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Description
Original Influence Map template created by -

I've been drawing since I first grasped a crayon in my fat little 1 year old fingers and decorated my mother's walls in a colorful range of nonsensical whorls and squiggles...

As I grew, I quickly became inspired by such series as Thundercats, Biker Mice from Mars, Swat Cats, Street Sharks, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles... However, above all these things, the catalyst to my inspiration to become an artist was Disney's "The Little Mermaid". Seriously, there I was, four years old and it blew my fucking mind. Suddenly I was drawing mermaids EVERYWHERE and on EveryTHING, mermaids that barely resembled anything human. However, the fact that these doodles were nothing more than mere stick figures with fish tails did nothing to dissuade me... after all, we have to start somewhere right? I'm sure that somewhere my old kindergarden teacher recalls my crappy scribbles of ninja turtles and April O'Neil standing on a grassy hill with a sun that wore a smile and trees that looked more like cotton candy standing on tooth picks...

The point is, a huge change in how I saw myself began and from then on I was unstoppable and my mother thankfully encouraged my creativity and supplied me with more markers, crayons, and color pencils than you could shake a stick at...

Then, at the age of 8 I received my first comic book of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and suddenly I couldn't get enough comics to read...

Though I mostly borrowed comics or read them at a friend's house, I met my first love (Spiderman) at age 11 when my father, Roger, who remains young at heart and the biggest comic book nerd I know, introduced me to his massive collection of comics. I remember when Spiderman was still in the newspapers but it was my first issues of the "Amazing Spiderman" that brought me into the comic book fold and from then on I officially became a Marvel Comics Junkie. Hell, I even made a red cloth mask and ran around climbing trees and swinging on ropes claiming I was Spiderman! ...I have more embarrassing memories because I became SO immersed in my imagination that I tried to climb walls and ended up dislocating a finger in the process. By the way, ouch. Boy was I dumb.

Ha ha, I'm sure mother still regrets indulging my comic fandom considering the amount of money she spent to supply me with my monthly fix of various titles...

In the midst of entertaining myself with 90's cartoons (X-Men, The Incredible Hulk, Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Freakazoid, etc), I must say that the X-Man comic was the biggest influence aside from the X-Men and I spent years scrawling out my own comics and stories on notebook paper and then I discovered Dragonball Z in middle school and made my first X-Man/DBZ crossover story and well... the rest is history... Dragonball Z was a 12 year obsession that served as the foundation to the development of my style and I owe a great deal of respect and thanks to Akira Toriyama for making such a profound influence on my life.

All in all, it was these sort of beginnings that molded me into the person I am today...The collage above covers a mere fraction of the things that have inspired me, but what I've shown are the biggest contributors and I felt the need to share a little piece of myself with you all...

I'd say more, but I figure my genuine likes and dislikes as shown in the contents of my DevArt gallery and favorites are pretty self explanatory.

enjoy!

DISCLAIMERS!!!

X-Men © Stan Lee / Marvel Comics
X-Man © Jeph Loeb and artist Steve Skroce / Marvel Comics
Spiderman © Stan Lee / Marvel Comics
Iron Man © Stan Lee / Marvel Comics
Dragonball Z © Akira Toriyama
Scud The Disposable Assassin © Rob Schrab / Image Comics
Cowboy Bebop © Keiko Nobumoto / Sunrise
Ren & Stimpy © John Kricfalusi
Courage The Cowardly Dog © / Cartoon Network
Dexter's Laboratory © / Cartoon Network
Thundercats © Rankin/Bass, Ted Wolf
Deadpool © Rob Liefeld / Marvel Comics
Ed, Edd, n Eddy © Danny Antonucci / Cartoon Network
Transformers © Takara Tomy / Hasbro
Transformers (films) © Michael Bay, Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman Stephen Spielberg
The Little Mermaid © Disney
Drakken, Shego © Disney

Description
Original Influence Map template created by -

I've been drawing since I first grasped a crayon in my fat little 1 year old fingers and decorated my mother's walls in a colorful range of nonsensical whorls and squiggles...

As I grew, I quickly became inspired by such series as Thundercats, Biker Mice from Mars, Swat Cats, Street Sharks, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles... However, above all these things, the catalyst to my inspiration to become an artist was Disney's "The Little Mermaid". Seriously, there I was, four years old and it blew my fucking mind. Suddenly I was drawing mermaids EVERYWHERE and on EveryTHING, mermaids that barely resembled anything human. However, the fact that these doodles were nothing more than mere stick figures with fish tails did nothing to dissuade me... after all, we have to start somewhere right? I'm sure that somewhere my old kindergarden teacher recalls my crappy scribbles of ninja turtles and April O'Neil standing on a grassy hill with a sun that wore a smile and trees that looked more like cotton candy standing on tooth picks...

The point is, a huge change in how I saw myself began and from then on I was unstoppable and my mother thankfully encouraged my creativity and supplied me with more markers, crayons, and color pencils than you could shake a stick at...

Then, at the age of 8 I received my first comic book of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and suddenly I couldn't get enough comics to read...

Though I mostly borrowed comics or read them at a friend's house, I met my first love (Spiderman) at age 11 when my father, Roger, who remains young at heart and the biggest comic book nerd I know, introduced me to his massive collection of comics. I remember when Spiderman was still in the newspapers but it was my first issues of the "Amazing Spiderman" that brought me into the comic book fold and from then on I officially became a Marvel Comics Junkie. Hell, I even made a red cloth mask and ran around climbing trees and swinging on ropes claiming I was Spiderman! ...I have more embarrassing memories because I became SO immersed in my imagination that I tried to climb walls and ended up dislocating a finger in the process. By the way, ouch. Boy was I dumb.

Ha ha, I'm sure mother still regrets indulging my comic fandom considering the amount of money she spent to supply me with my monthly fix of various titles...

In the midst of entertaining myself with 90's cartoons (X-Men, The Incredible Hulk, Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Freakazoid, etc), I must say that the X-Man comic was the biggest influence aside from the X-Men and I spent years scrawling out my own comics and stories on notebook paper and then I discovered Dragonball Z in middle school and made my first X-Man/DBZ crossover story and well... the rest is history... Dragonball Z was a 12 year obsession that served as the foundation to the development of my style and I owe a great deal of respect and thanks to Akira Toriyama for making such a profound influence on my life.

All in all, it was these sort of beginnings that molded me into the person I am today...The collage above covers a mere fraction of the things that have inspired me, but what I've shown are the biggest contributors and I felt the need to share a little piece of myself with you all...

I'd say more, but I figure my genuine likes and dislikes as shown in the contents of my DevArt gallery and favorites are pretty self explanatory.

enjoy!

DISCLAIMERS!!!

X-Men © Stan Lee / Marvel Comics
X-Man © Jeph Loeb and artist Steve Skroce / Marvel Comics
Spiderman © Stan Lee / Marvel Comics
Iron Man © Stan Lee / Marvel Comics
Dragonball Z © Akira Toriyama
Scud The Disposable Assassin © Rob Schrab / Image Comics
Cowboy Bebop © Keiko Nobumoto / Sunrise
Ren & Stimpy © John Kricfalusi
Courage The Cowardly Dog © / Cartoon Network
Dexter's Laboratory © / Cartoon Network
Thundercats © Rankin/Bass, Ted Wolf
Deadpool © Rob Liefeld / Marvel Comics
Ed, Edd, n Eddy © Danny Antonucci / Cartoon Network
Transformers © Takara Tomy / Hasbro
Transformers (films) © Michael Bay, Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman Stephen Spielberg
The Little Mermaid © Disney
Drakken, Shego © Disney