A side note before you read, .//Gale is me and DarthOnis is....well, very obvious. Just in case anybody isn't sure.


.//Gale: *wears a fancy hat and clears his throat loudly*

DarthOnis: Just the hat?
DarthOnis: No monocle and cane?

.//Gale: Some young ruffian stole them from me in the street.
.//Gale: But without further ado, shall we get started?

DarthOnis: We shall.

.//Gale: Alrighty, it's great to have you with us today.
.//Gale: Now then, I'm sure many people have been dying to know, myself included. When and where did you first begin to sprite?

DarthOnis: Prepare for long reply. Just saiyan'

.//Gale: *squinty eyes* I see what you did there XD

DarthOnis: I'm probably gonna knock out a few of your questions with this xD

.//Gale: I'm sure you will but lets put that to the test >:]

DarthOnis: Okay, had some long drawn out paragraphs detailing my spriting career. But I decided just to dial it down to answer the one question: I started spriting almost a 3 1/2 years ago, in October of 2008. It was a couple weeks before I joined Vortex. I got into sprites first as an animator, you see. I wasn't really that good, but it was a fun way to pass the time. Eventually I stumbled upon LSW Sprites; their simple charm couple with my love for DBZ made drew me to them. I saw that other people had been editing the sprites, so I took a crack at it. My spriting career began from there
DarthOnis: Ohai Typos.

.//Gale: Ahhh typos, gotta love them.

DarthOnis: Their simle charm coupled with my love for DBZ made them perfect for me*
DarthOnis: simple*
DarthOnis: Gotta love typos when correcting typos even more

.//Gale: Since you mentioned animations, now I'm curious, do you still make them or was it a one-time thing?


*a few minutes later*


DarthOnis: Internet is imploding on me

.//Gale: Gotta hate it when that happens, fortunately I don't have that problem *laughs in an evil manner*

DarthOnis: Well lucky you :D
DarthOnis: Nowadays, I generally just make short looping gifs to see if my LSW poses flow together.

.//Gale:Good to see that the animating hasn't died off then, but moving on. Does anybody from vortex inspire you to keep spriting? and if so, who?

DarthOnis: Competition and cooperation with my generation of spriters (spriters such as Axxon, PhantomAForce, Yastas, General Grievous, etc) drove me to excel in the field of LSW spriting. On several occasions I felt I had reached a peak in my ability- but reassurance from some of my idols made me keep at it. These spriting idols include Afrolicious, Mistah_Jayden, Seto Stevce, Angryboy, Blues Light, Sasuke-Ish, and Kojin.

.//Gale: Hell...that's a lot more names than I was expecting to see

DarthOnis: Well inspiration comes from all kinds of places. Even the smallest or simplest sprites from some of these people motivated me

.//Gale: Amen to that
.//Gale: Now then, totally pointless question but roughly how long have you been on vortex for? have you changed your name at all?

DarthOnis: I've been on Vortex for about the same amount of time I've been spriting. 3 1/2 years, give or take a few weeks. My exact join date from excoboard is October 30th 2008, at 10:04 PM. At the point, I went around by the name "ZTyphoonZ." When we moved to forumotion, I took the chance to change my identity a bit, and took on the name of one of my characters, Darth Onis. And then a few months after that, I got the "Darth" removed and now I'm just keeping it as Onis- short and sweet.

.//Gale: That's one hell of a long time, I'm sure there's been many memorable events then?

DarthOnis: More than I can recall. One of the more notable things I can remember is winning the Sprite an Alien competition that was held a few weeks back. To be fair, though, none of the top-tier spriters such as Afro or Jayden had joined. They definitely would have whooped everyone.
DarthOnis: few years*
DarthOnis: xD

.//Gale: I'm sure they would have xD but you never know, you could have kicked their asses

DarthOnis: Maybe now, if I pulled out all the stops I would have a shot. But back then- no way.

.//Gale: I still reckon you would have had a shot, but it'd be interesting to see the difference in level between you now
.//Gale: No doubt it'd be a heated battle

DarthOnis: It would. I'm looking forward to the Annual Vortex Tournament when it rolls around this year. It'll definitely be a good venue for Vortex's spriters to show off their skills

.//Gale: I look forward in seeing you participate with everyone else, I wish you the best of luck
.//Gale: Ah ha, that's right, I've forgotten a somewhat important question. I'm sure you have characters of your own, how many do you have and how did you develop them? you don't have to list ALL of them if you have lots, just the main ones will do.

DarthOnis: Well I do have a good amount. A number of them I never really devloped, but there're about a dozen or so that I try to keep working on. I would say my main character is Blizzard. Following closely behind are Typhoon, Noelani, Okibi, and Ferrum. For my first few characters, such as Blizzard and Typhoon, I based their personas off of natural disasters, as their names imply. From the beginnning I had decided that when it came to their backgrounds, they would all be "intertwined" so to speak.

.//Gale: Noelani sounds like an interesting character, would you care to discuss them further? I'd love to know more

DarthOnis: Noelani? Alright. Her full name is Noelani Kaiaka, which is in the hawaiian language. Translated to english it's "Heavenly Mist." Which is a fitting name for her, as she focuses on decception, stealth, and illusion. She's of a race that I made up from the very beginning (since Blizzard's creation), the Plutonians. When it comes to planets, I thought Pluto didn't get much love. (Which is further proven by the fact its status as a planet was revoked xD) I loved the element of ice too, so I thought it'd be a cool place (pun unintended) for my makeshift race to live on. I based their appearance off sharks since they're my favorite animal, and their culture off of Hawaii a bit.

.//Gale: That's pretty creative there, nicely done. Wait....she's a rogue? Gotta love the rogue types

DarthOnis: I agree with you there. Something about taking your enemies out swiftly with nimble movements, and then just disappearing is just very badass.

.//Gale: Returning back to our discussion about sprites, would we be able to see your first and most recent sprites?

DarthOnis: Shouldn't be too much of a hassle. Just give me a moment to check my photobucket album, since I've got pretty much everything there since I started

.//Gale: That's fine, no need to rush on my account

DarthOnis: Well I put together a few things.

DarthOnis:
DarthOnis: The first 2 sprites are my first ever LSW sprite and my most recent LSW sprite. Under that is my first Blizzard sprite and the latest. To the right of those is my latest work, which I made for you, actually.

.//Gale: That's quite the improvement, how did you get so good in such a short period of time? Most pixel artists I've followed have been making the art for a very long time

DarthOnis: I started off like most do, with simple headswaps and recolors, but eventually got more sophisticated as I experimented with 100% custom sprites. In general, I'm really lazy and lack motivation to do anything. When I joined Vortex, the sprites were still relatively simple, and it didn't take much to make oneshots and even sheets. As the style developed, so did my personal skill. To advance in spriting, I tried replicating and combining the styles of my idols, until I eventually developed a style of my own. From there it has changed and grown, and I think I've become pretty recognized around here.Occasionally I dabble in other styles of pixel art, which has only served to strengthen my skills even more. The latter of which I've been doing more of lately. It's really all about practice and how often you actually sprite. I've made loads of sprites since I started, and I've improved with each and every one. Even with all the time I've been doing this, I'm not as great as many other pixel artists outside Vortex. I'd attribute that to me having stuck to only LSW for so long. I'm hoping now that I've been expanding my horizons that I'll only get better from here

DarthOnis: A history of my improvement up until summer of last year can be found here, for those intererested: https://2img.net/h/i435.photobucket.com/albums/qq78/ztyphoonz/History_08-11.png

.//Gale: I'm sure many people would be interested in having a look through that. I'll be sure to check it myself also
.//Gale: *checks his watch* Oh... it seems that we're running out of time for this feature, are there any last words you want to say to our readers before we finish up?

DarthOnis: I'd just like to give some advice to aspiring spriters reading this: Just keep at it if you find yourself struggling, or not at the level you want to be at. Just practice, practice, practice. And one big tip. When sharing your work, I advise you to ask for serious and honest criticism. You don't want anyone to coddle you, trust me. It won't help you.

.//Gale: It's been a pleasure interviewing you today, I'm sure many people will benefit from the advice you've given. I'm grateful that you could set aside the time to do this interview

DarthOnis: Oh it's my pleasure. Now how about we avoid the awkward closing and we both just leave right now?

.//Gale: *dives out of the window*

DarthOnis: *disappears into the night*