Two Years and Counting

just elements together) and it was for the amazing portrait drawer Glider. When I was sending the banners to tree.hugger I was very nervous that he would approve it or not, it was my first banners going onto TLpro after all. He did win after all the support from the Starcraft 2 community, it was a close race.

Even before making my first banner the road to even being able to do that was not easy for me. It was back in late 2011 and was already very well interested into watching Starcraft 2. I always thought how cool would it be to be able to do graphic design for esports. I heard of teamliquid.net, but I never really went deep into the forums because it felt so daunting. Juicyjames was the person to whom told me about it and I was like “WHAT?!” After looking at the forum post that Team Liquid was recruiting graphic designers hastily made my samples. With the portfolio I had so far from school I sent in my 2 samples: a TL.net redesign (honestly back then I was just going for something different, lolol, so bad.) and some made up magazine cover. Not knowing what my competition was I went into the second round of the recruiting. Next round we had to take a news article and give it a design so I proceeded to do my sample quickly. I sent in my samples only to not make it further in the recruiting process. It was very defeating, I was questioning myself what was wrong with my samples that I got rejected, maybe other people who were way better than me. So I proceeded to ask hawaiianpig what did I do that faulted me into not moving on. It was mainly this. The word Imaginary I was trying to fill in the counters little did I know the 2 blacks were different. To explain the situation in my experience OSX or the iMac (that I had) displays blacks pretty rich. Colors are saturated and it’s even hard to tell between 2 blacks that look very different on Windows that looked pretty much the same to me on OSX. Also I was being stupid and when I made the imaginary starleague logo it was smaller than I intended and made it bigger (stretching those pixels!) I felt so stupid that I should have tear dropped from the logo, but it was all black to me so it didn’t even cross my mind. This was the other sample I submitted with my flop. After getting the critique from hawaiianpig I felt pretty sad after understanding what I have done wrong, I blew it. Then shortly after hawaiianpig contacted me back saying how I was able to understand my faults he wanted to give me one more shot at it and take some news articles and pretty them up. I was shocked I was given a second chance and went right back to it. I searched around on TL.net what to do and I cranked out these three guys: MLG Anaheim, Power Rank, and a Barcraft post. Anxiously waiting for a reply, I was contacted back and I was accepted to be part of the graphics team! The process was mentally tiring, but I worked hard to get that spot, I don’t intend it go to waste anytime soon.

Time has flown by and it has been two years since I started to do graphic design for TL.net. The rollercoaster might not be going as fast as it started off, but I plan to keep on riding. Over this two year span I started off helping out tree.hugger with TLpro, where majority of my banner work subsides. Then I started to help Starcraft 2 writers, Pony Tales, then Broodwar writers, DotA2 writers, and now Hearthstone writers (and things for Seeker too!) I am bleeding across the board and also helping out community forum posts like SBWI Nation Wars, NoisE’s ASL, Altitude’s ISL , and Torenhire Dota League. I also achieved becoming a blue after a year of being on TL.net, which fulfilled my (TL.net)dream of having my own custom icon. I wish I could tell you how big my Team Liquid graphics folder is, but my computer died in Oct. and since I had an iMac the HD can only talk to other macs. (I am currently just borrowing a laptop with Windows on it.) My current folder for Team Liquid graphics is already 700 MB and it’s only been a month since I’ve made it and it’s only going to get bigger!

Here is some of my work over this year.

Team Liquid in Year 2013 infographic

Also within these two years I have befriended so many people all over the world, which I think is one of the more cooler aspects about TL.net. They are all so awesome. Maybe someday we might cross paths at an event or something (or we already did.) A community is not fun without befriending people to chat to. (Wish I had a photo of me and some teamliquidans, but I suck with photos with people. ) Many shout outs to:

juicyjames - If he never told me about the recruitment thread i wouldn’t be here.
hawaiianpig - If I never questioned him why about my application I wouldn’t have been here at all given a 2nd chance at it.
Liquid’Nazgul - Thanks for letting me part of the TL.net family!
tree.hugger - For taking me in first to do graphics for TLpro. All the chicken wings!
Plexa - Always being awesome about cooking/food. :D We don’t talk much now, but it might go back up next year! XD Thanks for welcoming me to Pony Tales and giving me opportunities.
SirJolt - For being the awesome Irish man we all know and love!
Waxangel- Smartphone! Think of all the tweeting you can do when you’re away from the computer!
pachi - Hi Pachi!
itsjustatank - I have a waiting number for Rosco’s that I forgot was in my back pocket from after Blizzcon, we all have to go back to Long Beach at some point! Also cappys.
fusefuse - o/
kiett - Did you catch them all yet?
GHOSTCLAW/silverfire - Oopies.
Torenhire - Always fun to help you out with your leagues. If they ever finish. (CAUSE I WANT TO PLAY IN THDL2!)
Shock710 - Thanks for helping me understand Hearthstone more, we should play more soon!
monk - It was nice meeting you at Blizzcon, you and Wax best combo ever.
lip the pencilboy - Seeing your work always makes me want to push my stuff more.
disciple - Thanks for giving me opportunities. :D
dravernor - I haven't played dotas with you in awhile. D:
DivinO - Haven’t gotten that Monoprice yet, but I am surely getting it early next year. o/
zere - Thanks for getting me into F1! Hopefuly it will be interesting. TT
Seeker - Always fun helping you out with all your threads.
Dknight - o>
KadaverBB - You Minecraft addict!
GMarshal - It was fun making your writing piece all nice as well, my first big CSS!
Ver - It was fun making your writing piece all nice, sorry I was so slow about it.
Fuddx - Cause ARE awesome. You fold air into things!

Sorry if I forgot you so many people. TT

Going into 2014 I have a pretty positive outlook for at least first 3 months of the year. This year was kind of a downer (couldn't have survived without being around all the awesome people I am around IRL and online), but I am pretty excited for next year and can’t wait till it comes. Once I get the last bit of information I need, then I can totally plan it out and gonna go “to infinity and beyond!”



One more thing to add! I am currently in the Team Acer's Christmas Weekly Raffle (not sure why it's called raffle when 1st prize goes to person with most likes) for week #3. The 1st prize for the weekly is a CPU. Since late of Oct my iMac died and I have been borrowing a laptop for now. I don't have my own computer anymore and I just plan to build a tower early next year. If I can get the most likes (which will be hard I got some competition between the photoshopped Kerrigan's arm coming out of the screen and MMA meme) I can win it, but I need your help to make it happen. If you don't have a facebook it's completely fine. Like it, share it, tell your friends, spread the word to help me get the likes. It's just a simple like on the image, don't have to like the page or anything else. It will mean a lot to me and it will feel like a awesome present from the community that I love to help. Thanks ahead of time.



Hope everyone has a safe holidays and a new year!