Custom PS Vita Grip

I call this the Tooth Grip hehe

Ah yes, the PS Vita, a handheld console some people call the PS Muerte but even so, I managed to get myself one at a steal price, it was still smooth and barely have any scratches, also my favorite color too. The local Target Mall in my town (Should not be confused with Target Malls in the US) has these stalls selling electronic gadgets. It was a pretty good price that was hard to pass up and the Vita was on a low firmware, which means I can do a lot of things with it.

I bought it and while playing Final Fantasy Type-0 on it, my hands began to hurt a bit which means I would need a grip. Sadly it's hard to get accessories in my place and I couldn't find one that also has a face cover, most of them has the face exposed and I don't want that.

So what to do? Well, since I have a lot of scrap wood lying around, I made the grip myself.

A few scraps, a bit of time, and a bit of ingenuity, I managed to make a very comfortable grip.
Carving up the wood to shape to act as the handle and making wood clay out of wood soot and saw dusts.

I used wood stain and a bit of varnish to finish off the grips.

The grips were attached using wood glue, it is strong enough to stick
to the crystal case but is also easy to remove with force if I wanted to.
Maybe after two years it would pop off on its own without leaving
any residue.

From scraplings to grapplings...
I know it doesn't make sense.

Kind of looked like two canine teeth, it's irregular shape makes it a bit realistic. My brother thought it was a pair of horn. One of the wood was hard to carve up. It has become too old and tensile which makes it hard to carve so as you may notice one of them is slightly thicker than the other one. If I force it, it would break.
I'm very happy with the results, and I didn't spend money on it, except for the brush and lacquer thinner I needed. The rest were sourced from my art studio, I just have them lying around.

I prefer not to be a human so adept in consumption especially on my hobbies. I know it's so easy to buy a grip out there but the earth's resources are finite. I didn't want to import, just imagine the carbon footprint that would incur but people don't think about those things, they just mindlessly devour stuff.
I'd rather make use of the things I have lying around and I also got rid of the stuff, at least somehow.

Next project would be a grip for my New Nintendo 3DS that can be used even with the TPU case and can be attached / detached easily.

New 3DS Face Plates on the Cheap

Fire Emblem Fates Skin on Third Party Face Plate

I recently got my MHX New 3DS bundle from Japan and one of the things I was excited about it was the ability to have interchangeable face plates. Unfortunately, New 3DS face plates don't come cheap, they usually come in prices above $20 and in my country, almost double the price because of importation taxes and nasty sellers taking advantage of its scarcity.


Third Party New 3DS Face Plates and Skins
So when I bought my New 3DS online in Japan, I also bought third party plain colored face plates that come at a fraction of the average price and decided to just get decals or skins on the plate.
So above is a sample of plain black face plate with Fire Emblem Fates skin, the design is not the exact copy of what the original face plate looks like but it is pretty close.

Not bad :) for a skin
The difference between the original was Takumi's location, and
the proximity of Joker and Felicia

The background is also different from the original but all in all it's
a pretty close match. I tried to get a high res photo of all them and this
was the best I could find.

The plates that came with my New 3DS was the MHX plate and it was pretty awesome but I also wanted to give my idea a try so I would probably be using my Fire Emblem Fates plates for now.

The original face plate

I was pretty happy with the results of the decal because I didn't spend a lot of money on it. I saved up a lot and it looks pretty good even with my clear TPU case on.

Below are photos of the plate I bought, in black to match my new 3ds.

One thing I really like about this method is that the designs available are limitless, I can also just paint on the plates if I wanted to. I bought a couple more plates so I would definitely go crazy one of these days and have an awesome one of a kind plate for my New 3DS.

Revival of a Long Lost Console

Swwweeeeettt !!

It took a while for me to find my old PSone console that was tucked away covered in clothes in a tight box in one of our storage rooms at home. It was still in good condition but the adapter seemed to be busted. It is a non-modified US region console and what a sad life it is that it's actually a pain in the ass to get original games nowadays.

Retro gaming isn't really for me, I find it a little bit daunting and ridiculous at the same time to be collecting old consoles when I live in a third world country where I know, someone must be starving out there and would probably do something bad just to get something to eat.

I was thinking of just selling this thing and just moving along with life then I remembered how I was able to get a hold of this. It was a parting gift from my ex-girlfriend, something she left behind when she finally took that plane for the US. Never did see her again afterwards. I'm not a very sentimental person, so I was prepared to fix the adapter and sell it online, people are now collecting these "retro" consoles, especially if it comes with the LCD screen combo.

I saw an ad of someone looking for it, hit him a message and told him I have the combo. Though I didn't know the price it's going for, it seems that the guy looking for it was a terrible cheapskate. He only offered P1,000 for the set and I laughed within myself. It is equivalent to around $25.
I decided to just keep it for myself. I'd rather have it displayed in my room as a keepsake and reminder that I was loved by someone out there who somehow understood my passions for gaming, than have P1,000 in my pocket.

Hopefully still has some life to it?
I had to use a saw to gently open its sides.

Now the headache of retro gaming occurs, I'm not exactly a retro gamer but I do have old consoles lying around somewhere and I still play some of them once in a while. I've been into handheld gaming recently ever since we've thrown out all televisions at home and we've decided to just have a library.
Getting a decent adapter was a bit easy but the guy that sold me one online through my online ad didn't exactly give me a very good one, it was good yes, but the cord already has a sweet spot but I'm happy that it was a 220v adapter because I was set to buying one from Japan which would be a 110v.

Well now that I finally got it to working condition again and found some games to play on it, it is now on a corner of my room. Fire Emblem Fates have taken up most of my gaming time, and I also have work so I had to schedule a bit.

It really fired me up a bit trying to get this thing running again. I wouldn't want to do it again though.
The PSone is considered retro now... I'm getting really old...

Videogames Before Books

Shin Megami Tensei Strange Journey on the Nintendo DS

Video games were the first form of media that I preferred consuming, starting at a very young age considering I was born on the late 80s and had spent terrifying amounts of time playing famicom games, this form of media was a sure fire way to get anyone's attention. So, doesn't that mean that it is the perfect media to teach children wonderful timeless stories of the past and to provide educational learning?

Today, we can see that kids are glued to tablets and iPhones playing some game. Of course, the games they're playing were probably just funny things that doesn't make sense and won't add any sort of value to their lives but they sure are having an awesome time.

I learned how to appreciate playing a good JRPG game first before reading a book. It was only later in life did I actually start devouring books but playing video games was a huge part of my adolescent life. Now I have more books than video games and I'm considering turning one of the rooms at home into a library. Half library, half gaming room to display some of my console collections.

Books and video games in terms of entertaining its audience are on the same level, but people don't really see video games as a form of art as opposed to books. Literature is considered as the highest form of art and video games, to this day isn't even recognized as an art form.

There are a lot of reasons why that is so, but as a person who enjoys playing video games, I for one appreciate it as an art form and people should start recognizing it as one. Video games has a lot of depth, structure, and concepts, that go along with it. It is a combination of literature, illustrations, motion picture, it provides experience to most human senses, and most importantly requires volition from the player, the ability to follow one's will in order to progress deeper into the form of art that video gaming offers.

As a first post to my first gaming blog, follow me in a strange journey of discovering the artistic concepts of video games and contribution to humanity through discussions, features, and more!