I’m Glimmer or sometimes Alder, though when I’m not being a weird raccoon gremlin on the internet, my government name is Mariah Sherman. Born on September 23rd, 1994 (29) in Washington state, I have grown up and lived here my whole life. Only recently did I move from Lake Stevens to a small tourist trap town related to some popular movie. (If you know, you know. If you don’t, you’re missing out on nothing) I’ve always been close to the woods and some body of water, they’ve definitely played a huge part in world development in my stories. I have two amazing kids and a wonderful partner who I live with and they currently take up the majority of my time other than my full time job as an accountant. (I know, not where I thought I’d end up in life.)
I’ve been online for a long time, since long before I should have at the age of 8. It’s honestly hard to remember if I started out just browsing fan (Sonic) websites or if Neopets was my gateway to the internet, probably a little bit of both. Through the fan websites, I discovered DeviantArt and this was a huge turning point for me as I finally felt like I’d found a place where I fit in since I didn’t get that in school. I started out there as ShelaFox, but my names have changed a lot over the years. I went from that to DannyAzazel, to KingAvaricious, and then finally at the beginning of 2017 is when I split my private and public personas into GlimmeringAlder (public) and Aldersmoke (private). After a bit of an “online hibernation” as my offline life got very busy, I started to evaluate what was better for me. I realized that maintaining two different personas was too hard for me and I felt disconnected, so I made the choice to have one username for it all. That’s how I landed on GlimmerGremlin. It’s a new era for me online and I’m going to keep it fun, that’s what life is about.
My artwork has been one thing that’s also drastically evolved and changed over time, as my interests evolved. When I started to take it seriously, I started out with drawing Sonic characters on whatever paper I could get my hands on and assorted Crayola products. With my parents being supportive in my pursuit of art, I got my dad’s old scanner and then my first tablet and a (bootleg) copy of Paint Shop Pro 7 to go with it. Since then, digital art has been my main way of doing art, though I do still dabble in traditional media (with better tools than Crayola now). My digital tools have also changed, I now use screen tablets (XP-Pen babee) and Clip Studio Paint EX as my main art program. When I first started my digital art ventures, I was drawing anime style and some Sonic-anthro hybrids. Over time I got away from Sonic style entirely, focusing on my humanoid characters. Over time I added more styles and interests to my art, evolving into what it is today. I’m able to draw a wide variety of things, but cartoon anthro animals are still my favorite.
When I first started my art adventure, I didn’t start it with the idea that I was going to make comics, much less webcomics. If anything, I had the most interest in getting a job in the gaming industry, or at the very least become an animator. I had interest in becoming a “mangaka” at one point, however that interest died when I moved away from my anime phase. Then while working on what I planned to be a written novel, a friend of mine made a drastic choice to make their novel a webcomic. I was already a fan of what I knew about the novel, seeing it come to life in webcomic form was a huge inspiration. It also really made sense, I’d tried to do a few comics in the past and never made much progress, sure, but it was something that kept coming back into my life. Not to mention the amount of webcomics I read and enjoyed enough to purchase books and/or merch of. So fate was sealed and I started Underworld Nightmares in its webcomic form. While I have shelved that project for now, the ideas for webcomics never stopped and likely never will. While I could pursue having my comics published through someone, I enjoy the freedom of self publishing and the accessibility of webcomics.
Overall my life is art, comics, and online creative spaces. (I’m counting Neopets on this creative online space list, this ain’t up for debate.) My main fandoms these days are well, Neopets, and Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss, all media that lives or was started online. However I do have interests outside of these things, such as video games, music, crochet, collecting rocks, and being in the woods. You may see some of those things here eventually, as I expand out the sections with more stuff.
So that’s me, the full time mom and creative, accountant by day and raccoon gremlin by night! I hope you enjoy hanging out in my little zone on the internet.