleshing out details... or I could just unload my life story (the parts I think INTPs would be interested in at least) and give folks a fun little essay to pass the time and find common ground with. Hey, nobody's forcing you to read it, right?
I was born in 1977. I never knew a world without Star Wars. Jim Henson was a god to me, and I grew up on a steady diet of Fraggles and other Muppets.
My parents had some type of black and white Pong television game (I can't remember exactly which one). It was fun, but pretty limited. Therefor, I spent more time playing with my "Lock Blocks" (Lego knockoffs), Lincoln Logs, and various board games. I also enjoyed drawing and coming up with my own paper-based games.
Eventually, we got the Atari 2600 (woohoo!) and after that, a Commodore 64.
I had an older neighbor who played D&D. However, he knew my mother was a fanatical Christian who would have nothing to do with such things, so he showed me some of the concepts behind character sheets, but I never actually got to play. I briefly convinced my mother to buy us a religious version of D&D, but she got rid of it the first time she discovered the battles weren't pre-set, and we had to pretend to be violent. Somehow, she never realized Temple of Apshai was basically the same thing. Apparently, the video game made it “less real” than vocalizing a character's actions.
It wasn't long before I learned about BASIC (anyone else remember typing in games from the back of a magazine?) and began editing the various Text Adventure Games I enjoyed. I also loved such games as the Pinball Construction Set and the Adventure Construction Set. Other games such as Wizard, Boulderdash and Lode Runner came with level editors that helped me see games as something I could create and not just play.
I worshiped M.U.L.E.
In school, apart from the familiar Oregon Trail and Carmen Sandiego games, I learned about creating computer graphics - often pixel by pixel with code (Apple IIe days: SET COLOR RED, POINT 23,127... LINE 104, 73 TO 78 or something). Eventually I learned how to cycle the images, and I had primitive animation. I found myself writing stories even when it wasn't a class requirement, and soon I had inspired the whole class to do the same during recess and after school. I also began making comic strips, and took a class in stagecraft.
I was lucky enough to be in a special gifted class where I got to do more creative things than the other kids, such as helping create a large (wood frame and miniature railroad props) board game with card-based RPG actions. A friend and I also created a 20 minute long claymation movie (with a camcorder that didn't have a "single frame" option... it moves veeery slow).
I had a NES, and playing the many early games (and seeing the maps drawn out in their entirety in Nintendo Power Magazine) gave me the idea for creating my own games. I didn't know how the pros made it happen, so I was stuck with graph paper, but the characters, power-ups and level designs were still fun to make.
Around this time, my father brought home a "dumb terminal" - a computer with no hard drive or anything... but it had a modem. So I discovered the wonderful world of local Bulliten Board Systems. Oh, the joy of Tradewars, Inn of the Red Dragon, and various MUDs. It was in the message boards I came to enjoy writing cooperative stories and playing (virtually) pen and paper Role Playing Games.
Outside the BBSs, I played various RPGs, mainly from the Palladium system (TMNT, Heroes Unlimited, RIFTS). I also discovered Steve Jackson's TOON.
Eventually, we got a PC at home. DOS at first, which game me access to the lands of ZZT and my first introduction to script-based game design. I also played Wolfenstein and DOOM, and discovered their graphic and level editing programs, where I made some early MODs. I also got a program called Disney Animation Studio (or something), which let me make frame-by-frame animations, with color and sound! Using my trusty Preston Blair animation book, I jumped into learning computer animation.
Around this time, Image Comics had just been formed. I was convinced the comic book industry was the wave of the future! I found an ad for the Art Instruction Schools (you know, "Draw Tippy the Turtle") and signed up, but eventually just didn't feel it was for me (they took my payment, of course).
I discovered a number of books such as Barlowe's Guide to Extra-Terrestrials which visually fed my interest in alien life. I constantly checked out a huge illustrated guide to prehistoric animals from the school library, and Dixon's “After Man” amazed me to no end. If I hadn't been raised in such fundamentalist upbringings, I might have gone off to be a biologist. Seeing all the past lifeforms, seeing one man's ideas of future lifeforms, and being told every week that evolution was a fairy tale, I never really knew what to believe. But I kept thinking.
In High School, I took some creative writing and sci-fi classes. I also took an acting class, leading me to take the lead in the main one-act play (imagine a 6'2" chunky guy wearing bells as Harlequin). I took a computer programming class where I used QBasic to create SPACE MONKEYS, a sort of Space Invaders clone. The teacher used it for years after to show other classes what was possible in that class. I took a technology class, in which I got my hands on a scanner (I could now put images I drew right into the computer!), messed around with photo editing, drafting, CAD, 3D Modeling, and video editing (Video Toaster anyone?).
I joined the newspaper staff as a cartoonist, making both comic strips and political cartoons. This choice would direct the next 10 years of my life (for better or for worse). When I graduated, both Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes were retiring, so I thought I was a shoe-in to be the next comic strip artist the world would love. I thought I could get by on talent alone.
After graduation, I wanted to go to a big art school in New York, but a lack of guidance on my financial aid options lead me to the local Community College. Still convinced I didn't need a degree (or a decent portfolio, apparently) I just took classes at random -- Zoology, Fencing, Stagecraft, Art, Children's Literature, Music Fundamentals... I did a lot of traditional art classes (sculpture, life drawing) as well as commercial art classes (in which they didn't see the computer as a very useful tool).
I joined the college newspaper, starting as a cartoonist, but moving up the ranks from tech designer (learning Quark and Photoshop) to managing editor. I was still hand-inking my illustrations at the time, but I experimented with digital coloring. One day we received a press kit about the movie "Hackers" which included a link to a "World Wide Web site". Heading up to the computer lab, I asked them how to access the "internet". Wow.
It wasn't long before I was teaching myself HTML, making animated GIF files. I found game companies online and started offering my illustration services. I actually got a chance to interview with the guys who made WORMS, but I didn't think I could really move to Europe at the time. I did, however, create illustrations for the Mac game "Solitaire Til Dawn, which was reviewed in MacAddict magazine (so if I squint, I can see a tiny image of mine on the back of a card in a screenshot...).
I started playing around with video editing, experimenting with blue screens and 3D image composition. I used Specular Infini-D back then. My friend introduced me to MYST so there was a brief period of trying out hypercard and 3D scenes.
A friend intrigued me about vegetarianism, and while looking for answers in the bible, time and time again I found religious leaders and writers using scripture to back up BOTH sides of the argument...
Unfortunately, I stuck with print media. I moved to do video editing for a band (which fell through) but my day job was ad design at a newspaper. I finally got a drawing tablet and tried out digital inking, and I also played around with MIDI composition. But I wasn't happy.
I eventually learned Flash, but it took a long time for me to make progress with it back then. I messed around with Director and made a simple dress-up game. At another job I finally got the hang of Illustrator.
Met my wife online. Got married.
I thought about making comics. Animations. Short films. I was reading Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett books, and I thought I might want to make a story. But I felt I needed to do some research first... At one boring job, right around 9/11, I didn't have the internet, but I found a 1998 Encarta Encyclopedia CD-ROM in my desk. And I devoured it. Particle physics, Mithras, anthropology, the Gnostics, schizophrenia, Jewish mysticism, biology, the effects of PCP, hypnotic suggestion, physics, middle eastern historians records...
Finally, I had had enough of the string of jobs that seemed to lead farther and farther from my creative side. I quit and became a caricature artist at a theme park. It didn't pay well, the environment sucked, but I was being creative. However, it only lasted a season, and I now had a family to support.
I got a job with a technology curriculum design company. I learned about robotics, AI, embedded control systems, landscape design, alternative energy, music video production, and more. Through them I created applications using HTML, Javascript, as well as some Flash ActionScript. I learned to control FLVs. We made a curriculum on Video Game Design, and I started seeing an area I loved -- I wanted to be creative with my art, but I was a natural at programming. I created a series of tutorial videos and sample games using DarkBASIC, and the curriculum became our top seller. We also created one for Web Game Design using Flash and AS2 (but not using OOP). I really questioned how much I should be supporting the failed education system vs looking for an alternative.
I finally became an atheist.
I still looked for other opportunities. I learned how to build and script in Second Life. I played around with Squeak and Scratch. I learned more about ActionScript.
Eventually I decided I wanted a job where I could combine my programming and art skills. I knew I needed a degree if I was to get into the game biz. I only had a tenuous grip on OOP having started in BASIC and taken so much time away from that world. I went back to college determined to get a degree this time. I signed up at Stark State for my Asssociate of Computer Science (Game Design Path). I've taken classes on Visual Basic, C++, 3DS Max and Game Design Theory. I made a few simple games in C++ and VB, and even tried making one in Excel.
I still couldn't decide what to speciliaze in, until someone mentioned programming was less competitive, paid more, and would let me keep art as a hobby, so I decided to get more programming skills. I went back for more C++ (including Allegro), Java, and some Flash.
My Flash teacher just so happened to be a recruiter at a headhunting company, and he brought me in for an interview. They managed to place me with a marketing company, where I now make flash banner ads. Still waiting to get hired full-time. Haven't returned to college.
In the meantime, I surf wikipedia and raise my two (soon three) kids.
And I feel all alone in this blue-collar Ohio town. Hence why I'm on an INTP forum – looking for more of “my own kind.”
I was born in 1977. I never knew a world without Star Wars. Jim Henson was a god to me, and I grew up on a steady diet of Fraggles and other Muppets.
My parents had some type of black and white Pong television game (I can't remember exactly which one). It was fun, but pretty limited. Therefor, I spent more time playing with my "Lock Blocks" (Lego knockoffs), Lincoln Logs, and various board games. I also enjoyed drawing and coming up with my own paper-based games.
Eventually, we got the Atari 2600 (woohoo!) and after that, a Commodore 64.
I had an older neighbor who played D&D. However, he knew my mother was a fanatical Christian who would have nothing to do with such things, so he showed me some of the concepts behind character sheets, but I never actually got to play. I briefly convinced my mother to buy us a religious version of D&D, but she got rid of it the first time she discovered the battles weren't pre-set, and we had to pretend to be violent. Somehow, she never realized Temple of Apshai was basically the same thing. Apparently, the video game made it “less real” than vocalizing a character's actions.
It wasn't long before I learned about BASIC (anyone else remember typing in games from the back of a magazine?) and began editing the various Text Adventure Games I enjoyed. I also loved such games as the Pinball Construction Set and the Adventure Construction Set. Other games such as Wizard, Boulderdash and Lode Runner came with level editors that helped me see games as something I could create and not just play.
I worshiped M.U.L.E.
In school, apart from the familiar Oregon Trail and Carmen Sandiego games, I learned about creating computer graphics - often pixel by pixel with code (Apple IIe days: SET COLOR RED, POINT 23,127... LINE 104, 73 TO 78 or something). Eventually I learned how to cycle the images, and I had primitive animation. I found myself writing stories even when it wasn't a class requirement, and soon I had inspired the whole class to do the same during recess and after school. I also began making comic strips, and took a class in stagecraft.
I was lucky enough to be in a special gifted class where I got to do more creative things than the other kids, such as helping create a large (wood frame and miniature railroad props) board game with card-based RPG actions. A friend and I also created a 20 minute long claymation movie (with a camcorder that didn't have a "single frame" option... it moves veeery slow).
I had a NES, and playing the many early games (and seeing the maps drawn out in their entirety in Nintendo Power Magazine) gave me the idea for creating my own games. I didn't know how the pros made it happen, so I was stuck with graph paper, but the characters, power-ups and level designs were still fun to make.
Around this time, my father brought home a "dumb terminal" - a computer with no hard drive or anything... but it had a modem. So I discovered the wonderful world of local Bulliten Board Systems. Oh, the joy of Tradewars, Inn of the Red Dragon, and various MUDs. It was in the message boards I came to enjoy writing cooperative stories and playing (virtually) pen and paper Role Playing Games.
Outside the BBSs, I played various RPGs, mainly from the Palladium system (TMNT, Heroes Unlimited, RIFTS). I also discovered Steve Jackson's TOON.
Eventually, we got a PC at home. DOS at first, which game me access to the lands of ZZT and my first introduction to script-based game design. I also played Wolfenstein and DOOM, and discovered their graphic and level editing programs, where I made some early MODs. I also got a program called Disney Animation Studio (or something), which let me make frame-by-frame animations, with color and sound! Using my trusty Preston Blair animation book, I jumped into learning computer animation.
Around this time, Image Comics had just been formed. I was convinced the comic book industry was the wave of the future! I found an ad for the Art Instruction Schools (you know, "Draw Tippy the Turtle") and signed up, but eventually just didn't feel it was for me (they took my payment, of course).
I discovered a number of books such as Barlowe's Guide to Extra-Terrestrials which visually fed my interest in alien life. I constantly checked out a huge illustrated guide to prehistoric animals from the school library, and Dixon's “After Man” amazed me to no end. If I hadn't been raised in such fundamentalist upbringings, I might have gone off to be a biologist. Seeing all the past lifeforms, seeing one man's ideas of future lifeforms, and being told every week that evolution was a fairy tale, I never really knew what to believe. But I kept thinking.
In High School, I took some creative writing and sci-fi classes. I also took an acting class, leading me to take the lead in the main one-act play (imagine a 6'2" chunky guy wearing bells as Harlequin). I took a computer programming class where I used QBasic to create SPACE MONKEYS, a sort of Space Invaders clone. The teacher used it for years after to show other classes what was possible in that class. I took a technology class, in which I got my hands on a scanner (I could now put images I drew right into the computer!), messed around with photo editing, drafting, CAD, 3D Modeling, and video editing (Video Toaster anyone?).
I joined the newspaper staff as a cartoonist, making both comic strips and political cartoons. This choice would direct the next 10 years of my life (for better or for worse). When I graduated, both Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes were retiring, so I thought I was a shoe-in to be the next comic strip artist the world would love. I thought I could get by on talent alone.
After graduation, I wanted to go to a big art school in New York, but a lack of guidance on my financial aid options lead me to the local Community College. Still convinced I didn't need a degree (or a decent portfolio, apparently) I just took classes at random -- Zoology, Fencing, Stagecraft, Art, Children's Literature, Music Fundamentals... I did a lot of traditional art classes (sculpture, life drawing) as well as commercial art classes (in which they didn't see the computer as a very useful tool).
I joined the college newspaper, starting as a cartoonist, but moving up the ranks from tech designer (learning Quark and Photoshop) to managing editor. I was still hand-inking my illustrations at the time, but I experimented with digital coloring. One day we received a press kit about the movie "Hackers" which included a link to a "World Wide Web site". Heading up to the computer lab, I asked them how to access the "internet". Wow.
It wasn't long before I was teaching myself HTML, making animated GIF files. I found game companies online and started offering my illustration services. I actually got a chance to interview with the guys who made WORMS, but I didn't think I could really move to Europe at the time. I did, however, create illustrations for the Mac game "Solitaire Til Dawn, which was reviewed in MacAddict magazine (so if I squint, I can see a tiny image of mine on the back of a card in a screenshot...).
I started playing around with video editing, experimenting with blue screens and 3D image composition. I used Specular Infini-D back then. My friend introduced me to MYST so there was a brief period of trying out hypercard and 3D scenes.
A friend intrigued me about vegetarianism, and while looking for answers in the bible, time and time again I found religious leaders and writers using scripture to back up BOTH sides of the argument...
Unfortunately, I stuck with print media. I moved to do video editing for a band (which fell through) but my day job was ad design at a newspaper. I finally got a drawing tablet and tried out digital inking, and I also played around with MIDI composition. But I wasn't happy.
I eventually learned Flash, but it took a long time for me to make progress with it back then. I messed around with Director and made a simple dress-up game. At another job I finally got the hang of Illustrator.
Met my wife online. Got married.
I thought about making comics. Animations. Short films. I was reading Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett books, and I thought I might want to make a story. But I felt I needed to do some research first... At one boring job, right around 9/11, I didn't have the internet, but I found a 1998 Encarta Encyclopedia CD-ROM in my desk. And I devoured it. Particle physics, Mithras, anthropology, the Gnostics, schizophrenia, Jewish mysticism, biology, the effects of PCP, hypnotic suggestion, physics, middle eastern historians records...
Finally, I had had enough of the string of jobs that seemed to lead farther and farther from my creative side. I quit and became a caricature artist at a theme park. It didn't pay well, the environment sucked, but I was being creative. However, it only lasted a season, and I now had a family to support.
I got a job with a technology curriculum design company. I learned about robotics, AI, embedded control systems, landscape design, alternative energy, music video production, and more. Through them I created applications using HTML, Javascript, as well as some Flash ActionScript. I learned to control FLVs. We made a curriculum on Video Game Design, and I started seeing an area I loved -- I wanted to be creative with my art, but I was a natural at programming. I created a series of tutorial videos and sample games using DarkBASIC, and the curriculum became our top seller. We also created one for Web Game Design using Flash and AS2 (but not using OOP). I really questioned how much I should be supporting the failed education system vs looking for an alternative.
I finally became an atheist.
I still looked for other opportunities. I learned how to build and script in Second Life. I played around with Squeak and Scratch. I learned more about ActionScript.
Eventually I decided I wanted a job where I could combine my programming and art skills. I knew I needed a degree if I was to get into the game biz. I only had a tenuous grip on OOP having started in BASIC and taken so much time away from that world. I went back to college determined to get a degree this time. I signed up at Stark State for my Asssociate of Computer Science (Game Design Path). I've taken classes on Visual Basic, C++, 3DS Max and Game Design Theory. I made a few simple games in C++ and VB, and even tried making one in Excel.
I still couldn't decide what to speciliaze in, until someone mentioned programming was less competitive, paid more, and would let me keep art as a hobby, so I decided to get more programming skills. I went back for more C++ (including Allegro), Java, and some Flash.
My Flash teacher just so happened to be a recruiter at a headhunting company, and he brought me in for an interview. They managed to place me with a marketing company, where I now make flash banner ads. Still waiting to get hired full-time. Haven't returned to college.
In the meantime, I surf wikipedia and raise my two (soon three) kids.
And I feel all alone in this blue-collar Ohio town. Hence why I'm on an INTP forum – looking for more of “my own kind.”
