I turned 23 earlier this week, and as people often do when they grow a year older, I started thinking back to my younger years. I have done a lot of growing up, but there is one thing that has nearly always remained constant: I loved video games, and spent nearly as much time writing and drawing about them as I did playing the games themselves.
This morning, my mother surprised me with a big collection of drawings she had saved from my childhood. Sadly, they were but a tip of the iceberg of the art that I cranked out as a kid. Much of my artwork has become lost in time, left behind during moves or casually thrown away. But I was happy to find there were a few real gems in her collection that were video game related.
We are all familiar with the Ashley Davis who writes and draws about her favorite video games today. But what about the young gamer she once was? Keep reading, and I will share with you some potentially embarrassing pieces of my past.
Watercolor and pencil on computer paper
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island
was one of the games I was completely enthralled with because of its gameplay and style. That, and I just really loved the Yoshis. In addition to my love for feathered creatures, I have also always had a soft spot for lizard types. This painting was one of my earliest watercolor pieces, chosen to try and simulate the artwork in the game.
The Yoshis and the way their world was designed would go on to influence me for many years after I lost access to the game itself. In the seventh grade, I had a big project in my world culture class where we had to make up our own species with their own culture. My species were essentially redesigned Yoshis, and I made a little diorama with these creatures made of clay. I’m even currently working on an oil painting featuring these guys.
Pen on computer paper
Now that I really think about it, a game’s character had a lot to do with what games I really loved. And being a child who was mostly attached to her Sega Genesis, I was of course very keen on their speedy blue mascot.
Sonic was probably the character that I doodled the most as a child. I can quite clearly remember drawing him running across all my assignments in class, drawing comics of the video games, and even making Sonic and Tails t-shirts with puffy craft paint. Yet somehow, none of the artwork of him has survived over the years. Instead, my mother saved this drawing, which is one of my many attempts at making my own character to fit into the Sonic universe. I can’t quite tell if he is a squirrel or chinchilla, but he has a cool hat (check) and fast shoes (check), priming him for a world full of fast mammals and robot animals to be bounced upon.
For obvious reasons, I don’t quite care for Sonic as much as I once did, but there is no way to ever banish him from my heart completely.
Colored pencil on old, discolored lined paper
As far as drawing went, I had a love/hate relationship with Earthworm Jim. I was never satisfied with how I drew him. I just wasn’t used to drawing big muscled super-suits. But that didn’t stop me from trying again and again, nor did it stop me from loving the hell out of his games.
Colored pencil on computer paper
Psycrow was probably my favorite of Jim’s enemies. I never much cared for villains as a youngster, so I believe that this is one of the only instances in which I drew a scenario where a bad guy is winning. To my recollection, this was drawn a few months after the other, and my skills in drawing Jim had greatly improved.
My love for Earthworm Jim as a character did not ever surpass my super obsession with Sonic, but he is more important in that he greatly influenced my growth as an artist. Through Earthworm Jim, I would discover his creator, Douglas TenNapel. Especially after The Neverhood, TenNapel would grow to be one of my biggest artistic inspirations today.
Words on computer
Finding all these old drawings made me look to see if I also had any of my old writing. I did not come up with anything that was on paper, but I did come across this old text file.
It wasn’t until my earliest days on the internet that I started to write things that were video game related. I had gotten Pokemon Red and discovered fanfiction around the same time, which resulted in stories about wild Pokemon from their point of view. Sadly, I was only able to track down one of these pieces, which is by no means my favorite (my favorite being a story about Clefairys running a bunch of evil scientists out of Mt. Moon), but it is all I have to show now. It’s really embarrassing in that I use the Japanese names for the Pokemon in the story (for those of you who don’t want to do your research, Burakki is Umbereon, Yamikarasu is Murkrow), but I actually wrote this before Pokemon Gold/Silver was even released in North America, so the Japanese names were the only thing I had to go by.
I still find joy in writing about video game characters, but not in quite the same way. My approach is now a lot more analytical and more based on facts, but the connection between my current works and these old stories is quite clear.
Now that I’ve really looked back on my past, I find it interesting how thse childhood mannerisms have grown along with me, and have shaped themselves into my attitude towards gaming today. I am less dependent on interestingly designed characters, but my love of the art within video games has grown from that initial state. My passion for writing about games stemmed from cute stories about Charmanders gathering apples.
It’s amazing how much things can change over the years, and yet, stay the same.
