“I wake up dreaming again.”
– Little Feat
I am done pinching myself. That card is real. The one deck archetype that I created all by myself, immortalized on official Vs. System cardboard. Life just keeps getting better for me. Being human in 2008 is simply exquisite.
One of the ways I maximize the human experience is a sort of deep reflection coupled with the urge to figure things out. So why do I like the X-Babies so much? I wonder.
I think one of the main attractions to Chibi characters is the sense of vibrant color that youth infuses into the grey mental objectivity of adulthood. I don’t ever want to grow up.
Kids retain an essential purity. People can be so cruel. They often grow increasingly ugly in attitude and perspective. Youngsters start fresh, and they represent the hope of remaining uncontaminated.
I also adore flying eyeballs, so I guess a certain quest for philosophical simplicity may be in play. I love to distill things down until they are a single point. Then, when I return to the complicated experience of humanity, it looks like a little child all over again.
That’s a photo of my classroom this morning, and it brings me to one more reason that I will always dig the X-Babies. Today I am teaching computer theory to second, third, and fourth graders. I explain how a silicon chip converts binary codes thanks to the ability of their individual atoms to be programmed to stay “on or off”. You can see the fabulous drawings that one class of seven-year-olds did scattered around the tables. Want another second grade artistic interpretation of the atomic-level workings of computer memory? Okay.
That, however, is not the thing that I feel every time I see the X-Babies bursting forth from their new Vs. System card.
When my son was four or five years old, I taught him about atoms. They are spinning bits of matter that are really made of energy, and there are no batteries inside. He figured out, in true X-Baby style, what that means.
“God is in the atoms!”, he said.
It was the best explanation I have heard, and I have been squealing like this ever since.
Full. Body. Transplant. 
O.M.G. – they shame me with their artwork. Seriously, I can’t draw in that much detail at age 35. I definitely couldn’t when I was 7.
Thanks, I will tell them.
I think those “atomic designs” would make really amazing fabric patterns for shirts and stuff.
Good times.
Nice. We just heard that my eldest daughter has just had a picture published in a book. She’s 8 now, but was 7 when she drew the picture. All the kids in all the schools in our county had to submit work and my daughter was one of just a few picked in her age group. It made me so proud. I’ll try and scan it later and post it because you will love it Rian. The had to draw their perfect pet – she chose Unicorns!
The art is truly beautiful! Amazing in kids so young to relate so quickly to the concept, but they’ve grown up with technology so it’s maybe not so surprising. Regardless, amazing. They must have a great teacher…