In Toto Tales - October 2025

In Toto Tales offers an opportunity for our students to share a written piece about something they're currently working on or are passionate about. In this October half term edition, we have a workshop piece as part of the student's Gold Arts Award, an art piece for Functional Skills, and a gaming review for an eSports course.

Productive Futures!

Hi, I'm Simmer. I practise art, and I hosted a workshop last year to introduce the idea of workshops to all the people who have come to In Toto Ed. I'm going to explain how a basic workshop works.

Do note that there are workshops outside of art as well, for example showing off a website you made and how it works would be one also.

So, what I forced my colleagues to do is make a pretty bog-standard design for an article of clothing of their choice.

In other words, I got people to research some ideas online then got them to write down why they decided their idea of choice.

After that, they thought about what colours and textures they wanted to use.

Last of all, they drew a piece of clothing based on the prior ideas.

The reason I started this workshop was that I wanted people to get more interested in clothing and to let their imagination loose.

I hope I introduced the idea of workshops well for newcomers, and I hope all have a nice year :).

My Sci-Fi Collage

Hi, I'm Kieran. I am a photographer / media student who has been doing photography for several years, but I have been mixing different media with my art to broaden my ideas. The art form that caught my attention recently was multimedia and collages that use strong stylisation in their work and I wanted to give it a go.

Originally, I started making these mixed media on Pinterest do to its easy to pick up software and its large quantity of images I could use.

Also, after finishing any pieces of work I would export into Dark Table (editing software) to enhance certain colours or tones. Then the final step is publishing my work across multiple sites.

Lots of Sci-Fi artists and fimmakers inspired me, but mainly it was cyberpunk style that I tried to mimic in my work; key among these was Blade Runner 2049 with is dystopian appearance.

Another source of inspiration was French comic artist called Jean Giruad, who pioneered a style of surreal Sci-Fi.

Mario Kart World

My experiences with Mario Kart started on the 3DS with Mario Kart 7. I inherited the game from my brother with a 3DS when he got an Xbox. It was my first ever console, and Mario Kart 7 was the game I played the most. I played Mario Kart Wii using a wheel at school. I really enjoyed using the motion controls to steer the kart. My next Mario Kart experience was Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the Switch and finally, Mario Kart World on the Switch 2.

Mario Kart World is an arcade karting game and a launch title for the Switch 2. Mechanically, Mario Kart World is not that different to other Mario Kart games: wacky characters, entertaining vehicles, and cool tracks make the Mario Kart series what it is. Races are crazy, with shells, Bullet Bills (a power-up that drives for you at high speed) and speed boosts.

Mario Kart World is the intellectual property of Nintendo, with the logo used here for illustrative purposes only.

There are three types of vehicle: standard karts, motorbikes, and off-road vehicles. Bikes are fastest and off-road are slowest but let you go off the track. MKW also features online play, with up to 12 players. There is a new webcam and voice chat for you and your mates. To try and keep down online toxicity, Nintendo only lets you chat with people you know.

I like the wide choice of vehicles and the new Rainbow Road track design. It is made up of different routes which end up linking together. I also like the Free Roam mode; you can drive around to learn the tracks because you have more time.

Conversely, I dislike the amount of shells in a race. Shells are used to take out the people ahead of you, and, if you are in first, you get hit by a lot of them. There are new costumes for characters in the game. These costumes are found in bags, but not all bags change the costume for the character you are playing as. I have spent a lot of time trying to get all the costumes for Mario and I still have some left to find.