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Teeks' Influence Map — Description
Everybody else was doing it, I figured I would too.

Just to start this thing off, I am not the most talented of individuals. I can't draw to save my life and the things I do attempt to do, Spriting and writing songs and stuff, isn't always that great. That said, I've come a long way from what I used to be and these are some of the things that have influenced me.

I'm going to jump around a lot and start with the biggest one's first.

In the top left corner you see a screenshot from the Super Nintendo game Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island. I love Nintendo, especially Mario and one of my major influences for getting into spriting was of course the Mario games and no game has a prettier art style than Yoshi's Island. The bright, vibrant colors, the wonderful animations, the cut-out style background, it's a beautiful game. I hope I can one day sprite that well.

Directly below that is a selection of 's sprite comic series, The Scrambled Channel. It ultimately influenced me into starting my own comic, a spin-off known as Friendly Fire. The characters, the sprites and the humor are all very similar and I'm pretty much a big fat rip-off, but Meta is one of the funniest people I know and his comic helped me to make my own pretty successful sprite comic series and I am forever greatful to be his friend and have his influence.

But, with that said, he is also a big fat rip-off. If you jump over to the other side of the map and look at the other excerpt from a webcomic, you will see my good friend Rogultgot's webcomic, The Pixel. This was the ultimate influence for both The Scrambled Channel and eventually Friendly Fire. It's one big long chain of Spin-offs I don't feel like explaining. Rog is beyond hilarious and his brand of humor made for some of the best webcomics on the net.

Jump down a few spaces and you'll see the band Bowling for Soup, my favorite band ever. While I don't post much here or anything, I have written a lot of songs and was even in a band that lasted about five minutes and recorded only one song which you will never hear. But no band has influenced my taste in music and lyric writing skills like these guys. Their brand of happy themes and funny lyrics have really showed me the brighter side of writing music and even though I'm not that great, I've still written 2397430947 nerdy songs and posted them on my Myspace. Thanks guys.

Let's talk about the other two live-action shots on my map. At the top, the Angry Video Game Nerd and the bottom, the Nostalgia Critic. If you don't already know, me and my nerdy friends started a Youtube channel all about video games and other nerdy things and these two guys have influenced me like no other when it comes to videos. They like to take trips down memory lane and are really knowledgable about their respective genres. They have the two best webseries' on the net and keep me entertained like no other. I hope our videos make people laugh and be entertained as much as these two dudes do.

Alright, now onto all the small squares. Each square represents a sprite artist that I have personally known and has influenced me in the ways of spriting.

The one near the middle with Petey Piranha and Tingle is by a spriter who used to go by Mc Bacon. This man was the guy who got me into spriting 7 years ago. Yeah, 7 years ago. He taught me what programs to use, how to outline, everything. He's the reason for what I do. And even though he doesn't sprite anymore, to my knowledge anyway and doesn't talk to me anymore, he is still the reason I got into this medium to begin with and I am forever in debted to him.

Next to that is another set of sprites that takes up two boxes, these sprites belong to my friends and Doku. If you can't tell, this is the style that all of my gallery is in. Meta created the style and Doku took it and made it better. He just got lazy and let Meta do all the animations and other characters. The details and colors are all well picked and well designed and it's a style I still use to this day. If you went to Sheezyart back when our comic's were still relevant, you probably saw it on quite a few amateur spriters pages. It was out of control. And I guess I still make it out of control by continuing to run it into the ground with crappy Mario enemies. WOO!

The bottom smallest box contains a selection of Pokemon sprites by my good friend . Josh is a major influence in my spriting career simply because of his drive. He is so good at getting things done fast and well. In fact, he's currently working on a project in which he custom sprites every single Pokemon in a sidescrolling style. With fluent animations and everything. And guess what? He's almost half way done! Yeah, he's that good. Nobody can finish a sheet as fast as this guy and he's one of my favorite spriters because of it.

Now we already talked about Bacon but above him is a selection of Mario enemy sprites by a dude who goes by Omega. While it may not look like top notch sprite work, I love this guy's style. It's so colorful and cartoony, it reminds me a lot of Yoshi's Island. He's made a ton of enemies and they all match and mesh well together in that same style. There's even been time's where we've influenced each other. Sometime's he'll sprite something and I'll see it and say "oh man that's awesome" and go and sprite it myself. It's happened a few times with him, too. He sprited Skeeter from Super Mario 64 just because I did. He's an awesome spriter and a really cool guy and I love his style.

Right about him is a selection of sprites from my good friend . This guy is awesome and is a very good sprite artist at that. He's always been an influence on the way I sprite and what I sprite. While he doesn't custom make sprites as much as he rips them, he's very knowledgable on the medium as a whole and has helped me many times. Thanks for all you've done, Ton!

Now the top right corner belongs to perhaps the greatest spriter I have ever met, . He doesn't sprite anymore but back when he did, he was amazing! There are several of his sheets floating around out there that look like they came right out of the game. His Nack in Sonic 3 and Birdo in 16-Big Mario style stand out as amongst his best work. They are so accurate and amazingly animated that it's an absolute shame he doesn't sprite anymore. However, he does continue to make traditional art and it's amazing as always. I wish I had just an oz. of talent this guy has.

So, there you go.