Here's a link to my recent digital art album called Respawn Vol. 2. I think this is right up the Giantbomb community's alley. Let me know what you think!

https://www.behance.net/gallery/22893435/Respawn-Vol-2

Video games represent the start of our lives and the end of our lives. Art represents the middle chapter, or a state of equlibrium that is meant to be disrupted.

The beginning of our story is the same as our end, or both reach a conclusion that differs so slightly it's almost incomprehensible outside of the terms "Winning" and "Losing".

Life as we know it right now has the same outcome everytime: Death.

Death is a time for creation that has no meaning: Art

Art and Death are very closely related for many reasons ( I always liked a quote from Basquiat's biography that said he was using words as incantations to "bring life to his paintings")

Death is that gross dark middle chapter where were all "brooding" and "artsy" like we just went through puberty and we think we know everything ( grown-ups are so stupid right guys?)

Death has an ending where we actually learn something else ( BIG SURPRISE! TEENAGERS DON'T KNOW EVERYTHING) ( YET)

On a seperate note when I have a kid I'm gonna really hate him when he turns 13

The ending is when we learn to create something from nothing instead of creating something from something else.

I think death will feel like an eternity of creating art without a purpose

When we finally reach the "True ending" ( Like a video game :O) we will have become the same thing that made us in the first place.

I don't think God is doomed to loneliness forever, I think eventually we learn to be like God too, and our purpose is to create more friends.

And sex is for reproduction. The ultimate fate of me as a guy is to want to create something from nothing but knowing it's impossible without someones help.

Ultimately I view women as "nothing" and myself as "something" as misogynist as that is ( but i think girls kinda like it anyways, those weirdos)

So masturbating or sex with a condom or anything like that is a big ol waste of time. It's just for baby-making.

I'm doomed to an eternity of fulfilling some lady's weird sexual desires while ignoring my own.

At least there will be boobs to keep me company.

I think winning and losing both have their own perks. The perks of winning are the finality of a victory, that it's a progression towards a conclusion, or if were lucky even the conclusion itself. The perks of a loss are that we get to try again. A loss is more comfortable. Nothing changes when we lose, we simply get to try again for a different result. We can learn from our mistakes. There is no step backwards, we never lose to the point that the game doesn't allow us to try again.

This is at the core of what makes competitive multiplayer games so enjoyable. It's a simulation of consequences. It's when this simulation is used to determine real-world consequences that I start to get offended. I don't personally believe there is a "loss" and "victory" condition in life. I think it is the start of something, but were not in the phase of life where our actions can really have any effect yet. eSports takes this simulation and allows it to determine the well-being of the players involved. If you win you get money and can continue to live. If you lose you are awarded nothing and you're lot in life is less than the person who succeeded. Their success in something that isn't real and has no repercussions outside of the game is used to decide repercussions outside of the game.

At the end of the day they are just games. It is exciting to watch people more skilled at a game compete against one another. It shows that nobody is immune to losing and everybody wins eventually. It's why the Olympics is entertaining. What I don't like is when suddenly the well-being of the players is at risk depending on the outcome of something as insignificant as a game.

If what saves the world is a generation of men with an overactive imagination, we'll have video games to thank.

It's no coincidence that famous museums are filled to the brim with paintings by men. Lately I see past artists as test takers who didn't have the right study guide. They were so concerned with selling their work and ruling the world they never truly focused on what they were doing, instead masking their inadequacies with gimmicks. Today we have the means to reach our full potential as artists, and fathers, with video games.

Video games aren't artwork, if they were, it would come naturally to everyone in childhood. Playing games, however, is something we're born knowing how to do. Playing games and creating artwork. The reason we are capable of these things is what's so incredible, because there are certain types of "work" that can be done without expending any energy whatsoever. Making games, and making GOOD games and stories, requires the utmost focus and energy. This is something men are simply not capable of, because all our focus is elsewhere. Hence Call of Duty 10.

Video games teach us to have a vivid imagination, and art is the application of that imagination, so let's imagine a world that's only a tiny bit different than the one we live in now. Imagine a world where every man's focus is on self-preservation. He abstains from sex not because he has a desire for superiority, quite the opposite, because he is afraid of the repercussions. He knows that the only reason he isn't racist is because his struggle is one that is universal ( albeit unique to him) and when he meets another man there is a connection between them that dissolves all bad feelings. There is no discrimination in the work force, because every man is employed with the same task, to protect his children from harm. A woman's role is a dominant one, because without her initiative a man will preserve himself until death, and without an unstoppable force, the immovable object would bring about the death of the species. The result of the two meeting, however, is always the same thing: a new life.

Imagine a world where men's only responsibility growing up is to practice creation, and play games, the only difference between childhood and adulthood becoming that now it has a purpose. In this world women control the work force, not discriminating against someone because they are a different cog in the same machine. Billionaires don't exist. Diplomacy is the only way problems are resolved. There are no conspiracies because every bit of knowledge is made public. The world has become completely childproofed. Populations are regulated, because there is an understanding that the relationship between a man and woman does not require repetition. Food is abundant. Guilt is nonexistent. Every child has a father.

Now how would video games teach us how to imagine such a world? Simple. By playing them. And by practicing creation, in the event that one day you might be called upon to create. Playing games teaches us what we want it to teach us. It could teach us how to dominate someone else, control their every move, or it could teach us to be controlled, slaves to whatever we're told to do and happy doing it. It could teach us violence, or it could teach us to accept that death is a natural occurence, and that death is a natural part of creation that brings about no guilt.

All you have to do to imagine this is to keep playing, keep educating yourself, keep practicing, and keep an open mind, because one day you might find yourself in this world, and realize you've been there the whole time.

Let's pretend for a second that you don't play video games for the reason you think you play video games. You don't play them because you want to control someone else. You don't play them to take out all that aggression you have. You don't play them to save the princess and get that kiss you so rightfully deserve for your actions. Let's pretend you play games because you're a girl.

Something that is absolutely vital to playing video games is an imagination so imagine that the reason you play so many of those dang things is because you have a need to be controlled. You fantasize about someone caring for you, that the character in the game is the lucky one for having someone dictating their every decision. You want to be completely submissive in life.

If this is true, what does that mean for video games? Are we the ones who need rescuing? Are video games Bowser, and women Mario?

Have you ever been in a museum and stared at a painting before? If the answer is yes than it wasn't a painting. You were staring at the wall next to it or something.

Video games are the evolution of the museum. Any great painter would have told you that the painting they made is a story told visually. They would say that the path your eyes take are all by design, and that every brush stroke had a purpose. What they wouldn't tell you is that they are liars. Every artist tries to overcome the feeling that what they are doing is a sham, and that the end result of their work is fraudulent and false prophecy. The painting is an idea manifest, but a life that died before it's time, a messenger killed before it could deliver the message. Video games and paintings are similar in that they are both not art.

To define what art is is difficult. The Mona Lisa was painted and repainted year after year until Da Vinci died, and he spent all that time trying to revive something that was destined to die. Jean Michel Basquiat was described as casting rituals and incantations through his paintings to give life to a lifeless canvas. Even in video games, the enemy of mankind is "Undead", something recreated unnaturally that no longer lives but toils for eternity without meaning or purpose. The Undead are paintings in museums. The Undead ARE video games.

The finished painting is nothing more than a game after an artist has ceased working on it. The viewer takes the journey set out before them, searching for an end, one that is ultimately decided by the viewer. In a video game, the player takes the same journey, taking the paths the designer has made, fighting the enemies in his way, and reaching the conclusion, the final moment where they go from playing to searching for whats next.

The player is no more an artist than the developer who stopped making the game. The

painter is no more an artist than the viewer in the museum. What makes the artist, and the art, is the indescribable. The art is not what's created, it is the creation. What's left after that is just something for the next player to fight along the way.

here are 2 new paintings I made

Here are some new paintings I did recently

The Lonely Island, Flight of the Conchords, Tim and Eric Awesome Show!, Judd Apatow, Demetri Martin, Funny or Die.

For a while there I thought we were gonna be stuck with Carlos Mencia and The Blue Collar Comedy Tour forever!