I haven't made an introduction to myself since I got on here, at first cause I didn't know this was the thing to do and later on simply cause I either didn't have sufficient time or that I thought "why?" But now neither of those two withhold me to write and introduce myself here.
I'm Jitse, 33 at the moment and originating from Belgium. I've been interested and active in design and creation for as long as I can remember. During my childhood I've designed my own decks of Garbage Pail Kids, wrote a lengthy script for a comic book, designed and drew my own fighting game in the wake of SF2 and MK, drew cartoons and comics and loads of other stuff, and basically knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
During my adolescence I went to artschool and continued making things in both the comic as the videogame way. I unfortunately never learned to code as mathematical stuff makes my head a bit spinny and 56 is often a 65 or even a 59. Being influenced by Hero Quest and He-Man (among others) I got into Magic around 95 and subsequently into AD&D which spun off interests, fueled by my father's wall of sci-fi paperbacks, into Lovecraft, occult, Goethe, Crowley, Lavey, Milton and all that other nifty nifty stuff. From that came movies and suddenly I wanted to make those too! But alas! I didn't have the cash for a camera (no they weren't as cheap then as they are now). So why not combine my passion for drawing with movies and study animation I thought... and thus it happened.
During my tweens I started in the audiovisual arts; animation at the RITS in Brussels but that journey didn't last long (short story: first son didn't leave time nor money for another 2 years of school).
During this period my boardgame and rpg-life basically went away due to not having people to play them with and began to focus more on my childhood friend: the video game. My projects during those periods therefor also focused a lot on making games, maps and mods (none of these every came to fruition ofcourse.)
Fast forward a second child, a divorce, years of unemployment, illustration madness, absinthe and general crap and depressive years to now: where I rekindled my lust for boardgames with, for some reason, the Game of Thrones game, have a third son and a general feel of peace and tranquility (mostly) with my loving (let's hope) girlfriend.
Seeing all my videogame plans fall into the water due to my inability to write code (and the basic fact that I never actually REALLY tried to learn it from crappy "hello world!" tutorials on the internet.) I suddenly had the nifty idea to jump back onto the boardgame-designing world. Again combining my love for conceptdesign, illustration and games into one. And my kids now have the age where they play boardgames so I can FORCE THEM to play with me during the few days I get them from my evil ex-wife.
Currently (4 years now) working as a web & graphic designer and illustrator in a Belgian Marketing/Advertising Agency, I spend my free time working on one of the many boardgame designs while watching a crapload of series and youtube-boardgame-broadcasts during and after my commute.
I haven't been able to publish a game yet, nor have I had the balls to try or the money to make a prototype I can be pleased with but thanks to my work I did have some of my work "published".
As for the rest: jack of all trades and interests range from A to Z. Like said, spend most of my times watching series on my commute (used to be films but they just last too long to combine with commute, 2 year old son, girlfriend and extreme tiredness) and working on one of my many projects.
Most of what and who I am can be found on my website (www.jitselemmens.com) where I generally reveal too much of myself. Check it out if you wish.
As for the rest: A-TEAM, 80ties for life, Apple sucks, Omar's coming, We have such sights to show you! Garbage pail kids and the battle between good and evil!
So yeah, hello everybody! And the rest we shall see.
