Blood Elf Argent Crusader

General Vezax downed the other night. Other than that, been a bit busy but I’ve been meaning to write something or another, sooner or later. In the mean time, enjoy this try to enjoy this quick piece of work:

Click for full size.

Perhaps I’ll color if I ever feel like it.

Anticipating the New Star Trek

Despite my love for sci-fi, I’m not much of a Trekkie.  My knowledge in the Trek universe is minuscule, especially in comparison to Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica.  I have barely seen any Star Trek series, needless to say to their entireties and have not seen ANY of the movies at all.  Not even one bit.  Ironically enough, I have a “Next Generations” movie poster hanging in my room, although that will be covered up with a Transformers poster soon.  When the J.J. Abram’s first teaser came out after Cloverfield, I was not that impressed.  Of course, I believe that it was meant to appeal more to Trekkies.  But with more teasers and trailers following behind, I have been more and more excited for the movie.  I did have my problems with them at first, but now I am genuinely excited to watch Star Trek this weekend. 

There are many reasons for my excitement.  To begin with, I can watch this movie without having to know anything about the series at all.  According to Abrams, this movie was meant not only for the hardcore fans, but the casual movie goer as well.  Granted, I probably won’t be able to understand some of the underlying trekkie jokes, and probably many hardcore fans will be upset, but for me this is bliss.  It’s a movie based on a popular set of series that I can walk into without having to know a thing about the backstory, especially with such an expansive one.  Secondly, this movie doesn’t look boring. 

One of the main reasons that the other Star Trek hasn’t appealed to me is cause they just don’t look that cool, fun or exciting.  The stories and settings seem way too peaceful.  The anti-Star Wars and BSG to me.  It always looked boring and dry to me.    There’s not enough happening to keep my attention!  Furthermore, whereabouts members of Star Fleet are using “phasers” as what seems to be a last resort, Jedi are swing their lightsabers, and pilots in BSG are flying in machines that arebuilt to kill and destroy.  Though the Star Trek maybe the same thing with their “phasers”, all the explodies make things seem more exciting to me. 

Another reason, but probably and surely not the last, is the feel of the movie.  The other movies and series have an extremely artificial and dated feel to it.  This can probably be attributed to cheap TV styled cinematography, poor special effects and the like.   However, Abram’s version seems more natural and fluid, if that makes sense.  Of course, this is all just how I personally feel.

Anyway, I don’t know if my self hype will pay off or not til this weekend.  But to kinda sum up my feelings is the following:

MCS: BECK’s Harold Sakuishi Has a Sense of Humor

I finally got to read the last volume of Mongolian Chop Squad: Beck the other night, much to my surprise (I hadn’t been expecting a scanlation anytime soon.)  It is one of my favorite manga, especially in the genre of music as it partially inspired me to take up the guitar.  I’m not a fan of how it ended, but it is what it is and regardless, I was able to enjoy the series as a whole.  Anyway, while reading through the second to last chapter, I stumbled across this:

Hiro Nakamura

Why, it’s everyone’s favorite time traveler, Hiro Nakamura in the first panel!  Seems like Harold Sakuishi is a fan of Heroes and is inspired a lot by US pop culture (MCS:Beck draws a lot of inspiration from the Red Hot Chili Peppers according to Sakuishi).

On the Notion of Sprays and Logos

If it hasn’t been apparent from the previous posts, WoW takes up much of my gaming time, at least on the weekdays.  However, there are other games that I do indulge myself in as well.  One of the main games being Team Fortress 2.  It is quite a change of pace from WoW, as one is a FPS and the other MMO, respectively.  The ability to “spray” or graffiti a picture or logo of sort in TF2 is one of the most amusing and fun parts of the game, PC version at least.  It gives an otherwise common character a little but more character.  This also applies for any games running on other SOURCE engine or produced by VALVe.  I have gone through many games and sprays, and up til recently, I had created them myself.  Atlas, I find myself using another person’s work for my spray.  For quite some time, I have been using one of Alberto Vargas’ pin-ups as my spray as a result of it being able to fit the time frame of the games I use it for, Day of Defeat: Source (Pin-ups were popular amongst GIs, or so I’ve read) and TF2, obviously (The game takes place 1968, when pin-ups were still prevalent.).  I also use it for Left 4 Dead, but that’s out of laziness.  However, I find myself not wanting to use another person’s work but it is not an easy task to create a pin-up.  After many attempts, I finally decided to go with something more contemporary, reflecting urban art that has been more prevalent these days.  It came out to look like this:

TF2 Spray Prototype: It says "Doing it from behind est. 19xx"

Unfortunately, after much thought, I decided that going with a pin-up would be a better idea in respect to DoD:S and TF2.  However, I may complete this for L4D.  Even more to the challenge is the notion that the image must live up to my FPS motto: “Doing it from behind”.  It is quite unfortunate to have such a fickle mind with minute and trivial matters like this.  Though, thinking about it more and seeing more pin-ups, I think the biggest problem I have is my patience and my urge to see things done quickly, which in turn, makes a lot of my attempts half-assed.  Well, hopefully something will come into fruition soon in respect to my FPS life. 

In other news concerning sprays and logos of sorts, for those who have ventured into Ulduar and have attempted the first boss will know that it is different from other bosses due to the use of vehicles.  Being the nerds and geeks that my guildies are, we came up with call signs and such reflecting our love for Starwars.  I was designated Rogue Leader with my driver being Rogue 3, or at least I called her that.  Eventually, partially out of my partner’s own accord, our names respectively changed to “Snowstorm” and “Dragon”.  Ultimately what manifested from this geekfeast is this:

Salvaged Demolisher Team XIII: The Prinja Demolishers

I made a mock patch for our little “fighter group”.  Inspiration also came after I took a trip to the Aerospace Museum last week and saw all those fighter group patches.  Our little “fighter group” was named “Prinjas” as a result of my pilot always referring to herself as a pirate and myself as a ninja.  Guess which vehicle we’re designated to every week?  Anyway, that’s my little rant for now.  Hopefully I’ll have that spray done sometime soon.  Furthermore, hopefully I’ll have a write up on thoughts on the pilot of Caprica and the season finale of Chuck.

 

Bosh: The Guild Tank

A commission that I did for my guildmaster and maintank, Bosh.

Click for the fullsize picture.  Enjoy.

Making a Drawing Come to Life

Recently, I was working on a piece for one of my fellow guildmate for her birthday.  Although it doesn’t take much time, I saved pictures portraying the process of how the final piece came to be.  This was one of the more “simple” drawings that I have worked on.  Tools of the trade: Paper, Pen, Wacom Intous3 9×12 (A4), Adobe Photoshop CS3.

Before any drawing beings, you need an idea.  After you obtain that idea, you need to find a way to transition it to paper, or whatever medium.

Rough Sketch

For this drawing I used my guildmate’s Blood Elf warlock.  This sketch was done with pen and took roughly 5 minutes to complete.  I would’ve used pencil but I can’t seem to find any graphite in my room, or at least I know i misplaced it.  Normally, your sketch should be as accurate as possible for the next step.  I then scanned it and opened it up on Photoshop.  This will end up being the bottom layer of the piece.  

Inked

Following the scan, I proceeded to ink it using Photoshop.  I ink it using a new layer so I do not interfere with the original piece.  This will be my top layer for the piece.  Something to keep in mind is that usually we want the rough sketch as accurate as possible is to prevent any mistakes while inking.  Traditionally, I used to use Sakrua Inking pens on the physical copy.  However, with the tablet, it makes it easier to patch things up.  The trade off is that it takes me more time to ink, at least for me. With more maticulus drawings, it might be a wiser idea to use inking pens, but that’s personal preference again.  This portion of the drawing probably took me to the longest, including getting the lines to come out right.  Thickness of the brush while inking is something to put into consideration for a drawing, since it can alter the feel for it.  I wanted a more “cartoony” or “stylish” look, so I went with a thicker brush.

 

Colored

The next part is to actually color the drawing.  I think that it’s quite obvious what needs to be done here without me having to point things out.  This uses the ink layer as guide lines.  The rough sketch can be kept as hidden at this point.  I keep a color palette to the side so I can keep fast track of the colors used for the drawing.  It’ll help later on as well.  Furthermore, you’ll notice that I have added a blue background up.  This is to make sure that I have every spot colored in without overlooking any.  I use a contrasting color for the background to spot my color palette easier.  Like the brush thickness, colors can affect the feel of the drawing as well.  For this drawing, I went with a color scheme that wasn’t too bright or hard on the eyes.  Abet dull if anything.

 

Shaded

Next part is to shade the drawing.  The shading layer goes on top of the base color layer.  Something to keep in mind when you are drawing or planning on coloring a picture is where the lighting source is coming from.  Where it comes from in the drawing should affect where you shade.  In addition, ask yourself if there is one light source or more.  Keep in mind contours of the body, clothing etc.  Of course, that all depend on how complicated you want to get.  For this drawing, I simply used colors that were darker than the base color.  Keeping the color palette helped me find the colors I needed easier.  Traditionally, I would do something else a bit more complicated to keep the shading even, but I’ll go into that some other time.

 

Finished

After shading, I went into adding the light source.  The lighing can go on the same layer as the shading, but I kept it on a layer on top.  In this case, it would be the spell as the sole light source.  Of course, with adding light, reflections are also made.  I added where light would reflect more by adding colors that were lighter than the base color.  Keep in mind that light reflects off different materials differently when taking light reflections into account.  For example, light might not reflect off the skin as hard as silk.  So the light reflections off skin maybe more dull than silk, which would be a bright reflection.  Also keep in mind the color of the light source.  Although not used here, if we take this drawing for example, the light source is green.  With that in mind, maybe you would want to mix in a hint of green to the reflection.  Again, depends how complicated you want to get.  For this drawing, it was finished after the lighting was added.  Don’t forget to sign after as well!

 

Hopefully, this tutorial will give you insight as to how I go about some of my more simple pieces of work.  The concepts given are rudimentary and can obviously go into much further detail.  However, this wasn’t meant to be a super complicated drawing.  This drawing took me roughly 2-4 hours, mainly due to how annoying the inking was, and me spinning around in my chair for minutes at a time every so often.  If there are any questions, feel free to ask!

 

 

You Know You Have a Problem When…

The other day whilst playing World of Warcraft (SIGH) a guild mate told the guild that he recently bought his girl friend a sapphire ring encrusted with diamonds.  I asked him to link the item in guild chat.  Realizing what I had just asked, I realized I MIGHT have a problem.  If you don’t get it, it might be better that way.

Diablo ****ing THREE.

So, for those involved in the gaming community, today was the official announcement for Blizzard Entertainment’s Diablo Three. This comes at no surprise for people who are religiously devoted to Blizzard, or those who have been checking for job listings (such as myself -.-;;) but nonetheless, rather exciting news (though I would venture to say that SC2’s announcement, over a year now, was more exciting). So let’s take a look as to what Diablo 3 is all about in respect to their FAQ with some of my input:

“We’re developing [Whatever date they give, + a few months] Diablo III to be the definitive action role-playing game, and a true continuation of the Diablo series. [Same shit, new graphics] Players will create a hero from one of five distinct classes [+ two more when the expansion comes out], such as barbarian [Oh, real original] or witch doctor [necromancer, anyone?], each equipped with an array of spells and abilities [Which eerily remind you of previous spells, but with different graphics and names...]. As these heroes adventure through rich and varied settings [drab, dismal dungeons with bodies lying all around], unraveling an epic storyline [You have to fight Diablo, again] and engaging in combat with hordes of monsters and challenging bosses [Mindless mouse clicking], they’ll grow in experience and ability and acquire items of incredible power [Farming for epics again and again and again].

The game takes place on Sanctuary, a world of dark fantasy [Finally has a name]. Unbeknownst to most of its inhabitants [REALLY? REALLY? hordes of hellions come to the planet and no one knows?], Sanctuary was saved some twenty years ago from the demonic forces of the underworld by a few brave and powerful heroes [I was one of them /flex]. Most of those warriors who directly faced the armies of the Burning Hells — and were fortunate enough to survive — went mad from their experiences [That we devoted so much time to a stupid game only to devote our time later to WoW]. And most of the others have buried their haunted memories and pushed the horrors from their thoughts [I dont want to think back on how much time i spent on the damn game]. In Diablo III, players will return to Sanctuary to confront evil in its many forms once again [same shit, again, with prettier graphics, and again, Diablo].

Diablo III will be a fitting sequel to Diablo II, with the easy interface, fast-paced action [you literally just click two mouse buttons the whole game], and visceral gameplay that Diablo players have come to expect and enjoy [Until you realize your gear sucks.  OH THE REPETITIVE FARMING FOR SOJs]. It will also include many new features [Hotkeys] that will take the Diablo action-RPG[dungeon crawler] experience to the next level [of your bankruptcy and or debt].  We look forward to going into much more detail on our plans for Diablo III as development on the game progresses [We want your damn money].”

Honestly, I feel like this game is roughly going to be the same thing as D2, just with better graphics, same with SC2 for that matter.  This isn’t to say that I’m not excited, but can’t help but to wonder what Blizzard is thinking releasing such heavy hitters in a short time.  Supposedly, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King is coming out in a few months; Starcraft 2 can be expected to follow shortly after probably the latter half of 2009; and perhaps D3 will be coming out the following year.  We can probably also expect to see the announcement of another WoW expansion coming next year.  At this rate, I might as well just send Blizzard my bank information and just let them have my money.  Despite the same crap over and over again, I’m a sucker for their art, cinematic and their gameplay.  I cannot deny that the artwork and the cinematic shown didn’t make me wet my pants a little.

This leads me to my final thought; I’ve killed Diablo at two times, + an additional three for the various difficulty levels x the amount of characters I’ve made in the past.  I’ve smacked around his brothers non-stop, made his orphan children gold lewtz, and molested his female kin again and again.  Despite being fun and games, when will Blizzard stop beating the dead horse and just create new franchises?  If there are plans for a Warcraft FOUR, I might just have to throw in the towel for Blizzard.  Seriously, lets get some new stuff in. 

Sketch Update?

WIth a bit of freetime on my hand, I have been sketching furiously in the past few weeks.  I might or might not be doing another webstrip like I did in my past life but we’ll see.  But late last night, or early this evening, I actually finished a sketch to a good entirety rather than just leaving it rough.  So heres a look!  enjoy!  I’ll update with a scanned version later (this is a photo)

Original here

One of the Four Horsemen of Apocolypse: Death.

 

 

Don’t Lie to Your Friends

Everyone lies.  That’s inevitable.  Whether it is a small lie or big lie, for some reason we all do it.  And for whatever reason, it has become socially acceptable to lie.  Most unfortunate.  This is not to say that I am perfect and that I do not lie, because I do.  However, there are some lies that just get quite irritating to hear.  The one that I has been most annoying as of late is when a friend tells another “you deserve better.” 

Why does this annoy me?  Because sometimes it straight out isn’t true and it adds nothing constructive to a person at all.  But lets set up an example for a second before going any further.  Lets assume there is a couple who break up, as it happens all the time, and one clearly wrongs the other.  It is most predictable that the friends of the couple are going to run to their respective friend and tell them “it’s ok” and more likely than not, “you deserve better” or “he/she doesn’t know what they lost.” 

Now whats amusing about the situation is that the friends of the one who wronged the other are going to say those to the one who wronged.  It strikes me as odd that after a relationship, the person who made the mistake “deserves better” despite how horrific their actions might have been to end the relationship.  It seems that no matter what, friends are always willing to try to justify their friends actions in one way or another.

OK, fine, a lot of people will say that’s what friends are for, to be there for one another, to comfort them, etc.  True, but what good does it do to lie to your friend like that.  Lets be honest here, chances are that if one of “wronger’s” friend was wronged the same way, they’d be pretty upset and think that whoever wronged them is a scum bag or something along those lines.  So now we have a scenario in which friends offer false comfort instead of trying to help their friend face the truth and improve them-self, and where the friend probably wouldn’t be too fond to be in the same situation if they got the shit end of the stick.

So what I’m trying to say is that, before you run off to a friend that just got out of a relation and offer the words of comfort; “you deserve better”, try to assess the situation (not just what your friend is telling you because chances are both parties skew the story a bit) and put yourself in it.  Would you be happy if you got the shit end of the stick and you friend was the distributor or the shit?  If not, don’t run off saying “you deserve better” because frankly you’d probably wouldn’t think its true.  Instead, try telling them “hey, you messed up and here’s why.”  Friends help friends, not lie to them.