Masamune!

Hey, here are a couple of sketches I done! Basically just head shots, was trying to do something different each time, but a couple of them ended up looking...similar? Meh, experiments are always fun.



Finished Final Fantasy again last night. I have lost count of how many times I've finished that game, but still, was good fun. This was the first time I finished it with a Red Wizard in the party. I've always been a bit hesitant to choose that class, because of the whole, jack of all trades thing. I like my characters to have their specific roles in battle, and you get four party members to choose from, so it's not like you can't have a variety or anything.


Final party was:

Red Wizard (Kadavu) with Deathbringer (was the first time I found that sword, was a random drop off a bunch of Black Knights and looked pretty cool! Is basically a black longsword, but I prettied it up for the illustration ^_^) and a whole bunch of buffing magic. He basically spent his turns powering up the Knight and dying because of his lame ass HP.

Black Wizard (Ace) with Masamune, because it's the only weapon in the game you can give to every class, and it's a Katana. And, I have a soft spot for Black Mages. And um...the sword is firey because I cast Temper on it...yeah...

White Wizard (Coral) with Thor's Hammer. Yay! Healaga spam!

and a Knight (Uther) with Excalibur. Pretty much your classic endgame setup Knight for him. Put him in the front, deck him out in armor and watch the enemies graze him with attacks that do 1 damage.

And now, I go draw some other things! Huzzah!

Things can kill you Awesomely 1: Ballistic Knife

So this weekend, the guys got together to have a carton, relax, and chat about important things like "what Roger Ebert said, that asshole". Wilson at some point, brought up the fact that he had a new show that he'd recently obtained, called "Deadliest Warrior".

The whole show is basically the ultimate extension of that penultimate guy question, who would kick whos ass in a fight. The show picks two different things (like a Pirate and a Knight) and pits their weapons against each other, testing the capabilities of both sides weapons and then loading their findings into a computer simulation (which is then acted out by guys dressed up in the relevant costumes :P).

It's a very manly show, I have to say. Even the "experts" on the show have a tendency to treat each episode as a dick measuring competition, and most of the time it's hilarious. Also, extremely visceral when it comes to the demonstrations.

Anyway, I like to think that our little group of red blooded males are pretty savvy when it comes to weaponry. I mean, it's kind of a guy thing to know about and debate the effectiveness of certain weapons in certain situations. Baseball bat vs Zombie, Atomic Laser vs. Robot, Lightsaber vs. Dual Lightsabers, etc etc.

So, you can imagine my surprise when we learned about this thing. This thing right here:This is the Ballistic Knife, and it will fuck you up. It's basically a knife with a detachable blade that can be ejected from the handle at speeds of up to 63 kilometers per hour. They are actually banned in the United States, and are the favored melee weapon of the Spetsnaz.

Here's why they are awesome:

Imagine you have a knife, your enemy has a gun. He's all like, "Put the knife down! Put it on the ground or I swear to god I will shoot you in the FACE!"

A grin crosses your face, you hold up the knife, put your hands in the air and in a thick Russian accent reply,
"Alright comrade, you got me..." and the Ka-KNIFE! the blade flies through the air and hits your enemy right in the fricking jugular.

As Wilson said, "That's what I call bringing a knife to a gun fight."

Barely Alive!

I seem to have made myself incredibly sick this week. Yesterday I was just a quivering mass of aches and pains basically. I feel a little better today, still a little peaky, but hopefully things will improve for this weekend. Not that I have anything specific planned, I just don't want to waste a weekend. Was supposed to go the west with the friends, but alas, many events have transpired that have ended our expedition early.

Anyway, I have been reading up on Dungeons and Dragons (4th Edition!) after Wilson suggested that we play it together with some friends so he can record it for the blog.

"Who's going to DM?" I asked, my esoteric knowledge of geeky things allows to me know things like what a DM is and what the purpose of a D20 is.

"Well, you are. You're always world building anyway, it could be a good exercise." Wilson replied.

It didn't take much to convince me of course, I've always wanted to try DnD and now I have an excuse. So sometime next week we shall commence our first session. I've already had some practice filling out character sheets (so many numbers!) and getting the hang of combat (grids! argh! initiative! more argh!) with the help of my sister. One day she will be traumatized by all the geeky things I expose her too, but then she wouldn't be half as cool as she is now :P

One thing I like about the fourth edition (not that I have much experience with the other editions) is that it seems pretty friendly. Sure, there are a lot of numbers and things, but in terms of combat and such, players always have options that are cool. Which I think is important to beginners. When you start out and you're hitting monsters with your basic "I hit it with my stick" attack, it can get a little boring.

In fourth edition players get to pick 2 "at-will" abilities, which basically means they use these instead of normal attacks. So even at level one, your fighter will be cleaving his foes with the best of them.

Oooh, and another thing I like about fourth edition? Dragonborn.

Full Flavour, Full Strength

Sketches! Well, technically they're also inked and colored...bleh

Haven't been behind the drawing table or at the computer much this week. Lots of walking around being amongst the people though. So instead of comics I gives you some illustrations I been make.

This here is a fire lady.
Surprisingly, her sex is not on fire.
And if yours is, it's probably chlamydia.

I will admit that I did the pencil lines for this one while I was a bit tipsy. I was a bartender last week Wednesday, and it was good fun. I don't have much experience with the job, but my mum needed some help with an event her company was organizing (which coincidentally, had to do with the launch of a poster/booklet I made for them) so I said I would help out with the bar.

I'm new enough to serving drinks that the novelty is there, but not so noob that I don't know how to pour a glass of wine properly.

Protip: twist the bottle as you finish pouring to prevent drips. Also, wine wastage.

And, I got TWENTY WHOLE DOLLARS for about three and a half hours of work. After I got home I had a couple of beers and did some sketching. That session also produced the pencils for this awesome Iron Man picture.

I AM IRON MAAAAN!

Now that I have reminded you of my existence, I'm off to do some, yes, you guessed it

You can't spell Damage without...

Seedus: The Elf, The Mage, The Legend.

Right, so ever since the announcement came out a couple of days ago that Blizzard was releasing class previews of the changes that they're making for the new expansion, I have been eagerly awaiting the news about the mage changes. I read the warrior ones, the priest ones and yes, the warlock (or should I say whore-lock) ones. (Sorry Wilson, I did try and skim the Shaman ones but I didn't understand a single word >_<) If you're interested, the WoW.com article is here.

Am I happy with the changes? Well, it's not like it's going to affect my choice of whether or not I'm buying the expansion, I've put too much into ol' Seed to not get him to level 85. But! It does look I'll have hecka fun getting there with this little baby:

Flame Orb (available at level 81): Inspired by Prince Taldaram's abilities in Ahn'kahet and Icecrown Citadel, this spell allows the mage to cast a flaming orb that travels in front in a straight line, sending beams that cause fire damage to passing targets. Once it's cast, the mage is free to begin casting other spells as the Flame Orb travels. While the spell will be useful to any spec, Fire mages will have talents that improve it, possibly causing the Flame Orb to explode when it reaches its destination.

Look at that! I can so picture setting that fucker off in the tunnels of Warsong Gulch and cackling maniacally as those Alliance fools burn! Also, it looks like I'll have an excuse to respec back to Fire, finally :)

The other two spells that were announced were Time Warp (which grants the party or raid a haste buff, yay! More combat utility!) and Wall of Fog, which doesn't sound very exciting when you first read it. It's basically a snare that will slow down enemies. But then, I remembered that I am squishy mage, and that any time where someone is beating my intelligent head in is time where I cannot cast spells.

TLDR version: Mage Class Changes are not bad. Also, Warlocks with green fire mean that I get proper recognition for my burning abilities instead of people giving credit to icky warlocks.

He takes another home again, to find me waiting for him.

I was also surprised to learn that I knew the words to Boyzones "No Matter What"

Yesterday was the three year anniversary of my fathers passing. I tried my hardest not to be sad or depressed or lkjhgfdsa or anything, but I will admit a couple of moments of passing despondency. For instance, at one in the morning when John and I went out and the clubs were full of happy gyrating people and I just felt sick and claustrophobic.

Drawing does help though, and I shall keep my sad comic in my black folder. (Emo, much?)

Now I shall return to the drawing table, got some freelance work to do.

All the Toys and the Tools in the Barn couldn't get you off

Yes, I know that it is a Time Travelling comic. I am tired =_=

Todays comic inspired by this clip here. Seriously, the shit they're putting into CS5 both amazes and scares me at the same time.

On one hand, it looks amazingly well done (Although as Wilson pointed out to me today, they seem awfully proud of their "algorithms" whereas as designers we're more interested in art. I like to think of it as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Hey, you got jelly in my sandwich. No, you got peanut butter in my jelly. Together though, they are awesome. This bracketed thought is getting too long) on the other hand, it would make my job about twelve times easier.

And if it becomes super easy to do all the hard shit...nah, that's just me wanting to be special I guess.

For work, I'm still using CS3 both at home and at the office. And to be completely honest with you, I still use InDesign CS at home. I haven't seen any reason to get any other version to be honest. It's like, oh look, InDesign CS3, you use it to lay out pages. Still.

In conclusion, I would like to direct your browser to these clips here. They are indeed lol-worthy.

Block! Block! Block!

It happens only in the Daytime...

Hey, I made one! Yay!

Man, what a weekend! Long weekends are always hectic on the normal sleep patterns I guess. Had an awesome time at John's place on Friday night, the whole gang went over and we played Lawrence's Xbox 360 until the wee hours of the morning, watched Robocop (which was best enjoyed with friends) and basically kai colo'ed the projector that John had managed to fandangle for us. Big Vinaka Vakalevu John! (Even if it is a bit bera)

So yeah, I didn't do any decent drawing all weekend. Lack of sleep, alcohol and other things to do pretty much kept me away from the drawing table. I actually still have a bit of a mental block at the moment, I'm just glad that the Big Boss made a funny comment today because of my hair. Thanks boss!

And now, I shall return to my Kingdom of Rust. Tomorrow's another day, full of excitement, hope and wonderment. Oh, and hopefully some comics!