Biography

Offical name's Ryan Bloom, for those that care. Born in Colorado, lived in California for five or so years, came back to Colorado, lived there ever since. I'm 19 as of right this moment (January 19th 2003), will be 20 on July 6th.

I share a birthday with Robert Luckett, a very good friend of mine. Weirdest part about it is the fact we became friends before we knew each other's birthdays. I kinda consider Luckett to be one of my good close friends. You know, those few that you treat as if they were a part of your family.

Personally, I always try to do what I always think is right. As a result I have get alot of respect from alot of people. It's a good feeling. One thing I don't have though, is self esteem. I frequently insult my own artwork no matter how good it might seem to others; and I get depressed easily over the fact. I've been drawing ever since I can remember, but I didn't start drawing heavily until Christmas of 1991 when my brother got his Sega Genesis and Sonic 1 -- I became hooked. Sonic fan for life, that's me. No amount of newbies or idiots over running the Sonic community will ever drive me away, at least, not forever.

I tend to have an overcreative imagination as I frequently start things or get ideas but never do anything with them because something else interests me. I usually end up piling myself sky high with projects, because I am a jobless bum. In a way I almost fear work.

My family would like it if I do otherwise, though. Become another person toiling away in the salt mines. They frequently yell at me for it or try to slyly hint. I know they mean well, and they love me, but for some reason I just can't get with it -- call it stuck up or whatever but I refuse to work in retail or at Mcdonalds.

I'm slowly trying to search out a Data entry position or something as a texture artist. (I've just started fooling around with texturing 3D models, and it's working out very very nicely. I'm really very not-bad at it. I just need to learn how to export my own UV maps (or whatever they're called -- you make a temporary skin on the model that shows where every verticy (sp?) is so the skinners know where things are - hands, legs, etc. - currently I have someone else who makes those for me, then I just skin using those as a guideline.)

Halloween is my favorite Holiday. Despite me being a wuss, I have fun believing in the whole Ghosts/UFOs stuff. I like that feeling of fear it gives me -- despite personally hating things like Rollercoasters and stuff because they're too scary for me. I also like trying to scare people.

I'm also strangely obsessed with Artifical Intelligence; wether it's in the game projects I create or something else. In my gallery there are images of a character called DJ9000. He is an actual mIRC script; an Artifical Intelligence script. He works similiarly to MegaHAL; despite me never even knowing about MegaHAL until far into DJ9000's AI Development. Great minds think alike, I guess, if you call my mind "great".

I'm a Highschool Dropout. I suppose I "learn" differently than other folks, because I really did try to get through Highschool. After flunking all three years and only coming out with 25 credits (of the 255 required to graduate) I gave up. I've been meaning to get my GED but that's $50 for a 7 hour test I'm afraid of flunking, despite getting really good scores on the Pre-GED. It's been two years since I made that choice, therefore it worries me even more now that I've forgotten things and won't pass. However, since then, I think I've actually learned more since quitting school -- in the game projects I create I've learned to do basic math 5x faster than I ever did in school, and I type, spell, and have better grammar than I ever did in school. However, memories of things like Algebra and History are quickly fading. If I knew of a good math site and got up enough guts and determination to try and figure out C++ I'd probably self-teach myself algebra, but at the moment that's just not happening.

There are many things I'd love to be but don't have the patients to learn anymore. Things like MIDI sequencing, 3D modeling, and 3D level editing. I've tried my hand at all three, and out of them, I've edited a handful of MIDIs (they reside on VGmusic.com), never could model anything worthy, and I've gotten quite good using Wadauthor. I've tried using World-Craft but it confuses me. (I'm not gonna give up quite yet though.)

I love music. I have a very large music collection. Most of it, however, is videogame music, anime music, and obscure other music. However at the rate videogame music advances it's now just as viable as any other form of music -- sweeping orchastras, wailing guitars. We've come along way from the NES chiptunes and the synethic sounds of the SNES era. Anybody who says videogame music sucks now needs to be, to paraphrase Garfield in his golden age, "dragged out into the street and shot." Even then, I enjoy quite a few SNES soundtracks. NES ones are alright, but if I get an alternative (remixed/remastered tracks) then I usually go for that over the NES tunes. People who say those songs are dumb and lame are (forgive me if this sounds goofy) only listening to the songs, they aren't hearing them. A good and cheesy comparison would be the Final Fantasy theme from FF3NES. In that, you listen to squarewave, but to me, I hear a grand orchstra, perhaps an oboe solo to accompany it.

I'm also your typical anime fan. I've been a fan for quite awhile, and I've seen quite abit. I'm not quite to the point where I'm importing weird unheard of anime from Japan, subtitled (or even raw), but I've seen my fair share. I mostly stick to what I can see via Toonami, Adult Swim, and the Saturday Mornings though -- it's cheap, and I don't have to worry about possibly making a bad desicion for renting something like Metropolis instead of Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust.

Even after 7 years of anime, I'm still a deep fan of Sailormoon and Dragonball, and it saddens me to see Dragonball be the butt of many jokes. While not all are completely false, for them to have been used, the same jokes, for two years now saddens me. To anybody who loathes Dragonball (Z), I highly reccomend picking up the translated Manga by Viz. Instead of "all the grunting and screaming" you actually get quite alot of heavy storyline, and battles don't feel as dragged out or lame as they do in DBZ, because it's a comic -- and comics can drag a single solitary moment of 5 seconds or so over several pages and you don't care. Plus, it of course gives you much more than the anime ever did -- little storyline bits that had to be left out of the series for time, etc. Plus best of all - you don't have to worry about voice actors.

Another favorite anime of mine -- and don't laugh, was Digimon Tamers. (Digimon: Season 3 in America)For a Saturday Morning cartoon, Saban and Fox Kids really pushed the envelope. It started out as your typical anime -- happy-go-lucky. But as it went on, it got so... extremely depressing, and dark...it really felt like it was truely, the end of the world. And the fact that for a Saturday Morning Cartoon they even allowed for any of this to happen... Jeri was talking about committing suicide, how she "Didn't matter, nobody would miss her". For a Saturday Morning cartoon, and for Digimon, it really was something very different, very deep, and very emotional. Not to mention it practically had unedited transformation sequences -- nudity and all. I dug every minute of Digimon Tamers, and it remains in my mind as one of my fondest memories of Digimon, and anime in general.

I'm still undecided on wether mainstream Anime is a good thing or a bad thing. With it becoming mainstream it no longer feels as though it's some underground cult that only a few knew or cared about. But with that it also gives the promise of higher paid voice actors and greater chances of obscure titles making it over to America.

But, eh. I'm just rambling now. You know enough about me. Now go! Shoo! Go comission me for artwork or something, I need the money.