Feet of Clay

Alright, so... I made a mistake in the Enemy Characters translation, and (whoops) it's a pretty big error that's thrown some folks in the MOTHER/EarthBound fandom into a state of confusion. I should address it here, as its own post, so consider this something of a press conference (or a public apology, take your pick).

At the very end of the section is a short bio for Tottori, the man who created the clay figures for the game. Yes, clay figures, not papier-mâché as I mistranslated. Cat Blackard of the MOTHER, She Wrote podcast had been speaking to Camille Young (known for her incredible clay sculpture work), who was reportedly confused when the former mentioned the official figures as made of papier-mâché, quoting my translation. Apparently it's impossible to get papier-mâché to look that smooth (I wondered about that too, but as this isn't my area of art, I'd just assumed a professional could work wonders with such material).

It gets even more embarrassing. The kanji used here in the Encyclopedia (紙粘土) is pronounced kami-nendo, and speaking as one who played MOTHER 3 in Japanese at release (long before the fan translation even came out), I should have remembered -- nendo means "clay". Specifically, 紙粘土 is paper clay. How it escaped me to look this up on the Japanese Wikipedia in the first place boggles the mind.

I won't make any excuses. I knew how important this information would be to the MOTHER community, and I distinctly remember looking up the word's definition more than once just to be sure... but oddly enough I must not have Googled it or anything.

So... yeah. Sorry for all the confusion, everyone!

(This is what I get for not branching out into other forms of art than drawing.)

I'm Alive! ...And I've Been Interviewed!

Hey guys!

I’m alive! Unfortunately, no new Encyclopedia MOTHER update. I can’t apologize enough. I know how patient everyone has been with me, so I owe you an explanation.

Things sort of exploded in late 2022. I’ve been working at the local grocery store since then, as well as some volunteer work, and then there’s one other thing —

A very, very large project I was working on (*before* the project you’ve been following) is now on serious time-sensitivity. I thought I could put it on hold to focus on the Encyclopedia, but this is something I’m doing in collaboration with one of my irl friends, and there was a misunderstanding. It turns out it demands my immediate attention. (Can’t say much at the moment, but I’m illustrating a children’s picture book he’s written.)

I’ve found, when I attempt to juggle projects, things don’t work out too well. It causes burnout on a cosmic scale, and instead of one nicely polished, completed product, I end up with several things lying there in an unfinished state. So I truly hope you’ll all understand if it takes a bit to see the Encyclopedia through to the end. Fortunately, I’m in the coloring stage of the children’s book, so it won’t be much longer before I can return to the MOTHER-related goodies we all know and love.

Through all this mess, somehow, I was able to find time to be interviewed recently by a longtime MOTHER fan, YouTuber Remie_REM_Sleep! That’s the video above. It was a blast getting to talk one-on-one with a fellow creative and somebody who knows all about EarthBound Beginnings. We also talked about other stuff, like our favorite childhood movies and other things from pop culture. I spoke about things that influenced my art, answered numerous questions provided by other MOTHER fans, and I even tried in my own clumsy way to articulate what it is about the first game in the trilogy that makes me love it so much. So set aside 2–3 hours and give it a listen and subscribe to his channel!