The MOTHER 2
Novel Translation

Illustration Excerpt Part One

2 years, 11 months ago by Chewy

For the illustrations, I’ll provide some more excerpts from the novel–hopefully enough to provide enough visuals to work with. Just a reminder, illustrations should be as detailed and dynamic as possible. Even if you don’t think you have what it takes to make a professional-looking drawing, fanart will be happily accepted for the blog, so don’t let that hold you back!

I hate to screw up the order of the chapters, but I’m going to go back to chapter one and start over for the illustration excerpts. So I’m sorry if it gets confusing when I post illustration excerpts mixed in with excerpts from my current progress. This blog is kind of a draft board, anyway, heh.

The first illustration excerpt is going to be a portion of the novel that I originally intended to keep secret, because I’m still preserving a bag o’ spoilers. I don’t want ALL of the novel ruined before anyone has a chance to read it!

I changed my mind with this part because I thought it would be a fun image to include in the book. I also want to make sure that the images are exclusive to the novel, and not just something that looks straight out of the SNES game.

This excerpt is featured in the beginning of the story, when Pokey comes and coerces Ness into helping him find Picky. Let’s dive right in to the big reveal:

“We were at the mountain. And my ma’n my old man were out on the town, so I gave Picky a lift in their new Ferrari and went out for a spin on the mountain.”

“Pokey, you were driving?!”

Yes, our shock is channelled through Ness. But it looks like his shock is for a different reason.

Pokey was two years older than Ness. He had been held back in school, so they’d ended up in the same class—but he was still only fourteen.

“Hehehe—it’s a piece o’ cake.” Pokey smirked proudly as he scratched his red nose. He’d probably learned from his father that it’s fine to do anything you want, so long as you don’t get caught. “I can drop that clutch at lightning speed, man. Besides, no one’s gonna find me in the mountains in the middle of the night. So, there I was, feelin’ good and zoomin’ around, when that meteor showed up! Before I knew it a big crowd showed up and all those damned roadblocks Onett’s so stinkin’ famous for blocked up the roads. So I jumped outta the car and went and hid.”

If the police had seen his handiwork he would never be able to get a driver’s license, even when he turned sixteen.

“An’ so I went back home, but by the time I noticed, that moron Picky was nowhere to be found. He mighta gotten lost. If the cops find him, though—damnit! I wondered if he already snitched on me about driving. If my old man comes home and sees his car missing, he’s gonna kill me. He’ll whoop my butt a hundred times over… C’mon, Ness!” Pokey’s eyes had a strange green glow to them in the dim light, like a cat staring back at him. “You’ll help me, right? We’re friends, aren’t we? Help me go find Picky. And say that you were the one driving!”

Ness’s jaw dropped. “What did you just say?”

“Oop.” Pokey stuck up his sausage-like finger and shook it at Ness with a tsk-tsk-tsk. “You’ve got real chivalry. I knew you could do it, Ness! I knew I could believe in you!”

“Wait a minute, Pokey, I—“

Ness clenched his fists. He was more than aware that Pokey was trying to sweet-talk him into it. But he was still worried about Picky—there were cops, wild dogs, and maybe aliens from some foreign planet gathering together! “I’ll go change.”

Tracy and Mom stood at the top of the staircase with worried looks on their faces.

“We heard that little brat. He’s just dreadful, isn’t he?”

“Be careful, Big Brother! Go help Picky!”

He put on his shirt and jeans and pulled on his beloved red cap. All set!

And with the stage set, we make our way into the main act:

Ness and Pokey crept up along the mountain with their hearts in their mouths and made their way through the mountain path encased in a tunnel of wild tree branches. The night sky was lit up with bright stars, but the areas hidden under the shadows of the trees were pitch black, and their feet slid like crazy along the loose gravel. Pokey’d have to be brain-dead to actually bring a Ferrari out on this kind of road.

“Up more.” Pokey pointed onward with an arrogant jaw. “I’m sure it’s up ahead, where I left the 285GTB… now come on, get going.”

The boys have a close run-in with one of the cops on scene, but narrowly escape being discovered.

And with that, here is the portion I’d like to have illustrated:

“Oh man! That was a close one, we got lucky!” Pokey declared high-handedly. He opened the door of the Ferrari. “Ness! Go find Picky and get him home! Go on, get moving!”

Vrrrrrrooom! The roar of the engine sounded for a moment before the blinding lights quickly flashed on and a fierce cloud of dust plumed upwards. Ness instinctively covered his face from the flying gravel and smoke, and by the time he peered up again, Pokey was gone. The surroundings instantly fell into silence.

Suddenly, Ness was completely alone. There was not a streetlight in sight—just the icy cold sparkle of the stars.

I mean, when I play the game nowadays, I never bring King with me in the beginning; seeing him sleep for the rest of the game is so cute it just melts my heart. But I still never expected to see Ness eatin’ some dust as Pokey flew off in a Ferarri. I’m sure it’s just that Itoi merely had his limits with the graphics he could work with, that’s all. Yeah, that’s gotta be it.

Posted on Monday, June 28th, 2010 at 7:47 am by Chewy, filed under Chapter One, Excerpts, Illustrations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.