W A D E
- The close look -

___Below is an interview with the quietly known gfx artist, Wade of Gods.
Although never having much art released, amongst people who know, he is of
precarious talent, and could shake hands with the top gfx quite easily.
Recently joining forces with the Gods clan, is his time here.
___Unfortunately, like many of us recently, he is losing some of that spirit,
and enthusiasm, but I'm sure he has no plans to quit the scene.. Lets ask
the man himself.

- Introduce yourself Wade....
- Hi Wilsh. My real name is Dan, I'm 20 years old and lead a quiet and
boring life in the polluted realms of Wolverhampton England. At present
I'm at college taking a DTP course using Apple Macs whilst looking out
for a decent job. My main interests outside of the scene are Surrealist
art, music (namely techno, trance and also a bit of jazz) Twin Peaks and
just going out with friends. Erm.. and that sums up my life.. told you
its boring. :)
- How long have you been in the demo scene?
- Well its hard to pin point exactly. I originally bought my Amiga for
Games as most people do, but one dark night back in the winter days of
1991 I witnessed the legendary Budbrain megademo. From that day on I
lost most interest in games and started to collect demos. I began a
small crew consisting of close friends under the name Aggressors (yeh a
sad name, I know that now!). We started making little Cli based demos
and slideshows and sent them to PD libraries. The following year our
group renamed to Prophesy and we began work on a Christmas megademo
"coded" in Amos. We created 2 animations which I still have today and
a music selector with a few Christmas jingles. Christmas passed and
the project was postponed until Christmas 93, in the meantime we
released slideshows based on movies Bad Taste, Never Ending Story and
Aliens. That year I began to create small tacky logos in Dpaint and
though they were extremely bad I was clearly the most talented gfxer in
the group. Christmas 93 passed and the megademo was not finished so
myself and a musician of the group (Screech) decided to join a scene
group advertised in Grapevine.. that group was Eltech. So to summarise
this long winded answer I basically began officially in the scene
around March 94.
- What groups have you been in, and briefly explain the group (i.e
country, products etc.)?
- Other than the small groups of friends mentioned above I have been a
member of Eltech and Gods only.
- ELTECH was a UK based group and also very talented, but motivation was
always lacking. During my time in the group we released several small
intros: Wattsitouchstone, Hellfire cracktro, 1st trip to Dazone,
Fairlight cracktro and my personal fave Raggy which came 2nd to TBL and
Axis at the DTL party 95. Other of our more recognised releases are
Digital Chips from our Norway division and Lunchpack which I am pleased
to say placed quite highly in many charts.
-Early this year myself and Lithium joined GODS. As everyone will know
this group has a large history of releases which I can't remember off
hand, but most people will know of our Gathering demo Energy and its
predecessor Fraction.
- Finally, intro-wise, what is you're position? (i.e gfx, music)
- Since I have stopped mail trading activities I'm now 100% gfxer.
- In the time you have been involved in the demo scene, how do you think
it has evolved. For instance, has the scene become better or worse?
- Up until 1995 the scene was getting better by the day, but I must say
the scene has lost everything since then. The Party 95 became a real
curse on the scene imposing fastmem and hard drive requirements. It has
gone dramatically downhill from there in my eyes.
- Why did you decide to become a part of the demo scene?
- Creative outlet I guess. I just liked the whole idea of addressing a
mass community of people with the freedom to do anything.
- Who are you influences, be it, within the demo scene, or of a person
not involved in the scene?
- My major influences for gfx have always come from Facet. I used to
spend hours looking at his work in Dpaint hoping to one day be able to
produce something along the same lines... and I'm still trying. Outside
of the scene my inspiration comes from artists such as Salvador Dally,
Sebastian Krueger, Boris Vallejo, Jim Effler, David Miller, Toby Lay,
Rodney Mathews, HR Geiger and other detailed artists of this nature.
Although it is considered old hat to copy such artists I still find
this artwork appealing.
- What productions have you been involved in?
- Not many really. My real gfx debut to the scene was made in Eltech's intro
Raggy with an ECS pic which I'd previously released in Digital Candy's
1st gfx competition. Other released gfx of mine can be seen in
Lunchpack. As far as AGA gfx go I'm yet to release my work, but since
joining Gods I have designed panel gfx for DISC and will also be making
a title pic for a UK edition of Chip in Europe.2
- Do you think that you are given as much credit as you deserve? (because
I don't!!)
- Its hard to get credit for unseen work I guess, but from many of my
friends I believe I get far too much credit. I've never considered myself
as a good artist I'm always trying something new, sometime it works other
times it doesn't and I get so many different opinions of my work. Maybe 
when I release more work I will get a more positive response.
- Has the scene in general, improved you as an artist?
- Certainly. I think without the inspirations from artists such as
Facet, Made, Uno and Mack I would be aiming more toward game gfx which
in my eyes donut even come close to the quality of scene art. Well to
be honest if it wasn't for the scene I wouldn't even bother with gfx.
___Okay, now onto some more general questions, which I'm sure Wade will answer
with the honest truth!!
- PC demos on the Amiga. Good or Bad?
- BAD!!!! The worst thing that could have happened to the Amiga.
- Why do you feel the designing of a demo, nowadays, has been so badly
neglected?
- Coders prefer to work as a one man team to gain respect for themselves
only. Demos are made in a couple of weeks to enter competitions and are
so obviously rushed. Also the PC scene is a basis for many Amiga demos
therefore lack design.
- Who do you think is OVERRATED in the charts of recent times. For
instance, do you think TBL are overrated? (as I do!) This answer can
include individuals, as well as groups.
- TBL I think on the whole are a little overrated. I certainly admire
their ability to work together and produce solid looking productions,
but I truly believe the talent of this group is overrated. In the old
days TBL would have been considered "cheats" however methods such as
scanning, precalculating, sampling riffs has become acceptable in
toady's scene unfortunately and TBL do it well.
- I would even say that most newschool groups are overated when compared
to the likes of Sanity, Andromeda and Silents. It takes less talent to
work with higher specs (030, fastmem) and less talent to use Photoshop
and multichannel trackers, and still these sceners are unable to
produce something to the standards of "ARTE".
- Coders.. well nearly all coders these days code for the processor only
which certainly displays lack of knowledge of the Amiga hardware. Coders
really should learn to use the custom chips of the Amiga before
attempting to make demos. It makes me cringe to see 2 colour screen wipes
or scrolling jerking across the screen at about 2 fps. The blitter
should be doing that kinda thing.. look at Crazy Sexy cool, high spec
processor routines yet the screen wipes are totally uneffected. Perfect
AMIGA coding.
- Following on from that, who do you think is UNDERRATED in the charts of
recent times?
- As far as individual sceners go I think the most underrated of all
has to be Slide/Polka Bros. This guy has a style which I've never seen
done before and not only is he able to make superb quality modules that
make you feel like dancing in front of your Amiga to, he is able to
produce tracks that basically change to suit each separate demo routine
and for a musician to be able to do this it must take extraordinary
talent.
- Facet is another scener who's popularity has been affected by this new
era. He is clearly the most talented member of TBL, but is forced
down the charts by Louie, Rodney and Danny's Photoshop efforts. Its
about time he released his awaited slideshow "No more Lies".
- Group wise Essence always have and are still underrated, Touchstone's
demo "Crazy Sexy Cool" is still the best high spec demo I have seen to
date and with the old Skarla team producing some class stuff this group
deserves to place in the top 3 of all charts.
- Do you care that the AMIGA scene is becoming smaller, and less
inhabited, or do you like the idea of this?
- I have always objected to the scene being over commercialised and the
idea of a smaller scene really appeals, but the PC scene is forever
growing and many Amiga sceners are trying to emulate it which just
doesn't work. The Amiga scene should inspire itself.
- Which charts do you personally class as THE charts of the scene? (i.e
Rage, Generation, Showtime etc..)
- I used to follow the Eurocharts as the scene's real charts, but since
it died Showtime seemed to pick up where it left off. Depth have made a
decent job of bringing back the Eurocharts, but there's still a bit of 
work to be done before it takes over Showtime.
- If you were to compare yourself to a scene individual, who would that
be, and for what reason? (i.e Made, same style of gfx)
- My style changes with everything I do so it is very hard to say. I aim
to be more like Facet and Made more than most gfxers as my style is
very rough and textured, but I often take ideas from gfxers such as
Mack, Eracore and Ra and throw them in too. Id simply say I was an
inferior hybrid of all scene pixellers.
- Has the Amiga demo Scene have much of a prosperous future left? At one
time it was THE Demo Scene platform to be on.
- I think the whole concept of the demo Scene is dead. As we enter a 3d
trend the Amiga has to take a backseat to the PC. I'm certainly no fan
of the PC scene, but must admit it copes better in toady's scene than
the Amiga. Amiga sceners should realise this and continue to produce
Amiga only routines after all it takes a high spec Pentium to make a
smooth scrolltext where as the Amiga can do hires 50fps overscan
parallax scrolling without even addressing the processor. The sooner
sceners take advantage of what the Amiga can do as opposed to what it
can't the sooner the Amiga will regain it's following.
- Does the Amiga demo Scene hold any, or much more future for you?
- I'm not so sure. At the moment I'm enjoying pixeling and I still enjoy 
the friendship, but I'm spending less time as a scener as time passes.
I think Ill be here for a while longer though, until I find something
more interesting to occupy my evenings.
- Do you agree with many of today's scene artists using scanners and
Photoshop to enhance their gfx?
- NO! I must admit this stuff looks real nice, but what's the point in
it? It's not like that person has created something that wasn't there
before. The big problem is that everybody is scanning and using
Photoshop just to keep up and the real talented sceners are left
behind. Photoshop will surely destroy scene gfx unless party organisers
impose a ban on PS and Scanned images in gfx competitions.
- Which era of the Amiga demo Scene do you wish you could bring back?
- 1992-93. The days where design was a new thing and each demo had an
individual feel. It was cool to boot a demo and not know what to
expect. I can pretty much predict the content of most 97 demos before
they are coded.
___The following part is available for Wade to put any other point forward,
i.e his views on other subjects, that I may not have covered within the
interview. Also, include any respects to those who deserve it.
- In this space I'd just like to urge sceners to stop copying the PC and
take inspiration from the Old Skool scene as opposed to the era of
today. Take note of Parakrishna and do something original. Vote for
talent and not for surface value.
___Also in this space Id just like to greet all my friends on the scene
and apologise to my old swap friends for not replying to sends. 
If anyone wishes to contact me for any reason or for gfx swapping email
me at: wade@dcandy.demon.co.uk3
___Thank you for you're time Wade, and massive respects to you for a
prosperous future, with whatever you pursue. A quick note from myself now,
about some of the questions. They are short and to the point, and will
have hopefully given Wade a chance to give his honest opinion, as that is
something lacking in the scene of today, people afraid of saying their true
feelings.
___For instance, OVERRATED people/groups in the scene, must be
something everyone has their own opinions on, and who they feel should be
there in place. TBL, I believe they are HUGELY overrated, along with their
'Tint' demo. Also, Azazel/TBL, is one hugely overrated musician. Louie/TBL,
is an overrated artist. No way is he better than 'Facet', or so most of the
charts suggest.
___This is just my honest and humble opinion, and if you don't agree, then
don't, it doesn't bother me.

Peace out......









X
by Wilsh/GHD (c) Insomnia'97