Hey everyone. You may or may not have noticed that I haven't been particularily active in the last couple of months. So here's the deal:

The "Delicious Slackers" was going along nicely until I ran out of one of my key materials. I don't currently have a job so until I do, I won't be working on that one.

Aside from that, I've been having a really hard time deciding what I want to do. After playing a game, I'll have a moment of being really excited about making a particular character. Then, I'll decide that it would be redundant to just re-create yet another game character. There are lots of game-related sculptures I've considered, but that thought always hits me and I lose my will to sculpt.

So alternatively, I've been also thinking of some original sculpts. I had one that I was pretty excited about and I even worked on it a fair bit. I gave it a break for a while and now the idea doesn't seem as fun as it originally did. Recently, I have been making plasticine sketches of some interesting creatures. If I don't have any reference for a sculpture, I have/get to decide how detailed I want it to be. This could be a good thing because then I don't have to copy. There's an even uglier side to this dilemma. I'm worried that I have set unrealistic expectations for myself. This is likely a combonation of comparing my work with the work of other, (much more expirenced/skilled) sculptors on my watch list, (If you sculpt, I'm probably talking about YOU), and also, I seem to look at my most detailed sculptures and convince myself that anything I do now needs to look at least as good as that.

When I browse my gallery, I enjoy looking back at almost every sculpture, but some of them stand out so much more than the others. I really want my gallery to be full of stand-outs. Look at this guy's gallery: [link]

I think I opened about 95% of his deviations in new tabs so that I could full-view them. Usually, I just try to pick the thumbnails that look MOST interesting so I don't have to spend too much time looking. That was impossible when I browsed through his gallery full of unique and interesting creatures. I would love for my gallery to have the same impact on people.

In fact, I'm confident that if all of my most detailed sculptures were on one page, I would rarely want to look at any other page. I need to do something about this. I guess I'm just not in a sculpting mood these days. It happens, and then I come back with a burst of sculptures.


On a much brighter note, I recently picked up an NES. I had one for a little while when I was very young, but not since then. I actually picked up three NES games last year, just for the hell of it: Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid. Yeah, I had to have the "big three".
So I started playing Zelda on Saturday and I found that the controls feel MUCH nicer than using the GameCube controller I had used in my previous attempts, (I have the GCN Zelda collector's disk). Maybe it was the controls or maybe it was just because I knew I was playing it on an NES, but I felt much more ready to sit down and just wander around in Hyrule to see if I could find anything useful. I've always remembered this game as being incredibly difficult, but strangely, the game gets easier as you go on, though there are a few exceptions to this rule. The main reason is because you get more hearts, so common enemies are much less troublesome. Also, if you really take the time to learn the areas, it becomes much less taxing to get to the next location. I remember finding myself doing circles when I first tried this game. Anyways, I found it to be surprisingly addictive. It's one of those few games where once you start playing it, it's hard to find a reason to turn it off. There's always something to do or somewhere to go which, I found to be the total opposite until last weekend. I actually spent about two days playing it, almost non-stop. Sickening, I know. Finally, I beat it on Monday. Man, that felt really good. I only used gameFAQs at one part and I'm really glad I did. You get to an area with a repeating screen and you need to know to go: up, up, up, up in order to make it to the 4th(?) dungeon. How the hell was I supposed to know that?

Yesterday, I gave Metroid another shot. I have it on GBA with Metroid Zero Mission, but it was more of a novelty to me. While the game is really, really hard, I seem to be progressing pretty damn well. In case you're interested, I've found the Morphing Ball (duh), Missiles, Long Beam, Bomb Ball, Ice Beam and several missile/energy expansions. The password system is a pain in the ass, but I think I'll be able to stick with it long enough to beat it. I've decided not to use one of the many maps available online. Instead, I think I'll draw my own. That's the way people did it back in 1986. That's the way I'll do it now.

Whooo that was long. If you've made it this far, shame on you. Go do something else.

... and thanks.