Hi everyone, I'm Kurtis
#1
Officially the first message board I've ever signed up on/posted to, so, Crimson Daggers, you've taken my V card... thanks for being so gentle everyone.

Where to start...

I was always (heh) 'drawn' to art, which is probably true for most folks here. I remember being mesmerized by Smaug on his pile of gold on the copy of the Hobbit we had, magic cards, D&D cards, Boris V's cards, just amazed me. Jim Lee, Dale Keown were the first two comic artists I put my eyes too, etc etc, then I hit sixteen and discovered girls, and things get a bit blurry for awhile.

Eventually, lost and distracted I discovered you could make videogames for a living, which was a revelation. I went to game school, which was my first experience with the privatized schooling system where they milk you for a fortune and give you a mediocre education. It was ok though, me and a few others teamed up and took as much as we could from it and each other, and most of us got into the biz... it was sunshines and rainbows for awhile. I worked at Propaganda, Radical Entertainment and United Front games, about 2 years in is where the economic troubles started and the way we make games had to evolve to survive the gamePocalypse. Two years after that, fighting for contracts with more experienced game developers, I bowed out, broken.

Much to my surprise though, after some time not making stuff for others, that little thing in my brain that consumes media and defecates ideas in my skull started piping up. I decided that, since I wasnt gonna make textures anymore, I should probably use photoshop for something, and teach myself to draw digitally. I drew my son a poster of a dinosaur, it took months. That was two years ago. Since then I wrote a buncha kids books, and started illustrating to improve, so I could get to some graphic stories I wrote, and somewhere along the way it became apparent that this was what I wanted to do, period, and I'd sort the 'getting paid' thing later. I recently joined up for Noah Bradleys Art Camp, which is where I discovered Crimson Daggers.

I've been doing this totally alone until now, lurking like a troll in one basement or another, the community provided by the art camp has been... well words don't really describe, but I'll assume if you got this far, that you understand. We're past the halfway mark at Camp, and I realized recently that I was terrified of its ending, mostly because of the ability to share and talk and generally build momentum with like minded people. Then CD was brought to the conversation, and here I am.

Thanks for existing, thanks for taking part... lets make some cool shit together

cheers,

k
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#2
Hello, hello and welcome to the daggers, Kurtis!!

Wow, that's quite the back story - very inspiring if I do say so myself.
It was really fantastic to read what brought about that urge to get working on your skills in digital painting.

I'm also glad to hear that you were able to find us through Noah's Art Camp! A couple of amazing artists in CD are already apart of it, as well as my not-so-amazing self hah and a butt-load of newcomers that came from reading that "rant" by Noah!

Oh yes, I understand what you mean.

I realised very early on in my art journey - that it's a helluva lot harder going in, head on, tackling-those-bosses-blocking-the-way alone. And that it's a lot more fun, enjoyable and educational when you share and care with the other in the artists, in CD or not!

Thanks for the good read and I look forward to checking out your stuff!

Hope you enjoy your stay!

sketchbook | pg 52
"Not a single thing in this world isn't in the process of becoming something else."
I'll be back - it's an odyssey, after all
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