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Author's Spotlight: Andy Frogman
Website:
http://frogman.ultima-java.com
Profile:
Hey there everyone, I'm Andy, Founder and Designer of Ultima-Java: Creative Media. Here I'm going to tell you a little bit about myself, my personal life and my online life, and hopfully show you how I came to be here today. I've always had an interest in computers and art, and the first time I ever "played" with a PC, when I was somewhere near 4 or 5 years old I already realized the potential that was MS Paint. As I got a little older and a little wiser, though at times they didn't seem to be growing equally, I started to develop my art in school and by the time I was 10 I was already into pixel art through Paint. I realized that the computer games that I was playing at the time, had to have been created somehow, and with with paint I found myself able to replicate the sprites. It was at this time that I was really into Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter, and that was reflected in my art, drawing designs for new characters and writing short comics about them, which although were very childish, I wish I still had them. Realizing that with sprites, I didn't have to do the same thing over and over again, I could simply cut and paste the base sprites, I started to produce sprite comics for myself, on an old old old computer, unfortunatly the computer was thrown out and all my characters and comics went with them. In school however, my art was going in different directions, as I moved up to Comprehensive School (I think thats equivelent to Middle School and Highschool in the US) I was now taking Art as a lesson, and as far as I was conserned it was great, the one lesson where I could just sit down and do what I wanted to do anyway! I have been a fan of Final Fantsy for many years, since Final Fantasy 7 first came out, the concept amazed me and it drew my fully into the sci-fi/fantasy genre, along with these games, I started to become interested in anime shows like Pokemon, Dragonball Z, Gundam Wing and Outlaw Star. These shows influenced my imagination in ways I never could have imagined, suddenly my head was full of ideas and along with internet access to be able to find more, I was statted on the road that would lead me where I am now. It all started with stick figures, unfortunatly all the years of doing Art as a school subject had turned it into more work than pleasure, and the deadlines were getting increasingly dire. So along with Steve (now known as Stephanos) we created stick figure comics based on parody versions of the Dragonball Universe, at first we were just writing them for ourselves, our own versions of the universe we watched on TV... but as it progressed and others became involved in the Stick Productions we realized the stories were getting closer, the characters were interacting and between us we had created a masive world. Everyone continued to do it untill the last years of school, except me. I had too many ideas, to many plans. I stgarted to recreate my original story called "The Crystal Shards" as sprites, though that ended quickly. It wasn't the medium that I had a problem with it was the story, it was unoriginal and I had ideas bigger than a simple Dragonball parody. Thats when I started work on developing characters for a comic called "Endless Meaning". A sci-fi/fantasy comic, that featured now altered versions of the characters I'd created for the Crystal Shards comic. However as time went on this just seemed like a Final Fantasy comic, and once I'd made the connection it was dead to me. I was looking for something bigger still. Something wider than a set story, I wanted to creat a world, a universe. Only a wide and diverse universe could possibly contain all the ideas I had. Thats when it all started, a story I started writing called Lythian Story. The story of a child, who was destined to be something more not because of royal blood, not because of some obscure luck that placed him a sticky situation that turned out for the best. A boy who struggled and pushed to make his way to the top, and who's struggle was indeed rewarded. This was the comic that would later be Ultima-Java. Stephanos had discovered online comics and so had I, but were were looking in very different places. Stephanos enjoyed 8bit Theater and signed up to NPF, where as I prefered Bob and George the Megaman comic, who claimed to be the first ever sprite comic on the web. I took that as a bit of a challenge, because although no doubt they were the first on the web... I would recon that I was making sprites long before they thought about it. Turns out, for the record, I was right. From there I got involved with a group that originated from Deviant Art, who called themselves The Deviants, and were brought together by a mediochre spriter named Goldie. (See where this is going?) Unfortunatly, Goldie took offense to someone who left a comment on my sprite gallery saying: "Wow you're an amazing spriter, I don't think I've seen anyone as good as you, you're deffinatly the best on this forum." After a steaming rant about how he was better than me, he deleted my account and that of the member who appreciated my work. The members realized what an idiot he was and left shortly after. However all was not lost Stephanos had just left NPF to create a whole new group of spriters and artists called Slightly Out of Order. TBC...
Posts by Andy Frogman:
- First Impressions 004: Arrow, March 5, 2013 in Blog
- Whatever Happened To… The Easter Eggs Project? Iron Man 2, February 13, 2013 in Blog
- First Impressions 002: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012), February 5, 2013 in Blog
- Whatever Happened To The Easter Egg Project? Incredible Hulk!, January 29, 2013 in Blog
- No First Impressions Today…, January 22, 2013 in Blog
.: Allies :.
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