Interview with xtm from Subliminal Extacy #04

Subliminal Extacy #04

but the fine detail and the general look - it just was so different and generally damn cool (NO, not Pokemon etc., no cliches please). Since I have always been into drawing I tried to capture this style.

Of course my first tries (as with my demos) are best forgotten, but time goes by, and practice is everything... you are welcome to check out my pics on my website - and they contain no colour clash, Sir! Don't forget to leave a message in the guestbook if you stumble into www.sokaku.de!

phnx - i also know u taught yourself japanese! How did u achieve that??

xtm - The thing that started it all was "Super Mario Paint", a not-too-sophisticated graphics program for the SFC. Even though I had the german version, since it was originally released in Japan (of course), the "Text" tool still offered some japanese characters. The manual of this piece of software contained a list which showed the readings of those characters - so now I was able to try and get to grips with something I'd seen on screenshots in video game magazines (they reviewed a lot of imported games in those days). I was totally fascinated and when I finally had memorized all characters on the manual's list, I was well and truly hooked. After that I attended University and learned quite a bit, mainly grammar. But I soon got bored out of my mind with my main subject (which was English Linguistics) and dropped out. This didn't stop me from learning Japanese my own way - you can learn quite a lot from video games, magazines and mangas... but it surely took years for me to get where I'm now.

Memorizing all those Kanji characters (Kanji are those obscure symbols featuring up to 20 strokes or more...) is not easy.

phnx - ok. that's it for today :) Finally, do you have any message to people still around in the speccy demoscene?

xtm - I hate to say so, but I fear that all your hard work gets to be seen by a too small audience...

Share your thoughts about the article