³¼INTERVIEW WITH¼³ ³¼R.W.O/KEFRENS¼³ ¹ This time we have caught one of the best graphicians around, R.W.O of Kefrens. So let's jump right out in this revealing interview ! ²Hi R.W.O, even though most of the readers probably know you, we would like you to introduce yourself and tell us about your scenelife so far.¹ Well, my real name is Rene' Wester Olsen. I'm almost 18 years old, and I'm a graphics-artist in Kefrens. I got my machine back in 1988, and before that, I was the lucky (?) owner of a C-64. I began to draw computer-graphics when I bought my Amiga, and after about 2 months, I joined Bamiga Sector One together with S.L.L. After about 9 months, we both joined Kefrens. Later Kefrens died, and we built Hydronic. But after a few months, we rebuilt the forces of the pyramids, because Metallion, Razmo and Mellica was among us. Then the real Kefrens was born to last forever...... ²Thanks ! Kefrens has just released a big demo, Guardian Dragon II, which won the competition at the Hurricane party. Now that you look back on the demo could you tell us your impression of it ( The best/worst parts and what you think could have been better etc.) ?¹ My own favourite parts are something like: The lightsourced megaball, the exploding vectorcube and the Dragon-eye part. The worst parts..... Hmm..None ofcoz!!! Ok, when you have read the story in the introducing once, it's rather boring to read it again and again, everytime you watch the demo. I must admit, that I'm not a big fan of the about 500.000 dots-joke either. Another funny thing is, that somehow some people doesn't know, that this part was a joke, and really believe in the about 500.000 realtime dots!!! ²Guardian Dragon II has in my opinion an excellent design. Could you please compare your kind of design with some other strong ' design-groups ' like Andromeda, Silents and Melon Dezign and how important will you rate the design against code & music (graphics) ?¹ I guess you can compare our design a bit like Andromeda's; Every part has an ' introduction' ( hmm.. almost). The routines doesn't just 'pop' up in a row, like Silents' Hardwired. Of course Silents' design isn't bad at all. I just think that 'part-introductions' will make the demo more smooth and pleasant to watch. ²It was a quite impressing demo . Do you think that it will help you getting more accepted in the scene, cause you have to admit that some people didn't think you deserved the name; Kefrens !¹ Well, the problem was that when we just rebuilt Kefrens, we had 100% friendship and quantity before quality. The time has changed, and now we try to make quality before quantity. The friendship is still (always will be) very, very high rated in Kefrens, which makes the group better, closer and more powerfull. ²Why do you think that people in the first place had a hard time accepting your group after it was reborn ?¹ Difficult to say... Maybe it has something to do with the 'Promax- fever'. Kefrens was well known for Promax's and Metallion's superb coding. At that moment we couldn't deal with that high coding standard, so we had to 'live' on anything but coding, which was quite unreal for Kefrens. Anyway, I'm quite sure, that our 'coding- problems' are history. ²And do you think that Kefrens nowadays are a just as strong team as it was a couple of years ago ?¹ YES!!!! And even stronger.... ²I know that you have had some troubles getting your prize for your 1st place. How are things going concerning this matter ?¹ Yes, just before the winners should be done official, Brian Harfeldt ( main organizer) came to our place, and told us that we had won the demo-competition for sure, but he was terrible sorry, that he couldn't pay us ANY-THING because of a huge loss (approx 100000 Dkr.). Well, we got quite shocked and pissed, but we ( Laxity and me) discussed it, and we felt sorry for him. Dissapointed we took the bus to the ferry, to travel home from a hard week-end. 2 days later, I got many calls from some of my friends. After we left, some other guys got very angry, and sat down in the hall until they was paid. Afterall one of the other organizers admitted to me, that their loss wasn't that big at all!!!! In fact they had 7500 Dkr all in all for the winners. Some guys yelled very loud, and they got some money. The winners from the music-comp. got some of the leftovers (cokes ect.) for their work. Well, after the party (?) Brian Harfeld called me, and told that we would get either 15000 Dkr. or the Amiga 3000 for sure, because he has checked the economy, and their loss wasn't that much. Great! 2 months after, and we never heard anything. Then we sent a letter, that we wanted our money. Later on we got a letter from his lawyer saying, that we would get nothing for our hard work. The main organizers had expected 2700 people, and instead 'only' 00 showed up ( I wonder where the entrance money is???). His excuse was, that the organizers didn't know that Denmark should play football against Germany (Ey, 2-0 rulez!!), and therefore they didn't had a change to cancel it!!! We wrote back, and mentioned 10-20 good reasons to this matter. He couldn't defend our facts coz he wasn't present at the party. He just wrote that he had nothing more to say, than he already had said. And the moral: Never choose a lawyer, who can't defend his sake ( Like: Jaeger & Rambusch/Niels Junge - Kirkegade 1 6701 Esbjerg!!!). ²You have some problems with Melon Dezign. Do you have any comments to this matter ?¹ Well, yes there have been some bugs. It all began at the Aars '91 party. Under the demo-comp. our dentro suddenly went into a software-failure. Laxity said, that it couldn't break down during the textplotter. Some weeks after, Trix of Anarchy admitted to Krueger, that Seen and Paleface wanted the vectors to crash; simply by playing with the level-7 button. They choosed the mem on/off button instead, and the demo began to freeze for some seconds, and went into a guru-meditation. We got very pissed, and told, in an intro, that we didn't like them either. After we won the comp. with G.D.2, they got more angry. They got the 5th place, and that was absolutely unfair (nahh..). Then they made a nice anti-intro for us (Thanx again!). Anyway, just after we rebuilt Kefrens, I heard rumours about, that Seen and two of the former Kefrens members wanted to rebuilt the group, but we did it before them, and this could be the reason why he wanted to ruin our dentro. I'm not 100% sure of the last (99%), but I wouldn't be surprised!! ²Could you reveal some of the new projects coming from Kefrens in the future. I know that you should have released a slideshow called 'Masterpieces'. But I haven't seen it yet ! What have happened ?¹ Huh! Yeah, Masterpieces was a bit delayed. Mellica and I got ourselves new jobs, which take much time. That's the only reason, why the slideshow was delayed for a month (or 2!?). Anyway, when the time you read this, it is already released (Hope so! ed)... Well, our next release is very close. It's some 'guf' for all you techno-freaks out there. S.L.L has done a new Multimegamix-alike, with only power- techno muzak.... Razmo is currently working on the follow-up to S.L.L's megamix. Hawkeye's 'Hardware Heaven' is also 'close to the stairs'. It's a hardware-mag. only to be released once. It contains a lot of cool and helpfull hardware tips & tricks, so all you electrician lovers: Watch out! Furthermore Vention and Zeus are currently working on a trackmo to be released around x-mas. ²Talking about graphics..As a graphician you can't avoid questions about graphics, so let's jump right out, in the questionstorm. So, please tell us a bit about your style and your favourite motives/area ?¹ My favourite area is drawing pictures. Charsets are really my worst nightmare. I really hate drawing those boring letters!! I use the 'chess flour' style; setting every second pixel, to make it smooth and greasy. My favorite motives are ( as you probably already know!?) monsters in all variations. Anyway, in the past few months, I've drawn some human beings too. That is probably some of the hardest motives to draw. If you draw a fantasy picture, you can't say that something is wrong; but everyone knows how a person looks like (hmm... really???), and then it's very easy to discover, if something is wrong. ²A lot of people are saying that you use a digitizer (As they say about any cool graphicians). Have you ever done pictures with that help, and what do you think about these 'rumours' in general ?¹ Well, the rumours are many! I've heard that Facet uses digitizer too, and Uno bought all his graphics from Bitmap Brothers! I don't fucking believe in these rumours! I've NEVER done any pictures with 'help' from a digitizer either. In fact I'm not even sure how to use a digitizer!!! I think those rumour-lovers should think twice before spreading shit-talk like that. Maybe it's just a matter of lack of intelligence, or just some jaloux jerks, who think it is impossible to do something better than they can do themselves! ²I think that you make some really cool graphics. But one time I have been very dissapointed (But then again, only one time !). I'm talking about the first picture in Guardian Dragon. What do you think about that picture yourself and have you regret that you included it ?¹ Ha, ha... Funny you ask! I've regret I included this VERY old picture in Guardian Dragon many times! In fact it was more than 3 years old, when it was used. The reason for this was, that Laxity and I were sitting just the day before the party, with no loaderpicture at all. Well, we thought that it was better looking at something, instead of looking at an 'empty' screen (As I regret later!!), so then we used it!!! ²Does the graphicians-chart in the eurochart fit your feelings about who is the best graphicians around ?¹ It's very difficult to say who really is the best graphics-artist i n the Amiga-scene. Most of the graphicians in the Eurochart have done something good, but also something very bad. It all depends on how much time you spend on the graphics. If you spend plenty of time on every picture you do, they are all great then, but then you wouldn't have time to release much. Ok, you can also use too much time on a picture, which means you will get tired of the picture before finishing it, and then the rest of it is more or less rushwork. Some of the very active graphicians in the Eurochart release many pictures, but they are all very simple. Then again; You can't really say, who is the true number one. ²Please comment on the following grahicians:¹ ³Angeldawn/Scoopex:¹ I haven't seen any pictures from Angeldawn, but most of his logos and charzz are really brilliant!!! ³Fairfax/Andromeda:¹ The med-rez king! Long time ago I saw some Awesome-logos from him, which I certainly didn't like. Some time after, I saw the Titanic-in-the-moutains picture, and it was really cool (keep it on dude!). ³Rack/Majic 12:¹ Rack has done some very good menus and a few good pictures. One thing is for sure, that his smoothings are very good. It's just a shame that his graphics are too alike. He should try to use less than 16 colors on a 'thing', and draw something else on the picture in other colors. ³Cougar/Sanity:¹ Cougar is a very talented graphics- artist. I haven't seen much from him, but what I've seen was really stunning. Well, maybe except for some of his fonts. They were not bad, but his pictures was/are in a lot better quality. ³Hof/Silents:¹ Huh!!! It looks like Hof really got a bright future drawing Amiga-graphics. His picture in Stolen Data was really kickin. The smooth, the palette and the motive are really stunning. I'm really looking forward to see more from him in the near future (Keep it on Hof!!!). ³Walt/Melon Dezign:¹ The graphics in ICE was quite good, but some of the graphics in Humantarget was certainly under the standard! When I first saw it, I thought it was made by Seen! Anyway Walt: Pleaze go back to your old style. It was a lot better! ³Bustman/Crusaders:¹ Hmm.. The man with his very own style!! I must first admit, that I'm not a fan of his style. Anyway, that doesn't mean that he can't draw, coz he can. The best I've seen from him, was the smoking ballon-head used in one of Crusaders' last charts. ²It seems like Uno of Scoopex and Facet/Anarchy are the two most popular graphicians around at the moment. Could you please give us your impression, their skills and why you prefer Uno's graphics or Facet's graphics ?¹ I dunno!!! It's hard to say who is best of Uno and Facet. Uno haven't drawn much graphics, but almost all of it are quality. Facet has drawn a lot of pictures lately ( mostly very simple!) I don't really know whose gfx I prefer. One thing is for sure: They are both very talented, and it's hard to say who is best. ²Ok, as always, the man in question-fire gets the final words !¹ 0hhh.. Hva for noe???? Ild??? Ok, thanx TFG! Once again some lamers claimed to be members of Kefrens, so here are the updated list: Airwalk (Graphics & music) Blizzart (Graphics) Dice (Musician) Hawkeye (Mailtrader) Laxity (Coder & musician) Mellica (Coder) Princip (Sysop, Interchange) Raxor (Sysop, Pyramid Inn) Razmo (Music, gfx & coding) R.W.O (Graphics) S.L.L (Musician) Vention (Coder) Zeus (Coder, modemtrader) Anyone else who claims to be a Kefrens member is rather misinformed, or just plain stupid!!!! On the behalf of the Top Secret staff, I'll thank R.W.O for answering these questions. ³TFG/Majic 12¹