Amazing fashion

Design by Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana
Isn't this amazing? The colours and structure is wonderful and the model looks so angelic.

Design by John Galliano
I just love the wig and the makeup in this look, she looks like a little faun, I can imagine her living in the forest.

Space design, not sure of the designer

I love this unusual design with all the silver.

Design by Joseph Font

I have found quite a few amazing designs by Joseph Font, this is breath taking. I especially love the girl with the guitar, her outfit and headpiece is amazing. I would love to make something like this.

Design by Eric Raisina

I love anything intricate put on your head, this is no exception!

Design by Joseph Font
Another beautiful piece by Joseph Font, this is so innocent and sweet and I love the hat. I would love to own this.

Design by Francis Montesinos
This is gorgeous, I love the colour and the jewels.

Design by Jose Castro

I actually found this design quite scary. It is wonderful, the frills completely conceal the model and the red paint on the thigh and glove lends a scary, unknown element to it. This quite reminds me of a monster from Silent Hill, it is a very psychologically interesting outfit.

Design by Kazuaki Takashima

I love the belt and hair!

More paintings

Snail Pop!

Hallucination (for HYSTERIC GIRL)

Circus

Tale of 10,000 heros paintings

Recent paintings from my 'Tale of 10,000 heros' project ^^

boy and girl style

White undershirt: I've had it since I was around 13.
Lace shirt: Matalan
Pants: Ebay
Boots: Primark (£6)
Belt: France when I was 12
Hat: my boyfriends, from Primark
Rose: gift from a lady in the best vintage shop I've ever set foot in
I'm going home for a little while for Easter and I'm going to be going to a carboot sale with my boyfriend, best friend and dad. I'm so excited!

T-shirt: Matalan when I was 15

Belt: same as above

Skirt: Ebay, from my Konata costume

Tights: gift from my mum, dad and nana

Shoes: New Look

Rose: same as above

Just a few outfit photos of things I've worn over the past few days.
The second outfit was inspired by ELLE. I bought the latest issue and read it by the Marina and some of the articles got under my skin so badly that I went home and put together and outfit that directly went against everything they were telling me to do.

I find womens magazines to be incredibly contradictory, ELLE is a main contender in the ranks of those that really make my blood boil.

These magazines, in my view, encourage women's negative feelings about themselves. They want you to think you should be a little thinner, a little taller, a little more tan, a little more pale. One month this facial structure is 'in', the next its 'out'. They focus on fads, of course this is a fashion magazine so fads are the thing.

However all of their articles that aren't focused on how we are somehow not good enough are focused on those people we are supposed to admire for being so individual, for being themselves, for taking people's feelings about them and throwing them out of the window.

I'm sure they realise the irony of their work or at least I hope they do. To encourage you to fit in a box when all the 'creative' ones, all the 'amazing' ones (by their standards) got that way by thinking outside the box.

Do they honestly think Vivienne Westwood got where she is today by following the strict codes of how you should and shouldn't dress?

I want a magazine that encourages free speech, free thought, real freedom. It doesn't have to be 'alternative', it would simply just be accepting of any style with lots of pictures of amazingly dressed people, from rap style to haute couture and all that's in between.

The articles would be written by people from all walks of life and the tone would be more individual. No pressuring the reader to do anything, just showing them cool things, telling them exciting stories and encouraging widespread acceptance of freedom.

I believe freedom brings happiness. These articles I read are founded on bitterness and insecurity, the writers don't seem to want to make women happy, they want to bring them down to their level so that we can all feel unhappy about the same things.

You can change things about yourself but I don't personally think a diet should be the first port of call.

In my opinion a lot of the problems we have with ourselves, even the ones that appear to be based solely on our appearence, actually come from something more deep seated and often emotionally based.

When we start to feel good about ourselves, when we find ways to accept ourselves, often those masses of insecurities melt away to reveal just a few.

Nobody is completely confident about themselves but the tangle of problems that we see before us, problems that are nutured by these magazines, are really not that hard to unpick.

It's like a mass of wires, you look at the mess and think you're never going to be able to find the one you want but when you sit down and start unpicking them you find it's not as hard as you thought and the process can be quite soothing.

We all need to sit down and unpick our own wires. Try to work out what each problem is before we simply jump into a diet that will not only probably make us feel miserable and do nothing for us but also have no affect on our feelings in the end.

So, dear Sweetlings, I would like you to tell me some good things about yourselves.

What is really special about you? It can be anything you like, anything at all.

You are special and I want you to know it.

To start us off here are 5 special things about me:

1. I'm inexplicably drawn to random junk that I find in places like charity shops and other second hand places. I'm especially interested in big, bold buttons and hats. If I see something aesthetically pleasing to me, no matter how useless, I can't stop thinking about it until I own it. I'm a human magpie.
2. I'm really good at picking up 'ugly' things and making them work somehow. My dad marvels at some of the hideous things I've bought before and yet when I put it on people are giving me compliments on it! It's a good thing I can make this work because, like junk, I'm also oddly attracted to really ugly things.
3. I'm a great storyteller, a good writer and good at telling jokes. I'm not a very serious person naturally and I love to make people laugh.
4. I'm not afraid to make a fool of myself in public. I couldn't care less about what strangers think as long as I'm having fun.
5. I get on really well with animals. I've never met one that didn't like me.

Swans and Muscovy Ducks

I love many things in this world and one of the things I love most are animals.
All kinds of animals. I also love taking photos of animals, their personalities are so unique, just like people.
I think I might make this a monthly feature, a big post full of beautiful animals.

An outfit I bought recently.

The pretty side of Video games: Characters, costumes and scenery

In this post I intend to look at the graphics, storylines and character development of two of my recent favourite games. I'm on a constant quest to unearth something beautiful and intriguing to play in a field dominated by macho gun toting men running around the battlefield and I thought I would share these two games with you.
The two games featured in this post are Lost Odyssey, produced by Mistwalker and Eternal Sonata produced by Tri-crescendo.
All images belong to their respective companies.


I do realise a lot of girls aren't very interested in games, if you're not interested in this post please feel free to skip it. Gaming is simply one of my biggest interests and the development of more feminine games is very exciting to me. I am considering these games from a female standpoint so if any of you out there are interested in the development of more feminine games in the video game industry and would feel like giving one of them a try I hope this post will interest you.

Lost Odyssey


Eternal Sonata

I am going to start by discussing Lost Odyssey, simply because it is my favourite game and thus the one I feel I know most about. It's also, in my opinion, the one of the two that is least likely to attract female attention.
If you know me personally then you'll know it's no secret that I'm absolutely obsessive about this game. Anybody I know that likes games has likely had me singing it's praises at them and trying to coax them into playing it.

Now on the surface this game does not have many stereotypically appealing features for girls. The storyline revolves around an immortal named Kaim (pictured above) who is a mercenary.
Personally, as soon as I hear or see any mention of the word 'war' in a game context I immediately switch off and will hardly consider the game further. I find war games truly boring and annoying, a bunch of men running around screaming and loud gunfire does nothing for me.
So it was actually my boyfriend who encouraged me to play this game and the only way he got me to listen was by telling me the music was by Nobuo Uematsu. Really I was never interested in the game at all, I didn't have very high expectations of it and my excitement about playing it was based almost completely around the fact that Nobuo Uematsu has been my hero ever since I played Final Fantasy. The other factor that interested me was that it was developed by Hironobu Sakaguchi who started the Final Fantasy chain.

What I found with this game though was that it completely surprised me. I went in expecting a war game and found a Role Play Game that has almost nothing to do with war. Only one character in the entire game uses a gun (and he's a pirate) and the rest use swords and staffs.

Lost Odyssey trailer

The real story is about a group of immortals who have lost their memories and set out on a journey to regain them and, as in most RPGs, defeat the bad guy who pops up.
The memories of the immortals, in particular the main character Kaim Argonar, are revealed in 'dreams'. These are text only sequences that are accompanied by a few still background images and music.
It might sound boring but if you ask anybody who has played this game what their favourite parts were they will most likely tell you the dreams were the best. They are also a refreshing change to games that require very little thought and are mostly based around strategy. Instead you get to sit back and read a story.

The dreams tell stories of the characters past, all the people he has met and the situations he has been in. They often deal with the notion of life, death and human mortality and frailty. There is a pervading feeling of sadness in all of them as the character recounts the hundreds of losses he has suffered, being unable to grow old with the people he loves. Some of the stories led me to tears, something which is quite unusual for me in literature.
The dreams have the brilliant ability to make you reconsider your own mortality but in a way that makes you feel grateful to be alive and have finite mortality instead of the dream of never ending life. Through the eyes of these immortals, most of whom have been emotionally tortured at some point in the 1000 years they have been in the world, human life, in all its stages, is seen as a blessing. It is a very fresh approach to a subject that has popped up in so many mediums and been explored so much.
When you read the thoughts and disgest them you come to appreciate all the tiny things around you, all the amazing things you come into contact with in the world. Everything seems more precious when we are made to realise that it will not last forever.

Character development and personality is another area that is particularly well executed in this game, in my opinion.
This game brings in a notion which is quite unusual in this style of game in that it introduces a genuinely funny comic relief character. In my experience many video games fail when they try to introduce humour because it is largely not the same type of humour that the viewer might have and it is not relevant to anything that might happen in real life. Secondly I find that humour is especially reliant on the voice and many video games that I have played or witnessed either have very average voice acting which ranges to completely atrocious.

The character that almost everybody seems to be in love with (including myself) is Jansen. He's introduced as a drunk who enjoys sleeping with prostitutes and is paid to follow the two immortals and basically spy on them. He's an overall fishy character who seems like somebody you would absolutely hate, the premise afterall is cringe worthy.

Somehow though they managed to pull it off and make this horny, self obsessed, selfish guy the most popular and loveable one to appear in the whole game.
What makes his character so enjoyable is the fact that he actually has a sense of humour. He's constantly making jokes throughout the game, in fact almost every time he comes on the screen he says something that will actually make you laugh. His comments are always completely unexpected, at least for this type of game, and it catches you off guard.

When you're expecting some sort of lame joke he comes out with lines like "I don't wear out in bed!" or his confusion over how the immortals can remember to shave their legs and pluck their eyebrows but not remember who they are.

In short, his jokes are almost always something you might hear somebody say in real life. His personality too is one many of us have encounted, a guy with seemingly one functioning braincell that goes crazy every time he sees a hot woman.
The voice actor (Micheal McGharn) bought a lot of reality to the role and as a result Jansen changed frrom a potentially disasterous idea into a truly emotionally involving character.
It might also interest you to know that he's the character involved in the main romantic plot-line, in fact even though he's not one of the 4 main characters (he's mortal) his love story is far more prominant than that of the main character.

I also found the range of characters very impressive. The 'party' in this game is huge, in the end you have a total of 9 playable characters. This is much larger than any party I have seen in other games which tend to have around 5 main characters by the end.

The characters in this game are also very diverse. One of them is a Queen, two of them are Pirates one of whom appears to be around 70 years old, one a timid Prince, two of them are mages under the age of 10.
Through such varied age ranges and roles the game explores many different ideas and personalities that tend to get ignored in other games. The characters have many different facets, one who is extremely cocky turns out to have a very insecure side, the shy one has moments of complete defiance, the crazy old pirate turns out to be a complete Mummys boy and class stereotypes and interrelationships with other classes are also explored.

The children are also used to great effect when dealing with serious issues which I won't reveal here. They managed to create kids who act like real children would in difficult, adult situations.

Lastly, the attention to detail, especially in costumes, is amazing. Personally I love little details in pretty much anything but most of all I love good costuming. The amount of detail they have paid to everyone's outfit in this game is wonderful. One of my favourite outfits is that of Tolten (above) whose outfit is made entirely of gold and encrusted with jewels.

Almost everything the characters wear have tiny patterns or textures on them which makes playing with them a great treat. There is always something new to be seen that you didn't take in previously.
From a female point of view I would have liked to see the women a little more covered up, especially the Queen who is almost completely naked. Every female character is quite scantily clad, even the most modest has her chest on display and the youngest member is also a little too underdressed to be completely comfortable.

I know some girls have a major problem with how women are represented in video games and honestly that is still a problem here. Personally for me seeing girls underdressed like they are in video games doesn't especially bother me, afterall I have to see scantily dressed girls when I walk down the street so it makes no difference if it's on my screen.

Overall I would highly reccommend this game to girl gamers (and boys too of course!)
Although it does have some of the problems prevalent in other games (lack of clothes) it makes up for it with an extremely emotional, moving storyline with characters that you can really relate to as well as beautiful scenery, costuming and music.

The thing I like most about Eternal Sonata is definitely the scenery. The attention to detail in the entire game world is breath taking, the colours are extremely vivid and there are so many adorable little things everywhere that you never stop seeing something new. Just today I realised that in one town the lamp posts were shaped like musical notes.

Everything about this game screams "Cute!" which, honestly, is the exact reason I bought it. Upon seeing it on the shelf I melted into a puddle of goo and set my mind on getting it.

The game is based around the life and death of Polish classical musician Chopin. You get to play as Chopin as he explores a magical world in his dreams whilst on his death bed. The game comprises of Chopin's music mixed in with themes that are heavily inspired by his work.
Sound like an interesting concept? This game has one of the strangest plot synopsis I have read in years, playing as a dying classical pianist as he galavants about in a victorian dandy outfit casting magic definitely drew me in.

In my opinion the storyline is not the best. It is not very emotionally involving, quite often I found that I simply didn't care about most of the characters at all and at points the dialogue can get very preachy and annoying.
The voices also are very aggravating, you have the option to turn the dialogue into other languages but both of the ones I tried (English and Japanese) were almost equally annoying and poorly voiced.
This is not to say that the storyline is completely devoid of emotion. The plotline also has some nice twists that I would have never seen coming which makes playing it pleasantly surprising experience.

The two games do share a common theme of exploring mortality, although they are on completely opposite scales. One explores the idea of being unable to die whilst the other is interested in how we handle the short time left before death. I liked this aspect of the game very much because although it seems to be a very cutesy game aimed at children it manages to gently introduce serious elements for consideration.

I wasn't dissappointed by the sometimes lacklustre story purely for the fact that I was playing it for the graphics which are consistently stunning throughout the entire game. Everything is vivid and a joy to look at, running about exploring and looking at the scenery was very fun in this game.

Also I don't think there is a single thing in the game that isn't cute to some degree. That ranges from so sweet it makes your teeth hurt to mildly cute. For example on of the enemies is called "Angel Goat" and is simply a green or yellow goat with a halo. The character graphics are very cartoony but very enjoyable and once again the costuming is amazing.

All of the costumes have a sort of victorian feel to them and for a girl who is interested in Romantic fashion and Lolita and Dandy it was great fun looking at all the little details on everyones dress or coat. Some of the costumes and props in the game are also quite reminiscient of Steampunk which seems to have become very popular of late.

Lastly a great thing about this game is that it is not very stressful at all. A lot of games are stressful for one reason or another, lots of dying, losing EXP, having to replay huge chunks of it and other various problems mean that some games end up being more chore than fun.

If you have witnessed a boy playing a game I'm sure you have seen some game-induced stress, something that I like to avoid experiencing myself at all costs. Nothing puts me off a game like a huge dose of stress and anger.

This doesn't really happen in Eternal Sonata. Of course there are some points that are challenging, if there weren't the game would be completely boring, but there are not many moments that would make you want to throw your remote in the bin and walk off shouting.

The game is also relatively short, it would take me around a week to complete it so it is good fun for something like a school holiday when you just want to relax with something none taxing and aesthetically pleasing. It is also very addictive, my boyfriend started playing it this morning and by the time I wanted to play my game I almost had to prize him off.



I want to make clear that I am simply working with a stereotype of what girls might be interested in with this post and I am largely going off what I myself am interested in. I am not trying to suggest that girls can't like or play more masculine games or that boys can't like more feminine games like these. It's really enjoyable when you can get together and play a game with somebody and I think both genders can really enjoy these games with eachother. Going off my own boyfriends feelings about them I know they can be appealing to both boys and girls.

Hopefully though, if you are like me and are fed up of all the shooting and war games, you might find something interesting about these games and perhaps try them for yourselves. They would be a good way to introduce yourself to the XBOX360 which might previously have been glaring at you from the corner.

Please feel free to discuss your experience and feelings about video games ^_^