From the Shadows is the new website by Master hunter, Quite possibly Sonic and Sonic Team’s Number one fan. It’s designed to be an integrated version of My Blog, My Art and My Fan fiction. I’ve also made a “The 3 Shadows” section. The 3 Shadows if you are unaware is my spin off universe based in the past of Sonic the Hedgehog, starring Shadow the Hedgehog and my avatar character Joz the bat aka Master hunter.

 

The name From the Shadows is partly due to The 3 Shadows but also from the fact that I feel overlooked. I know my art isn’t amazing and I know Fan fiction doesn’t have quite that big a following but I still appreciate comments.

 

So how about a little introduction.

 

My Real name is Joseph Rafferty; I am (as I type this) 23 years old. I’ve been a Sonic the Hedgehog fan since the start, 23rd June 1991 for those who don’t know. I’ve always had my own interpretation of Sonic, but stick closely to the SegaSonic Universe. He’s been my hero ever since ’91 and I see no reason to change that.

 

The screen name Master hunter related more to Resident Evil than anything else. A couple of friends and I decided to join a message board called Resident Evil Extreme. This was around 1999. My name comes from one of the Monsters in the series, the hunter. With hunting playing a fairly big part in Sonic Adventure 2 I felt no reason to come up with a Sonic based name when I joined the forums at Sonic HQ. Sadly I am no longer a part of either but the name has stuck even on general gaming sites such as the awesome Total Games. Net (or TGN for short).

 

Joz the bat grew from the screen name. With Sonic of the Past in the planning stage I needed a hunter for my new team. Going with a time is cyclic / grandfather theme I create Joz to be Rouge’s Grandfather. Hence why he is a white bat. Master hunter was too codename like to be a real name so I just used my own. I don’t recall why I gave him the sword so don’t ask.

 

I didn’t really express myself creatively until around 2001, shortly after the release of Sonic Adventure 2. The story left a lot of gaps to fill and like any other Sonic fan I theorised ways to fill these gaps. My first Fanfic was The Seven Chaos Beings, which became a very different explanation to what I use now.

 

I came up with the idea of The 3 Shadows back in 2002, when it was Sonic of the Past: The Shadow Chronicles. It was never really decided whether or not it would become a full series. Then it died for a while until I joined Fanfiction.net. In the summer of 2004 I remade Sonic of the Past into a full-blown series called The 3 Shadows. As I type this I am on my Ninth Episode, with a ‘feature’ also in progress.

 

I also liked to do the occasional sketch to back up my fics. By the time June 2005 came along I had plenty of art, mostly made by myself, to back up my fics. I decided to make a low key Deviant ART. Then I acquired Photoshop 7 and things started to pick up with the help of an old friend and some experimentation. In September of 2005 I discovered Sonic Hot Dimensions and Becky Moore who had created an awesome SA shading tutorial (that’s Sonic Adventure style shading).

 

Going back to October 2004 I had discovered Blogger and created my Blog. I keep updating it even though I’m sure I’m the only one who reads it. Still I’ve put a hell of a lot of work into this and I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who will read this.

 

Oh well. Enjoy my new integrated site and don’t be afraid to comment. I started my own art Blog for the specific purpose of allowing you to comment.

 

Oh and if you’re wondering what TwinSeeds is (part of the URL) it is my web space. During my years at uni I did try and create a site to honour Sonic team and this was TwinSeeds. But I gave it up as it was just too much work for one person alone. FTS will purely be about me and Master hunter.

 

Once again enjoy the site.

 

- Master hunter