Duration: 3:39

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But I didn't equip the right Badges for this one!
twitter.com/yuugijoou
discord.gg/bKT9pRW

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I recently found myself with a bit of a... fixation, I suppose, you'd say.

I will not ever actually refer to myself as an "artist" per se, because that is inherently demeaning to those who have honed their craft to the point that they can make a primary living from it... ... ... er... despite all the challenges that come associated with such, which makes me respect the craft all the more, while I'm content to merely play in the garden now and again.

Of course, that's almost as ridiculous as my proclamation that I will not consider myself a "writer" despite the fact that there's copious amounts of writing on the wall just with the video descriptions (...that nobody reads, remember that! It's the law of YouTube. You're breaking the law RIGHT NOW!) that could be used as damning evidence to the contrary.

There's also the fact that my primary professional training gets... significantly less than useful application by comparison, so maybe I can't demand people recognize me as a "scientist" after all...

Do they still take job applications for the position of "renaissance woman"? I'm willing to work my way up to it, if the entry level position is "laureate" or "village idiot" instead. Just as long as they're room for growth!

But I digress, as I often do. This IS, however, about "growth"... as... some kind of immaterial, metaphysical sort of measure for... um... just how much trouble I can create. CAN, whether or not I actually SHOULD. That kind of thing. Dangerous!

Case in point, as a the-not-artist-STILL-rather-than-formerly-known-as-Jo, I am at least intrigued by the concepts behind art. Especially the art of others. And what really IS art, if not the "hey, that looks neat, I wanna try me some of that!" of a bunch of deranged hooligans armed with media and means to inscribe it?

Which leads to some truly dark and dangerous thoughts. Terrible thoughts. Crazy ideas!

"What if I attempted to do something in the style of: ...?!"

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This time, I chose "paper"... erm... I mean... uh... "Paper"! As in the style of Paper Mario. A deceptively simple style, you'd be forgiven your naïveté if you thought such a blasphemous thing at any time, possibly being "disappointed" that the pedigree of Mario RPGs skews this way compared to the unusually detailed renders used as the basis for THE Super Mario RPG... before they wisely chose to downscale the uncanniness out of the representations, somewhat akin to how Donkey Kong Country looks so interesting at miniature scale, but when you start making things bigger within the technical limitations of the time... they get... less Donkey Kong Country and more... um... Donkey Kong Country... ... ... the television series. (I will give you a moment to recover from that banana slamma.)

Anyway, as a firm believer in "less is more" (then why do I feel like my presence on YouTube is anything BUT a testament to practicing what I pretend like I preach? ...because I don't really do that either, I just stand on a soapbox once in awhile saying "thing good!"), I considered this to be a merely adequate challenge of geometric variance.

I was very wrong.

For starters, paper... "people"... in the Paper Mario sense... are... not very... "people-y"? I may not be willing to consider myself many things, but "people" is one that I'm charitable enough to concede. Sometimes.

Well, Paper Mario's actual anatomy is. Nonfunctional, to say the least. Which is impressive for a guy like him to be as endearing and enduring an icon as he turned out to be.

Paper Peach is a lot less weird, of course... she's actually shockingly on-model, I guess.. except you'd never know, since she's covered pretty much entirely from chin-to-toe, but there's only a very slight amount of concession to simplicity made in proportion. Unlike the mischevious little gremlin that is (not even JUST Paper) Mario, anyway.

So, the style is simple enough, but it got REALLY weird to try to contemplate the remainder of what I needed to account for, since I definitely wanted to scratch both itches, but didn't even stop to consider WHAT needed to change if I wanted a "people"-plumber instead.

Suffice to say I no longer wish to admit how much I've been forced to consider the underlying anatomical construction of paper people.

I wasn't ready.

(I like the results here, though. it was fun! ...when it wasn't nightmarish in-between.)