#unrelated but i forgot how good this book is. i <3 concept art

[blueskittlesart]

Do you have any theories as to who the BOTW fortune teller was?

It seems odd to me that the whole kingdom would trust some random fortune teller. Wouldn't it make more sense if it were a Sheikah advisor or sort of court official? The Kingdom and the Sheikah certainly seemed to be working together fairly closely, despite the tense relationship suggested between the two

I've wondered if that unnamed fortune teller was actually that universe's Astor

ok i literally had to pull out my copy of creating a champion to confirm this because i wasn't sure if it was a false memory or not but creating a champion actually suggests that the fortune teller may have been zelda's mother. Like the other speculative information in this book (including the link-found-the-sword-at-12 thing) it's technically non-canon, and i'm not sure how much stock i place in it specifically because in her diary zelda herself refers to the person as "the fortune teller" which is. a weird way to talk about one's own mother. However I do think it's entirely possible that zelda was never actually told that her mother was the fortune teller in question, which would make the theory make sense. We know that the fortune teller would have had to be extremely well-trusted by the king for his stubborn ass to consider the information credible and to act on it so swiftly, which is where the zelda's-mom theory comes from, but i'd say it's equally as likely to have been a highly-ranked advisor or court official of some kind.

[sarenhale]

You did a thesis on RPG VIDEO GAMES????? Wow. Shot me dead by admiration. That’s AMAZING. Hope I’ll be able to peak like that someday.

This sounds so enthuasiastic it almost made me think it was sarcasm at first... It isn't sarcasm, right? LOL 👁

Yeah, I went to an art university and specialized in new technology of arts course, basically a huge mix match of different types of digital art techniques (videomaking, digital / analogic photography, illustration, gRapHic DeSIgn, typography, some coding and other less memorable stuff. We were pretty much free to do our thesis on whatever we wanted provided it had some relevance to one of the subjects we studied during our 3 years, and a professor 'expert' in that subject that would follow us in the thesis. We studied videogame theory and history during our last year and since I love videogames I decided to do my thesis on rpg videogames, from the super early years or the first text-narrated computer adventures, to the first rpgs like neverwinter and baldur's gate, to the very first mmorpgs online like ultima online, and then the modern era with more recent rpg examples, talking about the good and the bad, the shifting of the player's perspective and role in game during the years, and all that good stuff. A big part of my mmo dedicated chapter was about world of warcraft, it's a game that has a huge history and played a huge role in videogame history (and my personal gaming experience as well), so it had its own big spotlight in my thesis. Hence the fact that I researched a lot of documentaries, videos, books, articles, news and stuff about people's opinions and experience with games to write some parts of my thesis. A big part of my thesis was also about the Metal Gear saga, because that summer my friend got me into it and it fucking devoured my life- and it's another game that has such an interesting and relevant history in videogame theory and history, because it did so many new things no one else was doing game-wise and story-wise. And it's also a banger of a game that I love.

Since we were in art school we also had to produce an art project to go along with the written researched thesis, mine was a concept art artbook about a possible personal videogame rpg pitch. Basically I created a story, worldbuilding, and four characters with their design and role in the story, all part of the artbook.

It's old as balls now so It's definitely very outdated art-style wise and generally technically-wise, but it was hella fun to work on (even though stressing as shit, I spent my whole summer inside working on this stuff) and my first approach to concept art for videogames, so it definitely has a nostalgic factor to it too as well. It's crazy to look back at it and see how much I've grown as a person and artist.

I managed to find some photos of the thesis and art project if you're interested:

Written thesis:

Art book project:

And oh, unrelated, but I also did a small thesis on synthetic life in mass effect for an other class. I was very proud of this also because my professor at the time was super open minded and interested in my research.

So yeah. Sorry for the huge info/ photo dump but apparently when I'm reminded of things I like, I go WILD and talk a lot. And also damn, I forgot the photos I took of my thesis were so stylish... so yeah! Why not share them here!