Since I was a little girl, I have been playing videogames. I started with classics like The Secret of Monkey Island and King's Quest. As the industry matured, I got more and more into this fascinating new way of telling stories. Games were longer than movies and had the potential to be very engrossing and poignant. Some, over the years, have moved me to tears in places. Since my father was a game designer himself, I grew up with my ear to the ground and was able to follow the ins and outs of this new artform.

One game that has long been a favorite of mine is Thief: The Dark Project which was released in 1998 during the post-Unreal hase of first person shooters. In an age of running and gunning, Thief told a dramatic story with low-edge graphics and a memorable protagonist. Since the developers didn't have the technology of other companies, they made the cutscenes of the game flow as moving paintings and silhouettes which added to the artistry of the product. This was what convinced me that games were a legitimate artform. And I still believe this. If someone can nail a toilet to a wall and call it art I will say Okami can be art too.

My own artwork is very much influenced by games, which is why I am in the game design program. My pictures are full of movement and stories, but not always readily apparent ones. By contrast, my video is intended to be taken at face-value. When it comes to my art, I frequently try to remain playful and not take myself too seriously.

Very little of my artwork prior to this class was "complete", usually they were doodles done of fantasial figures like warriors and dragons but nothing of jaw-dropping quality. The doodles were usually conceptual sketches of creatures and characters from the Dungeons and Dragons games I was running at the time. After I graduated from college, I stopped drawing for a long time. I was never officially trained in any art form, everything I knew was self-taught so I felt no compulsion to keep drawing. This class has taught me to look at things as an artist would once more and I am now considering taking classes in animation.