Title: Onett Map
Classification: Cartography
Date obtained: September 2nd, 2024

Description: during my travels at DragonCon 2024 (which you can read more about on the Words page, since i wrote a whole thing about my time there) i got a lot of cool things at the Vendor's Hall. i had a hard time deciding on which one i wanted to give the spotlight, since i want to limit each entry here to one item for any given day. no multi-item posts, and if i obtained multiple things on that day, i'm only allowed to write about one. but i decided that, of all the cool things i got at the event, this was the one i think was the coolest. it's a beautiful watercolor rendition of the city of Onett from 1994's Earthbound on SNES. a pretty well known Mot fun fact is that i really, really love the Mother series, often times going as far as to say its my favorite series of all time (which it is) and despite its boom in popularity over the past ten years, i had struggled to find any fanwork done for any of the games in the series in the Vendor's Hall up until that point. i mean, the Mother games getting overlooked is something that both the series and the fans are (begrudgingly) used to by now, but i was still surprised i hadn't seen any rep throughout the entire day. then, i happened upon the stall of Studio Penpen, a duo of artists based in Athens, Georgia. they do a bunch of phenomenal work with paint, and also happen to be colossal nerds who like drawing fanart of their favorite stuff. if you like what you see in the picture above, i HIGHLY suggest checking out their website and portfolio, it's some truly awesome stuff. one of my personal favorites is their gorgeous acrylic painting of Zeal from Chrono Trigger. i really should play that game sometime...

but let's get back to the piece at hand. it's got so much love and detail put into every inch of the piece, and it honestly feels like if the Town Map you recieve from the Library in Earthbound was real. i especially love how care was taken to add in the little square in the top left that's on the map in the original game, it's a really cute touch and adds a lot to that authenticity i was talking about. as i am writing this, the piece is affixed to my wall behind my computer, and i've no doubt i'm gonna spend a lot of time i should be using to work on videos or school work just staring at that thing. but i think the sacrifice is worth it, it's such a good piece.