Featured Artist: Cameron Anderson

It's the beginning of a new year, so here at Inked Gaming thought we would try something new. In addition to our awesome monthly new art spotlights, we thought we would start featuring all the amazing artists on our site one-by-one. To start off, we have our very own Cameron Anderson! He's been an artist on our site since before he even started working here at Inked Gaming. You might know him from this design...

1. Your name and/or pen name:
I'm Cameron Anderson, but my screen name is MARPAT.

2. Who are you and what do you do?
I'm a man of many trades! I'm an engineering student at Oregon State University, and I'm graduating in a few months if all goes according to plan. In my spare time I do graphic design and program a bit. My hobbies range from DIY carpentry and automotive repair, to nerdier things like tabletop wargaming, and paper card games.

3. What kind of art do you enjoy doing the most (digital, traditional, paint)?
Hands down I enjoy doing digital art more than any physical medium. My hands shake (which makes painting my warhammer stuff way harder than it needs to be!), so anything physical turns out poorly. Plus, I just like the workflow and no-mess aspect of working in Photoshop or Illustrator.

4. You’re a new addition to the crayon box... What color would you be?
Green! I've gotta rep my favorite color.

5. What inspires you?
I really like re-purposing corporate symbology. Deconstructing something we all are forced to look at as we're blasted by advertising, and then turning it into something *I* own is really satisfying. That's the reason why so many of my mats on the site are mashups like that! In a way, I think it's a modern version of  "being inspired by nature".

6. What’s your favorite song(s) to jam out to?
I'll be happy listening to most sorts of EDM, but my favorite subgenres have to be UK Hardcore, Jcore, and future funk. I love nu disco as well, but there isn't enough of it out there yet to really jam to.

7. If your style was edible what would it be, and why?
Five-Guys Burgers and Fries. This is weird but hear me out. My art style is very corporate, which in this metaphor compares to fast food in general. However, my artwork likes to incorporate stuff I like on a deeper level, and tries to make the viewer feel good in the sense of "Oh hey, I know both of these things, and now I can see the joke that many other people might not get!". This is where I bring it over to Five-Guys and say that feeling is compared to having real substance (much how like Five-Guys is real food, at least when compared with McDonalds). This is not a plug for 5G by the way, though I do like them.

8. A penguin walks through that door right now wearing a little hat. What does he say and why is he here?
He says [SOUNDS OF A FAX MACHINE] and he is here to bring about the end of the world. However, we as a species do not notice this because the little hat is cute.

9. What are some hobbies you do when you’re not doing art?
I like to work on my cars and make them faster. More generally, I just like building things, and that usually translates to furniture made from 2x4s. As far as gaming goes, I've been playing more and more Warhammer: Age of Sigmar recently, and I play as much paper Magic as I can, but a lot of my friends have shied away from the game. I'd be playing more PC games though, if it weren't for school being in my way right now!

10. What superpower would you have, and why?
Obviously I'd go for something broken that begets more power (Flash-style super speed, super intelligence, time control, etc.), but if the purpose of this question is "which power would I enjoy the most?", I'd probably say flight. There's something about the freedom of it that just seems too cool to pass up.

11. How do you know when your art is finished (if ever)?
My art is generally simple enough to where it doesn't need hours and hours of refinement, so typically I feel that my art is finished once it reaches that vision I saw in my head. If I can look at my piece and go "Yep, that's message I was trying to get across", then I'll be done with it.

You can see more from Cameron Anderson here: https://www.inkedgaming.com/collections/artists/cameron-anderson.

Peace ✌

Hannah

Inked Gaming