I've seen a lot of artsy stuff on here, but one thing I don't see a lot of is stuff in three dimensions. Some of it's pixel work, some are sketches, some are tablet works. Well, I'm not an artist (anymore), but in high school, I was in a ceramics class. And I made a few things of varying quality.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a genius when it comes to art. I suck at drawing and I did have some degree of skill with clay, but deadlines and being only able to work about an hour a week was a bit of a pain. That and when the materials you work with can as easily work against you, it's not really easy. So here are a few things that I did way back when.

And yes, there's some video-game related stuff here. We'll get to that in a sec.


Would you believe this is a teapot? Yes, I realize that it's incredibly massive. And yes, I realize it has no handles. But come on, it was around fifty pounds, and I didn't have the kind of technical know-how to make a handle that'd handle this beast. What's neat about this one is that it had two sealed chambers. You'd pour whatever out of the mouth of either the snake or the fish, and you could store two different things at once, though of course it'd be a rotten pain to pour this way. The snake lost his teeth around the time I took this picture.


And this side's the fish. Yeah, not really a good fish, but I had to have something to go with it.


This was supposed to have Whispy Woods. You know, from Kirby? Yeah. Don't say a thing about its anatomy, but the glaze I used really didn't turn out the way I expected at all. You'll see this a lot, sadly. That's one of the bad things about using the stuff. It can turn out amazingly well, but it can also go disastrously bad. The stuff I used here was supposed to have been almost a wood-grain look, but it's like I slung mud at a mound of butter. I didn't get to make a fake leaf canopy so it just looks ugly as hell.


This is the opposite half of the evil >:( sun from Super Mario Bros. 3. I could've done some more work on the corona effect, but good God that is a ginormous smile. The paint I used wasn't glaze, but it was fired in a kiln on the clay work the same way, just that it wasn't shiny or anything. It didn't turn out too bad, though I goofed up doing the eyes if you look closely.


I'm not entirely sure what this was supposed to have been. A little image of Sonic yes, but did that blue turn out dark. I know Sonic is a lot lighter, but again, the glaze did its own thing. Still looks great, just not accurate.


And this is probably the best thing I ever made. Mind you, this was in 2004, before Sonic Heroes and 10 other games came out. Shadow still had just the one appearance. We were told to make a bust of something. Naturally, I could've gone with Sonic, but where's the challenge with that?


The hardest part of course were the quills. Sonic's go downward, but Shadow's bend back upwards. Naturally, clay doesn't like doing things like that, so it still baffles me as to how they even stayed. Not one broke off after I set them on the head. I had only a handful of images to use as reference and this was as best that I could remember.


The most disappointing thing was, again, how the glaze turned out. The black wasn't consistent, and the red...God, the red. It looks pink! Of course, red is one of the hardest colors to work with because of its activation range, and I had a poor selection of glaze (as it was all teacher-provided). I managed with what I had, but...


It would've looked a lot better had the colors all turned out the way I wanted. Of course, it was a school project, but I actually put a lot of effort into it, unlike most other things. Amusingly enough, of the things that broke/fell off, his nose and chest tuft were the only casualties. The quills are STILL on there to this day!



Here's a few more assorted pieces. I did a skeletal set of dinnerware (which turned out well enough for how difficult it was), and put a couple other pieces on display.

So yeah, there's all that I had to say. I actually do miss working with clay. Don't get me wrong, I've had my share of projects just completely explode in the kiln, or something go terribly wrong, and so on. I had quite a bit of freedom too. My projects were literally vague. "Make a dinnerware set." "Make a bust of something." And I was let go to plot. I really pushed to involve gaming into my work when I could because it was really important to me, and really, I wasn't really so creative on my own, so I tried my hand at recreating something like Shadow with my own hands. And for the most part, it worked out all right.

The bad thing about clay is, unlike paper and pencil, you can't just make something cool anywhere. And it's pretty pricey too. Even if you do scrape together some clay to use and shape, you still need a kiln to fire it (well, you can leave it as-is but it won't be as strong). And then it'll still need color. You can use acrylic paint, but that usually leaves a dull look. Glaze makes it shiny, but it can be inconsistent and nearly impossible to correct.

But damn if those weren't some great years I spent in Ceramics class. Thanks for reading.

Pardon the groan-inducing pun, but I found a few things while I was out, and purchased a couple said finds. This is VGR, if you can believe it.

I'm not sure if this applied nationwide or what, but the Goodwill stores in this state (Indiana) all had half-off deals for the entire store. Usually, only select-color tags for the day are half-off but today was some nice exception, so my family decided to hit three nearby ones to see if we could find any great deals.

At the first one here in my hometown, I didn't find too much. There were nice shirts, and that wasn't too bad. Dad found this one and I had to get it:

Soulcalibur IV t-shirt, in my size no less! What you see is the back, and the SC4 logo is over the left breast part in the front. Hey, as if I don't have enough gaming shirts, right?

At the third, I found this:

Gunstar Heroes for the Genesis, with the original case, manual, and cartridge. All for $5.99 (or $3.00 today only). This was quite surprising. I also found Sonic Spinball but I didn't open it up to see what all was inside. Oh yeah, and there's a reason why I went out of order on my finds/visits. Because at the second one we visited, I found...


Holy shit. I made the stack myself, but I don't need to tell you what's in this picture. Apart from gems of Sega's console legacy (there was a PS1 nearby but I didn't want to insult the beauty of the shot).

Now, while that's all fine and good, there's a problem with all of these, mainly in that requisite cords were absent. What good is getting a system of antiquity when you can't really use it? And even for collection's sake, it's subpar because they're in varying stages of use/abuse.

But I still got a Dreamcast. For $3, no less! Though all it has is a power cord. I could've had all three for $9 today, but there wouldn't really be a reason to outside of bragging rights/trading. I can't do anything at all with my DC but turn it on (which I'm surprised it even did so), and I've have to hunt down cables and controllers and VMUs and games...yeah...

But I've got a Dreamcast. Shame this didn't come a whole eleven days ago.

I got this email today, and I'm sure a lot of you did too, but I'll go ahead and copy-paste what all it says:

Play Shaiya and Fight for an Alienware® M17x Laptop
It's the Shaiya 1 Million Gamer Giveaway! From 9/1 through 10/2/09, Aeria Games is celebrating 1 Million Shaiya North American Gamers by giving away 4 Alienware® M17x laptops.




Here's all you have to do for a chance to win:

* Register a new account with Aeria Games between 9/1 and 10/2
* Log into Shaiya and Play to level 10





That's it-- you're entered to win your Alienware® M17x laptop. Shaiya is a stunning free-to-play fantasy MMORPG that immerses you in a massive war between the forces
of Light and Darkness. The Alienware® M17x laptop is the premium gaming laptop for playing Shaiya.

To get more information about Alienware gaming laptops click here: http://www.alienware.com/AlienNews

For more information about the Shaiya 1 Million Gamer Giveaway click here: http://shaiya.aeriagames.com/promo/1-million-player

There, that's all. Now, as you're aware, Destructoid has its own contest running, where you have to reach Level 5 by the 23rd of this month, I believe. I don't see anywhere in the contest rules that you can't be entered in both contests (though I can see that counting as "multiple entries"), and it'd be somewhat amusing if you could use your Dtoid Lv5 character and boost him/her to 10 and apply for both contests.

I read the rules (and you can too, second link above) and I'm surprised you have to be 18 or older to enter. Also, while anyone who can play Shaiya English can enter, only those in the US will receive the laptops; everyone else gets an equivalent prize ($1800 USD) in Aeria Points payable within three months of winning. Not really a fair trade, but at least you still get something if you're not in the US.

I dunno if I want to go through the trouble of downloading this game again and reinstalling and everything. But in any case, thought I'd share this info with you all, and good luck to those who enter (or are entering again). =P

So one day, I was browsing Destructoid as I usually do.

See? There I am, doing as I said. WHEN SUDDENLY--

A package ap--draws near, I mean!

zomg! Well, first things first. Let's open it!

The weird armor of the package prevented me from tearing through it easily. My teeth were--

Oh wait, this is how you open it. Whoops.

After many minutes of struggling with the package, I got it open! Inside was what looked like a black...box of some sort, possibly of alien origin!

Or the box for Wind Waker.

"Woah."

Inside the case was the original manual for Wind Waker, as well as Twilight Princess for Gamecube!

"Yay!" How quaint, it fills my need for a Wind Waker manual and case! But wait...Twilight Princess...?

I have it already for the Wii. D:

DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNNN.

Thanks Arttemis! :D Hopefully you get your package soon too. I traded him my Legend of Zelda Collector's Disk (had two NES Zeldas, two N64 ones, and a demo of WW) for his WW case and manual, and TP GC. Which I may actually play. We'll see. Thanks again!

Author's Note: I wrote this a few days ago and kept this hidden until now as things in my current situation have fallen through completely. I know this isn't the place but I needed somewhere to bitch. Sorry. =P tl;dr is "lol relationships" if you don't care to read.

For a few years now, I've had two pages bookmarked, things I look at occasionally when I need to, to be inspired or whatnot. The first one is a rant about how women keep going back to their abusive boyfriends/husbands. The second is a much longer read, another thing about women going for "bad boys" and pass on people who would treat them well, as well as an interesting experiment. I have my own little tidbit to throw into the fire here.

Suicide is a touchy issue for me. As far as I know, no one I've personally known has offed him or herself, but I'm now up to three people (all women) who have at least told me of their intent. The kicker? All three were about guys--the very same ones they were dating.

The first one was ironically enough, about me. It was my first relationship, and this was in high school. I had flirted and done the cutesy note-passing crap we all did back then, and I found myself in a relationship. For a week. I saw her once over Spring Break and spent time with her, and within about three days, she broke up with me. Over an offline IM. What gets me though is that she felt so badly about doing whatever it was to me that she wanted to "cut (herself) until the pain goes away" and self-destruct for the most part. Now, despite the fact that we weren't anything at that point and I wasn't able to get attached to her in such a short time, I still did my civil duty and talked her out of it. Was she serious? I have no clue--I wasn't about to take that chance, honestly. I managed to talk her down but we drifted apart after that. That's fine and all.

The second one was with an online friend, who happened to also be in an online long-distance relationship with someone several thousand miles away on the other side of the world. She never met him, by the way. She "dated" him for a few years, and she took the news of him finding a real-life girlfriend a bit hard. She was a student at the time and said to me that she was just going to drive recklessly to school, probably cut over the center lane...once again, I couldn't tell if she was serious. But given how later on she could make herself sick by thinking about him or if anything that reminded her of his RL girlfriend came up, I can't help but think she was serious. I managed to talk her down too, pretty much told her to stay home, don't go out, don't fucking kill yourself because of someone like that. The cruel thing was that she continued to get into online relationships after this. In fact, she even got back together with the guy who drove her to suicide in the first place! How the fuck does that work?!

And that leads me to the most recent and currently final entry today. The third one is someone who I've tried to be involved with lately, but she wound up getting a boyfriend while I was in the process of asking her out, so things have been weird. I did manage to ask her what she wanted out of a relationship and she wanted something serious, not something physical. So imagine my skepticism when she texts me one day calling herself a whore. I manage to get enough out of her that she gave her boyfriend head and that was the main reason she felt that way. I didn't get any more information beyond that, but moving on. So she suddenly changes her tone one night as I'm talking with her, and apparently her boyfriend put a week-long talking ban on her because she friended a guy online, which he called "going behind my back." She didn't take this well at all. It was even worse for me because I had feelings for her, and I had all the more reason to stop her. How am I supposed to know if she meant it? I'd rather try for no reason than come to find out she wasn't kidding around.

She didn't go through with it too, but she also went back to the boyfriend who made her feel like a whore and was petty enough to block her for something stupid. I especially like the parts where she wants to mutilate him but still sees him fine enough to date. Maybe I take too much stock in what people say?

Yeah, three's enough. I'm sure many people could talk their friends out of suicide without a problem. Some friends may pull that shit often. Some people do it for attention, and some may be serious. But I just can't do it, talking people out of such a thing. If I were poetic, I'd say something about how it wounds my very soul, but it takes a lot out of me and it honestly depresses me too. Why did these people look at that first when things go poorly? I know my point of view is different because in most cases, I'm on the outside of the relationship so I can see everything in a different way, but two friends were deluded and so attached to someone that they thought death was better than being without him. And those two wound up going back to their boyfriends. #2's boyfriend fell too deeply into an MMO to really pay attention to her (online relationship and all) so she called it off, and #3 is too recent to tell things*. For all I know, they'll break up again this weekend and this nightmare carnival will start anew.

I don't want to do this ever again. At least, find myself in a situation where I'm gonna have to convince someone to not jump or put the knife/gun down or step away from the noose or...whatever. I'm too nice to just allow someone to do such a thing. I've been fortunate in that so far, all of my encounters with such situations have been online. Anyone who knows me personally says how articulate and wordy I am through text, but in-person am so quiet and hard to talk to. I fear the day that I'm going to have to do this in person.

I know I'm complaining. After all, two of the three wound up going back to the very people who brought them to this early conclusion. That boggles me. It's like...you blow off your fingers playing with firecrackers. Do you honestly keep playing with them? Oh, I'm sure some do. But others see the risk and say it's not worth losing more fingers or a whole hand or whatever. What is it that drives those who keep playing with something dangerous? With the firecrackers, they may be thrill-seekers and risk-takers of the highest degree. But I can't wrap my head around bad relationships. Why go back to him if he treats you badly? Why go back if he makes you feel like a whore? Why go back if he drove you to suicidal thoughts?

Maybe that happens when you're really into a relationship. I wouldn't know. #2 was long-lasting, but #3 hasn't even dated for a month and she went off the deep end over nothing. I just can't understand.

*Update: I have decided to break off contact with #3 for the most part. She's crazy. I mean, she actually told me that if she got angry with me, she could say that I raped her. I haven't been alone with her away from the public eye and I've been nothing but a good friend to her, and she says something like that? Fuck you. And her boyfriend has done nothing but insult her and has even quite plainly broken up with her, yet she still went back to him because "it's a challenge." She even sees that their relationship is going to fail! So why...?

But whatever. I'm done with this, rant over. *throws down drumsticks, walks off field*

Pictured here are the first two Viewtiful Joe games, Eternal Darkness, Killer7, Zelda Wind Waker (in the blank box), and Devil Survivor. I got DS on my first trip to GS today, and while the only employee was chatting it up with his friends, I decided to go check out their used game section. I was actually surprised to have seen all of the ones I got today, especially Killer7 and Eternal Darkness. So after some time back home to replenish my wallet, I returned to the store and got the other five games. Kicker? All but Zelda have manuals too. The discs for all don't look too bad, and I have seven days to see how well they run.

If I ever get around to playing them by then that is.

DS was $29.99 plus tax, and I got the rest of the five games for just under $55, so that wasn't a bad haul, seeing how the most expensive games were ED and WW at $17.99 each, then K7 at $8.99 and both VJs at $2.99 each, which is ludicrously cheap. I'm already poor, but it's a miracle I didn't look at their cart-and-a-half of PS2 games. D: I'm kinda sad that I didn't get WW with a proper case or manual, but I'll take what I can get. *shrugs*


Also, here's a shot of Earthbound running on my TV. I recently hacked my Wii, and come to find out, it runs SNES games incredibly well. Better than what my PSP can do anyway. And, it's not like I'm gonna get Earthbound on the Virtual Console anytime soon, so I'm managing somehow. I'm just glad to be able to play these games on a TV again.

Now to make room on my shelf for all of these games!