You may want to cook up some popcorn, this is a long one.BurntToShreds Interviews:
DoNotDelete-First off, are you a guy or a girl?-I am a guy - I have facial hair and everything.
-It's no secret that you're an artist. Where/how did you learn to draw?-Both of my parents were a big influence on that part. My dad is a really skilled amateur painter and worked professionally as a graphic designer. My mother did a lot of embroidery and painted ceramics as well and my mother always made sure I had artworking materials as I was growing up - so I guess their influences just directed me down the path I'm walking right now.
I played around with art a lot before I went to what Americans would call high school - it was only then that I had the option to choose art and design as subjects in which I could be properly educated. It eventually became clear that my calling was actually more in three dimensional design than fine art - back then I was actually better at making complex models out of cardboard than painting and drawing - I even got more recognition in home economics than art for my fabric working skills.
I went through further education in art and design until I finally got to go to university - that was when I gained full access to computer programs such as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator and my fine artworking abilities actually got a chance to be more realised than they previously had. Don't get me wrong, I was a good sketcher/drafter before I got used to using digital artworking programs, but it was computers that enabled me to get to grips with colouring and finishing fully realised artwork pieces.
Other than that, learning to draw just takes perseverance and practice. I think I'm in a bit of a rut right now because I haven't produced anything significant lately - but that's probably because I'm focussing a lot of my time and effort on developing a big project I've been working on...
-You've also posted on this forum about creating a webcomic. Could you please tell us about it?-I can perhaps give an impression of what the story will be about, but I don't want to give away too much at this stage so please forgive me being vague:
Genre: Science Fiction/Fantasy.
Each of the main hero characters comes from a different planet, each of their home planets having either been destroyed or made uninhabitable by either natural disasters or outside alien influence. Because they all come from different worlds, the main characters all look very different to one another.
All of the main characters - heroes and villains - are cyborgs, with varying degrees of augmentation and widely varying function. Each of the hero characters also has a 'hyperdrive' form which builds on their existing strengths - pushing those abilities to their limits - and sometimes beyond.
The central character is a non-humanoid hermaphrodite (not meaning to place too much importance on the gender/sexuality of characters). One of the other hero characters appears to be a human male - but is he really human, and what happened to the rest of his kind?
I think that's enough for now, but I'll just add that I'm very pop flyin' and excited to be using a central character that is neither human, male or female - because personally I find characters that are very different to me to be more interesting than characters that fit into either the 'human male' or 'human female' protagonist boxes. Hopefully I can foster the same interest in potential readers of this work when I come to post/publish this project online.
I've actually came up with concepts for between five and six ongoing webcomic stories since around June/July, but at least half of those concepts were fanart based stories and I've decided I'd rather pour my heart into something over which I have full ownership than something where the copyright/character ownership falls into uncertain territory.
Since around September/October I've taken the strongest character profiles and character dynamic/relationship elements from those early concept webcomic stories and brought them together into this project to create a story which I hope will give a lot of different people something they can relate to on some level.
As a side note, I've actually lost almost all interest in doing funny one-shot comics anymore, I don't expect I'll be doing any of those in the forseeable future, but I may yet prove myself wrong on that point.
-What is it like living in Englande? Is it snowing right now?-I like living in England.
We have our problems with employment atm (like a lot of other places in the world), but I think the British are some of the most down to Earth people on the planet.
It's not snowing yet, by this time last year we'd had a lot of problems on the roads because of the white stuff. I wouldn't be disappointed if we didn't see any at all tbh 'cos I have to drive to get to my job and I lost a car on icy roads a few years back.
-Do you have any other interests/hobbies besides your art?-I play videogames, but less so than I used to - which I don't mind, really. I'd like to play with people online more often, but that kind of thing distracts me from other stuff I really need to be getting on with.
I'm actually quite a skilled hand stitcher and sewing machinist. I went through a phase of making soft toys and built up a large stock of different fabrics and materials which I still have. I hope to find the time to use these materials again someday, but for now I'm focussing on my current writing/art-based project.
I have a pet snake which I've been looking after for the past 7-8 months. I'm still learning how to best look after her, but she's as healthy as a royal python can be expected to be.
-What TV shows do you watch, if any at all?-I mostly watch cartoons, but I watch live action stuff occasionally too.
I'll watch any cartoon really, but I'm drawn to heavily stylised stuff like 'Hero 108' and 'My Little Pony', but that doesn't mean that I don't appreciate stuff like 'Iron Man: Armoured Adventures' or 'Generator Rex'.
I like stuff like 'Wacky Races' and 'Dick Dastardly' too - those kinda cartoons are timeless really, even if the humour is a little dated.
For live action stuff, I watch crime or medical drama occasionally, but more often I watch 'QI' or 'Have I Got News for You' which is a political satire show. I also watch Top Gear occasionally - but that's more for the shenanigans than the cars.
I used to watch Star Trek a lot, but I know most of the episodes off by heart now (everything from the original series through to 'Enterprise'), so it's kinda lost it's appeal.
-Finally: How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?-You'd have to ask the woodchuck. Anything I would say would be pure speculation.
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