[::: FFVII : 10 years :::]

haha, i bet this one's got ya confused! (before you start scratching your head, no, this isnt a picture based on anything to do with FFVII). And all the text that accompanies this pic will probably be a garbled mess - i havent written it yet so i dont know!

But yes, it has got a lot to do with FFVII. So, its been 10 years to the day that i bought it (i still have the original receipt!). And there's a lot more going on to the significance of it than it being simply a game.

I've always been into games - into "cool boys toys stuff", music ... grandiose stories and so on. But this game acted as a catalyst for many things that have happened in my life, and may or may not have happened without it's existence.

Isn't that a bit dramatic i hear you ask? Well, perhaps. There's no way of knowing what anyone's life would be like without certain things happen. What could have happened if you left the house 5 minutes earlier than you actually did? Maybe you'd have been hit by a bus. Maybe the imporant things in life arent the big things.

But i'm pretty sure i can attribute some pretty big significance to this game. The game itself? no. I havent played it all the way through for about 6 years, and i've only completed it maybe 3 times. To this day I've never even watched Advent Children all the way through by myself (yet its my favourite film) and ive only completed Dirge of Cerberus once (a year ago).

But it was a catalyst, an inspiration for many things in my life - and it's important to know where youve come from, what/who to thank - and i have a pretty good sense of who i owe my thanks to, for various things, through my life.

My best friend - Chris - i may never have become friends with if it werent for the common talking point of this game. He was very much a Zelda fan, and i convinced him to give this game a go. And he was blown away, and so started a friendship that, to this day, has been going 8 years.

My admiration for what Square/Nomura/Uematsu had achieved inspired me to choose to study the game for my A level project when i was 16-17. The enthusiasm i put into the work was what grabbed my art teacher's attention, and he encouraged me to the point where i believed i might one day be able to part of making something as good as the game itself. All i did for the project was copy Nomura's work - and my teacher was so desperate to see me work from my head, and not just copy all the time. He said he "know you have great ideas and enough enthusiasm to see them through, you just need the confidence to stand on your own two feet and stop using other art as a crutch"

He was the only teacher that believed in me at school. I went to a grammer school - mainly focused towards academia. And well, i guess i was a bit of a rebel - choosing music and art over scienes. Funny though, because i used to love science before i went to that school ... but the teachers put me off.

Then shortly after, i started to discover internet gaming forums - mostly talking about ffvii. And wow, i discovered other people who seemed to like the game just as much as me! And i met some awesome guys, we started our own forums together, and we're still mates to this day.

Whilst i was on the forums, i met some people that influenced a lot of who i am - and on a more specific note, made a contact that recommended i check out the university i ended up studying at.

So i went there, made some amazing friends, and ultimately am here, in the seat i'm sat in now - working at a games company, a dream i've always had - because of ultimately the inspiration, belief that amazing things can be done, and confidence this game gave me.

I say "game" like all it really is is a piece of entertainment. And i understand that to many it is - and well, yes, that IS what it is. But its transcended into a symbolisation - a very personal one.

If this game hadnt have come along ... i'd like to think i would have found enduring inspiration elsewhere

so what is this picture? Well, its a tribute to the one thing the game brought out in me - and that is some kind of crazy, enduring belief that one day i might actually be part of a team that can achieve the same effect on someone else, as it did on me.

So no. The picture has nothing to do with FFVII. But to me, it has everything to do with it

My own character. My own creation. A tribute to an enduring spot of inspiration - of what can be achieved with the same tools we all have within our reach to attain one day in our lives.

I hope everyone who reads this can discover the best way to pay homage to a creation they really enjoy, is to create their own. Slightly ironic considering the amount of fanart i have in my gallery - but thats a little thing us humans are blessed with called "learning and realisation". Realising the fact that the reason it was so great, to me, was because it was unlike anything i had experienced before.

So lets all be pro-originality!

Thanks for reading!

Approx - 60 mins. Kickin' it old school. The picture isnt anything extravagant, or indeed worthy of the 10 years the game has endured to me. But, this IS who I am. I'm not about diong 600 hour pictures. I am me.