Ender explores his roots.

Heyo everyone! Im sure that by now most of you know me to be a graphic designer, but have you ever wondered how I got started? WELL I SURE HAVE! I accidentally opened an ancient folder on my computer and discovered my very first pieces of art.

wow, I just instinctively hit "tab" and started cycling through windows like mad

also, notice that WOA automatically resizes images to be smaller, so all of these are not actually size and thus some of the smaller fonts are affected. We ought to fix this. HINT HINT.

Anyway, I like seeing how people progress in things and I'm also really bored, so I'm gonna take a stroll down memory lane.

Come with me.

I need someone to buy me lunch. The food on Memory Lane is ridiculously over-priced!

I started going to SWF and VGD as forums regularly after discovering them from research regarding the much anticipated SSBB that was coming out soon and I started to notice that people had cool sigs. I didn't really care much at the time, but I soon discovered the art forum and realized that I wanted to be as good as these people. I eventually got brawl, a free image editing program, and the guts to start making art. And I only had myself as a teacher as I didn't think to look for tutorials :/

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Ender's First Ever Piece of Art (digital)
I call this one EFEPOA for short.



This was for my account on the Smash World forums. You may not know it, but i play a mean smash bros, and not just "I know how to wavedash" mean, but "I have won national tournaments" mean. i don't really play much anymore though...
Anyway, back to art. As is obvious, this sig was made before I adopted "Ender" as my online alias (which I have explained before), and used the name "Urb" based off of my old webcomic, urgoogle. (You can now find most of its contents at urgoogle.webs.com after urgoogle.com got taken over somehow-i need to update it)
This sig was my first attempt at using photoshop 7(?) and I got a bit carried away with the smudge tool.
Golden sun rocks.

These next sigs are considered my "first gen" sigs, they all suck and some were made on "non photoshop" software.

Like this one. Not sure how to make a real background, I simply pasted a "texture" that was in my free image editor's paint bucket. These were all practice, btw.




What can I say? After I named myself "Ender" I need some sigs. The background to the neku one is just a stock and the Ike one (my old main) was my first sig using brushes.






















These were all made on photoshop 7. I basically was just practicing some various filters and what not with the characters from TWEWY. I also like rocket slime. There's my old name again.

Ok, this marks the spot where I got photshop CS. My sigs are a bit better from here on.
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TGN:My first clan

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This was my first ever commissioned piece of art, I believe it was for the clan TGN which was my first clan and the one in which I got my alias.
it came with this sig

sadly, the patron never picked up his order. Too bad, the colors really worked well in this sig. For a double render tag and lack of exp, I still think this is one of my favorite sigs.

then i got a bit color happy when I was asked to make some stuff for the clan TLC.




Holy cow, can it GET any more chaotic?? I was clearly enamored with the overlay effect and my new brushes, but geez I needed to learn about flow. You will also notice that most of my sigs also will have no lighting.




When I was given the opportunity to switch a member's sig, I made this for him. He kept it on.




We were good friends...


iI used this sig for a long while, I just couldn't seem to make any better ones...but I'll cover that in my "Ender's sigs" section.


We actually still communicate


First SOTW I made. I won.
Made for Armel:
Made for the TGN/TLC clan leader.

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SFL

And then the unthinkable happened. I stumble upon a chat box belonging to SFL, a rival clan, and got caught up making art for the members there. TGN died and I moved on. Shiki started the forum thing here, I believe. Many of the members to the clan have moved to Point Blank Clan.

When I entered the chat, the leader Dark Tiger said he had heard about me and asked for a banner, and boy did I give him one.



MASSIVE! But the little shines actually really worked for me here

I then made a smaller one


Almost immediately I set up my shop wielding a new banner. I set up my format and GD's continued to copy it in their own shops even up to WOA. I know, right?


yet another chaotic image, but I was kinda' going for that...?

I figured it was about time to make my own avatar too

I use the neku one still today on a few forums.


pay no attention to the MGS frame...

And now I started making serious sigs



































Coco v. 1.2



As you can see, by this point I was getting a bit better a render placement and flow. i started using C4Ds at this point and photofilters, not to mention I made 2 video sigs. They didn't optimize correctly though and are a bit grainy.


















This one I liked a lot. I think I pulled off the 3 render blender nicely and it has a cool, crystal feel going to it.






shiki and I made this together...I think...?





And here is the final banner I made for SFL after it moved and promptly died.

I eventually just got caught up with school after summer was over and I rarely visited SFL, but by this point I had developed some basic flow, C4D, tone, and general effect skills. It was a great sadness when I returned to the site to find it barren...then offline...then barren again?

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Ender the Wanderer

For a fair amount of time I was clanless. I wandered the internet finding forums in need of art and I found 4 in particular.

the first one was XA: extreme alliance. It was a mkw clan and I made a few things for it:




This is the last big banner I made.






my stay was short but sweet and some of the members of the young clan followed me ultimately to Honors Wrath.

The next clan I visited was a surprisingly active but obscure place called the Global Smash Federation. I met some great brawlers there but only made a couple sigs. What I DID do is make a banner for each of its customizable skins, which are still in use today. The sigs weren't my best, but the banners formed the basis of what I would come to use for future ideas.



















and then I left. I never really was too close to them, but I still brawl with a few of the GSF crew every so oft. I think Shiki was there too. He and I kinda' stuck together somehow. Then again, we are cousins.

Getting bored of looking for a clan, I decided to let people come to me. By this time I was a somewhat established artist and set up a banner shop at a clan hub called the Nintendo Wifi Alliance and I made quite a few banners for people (including my own forums, MLC and SP, which I was administrating before coming to WOA and had built from the ground up).




Oops, I actually made this big-bertha before sfl died, it was a request










My current shop banner. Notice the cool font going on.




I made this banner for a clan who come to find out hadn't asked for one and my client was someone who BY SHEER CHANCE had a clan of the same name, but I had to find the forum myself and found the wrong one. Boy, that was awkward.


Well, I guess I'll finish this tomorrow, detailing my exploits in Smash Planet, Honors Wrath, and finally WOA.

Its funny how I remember most of those SFL sigs.

wow ender that sure is alot of sigs <_< also -noticed how you used the word end for puns :D-

Interesting history Ender. I love all of the banners and how some of them have firework effects, lol.

Why thank you. Hmmmm....I think I may apply for an admin position. (unrelated note) I have more than enough WOA currency to gat rank 8, I have more admin exp than most of the current admins here (all of the forums mentioned here I was an admin for, and of course I also hosted my own forums SP and MLC), not to mention that I know what I'm doing, how to do cool stuff, and people seem to respect me (or PRETEND to). I follow the rules, enforce them, and can be mature about most things-I used to be called "The Keeper of the Peace" in HW. And although this is completely unrelated to rank advancement, I was one of the first 10 members. I am also basically always on, but I only post when I have something to say. I don't support spamming.

but that's for another forum. Just my drunken (not really) ramblings.

In the mean-time, I'm putting together the end to my story. I think I WILL make this my new gallery location.

FULL-LIFE CONSEQUENCES!

Wow man! Nice work dude. I hope you get better and better the more you try

Hey I'd like to ask for a request if it isn't too much to ask, but meet me on the chat or something and I'll tell you about it


But nice work buddy, I hope whatever you work for, you achieve, anything can be done with hard work, and a strong will and heart to do so! And that is exactly what you have there

I finally made my own copyright lol

i hope ill do as awesome signatures as chu

V--- my first sig with symbol

I remember that bowser sig from our sig exchange lol

lol, yeah! I remembered that. And thanks for the kind words all!

Have u noticed that all the SFL sigs have 2 ppl in them?