AlexanderDeath

I was born in 1981. By age 5 I was playing roleplaying games, which kicked off my love of writing. By 8 I was running games for my friends. This inspired me to not only increase my writing both skill-wise and content-wise, but to begin using art as a medium to help tell my stories. I would draw the special weapons they found, and the amazing locations they would see. By 15 I was running a half-dozen different games for friends, from Robotech, to Shadowrun, and always of course my favorites MechWarrior/BattleTech, and Dungeons & Dragons. I had notebooks full of art that only continued to multiply every couple of months. The Death of my fiancée at age 18 cause me to stop for a time, both writing and art, but even sadness couple not keep a good artist down, and by 21 I was at it again full force. From age 9 to current day I have been a role player on America Online, and am considered by many to be one o the top 25 best player-writers of the community, which at it's height had thousands of player-writers as well. My art extended in to this medium as well, where I would attempt to put my often detailed and beautiful selections of words in to hand drawn art. At age 19 I took up painting, working with water colors to do Zen inspired paintings of flowers and women. This love of painting would eventually extend in to painting miniatures for my games. My library of figuring's includes some 80 Reaper Warlord Series of mini's used for D&D Games, and some 149 Battlemechs, with 20 points of Elemental Battlearmor and 2 dozen supporting tanks and aerospace craft. The real treasure of my time with miniatures was painting my Games Workshop Miniatures for Warhammer 40k. This would lead to my love of sculpting - creating whole new figurines out of the bits and spare parts of others, while using even miniatures from other series of unrelated games. The some 90 pieces of my Space Marine army are my prize possessions, and as a gamer they make up the 1st company of own personal chapter. My ownership of created figurines and painted ones includes a Warhostof Eldar some 2000 points strong, and growing stronger with the purchase of new units, 1500 points of Orks which include the Orky "A-Team" I created, 1500 points of Chaos forces, 1800 points of Imperial Guard, and 1000 points of Grey Knights and Inquisition forces that will also be growing soon. My love of this game lead me to join a club at age 25, call the Basement Heretics thanks to my wonderful friend James Bova. Under the auspices of the group, their members trained my skills further, teaching me impressive ways of doing inks and shades, and even teaching me how to make terrain scenery r the game maps (I had dabbled with this in the past but these guys are like the best I've had the luck to work with). A Few years later after leaving the group, my brother would introduce me to Painted-By-G, one of Games Workshops premier artist and multiple time Golden Demon award winner. He took me under his wing and has been mentoring me ever since. He's a great friend, and has now taken up playing D&D, flipping out roles and allowing me to repay him by teaching him whatever he asks. But this all came to something of an abrupt halt....

In 2010, while getting ready for work, I noticed a blurry spot in my vision. I was rushed to the Emergency Room of St. Francis Hospital of Evanston, and later that day would discover that both of my retina's where bleeding, and detaching. The end result is a loss of my eyesight in 1 eye, and half blind-ness in the other eye. While I can roughly function as a normal human, I am in stage 4 kidney failure, and must use dialysis to keep me alive while I await a transplant. With my depth perception almost destroyed, I am learning to adapt and trying to find new ways to continue doing the art I love, focusing on my Zen techniques. I have also put my time to good use, and have taken up a meaningful project to me and the family of my best friend, who passed away this last Christmas of 2013. The project is a set of Field Manuals, Scenario Books, and a Technical Readout that my best friend Eddie and I had dreamed abut writing since we where about 10 years old. He was my best friend thru thick and thin, a tried and true war hero of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the closest thing I have to a brother beside my own real blood brother. I miss him dearly every day, but I remember him by writing this project in his name. I have collected art over 2 decades from the web and DeviantART, and with the aid of S2KA, a Deviant Artist for Commission (Art Mercenaries Rule! Thank Glenn!), and my best friends Shannon Majorle and Theodor Gargano (who are like a Mother and Cousin to me) - I continue with this work, letting nothing hold me back.

I may not have the vision I once did, but I am seeing more clear then ever, and like any true Macross Fan, I am letting love guide my path forward. To the stars, and beyond...

Most people know me as Marcus.
Others who fly my wing know me as Varios or DigitalVFX.
But to the world beyond - I am the Lord of Blades... Alexader Death