Gamer Spotlight:

TriXie Interviews Slinkyart

Published January 31, 2008

He's a gamer, a father, and an artist in Nashville, Tennessee. He loves NCAA football and hates tomatoes. Say howdy to Slinkyart.

TriXie: What's the story behind your Gamertag?

Slinkyart: My Gamertag is a culmination of my nickname and my craft. In college for some reason my best friend started calling me Slinky. That name stuck, so my closest friends know me as "Slinky." And the "art" part is what I do for a living. I'm an illustrator/character designer/animator. 

TriXie: Your job sounds cool, tell us more!

Slinkyart: For work, I have the pleasure of making drawings come to life! I am an illustrator/character designer/animator. I am currently the art director at a company that is creating a brand new children's cartoon, and a kids' virtual world for the Web. It's exciting stuff! I basically get paid to draw cartoons for a living and it's amazing! I also have the pleasure of doing freelance illustration work for Disney.

Slinky and Mrs. Slinky in Nashville.

TriXie: What's the worst or weirdest job you've ever had?

Slinkyart: Man, worst or weirdest job I've ever had would have to be working as a "bar-back" at a major bar here in Nashville. For those of you who don't know what a bar-back does … they're the ones that keep all of the beer and alcohol stocked behind the bar, keep the trash cans emptied and wash all the glasses. It is a very labor intensive job and it just downright stinks, literally. Having to lift hundred-pound trash cans full of beer bottles and garbage …

TriXie: Yuck! How long have you been on Xbox LIVE®?

Slinkyart: I've been on Xbox LIVE since Father's Day of 2005. My wife and I made a bet that whoever guessed the date our first son would be born, we'd be able to get anything we wanted, within reason. I wanted an Xbox 360®, she wanted diamond earrings. I guessed March 20 and got it right! So on Father's Day, she bought me an Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE membership … She still got her diamond earnings. ;)

TriXie: Good boy, any woman who goes through childbirth deserves some bling. What's your Xbox setup like?

Slinkyart: I've got a modest setup, 42-inch Sony HD, 1080i. And an off-brand surround sound system that actually sounds pretty dang good! With two little ones sleeping upstairs though, I can't have my volume too loud anyway. 

TriXie: You know what rules for not bothering other people when you're gaming? The Ear Force X3 wireless headset from Turtle Beach. You can hear game audio plus the voice chat. I make my son wear them when he's on his fifth hour of Mass Effect™ and I can't take it anymore. Seriously, they rule. What's the best feature of Xbox LIVE?

Slinkyart: I absolutely love being able to get on and play a game with my closest friends who are around the country. We can get on, put our headsets on, and play games and talk like we're all in the same room!

TriXie: What do you think is the best game of all time?

Slinkyart: Wow, another toughie. For me personally though, I love the Sid Meier Civilization series! Every time there is a new one or an update, I buy it. I was very excited to hear that Sid Meier is bringing Civilization to the Xbox 360.

Sometimes, Tom Clancy can bring one to tears.

TriXie: What's the funniest thing you've ever heard on Xbox LIVE?

Slinkyart: Playing Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six® Vegas online and there was some other guy who was literally about to start crying because he kept getting killed so much. He was new to the game and didn't know how to play very well, and he was getting royally pissed!

TriXie: What is your greatest Xbox LIVE moment?

Slinkyart: Rockin' 40 terrorists in Rainbow Six Vegas by myself after the rest of my team got killed during a "Terrorist Hunt."

TriXie: Who is your inner rock star?

Slinkyart: Neil Peart. I've played the drums for the past 15 years, so I like to jam like Neil when I'm behind my kit!

TriXie: If they made a movie about your life, who should play you?

Slinkyart: Jim Carrey, definitely. When I get in the right mood, I start acting like him and have been told I look like him several times (more so when I was younger).

TriXie: What superpower would you like to have?

Slinkyart: For the Dane Cook fans out there, I'd like to be able to shoot spaghetti out of my finger tips … cause nobody wants to be covered in spaghetti!

TriXie: You kidding? I would pay ten bucks to be covered in spaghetti by Dane Cook. If you could trade places with anyone for one day, who would it be?

Slinkyart: Someone who was super rich and I'd spend a few million during my day as that person, so I'd have a bunch of nice things when I went back to being a regular Joe.

TriXie: What celebrity would be the worst roommate?

Slinkyart: It's a toss up between Brett Michaels and Flavor Flav.

TriXie: Hot celeb you'd like to be stranded on a desert island with?

Slinkyart: Jessica Alba.

Marcus gets a lot of votes as favorite avatar.

TriXie: If you could be any videogame character, who would it be?  

Slinkyart: Fenix from Gears of War®. Dude has a chainsaw on the end of his gun … that's badass.

TriXie: What's the worst food you've ever eaten?

Slinkyart: I cannot stand tomatoes! Blyuck!

TriXie: What's the last book you read?

Slinkyart: Warner Bros. Animation Art [by Warner Brothers, Will Friedwald, and Jerry Beck].

TriXie: If you could go on tour with any band, which would it be?

Slinkyart: Pillar. They're a pretty hard hitting Christian Rock band … amazing music, amazing lyrics, great guys.

TriXie: What do you predict will be the "next big thing" in gaming?

Slinkyart: I am hoping the "next big thing" will be that we don't need to buy games from the store anymore and we can just buy games right online and keep them on our hard drives, just like downloading an Xbox Arcade game. That way we don't have to worry about getting up and changing a disk, blah blah blah, we can just go to the dashboard and choose the game we want.

TriXie: What do you think is the best thing about the Xbox 360?

Slinkyart: Honestly, I'm addicted to Achievements. Playing games is fun of course, but when you see that little Achievement icon pop up, there's something really gratifying about that! Now, if we could turn our Achievement Points into Microsoft Points, that would be GREAT! Hint! Hint!

TriXie: What is the Xbox 360 Achievement that was hardest to get?

Slinkyart: I'm still trying to get it, but the five interceptions with any one player in a game on NCAA® Football 08.

TriXie: What would you like to be doing in ten years?

Slinkyart:  Still illustrating and animating and doing character design. Maybe even doing some character design for a game.

Interview by TriXie