My new day planner arrived Monday.
I’m still very old-fashioned and carry a day planner. I have been carrying a Hobonichi for three years now because of its convenient size, but mostly because I can accessorize it with Earthbound/Mother stuff. My 2017 planner arrived Monday and since unboxing it I have put it all back together to open again on New Years day when I will make my first entry.
A week of Dank Art & Streams
I wasn’t feeling great on Monday & felt rather sick. I was on a really good run with my art from the weekend but I got taken out a bit when the sickness settled in. I still tried to give it a good shot and make a few things for LordBBH, Aquas and Macaw45‘s streams that evening. I always look forwards to whats going to happen on BBH’s Mame Roulette on Monday’s since it’s so random and he manages to play a lot of freaking games in the span of 4 hours. Some Mondays I manage to whip out a small pile and other weeks the chips are down and I only get a few good ones that are relevant to the stream. I don’t really know why, but I had a slight smoking theme going for all my arts that evening (i’m really proud of that smoking Aliens piece). During his stream, Aquas was playing some Assault as part of his practice for the 1CC Marathon and if you haven’t checked out this game it’s not your average shmup tank game. Assault uses two arcade sticks to maneuver the tank as well as the buttons for shooting. It’s simple when you get the hang of it, but most people would be intimidated when faced with something that steps out of the comfort zone of a regular arcade setup.
Macaw was playing this very bizarre PC98 game called XZR which he got ex_Mortis to play on stream a few night earlier. This game is really out there with an Arabian Knight style theme to it, collecting every sort of illegal/legal drug possible, killing Ronald Regan and a cameo easter egg by Robocop. Yeah. I get a lot of messages in my inbox about these strange old Japanese games I watch and do Dank Art for. I wonder if any of my translator friends would be interested in working on localizations of some of these games- I know many of them are as I keep finding old fan translations they worked on like 10 & even 15 years ago… wow has it really been that long?
I love watching arcade games on twitch may it be emulation using MAME or if people are crazy enough to capture and stream arcade boards. A lot of my love affair with arcades comes with the nostalgia of growing up thru the glory years of the late 80’s and early 90’s, but mostly because one of the first and only reasons I bought a computer was to emulate arcade games. My first official “windows” machine was my then boyfriends old Quake computer and he was nice enough to set it up for me with a SNES emulator so I could play Earthbound & FF6, but i’ll never forget the day he came over and changed a bunch of things on it so we could play arcade games. It was just as complicated as it sounded, the two of us with our heads together sharing one keyboard to play these games, but it was a big life changing experience for me. It’s really hard for me to emulate arcade games now as I am on a full Mac setup at home for my media/photography work. However if I keep working and saving I can get the set up I’ve always wanted in my place and get my hands on arcade experience at home.
I wouldn’t be making Dank Art without the person streaming & I wouldn’t be sharing it without the chat. It’s almost like sharing an opinion or joke when you write it in the chat. I just do it with a drawing. I always try to relate the work to what the streamer is playing or capture a moment. The only thing I really take from it is practicing my own skills at drawing and painting. In an ideal crazy world Dank Art would make me very popular and make me lots of money but thats fantasy and crazy talk. I am more known for my work with painted landscapes, photography and my writing. The Dank Art is done out of my love for games and my enjoyment & friendships made of those who play them. It’s more about who’s playing the game then myself and if I could encourage anything it would be to get more people to be creative when watching streams. Show your love for games and those who play them by sharing your work in your best medium you can and don’t be afraid to do so.
SRKFunkdoc is switching up his X-Men game after a strong consideration that Dazzler won’t stand a chance in 1CC Hell against Magneto and is now learning new strats for other characters with less than a week left for the 1CC Marathon. All of his other games are naturally on par and tight as I have to expect with the caliber of player that Funkdoc is and if you are a fan of any of the games he plays you should check out his stuff. He’s a very detailed player and will go into detail on all the games he’s playing so that if you want to pick them up yourself you can make strong progress by following his advice.
Macaw played more X68000 games which is a system I know next to nothing about. I’m glad he does stream these games as I would know nothing about them if he didn’t. The cool thing about Die Bahnwelt was one of the people who worked on the english localization of the game was in chat that day so it was even more exciting to do Dank Art for the stream. It’s one thing to work on a labour of love which is localizing a foreign game, it’s another thing to see someone appreciate that hard work by discovering it and creating something for it. Another great reason for streaming :3
Games for Charity
I love it when people get together and combine something they love to do so they can give back to those in need. You’ve probably already heard a few oft the players talking this up during their streams, but I always love to talk about cool events happening and even more so when charity is behind them. You should totally go and back the Arcade Superplay Expo if you haven’t already as a lot of the players who I follow here are in this and it should be a great weekend of games. Check out this link and follow!
Gimmick Plushies!
Ultra rare and stupid cute, it’s Mr Gimmick!! In plush form! My ultra talented friend Eyes5 is a sewing genius and has a cute little Etsy shop where she makes things. If you want one, you better let her know because I think these will sell out fast in her shop. Follow here to check her work out! Trust me, she’s amazing!!!
Fall Fair
The Fall Fair is an annual fall tradition in my home town of Milton. It’s the harvest festival and when I was younger it was heavily focused on showing off our community’s agriculture heritage and pride. Since the farms have all but vanished around here it’s almost surreal going back to the event that refuses to change in my life.
I went alone but I knew I was hopeful that if I went I would bump into someone I knew who’d accompany me on some crazy documenting adventure. Though it is nice to walk around by yourself to get really interesting photos it’s a lot more fun when you have someone with you.
I eventually ran into my Magazine Editor and his son who I walked around with (and went on rides with) while I showed them how easy it was to periscope things and I periscoped a few rides.
I am a writer and a painter but my professional background has always been photography. When I was old enough to go to high school I pulled a few strings so I could go to this one school in town that was the only one that offered photography. My family was really poor in those days and I needed $100 to just take the course to pay for the chemicals and materials. My principal called me into the office and wanted to know why I wanted to take photography and I showed her the ‘Zine I had created in grade 8 and explained to her that I wanted to be a better photographer so I could make the ‘Zine that I had better and more visual. I think she was so moved by the fact that I was 14 and had this crazy passion to combine not just my own creative elements into one package but I was encouraging others to do it as well and paying for it all out of my own pocket. She paid for me to take those classes and if I could thank her every year for doing that I will.
I’ve had some successes as a photographer but success is all a matter of perspective. I hated the years I laboured as a family/baby photographer. Yes I hated it. I know 90% of people who live in my community have a family photo that I took of them and when I see that stark white background with the chipper smiling faces starting back at me when I stand in the hallways of my friends houses I cringe. All I can see is the physical and mental anguish I went thru working for that company. I was #1 in sales for 5 years in a row nationally for the company, but thats a load of dingo’s kidneys when your quality of life is so low you want to die. Those were dark days for me & part of the reason I suffered thru it was because of the terrible relationship I was in. All I remember was my feet & legs were in bandages, I wasn’t sleeping at all, I was smoking 2 packs of smokes a day, working 60 hour weeks when I was on salary and I would sit against a wall at my now ex’s dumb family functions straight after work still in uniform smelling like sweat and baby puke loathing my very existence so he could buy garbage and porn.
I’ve worked for newspapers and magazines and currently I freelance a lot of my work for Magazines and Social Media sites simply because they pay. I’ve moved further and further away from doing family portraits to capture more of what I’ve always had a passion for which is journalistic style photography. I love capturing the moment, the landscape, where we are and to ask questions on how we got here and where this adventure will take us. I am very good at what I do and I still take on the occasional family or wedding session, but I don’t want to advertise it as much. There are so many other talented people out in my community who have the space and the resources for that and I’d rather just be me and do what I love rather then bust my butt for something I’m trying to get away from.
I love life and I want to live for me. I don’t want to die doing something I loathe just to make someone else happy. That’s what real freedom is. I’ve been searching for that answer for a while now and recently I just got it figured out.