Doodling, LEGO, and video games were all I did as a kid.
Dad would come home with scrap paper from work and I would doodle obsessively in front of the TV. Sometimes drawing the Ninja Turtles, or just copying The Simpsons.
Most of the time I was living out made-up wars between two factions of stick figures on paper. The good guys had bandanas, and the bad guys had war helmets. To pass the time I’d come up with novel ways for them to destroy each other. I’d draw dashes for bullets, angular blobs for explosions, and furious graphite daggers for blood.
Besides doodling I also dreamt up my own Pokémon, my own superheroes, and novel ideas for video game consoles. It wasn’t until the end of high school that I crossed over into the digital realm. There I made covers for my own mix-tape CDs and dabbled in making yearbook covers.
College was the most wonderful period of my creative life.
I did a Digital Media degree, which gave me a taste of pretty much everything: from learning about light, writing up wonderful (well to me, anyway) worlds for games, to creating interactive experiences. In hindsight, those three years at the College of Fine Arts were like a renaissance. It was amazing to be surrounded by creative spirits and to be making stuff without any agenda but your own.
In my final year, I co-created a game with two college pals Adam and Jason. Our online Flash game Ninja-Man took a whole year to complete! It was also our first experience with going viral: Ninja-Man gathered over 80 million plays last time I checked.
Reality sunk in after the first few years after college.
Soon I worked as a creative at Fluidx where I was being paid for my Photoshop skills for the first time—a strange concept at the time! It was also when I was putting my feet in the water and getting a feel for what worked for me. Besides working on banner ads and the beautiful landing/concept page on the odd occasion, the creative spirit was still there. We worked on personal projects outside work hours, or whenever there was spare time.
Moon was where I stepped into the big city for work. What I learnt during the first year there was, for me, it was difficult balancing personal projects, a full-time job (2 hr daily commute included), and everything else that makes life meaningful.
Anyhow, this website was put together to remember the stuff I did for myself. All of them with the one priority above all else: I just wanted to make something.
Johnny