[Narutomania's Interview Thread] Wilson Poon

[Avalantis]

Ahhhhh. After half a year of abscence I am taking the interviews back over. Please forgive my huge delay for this month, I had exams ;[ But a big thankyou to EE and Atem for keeping the interviews up. These interviews seem to have inspired a whole trend of interviews across the forum. I'll try to update every month with a new interview during the first week of the month. So this interview will be for both January as February!


For this interview I decided to pick our very own Wilson Poon. Also known as poon, poonz0rz, poony, poonani, forumslut, copy cat, personal slave of several forum members, azn, etc. Did you ever wonder whether his tags were laziness or a style choice? Where he gets his sexy stocks from, and what other sites he visits, go take a read!

"[...] ....unless you count porn as art... then hell, I visit alot of art sites"

- Tell us about yourself.

I'm 18 years old, I am currently a university student studying software engineering combine psychology. I'm unemployed because I'm a lazy shit and couldn't be bothered finding a job =P I live in Australia and if you didn't know my name is Wilson Poon and yeah...I'm a dude D=

- My particular interest in this interview is your photography. How long have you been photographing and what made you start?

Well I've been doing photography for around 3 years now, it really kicked off when I went to Beijing a few years ago. Back then I only had a point and shoot 3 megapixel camera, so it wasn't much but I snapped like crazy at anything I could get my eyes on, then after I returned home after that trip, I realised how crappy a 3MP camera actually was. Therefore I started photoshopping/post processing my photos so I could develop them, and since then photography pretty much became a hobby of mine.

- A hobby with which you earn some money sometimes, right?

Yeah, I've gotten a couple small freelance and part time jobs from photography in the recent past year. Alot of them were great experiences - money wasn't great - but I wasn't ever in it for that.

- And what about tagging? For the past two years you have been praised for your simple yet appealing tags. When did that start and why?

I started all this tagging stuff when I joined NM, mostly because no one would make me a tag or make one I like for a tag. Well for the long time NM'ers they'll remember my early tagging career where I got bitch slapped around for being a whore and doing like a million requests at a time, using the same downloaded brushes - well that part was basically the beginning of my tagging career. After that I joined KFD (key-faith design) where I met a wonderful person under the username "mave" where he and I spent hrs on msn teaching each other tricks and stuff in photoshop. From there i caught a style in tagging and thats how my "simple yet appealing"ness came around. Since then my style hasnt really changed since i kinda gave up tagging altogether.
- Oh yea i remember! Copy whore.
haha the good ole' days of LT :'D

- Tell me, is it a style choice or pure laziness of you to make such simple tags?

Both really. I don't find complicated, messy tags really appealing - I prefer something clean. Although the laziness does make up about 90% of the tags I've made (I usually rage quit after about 10-20 minutes in PS making a tag). But to be honest, I tried making messy/complicated tags and got harshly crit from it and so I decided to go in the opposite direction, and well it's been going well for me now =]

- Where do you get your stocks from?

Everywhere and anywhere, most recently it's been from DA and skins.be (with approval from the DA artist off course). But sometimes I just surf the net and find something that just catches my eye and screams "tag me".

- How long have you been on NM?

Not sure really...I think I joined/started posting around episode 90s of naruto...so whoevers a naruto fan can do the math.

- How did you find out about NM?

Well originally I found out about it through googling (because I was looking for a direct download for naruto). But after a few months of just downloading episodes, I found a few discussions in the general section interesting and decided to participate. Then afterwards, I started scrolling down only to find the graphics section. I soon found out how amazing it was to make tags (mostly because during this time I was into many anime-music videos....which were getting boring) so I decided to download PS and start tagging, making animated gif tags...

- What do you think of the A&G section and NM in general?

NM is a really friendly place in general, easy to use and has many fun features for people in need of killing time. As for the A&G section, I think it's an amazing community in itself. Everyone knows each other pretty well, and I love how theres not many new comers making the community alot tighter and easier to crack inside jokes. The only problem I have with this section is how dead it's gotten in the pass months.

- Do you think the A&G lounge has gotten better or worse over the years?

Better in a way since there are a few legendary threads every now and then. But worse in a sense that activity has slowed down.

- Did a lot of people help you out when you first joined NM? Did you learn a lot from the A&G section?

When I first started, I was completely ignored like any of the new comers to NM will soon to realise. But when I joined LT (lost talent) and _cid showed me to KFD, everything began to change for me. I started progressing and learning alot of different things, atemesk also helped me in the midway (so to speak) of my gfx years where he showed me DD's style of tagging, which I began to practice and somehow through the years it has shaped me to the style I use today. Everything I learnt from PS was due to NM and tagging.

- What do you think of the other NM regulars?

They're all amazing, nothing else to say really.
- (suck-up)
ur amazing <3
- (i know) ;]
:'D smex me

- What other sites/forums do you regular besides nm?

Well right now I go to codrv forum and slashthree forum (but i lurk more then I post) and as for websites, apart from DA there aren't much sites I visit for art (maybe noise.net as well)...unless you count porn as art, then hell I visit alot of art sites.

- What programs do you use?

I use Aperture 3.0, adobe illustrator and photoshop - but I mainly keep to a combo of aperture + PS.

- Who/what inspires you?

I get alot of inspiration for photography from random DA artists. I see their work and start to think about the different types of concepts and perspectives I might be able to come about if I were to take a photo similar to theirs. I also get some inspiriation from movies and music (names for my titles usually). Although my biggest inspiration must be my friend Evran Jawad, if you've followed some of my work, you'll notice half the codrv submissions I've placed up is collaborations with this guy. Me and him are great friends and he's taught me a fair bit in post processing.

- What techniques do you use in your art?

Well for photography, I use a combinations of filters, layer masks, brightness/contrast and curve layers. I lap a whole bunch of them over my photos and erase the colours until I find it perfect enough to call it quits. As for my tags, I don't really do anything but smudge and sharpen.

- Are you happy with your current skill level? Are there specific areas you want to work on still?

I actually hate the skill level I am at. My photos lack the perspectives I picture in my mind and the post processing doesnt always turn out the way I want it. I want to perfect my skills as a photographer by being able to shoot what I see in my mind onto a lens, (the concepts and ideas I think about that is). Also I'd love to turn my experimental photography into one specific style. Like you see alot of people out there with on style, where you just look at their photos and you know right away who took it. I'd love to be able to do that one day, but I can't until I completely master my camera.

- Do you have any word of advice for the other artists on nm?

Do or do not do, there is no try.

To see more art by Poon, visit his deviantART page.
Or any of the other websites mentioned in his sig.

For More Graphics questions, I refer you to the Naruto&Bleach Mania, graphics tutorial section.
http://www.narutomania.com/forums/graphics-tutorials/
Esp. the Help Thread might be the thing for you! (compare it with the homework thread in the General Section)

Other Naruto&Bleach Mania interviews:
[Narutomania's Interview Thread] ~Acadia.
[Narutomania's Interview Thread] CycloidBeta
[Narutomania's Interview Thread] .ceyx
[Narutomania's Interview Thread] Fenox
[Narutomania's Interview Thread] x2thaU
[Narutomania's Interview Thread] DarkDays
[Narutomania's Interview Thread] LMP
[Narutomania's Interview Thread] Bungle
[Narutomania's Interview Thread] EndlessRain
[Narutomania's Interview Thread] _cid
[Narutomania's Interview Thread] Avalantis

Got anyone you would like to know more of? Leave a comment or PM me!

[Renzo]

good thing i let you in Lost Talent 20 fucking years ago

lololol

god damn shit used to be sweet

[Fresh1]

Good interview, very informative.

[~acadia]

You should try traditionally printing your photos (real film + real darkroom). It's a blast. I think you'd have fun with it, cause it's definitely an interesting process.

Great interview Aif.

[Drak]

"[...] ....unless you count porn as art... then hell, I visit alot of art sites" <--haha i like that quote.


interesting interview. i think your 'simplistic style' suits you...oh and the photo of the telephones looks pretty cool too.

[poony]

Originally Posted by ~acadia

You should try traditionally printing your photos (real film + real darkroom). It's a blast. I think you'd have fun with it, cause it's definitely an interesting process.

Great interview Aif.

yeah ive tried some darkroom stuff before
amazing stuff and it is alot of fun.
but i dont own a film camera and dont plan to until i make big bucks =P

[Denny Crane]

i remember the olden days
you added me to msn to get tips on photoshopping, when i wasnt a lazy shit and actually tag'd.

[poony]

haha yeah ^
i remember that too, and now we're buddies sharing drinking stories :'D

[Avalantis]

Originally Posted by poony

yeah ive tried some darkroom stuff before
amazing stuff and it is alot of fun.
but i dont own a film camera and dont plan to until i make big bucks =P

I'm a personal fan of pinhole camera. It's amazingly simple, cheap and it get's an atmosphere in the photo's like no other. Look it up!

[poony]

we've had this discussion last year sometime, you showed me websites with pinhole photography~!

[Avalantis]

And you still haven't made any! You butt!

[~acadia]

Wow. She called you a butt. Better get crackin' on that pinhole photo.

[Atem]

Great interview. <3 poon =P

I think you should interview carbonmix, Boogybro or hayate-kun next.

[Yuurei]

Nice interview

[Akuma]

cool interview...naice

[.Kaos]

Awesome interview.