Hello!


shadow-over-water's avatar
Hello! my name is Michael, I've been on here for about 5 years but never really got involved, I hope to change that. DA has always impressed me, plus I'd like to improve artistically and the talent here is staggering.

Anyway, I live in Scotland, I work as a carer, I studied psychology, I love travel and spent most of 2011 in India, I'm trying to slowly get good at digital art, and I am very fond of cats.
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M-G-Studio's avatar
Michael your gallery is quite interesting. I do hope you find some pretty interesting people to talk to, despite that I do own a cat, I'm not too fond of them. To be honest I find cat people quite odd as they show behavioural patterns like cats (not as loyal or warm-hearted as dog people). India must have been quite different than your homeland, so much more heat, vibrant colours and the culture itself. Did you enjoy it there?
shadow-over-water's avatar
Thanks very much! and to be honest I agree, cat people have a higher tendency to be oddballs, but I am quite pleased being an oddball and prefer the company of oddballs so that works for me :P How come you ended up with a cat if you're not so fond of them?

India was about as different from Scotland as it could possibly be. Strangely enough I didn't have a very hard time adjusting when I got there but coming home was very difficult. I had a really good time yeah. Well, it was very varied, everything about India is varied, it's a dozen countries smushed into one. Nepal is really cool too!

Your work is amazing by the way, were you trained or did you teach yourself?
M-G-Studio's avatar
I have that cat because I love animals in general. My brother and I were walking home from the city and we came across three little kittens that were abandoned as we didn't see their mother around at all. We went home and told our parents that we'll take them but offer them to whoever wanted them just so they wouldn't get eaten by foxes. So we went back and the first two were easy to catch, the orange one was a wild one cause he didn't give up fighting and trying to be left alone even though he was only like a month old. After 6 hours of being cut by the thorn bushes, scratched by him and stretching our arms into a small rock cave, we finally got him. We fell in love with them and so we took care of all 3. The sister was the first to die, she wasn't even a year old when her paws and nose got pure white, so she was poisoned. She never had the best of luck at all. She was the weakest of them so she got sick easily, got raped by a bigger cat from our street and had to abort 5 of the kittens and the got poisoned somehow and died. The middle brother, he had the most beautiful green eyes I've ever seen. He was the hunter and one night got in a fight with a fox and got killed. So now we have the orange one, the fighter for life. They're living beings, so just cause I don't really prefer them, I still care for them :)

I can imagine how interesting India might have been and possibly how ... well I don't want to use the word "boring" cause Scotland looks like such a beautiful place as well but India is much more lively and full of colour, from clothes to food. I'm glad you had fun though.

And thank you for the compliment. I actually wasn't trained at all. I started messing around with Photoshop at the age of 16, I used to take pictures of bands or family members and make collages and apply filters over them. I begged my brother to teach me as he used Photoshop but wasn't interested in it much and he preferred playing computer games so I had no other option but to learn on my own. I didn't even use tutorials until I was already into making Photomanips, one of the very first tutorials I read was how to make blood look realistic cause back then I was obsessed at creating vampires all the time. :)
shadow-over-water's avatar
That is a grim story. Good that you're still looking after the third cat though, would be a shame to lose them all.

I probably wouldn't use the word 'boring' either but I know exactly what you mean. I think the best word would be grey. Everything about India is bright, vibrant, colourful, emotional and frantic. Scotland by comparison is colourless, grim and ordered [mainly because of the weather admittedly]. Don't get me wrong Scotlands beautiful, in the highlands anyway, and on a good day, but the culture and scenery lack the wanton fire that India has.

Not a bad thing really, variety is the spice of life and all that!
M-G-Studio's avatar
I agree, variety is always important.. especially in art, or else things either get boring or you don't advance. Variety keeps you busy, entertained and teaches you. :)
TogetherToday's avatar
Hey there Michael! :) I've also been trying to get more involved in the dA community as of recently, haha.

Pychology? That seems like such an interesting subject, I definitely want to take a class on it before I graduate high school, haha. You travel a lot? That's definitely one of my dreams when I can get enough money and time!
And it's nice to meet somebody who likes cats! I have a cat of my own whom I love so much. :3
Digital art is also one of my primary medias, haha!
shadow-over-water's avatar
Hey! it is a worthy task I think, I haven't been part of an online community for years and I miss it. Psychology is pretty interesting, it's worth taking a class in just to get an idea of how you can take a scientific approach to human behaviour, but I don't think it gets really interesting until you get your head turned inside out by discussions about consciousness and how the brain works! And traveling is one of the best things you can do I think, makes you a lot more open and patient, and the world is pretty amazing. I've been meaning to put up some of my Indian photos on here [it is so easy to take fantastic photos in India!]. What are you hoping to do after high-school?

P.S. your saxobeat sketch is really cool!
P.P.S. it is good that you have a cat and that you love him/her, it's good for your mental health [trust me I'm a psychologist :P]
TogetherToday's avatar
Haha yes. Sometimes it seems much easier to converse with people online. They don't seem to care about age or appearance. :)

Haha I think about that stuff sometimes and I just end up feeling so weird thinking about how complex everything is!

I've not traveled much, but I can definitely agree! The only place out of the U.S. I've really been is Mexico, which is a great place but I do prefer the U.S. hahaha! I suppose some factors depend on who you go with/if you go with anybody and where you are headed. But yeah I've seen some amazing photography of different places around the world that I would just LOVE to visit someday! And awesome, I'd love to see your photos of India! :)

Honestly, I'm not even sure what I want to do. ;-; Hopefully I'll get into a good college, I work hard on keeping up my grades and I think I do a pretty good job of it. :) And after that, I have teaching in mind but I'm really not sure. If I become a teacher, however, I'll have time off in the summer where I'll hopefully be able to travel a bit every once in a while! And obviously art and maybe some writing, but I don't think I can trust that to support me enough to live comfortably, haha. Who knows though, maybe I'll be doing something completely different from what I have in mind!

Haha, thank you! You're leopard piece is also pretty awesome! :)

Hahahahaha that's good to hear! My life would be empty without my cat. o-o Some people say I'll be a crazy cat lady, but I honestly don't mind if I do! Cats are easier to be around than people sometimes. x) Although I can't picture myself having more than one cat. :p
shadow-over-water's avatar
All that separates me from crazy-cat-lady-hood is time and gender :D

You've got a long time to be making these decisions, there's a lot of emphasis these days on the importance of your career, picking the right one, fulfilling your potential etc. etc., which I think is unhealthy. It's good to have some ambition, but you can get bogged down in it, it's best to just go where the wind blows sometimes, especially when you're young [speaking as a still very young 24 year old who's only now vaguely sure about what I want to do -planning on going back to uni to study nursing then hopefully work for foreign aid charities :D]

Teaching sounds like a good move though. An art teacher?? :3 if you want to travel and teach you can do english as a foreign language which lets you go all over the globe. I've considered it but I think I'd make a rubbish teacher :P

I've not got round to picking out my favourite Indian photos but when I do I'll let you know! :3
TogetherToday's avatar
Aha, well you can be a crazy-cat-gentleman. :D There's not a lot of those around, it's a good trait haha!

Yeah, I kind of feel overwhelmed sometimes how people are telling me that I should have a job picked out an stuff. x) And I agree with what you're saying there, I think that when the right time comes I'll figure it out. I don't feel like worrying about it just yet, haha. And that's a good ambition of yours! Not enough people helping others in some places!

Haha, that would make sense! :D And that's true as well, it would interesting traveling with that method! I'd probably have to learn a lot of different languages though haha. Yeah, that's one of the main reasons I'm not completely sure I'd want to be a teacher. I'm not sure if I would have the patience. o_o;

Haha okay! I watched you too, just in case. :)
shadow-over-water's avatar
I have never heard the term crazy-cat-gentlemen, I will carry it with pride!

Teaching english as a foreign language is great in that you don't need to know the language of the country you're in, you do all the teaching in english. I won't pretend to understand how it works but it seems quite popular. Plus you might pick up the local language whilst you're there!

Oh, and I stuck up a handful of my favourite Indian/Nepali photos finally!
TogetherToday's avatar
Haha, you definitely should! :)

Oooh, I see what you mean! For some reason I thought it was like teaching the people who speak a foreign language how to speak english. :p But yeah, that does sound like a really interesting job! And that's very true, it seems like a great way to immerse yourself in other cultures.

Awesome, I'll take a look!
ManboobLover69's avatar
CATS!! I've been asking everybody if they liked cats, but I finally found somebody who mentioned them here. xD Cats are such phenomenal creatures. :heart:
shadow-over-water's avatar
This is true! my family got a new cat recently and I spend quite a lot of my time following her around. I was jealous of my old cat when I was at school because he got to stay in all day and sleep ;_;
ManboobLover69's avatar
Cats really have it made, don't they? XD
Armonah's avatar
Hey Michael :)

What'd you do in India that year? And what was it like?
shadow-over-water's avatar
Hello! I mainly wandered around, I think I must have spent about 500 hours on various busses, Indias a beautiful and ridiculous place. The people there are the friendliest in the world as far as I'm concerned, but nothing is ever on time.
3wyl's avatar
shadow-over-water's avatar
Cats are wonderful. Everybody likes cats surely?!? :-p
3wyl's avatar
...I'm more of a dog person myself. :paranoid:

My fiance loves cats, though. :P
Detective-Inspector's avatar
Welcome. There are a lot of people on here that stay in hibernation for years and finally come out. They tend to be the impressive ones for my point of view. Good luck on your work!
shadow-over-water's avatar
Heh I wouldn't know about that! But thanks for the welcome :3