User:Wapcaplet

License

All my contributions to Wikipedia, in any form, are licensed as follows:

	Multi-licensed with any Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License
I agree to multi-license my text contributions, unless otherwise stated, under Wikipedia's copyright terms and the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license version 1.0 and 2.0, and the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike license version 2.0. Please be aware that other contributors might not do the same, so if you want to use my contributions under the Creative Commons terms, please check the CC dual-license and Multi-licensing guides.

Licensing rights granted to Wikimedia Foundation

I grant non-exclusive permission for the Wikimedia Foundation Inc. to relicense my text and media contributions, including any images, audio clips, or video clips, under any copyleft license that it chooses, provided it maintains the free and open spirit of the GFDL. This permission acknowledges that future licensing needs of the Wikimedia projects may need adapting in unforeseen fashions to facilitate other uses, formats, and locations. It is given for as long as this banner remains.

These licenses apply retroactively. If you find any of my contributions that are not specifically licensed according to the above, please feel free to fix it for me, and edit the description page to match the above license(s).

If you'd like to discuss any other form of licensing, just ask me!

Bio

Real name: Eric Pierce
Email address: gmail wapcaplet88

I give you this barn star for all the incredible ilustrations you gave to wikipedia. Thanks all of us to you. --Alexandre Van de Sande 17:54, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I grew up near Decatur, Illinois, briefly attended college at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, and eventually graduated from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio with a degree in computer science. Got married in '01, moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado in '03, and had a baby boy in '06. I now work as a software engineer here in the Springs. Some of my interests include Linux, computer (and non-computer) graphics, music and musical composition, and LEGO. I like to play Axis & Allies, Risk and disc golf.

I have a certain affection for the diverse Wikipedia articles that I have contributed significantly to, from the Great Pyramid of Giza to King Crimson, from the HSV color space to the M-209 cipher machine. I've found that writing for Wikipedia has sharpened my skill with precise, unambiguous prose, and has given me practice in making a technical narrative accessible to a general audience. I'm only an amateur writer, though, and a poor researcher; my specialty, at least in regards to Wikipedia, has been the art of illustration.

How I learned to illustrate

I've had a lifelong proclivity for drawing that naturally extended into computer graphics, beginning with my first computer experiences on the TRS-80 and Apple IIc. I remember writing dumb little programs, little more than a bunch of graphic commands, to draw boxy 80x25 graphics of things like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I was briefly obsessed with the first Apple Macintosh's paint program, which a co-worker of my dad had. My next computer, a Tandy 1000 HX, taught me how to use a 16-color paint program, and write more dumb little programs for randomly drawing gradient-shaded colored spheres. Next, it was POV-Ray and GeoWorks paint on a 386, Fractal Design and Adobe Photoshop on a 486, and now Blender, GIMP, Inkscape and others on my Athlon running Gentoo Linux.

It is only in illustrating for Wikipedia that I've really learned how to illustrate. Here, I have complete creative freedom, but there are a number of other constraints to consider. In order for an illustration to work for Wikipedia, it must be simple enough to be legible at low resolution; it must communicate information in a way that complements the accompanying textual description; it should not be language-dependent. Having worked within them for a while, I believe these constraints can only make illustrations better, and I think I have become a better illustrator because of my experience here. The appreciation and recognition that I have received for my illustrations is the best reward I could ask for!

Automobile diagrams

I've created a partial 3D model showing the internal parts of an automobile using Blender. I've neglected the project in more recent months, however, and very few practical illustrations ever came out of it. If you would like to pick things up where I left off (or are just interested in getting ahold of the model), let me know and I will gladly email the Blender scene file to you.