The Girl

Alias:	Riddle
Real Name:	Kimberly
Gender:	Female
Age:	22 Years
Location:	United States
Appearance:	... Think 'Root Beer'
Pets:	Maya (Black Lab) - Koi (4) - Betta (1) - Truck (Dodge Ram 01)

The Graphics & More

I've been working with HTML for about eleven years, and for an unknown period of time with CSS. To be honest, nobody "taught" me how to read, write, and bleed HTML. It just happened over time because I'm a stubborn individual. If there is something I want done, I'll find a way to do, even if it means smashing countless keyboards against desks and tossing random objects out the window in fits of "Oh-Gods-Another-Error" rage.

More recently I've been trying to pick up a bit of PHP knowledge. Not much, just enough to get me by with things like inputting information to a database, and creating the generators found under Resources. Hopefully I'll continue to expand on this knowledge.

On to bigger and better stuff... I've been working with images for about nine years, maybe more. To be honest, I no longer remember when I started, only how. My parents refused to buy me anything for the computer, so I saved lunch money for several months and purchased a copy of Jasc Paint Shop Pro 7; I was thrilled. At the time, I played HorseLand a little bit, and my first image was of a border collie in some waves. It wasn't spectacular, of course, but it was kind of cool.

I continued just making simple images for two years before the craze of "studios" hit. I stumbled across two in the next few years that really caught my interest; the first was AI (Allied Inspiration), where I was eventually accepted into staff. The second was NSHC (Night, Slayer, Holly, Ceara). I was turned down from this studio very quickly, and was rather upset. I'll mention again that I'm persistent. So I continued to work on my limited skills, and continued to come up against roadblocks. These were often simple things, like I didn't know what body-smudging was, or how to paint in elements. I didn't have a basic understanding of lighting and shading. To make matters worse, I was now working on an outdated program.

Eventually I joined DeviantArt. By this time AI was long gone, as well as several other studios I faintly recall (Obsessions, Transparency, my own Expressions studio). Academies were becoming quite popular, and a lot of studios were incorporating them. As I was more into role-playing than SIM gaming at this time, I missed a lot of what happened. I do know that I stumbled across NSHC once more, completely revamped and having only a single of the original founders still active. Curious, I applied with a sampling of my work and was accepted. To me, this was huge, finally working at the studio I'd always dreamed of.

Sadly, that studio gradually grew to be inactive. There were customers, but many orders were so specific that artists had no room to move. Artists eventually dropped off, myself among them, and scattered. The studio is still around, though I won't vouch for how active it is. I will tell you that many of the most beautiful Equine artists I know worked there at some point or another. That was always what attracted me to the studio, its focus on quality, not quantity.

During all this time, I picked up some art classes in high school to get a basic understanding of art. I continued to post images to DA (if you look in my scrapbook, some work goes back to 2006). I started practicing with different styles and techniques. I won't say that I've settled on a "style" yet, as I continue to try so many new things. I once had a contest for the quote "Art is never finished, only abandoned". That rings so true, not just about each individual art piece, but about each artist, who continues to grow over the years.