Oh dear, it’s been a long time since I’ve done much on this blog! In real life, however, things have been eventful! I am not quite ready to write about everything, this is more of a post for me to:
- Test out my new computer set up
- Break the seal on my aversion to sharing stuff
- Share these silly but enjoyable drawings & my love of Harvest Moon on the SNES.
My boyfriend has recently been playing Harvest Moon on the Switch’s SNES emulator, playing on the Big TV so that I can watch along and coach him through one of my favourite games from my teens.
Although I had the great gift of growing up in a household with a SNES, I only played this game on our family PC. This not-exactly-official emulator was a real treat for me – exposing me to Zelda, Castlevania and, my true love and obsession: Harvest Moon.
Watching him go through the e-motions of bringing a new baby cow into this world after brushing, feeding and speaking kindly to a very round and very lovely mother cow has given me a lot of happiness over the past couple of weeks. Here is my first drawing attempting to capture the beauty of this Farm Story.
On Wives
This is such a sad game for the women characters. Not to get too deep into it, because I guiltily love the wooing and weird sport of selecting a wife from the five eligible bachelorettes in Neighbour Town. They are, of course, simple enough trope characters, with limited chat and therefore limited dimensions. I am, however, full of imagination and the ability to project a million other ideas onto these 16-bit beauties. And I loved each one of these characters, but I always had the softest spot for Nina.
The main sadness in the game is that you woo and celebrate festivities with these colourful characters with their distinct outfits (which suggest distinct personalities), then you marry them and instantly ensnare them in a trad wife terror trap! I wanted to draw Nina on one of her creepy foraging trips into the caves, living her life in the way that makes her happiest.
I’ve also been back attempting to learn Irish with Na Gaeil A Buzz on Monday evenings! He’s fantastic, and I love it. I don’t practice much at all between lessons, but perhaps I’ll give myself a shove to now I’ve got some other parts of my life a little bit further along…
These drawings say (I hope):
Nina: “An leat an madadh seo??” – Is this your dog?? Farmer Lump: “Yes…”
and the second one reads “The hen is annoying me!”
And here we come to another drawing, one I’m much less happy with in terms of outcome, but it’s a complete change in tools!
The drawings above have all been done on my ipad with Procreate. I think that program and machine are great in a lot of ways, but there’s just something about the file management and gesture controls that I haven’t been able to get along with in the two years I’ve had it.
AND I won a competition recently (will post properly about this soon). SO I blew the prize money on a new Wacom MovinkPad 11! Here is my first attempt at drawing and colouring on there. I’ve had a slightly unsatisfying couple of days trying to set up new tech, and trying to get the tablet and my new computer to communicate with each other hasn’t yet been successful…
But, here I am, breaking the seal and sharing some drawings! I have much more to share. Hopefully we’ll be seeing weekly updates on this site from now 🙂 Slán!