A (Largely Erroneous) Overview of my Life

My first real interest in anything artistic was drawing simple cartoons when I was six. Along with my friend, I indulged my imagination by creating a myriad of weird and wonderful characters which, unfortunately, all tended to look exactly the same. I suppose I grew up for a while and wasted my childhood like so many others playing football, going on bike rides and frollicking gaily in the fields.

Fortunately, I was rescued from this hideous (and largely false) fantasy by discovering, and eventually being seduced, by the darker side of the comic book universe. It would probably be untrue to claim that my first teenage orgasm was brought about, not from staining my mothers lingerie catalogues, but from seeing the beauty of Todd McFarlanes' 'Spawn' series of comics. Untrue, but a romantic notion nonetheless. This love for the dark, gothic and surreal was furthered by my interest in the artwork and fiction of Games Workshop.

From then on, I was lost to a world of fantasy violence and for a while almost learnt how to draw properly. This flourishing hint of capability was routinely crushed when I thought it'd be good to take up art for GCSE. Two years, a 'C' and a neatly sharpened hatred for art later, I found myself firmly entrenched in the, despairingly real, world of academia. Fitfully excreting my creative juices in between getting drunk.

If we fast-forward four years, our hero (me) now has a bachelors degree in psychology and history (without any real knowledge of either) and a desire to get a job doing something creative (without any real knowledge how). I have been spending the last few months learning how to use: photoshop, illustrator, imageready, dreamweaver and flash mx to varying degrees of success and failure. I'm constantly trying to improve my skills in all these areas mainly because I (wrongly) think it'll get me laid.

I designed and built this website for a number of reasons, mainly as a learning experience but also as a showcase for my work and as such I welcome any comments anyone may wish to make. If you like (or don't like) what you see, or if you have any advice about creative design I would be glad to hear what you think.

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