drawings!

here are some things i've drawn (and attempted to paint) in recent years.

 

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i'm currently working on finding more time to practice, so hopefully this site will soon be filled with work of more... quality.

yu-gi-oh!

one of my hobbies that rose to the highest personal prominence this decade was the yu-gi-oh trading card game. i grew up on-and-off with the first couple of shows when they aired in america; i never really got to see the anime in full as a kid, unfortunately. still, what i did watch of it and what i read of the manga impacted me a fair bit as a person, and the late kazuki takahashi's love for games imprinted heavily on me. even now i adore games of many kinds and like to use them as a way to understand people better and perhaps be understood as well.  i play games socially but not without strategy or respect for what i play.

 

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i played the yu-gi-oh card game sometimes as a kid, wielding hand-me-down cards from a cousin of mine that were several years out of date. even so, i cherished those cards as an irreplaceable gift and i even managed to win a small informal tournament held by a bunch of the kids in my 5th grade class! fun times. besides that, i mostly just enjoyed the card artwork and liked to imagine what could have possibly happen to resolve the various plotlines i got only bits and pieces of in the show. i fell out of the game until around 2016, when the mobile game yu-gi-oh duel links released and got me back in through its simplified format.

 

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in recent times i've gotten quite good at the game, though i left duel links years ago now. at the moment i primarily play yu-gi-oh master duel (and occasionally other online formats) as i don't like spending a ton of money on cards. there are several decks that i like to play: there's gladiator beasts, predaplants, fur hires, majespecters, chimera/illusion... and most important of all to me is purrely. 

 

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seen below is an image of purrely, the monster around which the whole purrely deck is centered (go figure). i relate to purrely and really like the design, the friendship-and-love-based theming means a lot to me, and the relatively balanced play style fits me like a glove. maybe once i make more pages for this site i'll elaborate on this a bit more, but for now, just know that this cute cat has a whole lot of great friends!

 

and gaming!

i believe i'm what one might call a '1337 gamer'. i've played video games since i was very young, starting off with edutainment floppy disk games as a toddler and branching out into pretty much anything i could get my paws on from there. at this point i've played well over 1300 video games and i continue to play more when i can. there are just so many fun and interesting things to learn about and try out. i think a solid chunk of my zest for life comes from playing games in general -- that includes video games, of course!

 

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i don't consider myself a genre or console specialist. i enjoy all sorts of video games of many different kinds! my favorite consoles are probably the original playstation and the nintendo ds, and most of my gaming has been on pc so i have a lot of love for that as well. regardless, i can find at least one game i really like from just about any platform. i often surprise myself by finding a new favorite where i never would have expected to find one; that, i think, is one of the most fun and valuable parts of the hobby. pictured above, if you didn't guess already, is a rough estimate of my top 25 games. as you might expect, it's subject to change.

 

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i have a lot of optimism for the medium. it's been going through a rough patch and has had a lot of hiccups and issues that have persisted for years or decades, but i believe things will get better. as more people get into game development and design and more folks are inspired by the art around them, the quality and meaning of it all will only become more powerful, more robust. i look forward to seeing what the future has in store for gaming at all levels. i want to contribute in my own ways too, and so i've slowly been training all of the many many skills it takes to make one's own games. it's not easy but it sure is a powerful goal.