Knitting & Sketching in Princess Peach's Haunted Castle

Ooh boy today is a very big day, whether you’re waiting to pick up your Nintendo Switch or already playing it at home Nintendo’s brand new console releases today!

The Launch of a new Video Game Era; The Nintendo Switch!

This machine caught my eye the moment they revealed it, with it’s untethered portability, Joy-Con controller options and great graphics & power the Nintendo Switch is looking to be one of Nintendo’s best yet. Of course the 9 games (Including Zelda, Super Bomberman R, 1-2-Switch and some new Shovel Knight games.) released on launch are only the beginning, kicking things off with Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which also released today, the Nintendo Switch will be releasing tons of cool games over the upcoming year, many unannounced as of yet.

Photo Provided by Nintendo.com

It’s amazing how far we’ve come since 1983, the year Nintendo (Who were already successful on the Arcade side and their dedicated console series; Color TV Game.) released the Famicom and brought the Home Video Game console out of the Video Game crash. Despite a rocky start by the end of 1984 the Famicom was souring with popularity and Nintendo decided it was time to bring its Family Computer to the outside world, though under a different name. You may recognize the Famicom more by the name the Nintendo Entertainment System which released in America on October 18^th, 1995.

The Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES for short brought 8-Bit Arcade Video Games to your living room on your little box TV. (I miss those old TVs.) 17 games released with the Nintendo Entertainment System, those being 10-Yard Fight, Baseball, Clu Clu Land, Duck Hunt, Excitebike, Golf, Gyromite, Hogan’s Alley, Ice Climber, Kung Fu, Pinball, Soccer, Stack-Up, Tennis, Wild Gunman, Wrecking Crew and the one and only Super Mario Bros. The NES was a complete success, selling 61.91 Million units world worldwide. Nintendo would go on to produce newer and better Video Game consoles for years to come such as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the Nintendo 64, Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo Wii, Wii U and now finally the Nintendo Switch.

I’ve never actually owned a Nintendo Entertainment System; I’m probably way too young to even think of it. I was born during the last moments of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and the birth of the 64. Despite this I have experienced many of the NES’s wonderful games through the means of the Virtual Console present on the Nintendo Wii, 3DS and Wii U. Would be nice to one day hold that little rectangular controller in my hand. Oh yeah the Nintendo Entertainment System had a bucket load of accessories like R.O.B. the Robot, the Zapper and who could forget the Power Glove? (Did that thing ever work?) Of course some of these accessories weren’t great but you truly were Playing with Power with the NES.

Switching back to the present time (See what I did there?) the age of the Wii U is coming to a close. The Wii U was a mixed bag when it came to opinions on the console but I always loved and still love the Wii U and its ability to play games off TV as well as retaining the ability to play the old Wii games. It’s one of my favorite Nintendo consoles and I definitely won’t be shoving my Wii U in a cupboard, hopefully it’ll stay running for years and years to come. The Wii U has some wonderful games on it such as Mario Kart 8, Super Mario 3D World, Super Mario Maker and Super Smash Brothers. (As well as quite a few games I still don’t have yet.) This new era of the Nintendo Switch is really exciting so let’s see what’s in store for us? Super Mario Odyssey is possibly my most anticipated game for the Switch right now, despite not coming out until this Christmas but I just realized that Project Sonic (You know, the blue Hedgehog.) 2017 is coming out this on the Switch as well as Sonic Mania. I’ve actually been getting in the Sonic mood lately so I’m excited to see more of those games.

ZAK's Super Mario Maker Level Feature:

Peach's Haunted Castle Created by... Me!

It’s been awhile since I’ve brought this game back up on the blog and I apologize for those who wanted more Mario Maker but here we go! Yes Super Mario Maker is returning once again and why not celebrate the release of the Nintendo Switch by having you boot up your Wii U to play this new level I’ve uploaded?

So I’ve been working on and off this level since 2015, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with it, it’s been sitting in my maker menu for ages. Well late last year/last month I started working on it again and I’ve finally finished it for all of you to play! It’s called Peach’s Haunted Castle, I’ve literally recreated Peach’s Castle to the best of my ability, at least the outside of it. There’s a little twist to it so let’s introduce this level with a little short story/description.

After returning from far-reaching journey in the Monty Mole Kingdom our Red & Blue clad Plumber Hero known other then Super Mario discovers something amidst in the Mushroom Kingdom. Wishing to visit Princess Peach at her castle and discuss his adventures with his lovely Princess Mario finds Boos, Goombas and other Baddies loitering around the Castle Grounds. Immediate concern wiped Mario’s cheerful expression off his face as he makes a bee-line straight for the Castle. What’s happened to Peach’s Castle? Where is the Princess? Is this one of Bowser’s hair brained schemes or maybe King Boo? These questions run rampant through Mario’s mind as he takes on his newest challenge, a completely warped version of his beloved Castle.

Take on Peach’s Haunted Castle as you assist Mario in collecting Red Coins, unlocking locked doors and making your way through the different platforming puzzles as you try to reach the end and the answer behind this shocking transformation! Just boot up Super Mario Maker, go to the course world and search by the code ID: 3727-0000-0309-6CC3 or by following this link to my Mario Maker profile: https://supermariomakerbookmark.nintendo.net/profile/ZmanStar?type=posted.

Not exactly sure how hard this level will be, it's probably not my easiest level I've ever made but I’m quite happy with how it came out. Did I add too many Boos? If you want your level featured here on ZAK Entertainment hit me up in the comment sections or on my social media! I’ll gladly play your levels, feature them on the blog and maybe even record myself doing so on my in the works Gaming channel. I actually will be having a story go with all my future levels I make and actually this first level will be the beginning of an actual story arc in a way as to make uploading these levels to the blog more fun and enjoyable, plus I love to write stories so there’s that.

Slow Knitting on Afterthought Heel Socks

Before you knitter fans of mine ask, yes I have actually been knitting. It’s been a real slow progress but I’m still working on my afterthought heel self striping socks.

Progress would probably be a lot faster if a certain incident didn’t happen… While using a pair of scissors I gave my index finger a really nasty cut. So now my finger is completely covered in bandages and plastic making it really hard to knit, as this is normally the finger I use to hold my left needle, whoops. The cut wasn’t bad enough to completely stop me from knitting so I’ve gotten a bit done on my sock, it’s just a lot slower and will be until this finger heels. I actually have to use my middle finger to hold the needle now, is that rude? It probably is. Here’s a comparison with my last update to actually prove progress has been made.

See? At least I’m working on it a little bit. Speaking of socks take a click back to Wednesday’s Blog when you have the chance! I feature this awesome Free Knitting Pattern from Cookie A called . It’s a really wonderful looking sock that I want to tackle myself in the future.

Sketching An Artist Beginning (Starring Aeris Eclipse)

Finally, as I also announced on Wednesday, I’ve begun a journey as an artist. For the longest time I’ve been doing graphics and vectors but I’ve finally put those skills to use to create art of characters I’ve been dying to visualize for years now. Check out my first Vector Art of an original character I’ve been brewing for years called Aeris Eclipse on Wednesday’s Blog! Today’s art progress though is a little more on the sketchy side… Literally I’ve been sketching.

Yup I’ve been practicing my hand drawing and I have to say I’m not doing too badly for someone who’s barely done this. I really want to kick this into full gear and start doing my sketching, it’s not just nice to get my characters visualized I really enjoy sitting back and sketching as well, it’s relaxing almost.

Yes I’m still using the same character to practice with, Aeris Eclipse has been in my head for years now and I already know what I want her to look like she it’s a lot easier to practice with her then any other character. Probably could practice by doing some fan art of favorite characters as well actually. Anyway I’ve also been practicing a profile drawing.

Not bad eh? It’s amateurish yes but I shocked myself at even being able to do this, I’ve never been good at side views and if I could find an old example I would show you how silly I used to draw.

I also attempted a ¾ angle sketch of Aeris.

Did pretty well for my first time ever doing a ¾ angle sketch, yeah I’ve NEVER tried this before. I really want to practice my angles and get good at them. I really wanted to do a full body of Aeris as well so I decided to use my first sketch and add onto it.

It’s not finished yet but I’m doing great so far. I’m surprised it’s coming out better then what I thought it would, maybe I do have some raw talent buried deep inside me somewhere. I’ve decided to completely dedicate this page of my sketchbook to Aeris and once I’m done I might go ahead and scan it in and color it, or use a lightbox and color it in by hand after marking out the line art using said lightbox.

We got a new lightbox actually it’s really thin but really good so I’ll take about that in future blogs. Until then though it’s time I call it the end for today. Enjoy your weekend everyone! Also enjoy your Nintendo Switch if you bought one! Also don't forget to check out my awesome sister at ladyannavintage.blogspot.com she's a lot more artistic then I am and has wonderful artwork and photography on her blog!

That’s a wrap folks!