I love to try a new crafty hobby whenever I can, especially since it’s been proven that my ability to create art with pen and paper is null. I’ve dabbled in hand-embroidery, cross stitch, and now crochet to varying levels of success.
But there’s one format I am much too intimidated to try: ceramics and pottery. I just know the second I have to control a spinning wheel and a lump of clay everything will go wrong. Not to mention then having to fire, paint, and glaze whatever I’ve created.
Character Select
Welcome to Character Select, a weekly column where PC Gamer takes a look at the art and cosplay created by you. Each week, I’ll highlight a few of my favourite pieces, spotlight and interview creators and artists, or generally just chew your ear off about the talents of the gaming community.
It’s a shame really, as everyone loves a good mug (I refuse to believe people without an extensive mug collection exist). That’s why ceramic and pottery artists like MadebyLottie are so important—after all, where would we be without our collections of quirky mugs? So if you’re like me and you’re looking for the next best thing to spice up your morning coffee, then one of these gaming-related mugs in particular is bound to do the trick.
I first saw MadebyLottie on Tiktok, where a collection of Katamari-themed mugs were on show, and I instantly knew that I had to own one. Katamari merch feels hard enough to come by as it is, let alone something as adorably handmade as a mug of the Prince we all know and love. But, when I then found MadebyLottie on Instagram, I realised that it wasn’t just mugs on offer, and it certainly wasn’t just Katamari.
In fact, MadebyLottie has created ceramics for all sorts of games, including Club Penguin, Dragon Quest, The Sims, and Animal Crossing. These items span from kitchenware like mugs and bowls to more unique palm-sized “trinkets” and figurines.
One thing that impressed me from a quick scroll was a unique set of Animal Crossing Gyroids, which look like they’d been plucked straight from an island getaway. When you think that all of these little masterpieces started as a single hunk of clay, you develop a newfound appreciation for how they’ve been brought to life.
What stands out most though is how individual every single piece feels, at least from the photographs. As much as I love collecting things like pins, prints, and badges, you know that every other person who buys one will end up with the exact same thing. With ceramics, you can tell that no two pieces are the same, which means you are the owner of a unique piece of art. That’s pretty cool, if you think about it, and makes my inner magpie shriek with joy.
And it really works for the characters that MadebyLottie is creating. The gyroids in Animal Crossing are found underground, so they aren’t meant to be perfect, and the slimes from Dragon Quest being all different (yet still maintaining that iconic blobby look) makes canonical sense. I never would’ve made the connection between video game characters and working with clay, but it really works and I’m glad someone did.
One of the posts that really made this individuality between pieces particularly obvious was a picture of a bowl of ceramic cousin trinkets from the Katamari series. The entire bowl is filled with different shapes and sizes of cousins, much like the Katamari games themselves, each with unique painted expressions and details. I’m the kind of person that quite quickly gets attached to little things like this, so it’s probably a good job I haven’t ended up at the same event as these little fellas in fear of bankrupting myself.
From excellent mugs to little pocket-sized characters, there’s a lot to love about the ceramic work from MadebyLottie, and it’s clear quite a few people know that given how challenging it is to get ahold of one outside of events. I can’t say I’ll ever be bold enough to try ceramics for myself, despite being somewhat inspired to do so, but sometimes with things like this you just have to admire from afar.
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