Updated: August 26th, 2008.

This is the REVISED backstory of the author of this homepage. Not so much the human part... more the part that exists on the internet. I made sure not to give too much away about myself in real life, but if you ever had a simple question about anything I did in the past, or what inspired me to do (whatever), or anything trivial, this'll be here.

#1: The true origin of Face-Star, the name.

I've had internet access since 6th grade, but I rarely had the time to use it, other than research for papers. Since my internet access came from the school computer mostly, I never really got into the internet until much later.

I believe it was 2001 that I picked up a much bigger interest in the internet due to Newgrounds.com. I was always watching that site from then on, until the school computers got some site-blocking tools. I liked it so much, I picked up a Grounds Gold account around I think December 2003. Without Flash, all I could do was review things and leave my two cents. If I did that today, I'd be ridiculed, but back then no one cared. It started with _split_personality_ (which wasn't my first NG alias, I forgot it), in which I made my reviews sound like two people reviewing a flash, but then even I thought I was crazy, so I changed it to a one man job, under the alias _the_face_and_I_. Before my account was canceled due to inactivity or something in '06, I was _the_face_. Every review under that alias started with an emoticon that summed up the movie overall. I dunno if I was the first person to do that, but I was probably the first to do it consistently and about 250 times. I liked to write stuff though, be it useful, insightful, hateful, or pitiful.

So that's where the 'Face' in 'Face-Star' came from, but what about the 'Star'? A week after my 17th B-day, I join a forum for the Star Syndicate, after hearing about them indirectly from someone who hated them (I won't say who, but it starts with a 'S', and ends with a 'hin2K27'). I joined, because I had a Newgrounds account at the time, and I was curious as to who these people were. After watching some of their works, I was initially confused, but I never really hated the Star Syndicate stuff in general, and later I greatly enjoyed the strange tastes in humor this collective body of Flash artists were coming up with. To this day, I still like their stuff... but I never bothered to pick up Flash, so I stopped hanging out at their forum.

#2: The early work (the stuff I never bothered posting).

Ever since I was a kid, I read a lot of "Calvin and Hobbes", which was one of my favorite comic strips ever. It was Bill Watterson who inspired me to look into this art type as a side hobby. Not necessarily sprite comics though, that sort of stuff came MUCH later. I made stupid little comics starting in 2nd Grade (I threw away all my strips of "The 17 Kids", but even back then I knew what a comic looked like!). I swear I made a Pokemon comic in 6th grade, before I even knew what the game even was about! I just made up Pokemon names on the spot. That's how stupid these comics were.

Fast-forward to 2003. I was slowly learning the 'serious business' that was the Internet. I looked over dozens of forums of people flaming each other, sometimes for no reason. I read the most hilarious articles, stuff I'd never see in magazines and books. I grabbed ROMs of my favorite NES & SNES games from times gone by, and the emulators to play them on (Nestopia & Snes9x respectively). But I wanted to leave my mark on the Internet, even if it was just a chicken scratch. I then thought of a way to express myself without really doing much: webcomics.

I was introduced to sprite comics through Brian Clevenger’s "8-Bit Theater", which I started to read around late 2003. Boy, oh boy, the first 200-300 pages of that sucker were a fun read. After "8-Bit", I began looking up other similar comics, but got more and more bored of the humor. It was just stuff I never really got, possibly stuff I didn't want to get at all. But sprites were an interesting medium... so I left the idea in my head.

In 11th grade, I made a comic for my World Mythology class project based on Homer's "Odyssey". It had stick figures and sprites in there. Mostly stick figures though, I had no idea what I was doing back then on MS Paint, so my comics initially looked horrible. I have long since removed all but a paper copy of this comic. Probably not worth your time reading. The comic still got me a B+ for the project, so... I'm happy about that still.

Then there was "Sword Duel", which was another World Mythology project which would be about Japanese swords... at the time I was reading a lot of \"Pokey The Penguin\" (it's like the worst comic ever made if I didn't find the organizational effort funny. YES), so I had the balls to put him and his pal Mr. Nutty in a comic fighting Cyan, Sabin, and Shadow from FF6 (now that I HAD sprite sheets!). Again, the effort was terrible, but I got a B+ anyway for staying on topic and delivering a fair share of info. After showing that comic once to a confused class, I never showed it again, and I want it to stay that way.

Needless to say, these two crappy comics would never be seen again, along with my first true sprite comic "Untitled", which I began in May of 2004 (I will refer to this comic here on out as "U1"). Face-Star was not yet thought of, I just used my normal name in the credits. In a nutshell, the plot was to have four FF6 characters (Terra, Setzer, Edgar, and Locke) fight Kefka again in a rematch to save Earth. It was absolute trash in the organizational department. Aside from a few lucky people, I never showed this crap on Sheezyart, but mostly because I don't think people in general would have gotten it. That, and it would be below me to show this on a public art site AFTER better-organized comics like U7. The format was also a space-wasting .bmp format, which I have yet to convert to .png. I'm not feeling bored enough to convert it.

#3: Face-Star moves to Sheezyart.

So, when did I come across Sheezyart? This happened around the time I was making "Untitled II" (U2), I think page 13. U2 had roughly the same plot, only that Kefka was now a spirit in a robot's body, and the team of four heroes were now Edgar, Locke, Frog, and Robo. This comic was better organized with same-size pages in delicious .png format, (which I would use from there on), but I forgot sprite credits. I learned of Sheezyart.com from of all places, the Star Syndicate. Though I'm no longer sure as to what the SS thinks of Sheezyart today, I joined anyway as "FaceStar" (which I forgot to hyphenate), to put up my junky little comic. This happened on Jan. 30th, 2005.

When Untitled II was done, I had picked up a couple readers. It was enough to keep going, but I didn't think of continuing Untitled II. Instead, I made "Kefka's Inferno", or as I would call it today "Untitled III: Kefka's Inferno". It was way more fun to write than U2 was, because I thought of the oddest couple: Kefka and Ring Man. Plus it was my crappy take on "Dante's Inferno". No, really! To this day, I pair them up whenever I can. I hope that somewhere, if I ever see Ring Man in another sprite comic, I pray that Kefka's there too, or things just aren't right, no? I didn't pick up many new fans with this comic... but along the way I began to really learn the tricks of MS Paint.

Then there was Untitled IV, the comic which fueled me to write write write, when I found out more and more people were reading my stuff. This time, there were four different FF6 heroes (Sabin, Locke, Cyan and Shadow) on a mission to destroy MAGUS, not Kefka. There was even some bonus pages, and a Christmas page. It was also the first comic where I'd use some of my own sprites in accordance with ripped ones. The result was a comic I actually thought was really good. Read it if you haven't; it's old and has recolors in it, but you won't be disappointed by the story. I still like reading it to this day.

#4: Face-Star takes a form.

Around the time of Untitled IV, I was experimenting with sprites and manipulating them to forms I liked. Face-Star the sprite was born around this particular era, but U4 was already underway, so I only threw him in as a cameo in an early page. The 8-bit form was first. It was an edited version of the great and mighty Gemini Man from Mega Man 3. Soon after came Ivan the Warlock, ANTI-FIRE MAN (has to be capitalized!), Loki the Sneaky, Mort the Robot, and MDZ (the Perfume Squad Captain from VG Strat). These characters would be the first of many to appear in my comics.

As time progressed, Face-Star went through some changes. He received an unarmored form which was half-custom, a 16-bit version, a demonic version (which I actually never got to use except for one avatar), and a version of him in a Halloween costume (a rabbit). The current design of Face-Star is fully custom, which I began making around January of 2008. A revised profile is in the works as well.

#5: Selected inspirations

Face-Star's 16-bit version- This came about when carbonwater came up with the concept -here-. So in a way, he sparked me with the idea to redesign Face-Star into a 16-bit form, but the final design came out differently than what he drew. The sprite was more or less worked on while I was making "U5: War Of The Dimensions", and would later be used as his real life persona in "VG Strat", while the 8-bit form had a home in the game they were covering, called "Untitled 6: City In Crisis". The design though is now obsolete, and replaced with a new, more customized look that I really like. Still, I doubt it would've happened without Carbon's input!

U5: War Of the Dimensions- A load of SHIT. There was no inspiration, I was just trying to make a decent story that wasn't like U1, U2, or U4, and I failed. It also doesn't fit into the Untitled timeline too well. It introduces Crusadist, so I guess it wasn't a total loss.

VG Strat: "Untitled VI: City In Crisis"- I made this comic to poke fun at my experiences with RPGs such as Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Phantasy Star, Chrono Trigger, Secret Of Mana, Kingdom Hearts, & Odin Sphere. At the same time, I decided to make Face-Star, Antonio, Leaper, and a weekly guest play as the real heroes of this series. Consider their input to be like commentary on a DVD. As I was making the comic, I realized that all these ideas I was coming up with were beginning to parallel Secret Of Mana more and more. This was the comic that introduced many of the people who show up in U7, such as Face-Star, Mimi, Antonio, Dan, Butcher Ed III (has a minor role), Eff-S, Key Master, and more.

(Most of) the sprites for VG Strat- A lot of the sprites I edited/recolored for VG Strat had very simple duties. That is, my best excuse for doing so was the "cannon fodder" excuse. I thought of Ned when I wanted to come up with a stir-crazy version of Ken Jennings (y'know, the guy who was on Jeopardy for 75 days in a row...). The idea of Rolling Artist began as a rip-off of the common fan-artist, but ended up being a little different than that. Demonight & NeoDemonight are like Kingdom Hearts' Shadow and Neoshadow, respectively (THAT was on purpose). Most of my sprites that compose the Legion aren't too well-inspired. Eff-S was an exception, as I really wanted to work on this guy a lot. There was a few I never used too... I suppose I could show them off, but not here. Maybe from Photobucket.

Antonio- Believe it or not, I made the little Shy Guy Antonio into the geeky side of myself. He represents the giddy, happy, geeky part of me. Beneath that purple mask is a wide non-evil grin on his face. He's also a little cowardly, and will try to avoid conflict.

Dan- My other main Shy Guy doesn't fly around like Antonio, but I still like him anyway. He has a "Why am I here" sort of attitude towards life, and he really is shy for a Shyguy too. Antonio and him are pretty good pals though; it helps that they kind of look the same.

Mimi- Antonio's character in Untitled 6: City In Crisis is Mimi. I thought of Mimi as a charming, but generic female mage with blue-green hair at first, but she ended up being a more serious character. She manages to keep pretty serious throughout U6... something that none of the other characters are really well known for being. Mimi will be a little more bubbly in U7 than she was in U6, if only because it was hard to be bubbly when the Legion was constantly breathing down everybody's throats.

Butcher Ed III- He was my very first scratch character. I personally never see overpowered heroes as being very fun to write about. Maybe overpowered villains, but I think heroes need to play the underdogs. Butcher Ed III was written to be a pathetic character with a giant cleaver to swing around. If he were to save the world, you'd be more impressed than if say... Super Sonic did the same thing. Don't lie.

Eff-S- The inspiration for Eff-S came from playing a lot of Street Fighter Alpha & Marvel vs. Capcom 2, and from watching MUGEN videos on Youtube. Though I doubt Eff-S at the moment can move that smoothly in MUGEN, or in any animation, the idea that he should borrow moves from others was no different. At the moment, he's got Guile's Sonic Boom, Ryu's Hadouken, and Akuma's Hurricane Kick & Raging Demon. I haven't used those powers of his yet though, and I fear I may never need to.

Dr. Oran- My third scratch sprite. Has a place in my heart, because he's the first character to possess my current art style. He also looks a lot smoother than Eff-S, but he's still a little awkward looking. Truth is, I'd rather have this guy be my author character. He's sort of cooler than Face-Star is in my opinion.

Key Master- A blatant ripoff of both Shadow Man AND Sora... at first. Then I made his custom sprite, and now he's just a ripoff of Sora. Key Master's real name is Seth Lombardi. He knows of Sora by reputation, but they never really spent much time together. His key lacks the magical powers of Sora's, but it's still a lethal key-shaped axe, and it doesn't need to unlock a door if it can just be chopped down.

Ivan the Warlock- Initially, he was assisting Magus in U4 because I figured it'd be boring if Ozzie, Flea, and Slash were around to do the same thing. Later on when I made his custom sprite, I wanted someone who's a little scary to look at, and has a cool cape. He's a bit spaced out, kinda like me when I was in high school.

#6 Miscellaneous things

When looking at the total story, the correct chronological order of my comics is as follows: Untitled I, Untitled IV: The Chronicles of Magus, Untitled II, Kefka's Inferno, Untitled V: War of the Dimensions, VG Strat: "Untitled VI: City In Crisis", and finally Untitled VII.

I've stopped using them, but I used to go to places such as Shyguy Kingdom, Spriter's Resource, and Sprite Database for sprites. I used to just use them (for parody purposes hopefully), but now I simply refer to them privately for anatomy/pose purposes for MY sprites.

To this day, I have never used a sprite background from some website. The only way a videogame background appears in my comics is if I ripped that background from an emulator. I use Nestopia 1.09 for the NES bg's, and Snes9x 1.41 for the SNES bg's (I have a copy of 1.51, but everything's so...weird, but I kept it for the video tools, which 1.41 didn't have).

Face-Star's mask can change facial expressions. That's on purpose. I find it a little amusing. Note that I never change the expressions on anybody else's masks!

That trippy background I used to have on my SA homepage was animated with a super-simple .gif animator called Unfreez. I may use it later in the future, but only for simple things.

I designed the Sheezyart page I have to be best read at 1024x768 dimensions. Any bigger and it...looks off. I apologize to all higher-dimensioned viewers.

I have an account at Drunk Duck, but I've never posted a single page of anything over there. I never tried to get a Deviant Art, Smackjeeves, or a Fur Affinty account.

As of this journal, Face-Star is my ONLY Sheezy account. If I make an alt. account, it would probably be Earthbound related!

I have some pencil drawings, but I don't wanna show 'em yet. The pencil stuff is completely unrelated to any of my sprite work. If not for the signature, you'd think I was two different people. Plus my art on paper has been becoming more and more tasteless.

#7: Now.

I'm still standing over 3.5 years later on an art site that's been running for almost 4. I'm still doing the same thing I've always done: tell odd stories and mishaps with sprites. The time I've spent here browsing, commenting and so forth has made me a better artist, if not a better person. Out of all my hobbies, this is my favorite, and I don't feel like stopping anytime soon, without a solid & unavoidable reason.