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Entry tags:
- ds,
- gaming,
- harry potter,
- ramble,
- tarot
This is dumb nerdy stuff you don't need to read. Really.
Work's been pretty easy-going lately, which means that I've had time to revisit my own projects (personal laptop at work = best thing evar). Namely, I finally have the time I never could spare to compile all the notes I needed for the HP tarot. This nourished some thoughts into old obsessions, so:
Harry Potter:
Have been speeding through the books (halfway through #6, whee!) in order to compile all the character descriptions I can findbecause I'm OCD, and also potentially for quotes fitting the tarot cards. Keep getting the feeling that someone else OCD, most likely Steve Vander Ark, has done this already, but the HP Lexicon is kind of troublesome to browse. Wonder if Rowling had any more detailed image of the characters in her mind, because the same descriptions keep popping up, word-for-word. Wonder if the movie production people were told more of these things - but probably not, seeing how they deviated from even the book here and there.
(Going to totally revamp arts, including card layouts, art style, and character designs. Despite shiny new production-quality figure drawing and concept art skills, going to really need to study how to draw different faces and ages. Gonna take forever. Again.)
Tarot:
Research has also led me to learning more about tarot than ever before. I uhh... "acquired"... a big collection of scans of ~300 decks for reference material. Don't really understand the Thoth deck, and how it compares to Rider-Waite in terms of history, "legitimacy", etc. Obviously it's up to the individual to choose whatever speaks to them more, but how "right" am I to solely stick to what the R-W deck tells me? It makes me wonder about how many professed "tarot experts/makers" just glance at the R-W deck or even just learntarot.com and copy the first thing they see. (I certainly feel quite a bit of "you moron, that's not how it goes" sentiment even just glancing at hardcore tarot forums. </arrogant>) Also makes me feel kind of silly at times to be so anal about research and doing my unpublishable fanart deck justice, but it's not like I'd have any ideas about making an original deck otherwise, so that's fine.
Either way, though, I'm 100% in love with the (Rider-Waite based) Shadowscapes Tarot and must acquire a set the second it is available, regardless of intention to actually read tarot or not. (Will probably read it, just because so pretty.)
Marginally related gaming:
I just found out about the DS game Magician's Quest: Mysterious Times, which is basically exactly like Animal Crossing except you're also a student at a school of wizardry. So far it's not quite as exciting as the premise sounded, but I'm going to keep trying for at least a few more days until I learn more than one spell that I've yet to get working. I think the disappointment comes from the fact that the lessons aren't as well developed as they are in the HP world - it's just "You should do these things in this order okay class dismissed," not to mention that there only seems to be 2 or 3 subjects and they're all variations of incantations. (Where's my Potions? Where's my Herbology? There are plenty of gems/mushrooms/flowers/artifacts I could use for either.) Maybe if we were to have a cumulative test at some point it would be more rewarding.
(It was amusing to change the school bell to Hedwig's Theme, though.)
Speaking of which, even though it's EA licensed-almost-shovelware, I've been entertained by a couple of the GBA Harry Potter games. Wonder if the Half-Blood Prince game might actually be decent? Wonder if they've figured out the hardware well enough that I could cast spells with my Wiimote yet?
(Supposedly Order of the Phoenix was not bad, but I recall the low-res character faces being positively horrifying in the PS3 demo cutscenes. Maybe I could pick up the Wii version for cheap by now...)
I hope to be posting some thumbnail/concept sketches before too long. Would be nice to get some discussion on those, but that might be too much to hope for. XP
Harry Potter:
Have been speeding through the books (halfway through #6, whee!) in order to compile all the character descriptions I can find
(Going to totally revamp arts, including card layouts, art style, and character designs. Despite shiny new production-quality figure drawing and concept art skills, going to really need to study how to draw different faces and ages. Gonna take forever. Again.)
Tarot:
Research has also led me to learning more about tarot than ever before. I uhh... "acquired"... a big collection of scans of ~300 decks for reference material. Don't really understand the Thoth deck, and how it compares to Rider-Waite in terms of history, "legitimacy", etc. Obviously it's up to the individual to choose whatever speaks to them more, but how "right" am I to solely stick to what the R-W deck tells me? It makes me wonder about how many professed "tarot experts/makers" just glance at the R-W deck or even just learntarot.com and copy the first thing they see. (I certainly feel quite a bit of "you moron, that's not how it goes" sentiment even just glancing at hardcore tarot forums. </arrogant>) Also makes me feel kind of silly at times to be so anal about research and doing my unpublishable fanart deck justice, but it's not like I'd have any ideas about making an original deck otherwise, so that's fine.
Either way, though, I'm 100% in love with the (Rider-Waite based) Shadowscapes Tarot and must acquire a set the second it is available, regardless of intention to actually read tarot or not. (Will probably read it, just because so pretty.)
Marginally related gaming:
I just found out about the DS game Magician's Quest: Mysterious Times, which is basically exactly like Animal Crossing except you're also a student at a school of wizardry. So far it's not quite as exciting as the premise sounded, but I'm going to keep trying for at least a few more days until I learn more than one spell that I've yet to get working. I think the disappointment comes from the fact that the lessons aren't as well developed as they are in the HP world - it's just "You should do these things in this order okay class dismissed," not to mention that there only seems to be 2 or 3 subjects and they're all variations of incantations. (Where's my Potions? Where's my Herbology? There are plenty of gems/mushrooms/flowers/artifacts I could use for either.) Maybe if we were to have a cumulative test at some point it would be more rewarding.
(It was amusing to change the school bell to Hedwig's Theme, though.)
Speaking of which, even though it's EA licensed-almost-shovelware, I've been entertained by a couple of the GBA Harry Potter games. Wonder if the Half-Blood Prince game might actually be decent? Wonder if they've figured out the hardware well enough that I could cast spells with my Wiimote yet?
(Supposedly Order of the Phoenix was not bad, but I recall the low-res character faces being positively horrifying in the PS3 demo cutscenes. Maybe I could pick up the Wii version for cheap by now...)
I hope to be posting some thumbnail/concept sketches before too long. Would be nice to get some discussion on those, but that might be too much to hope for. XP