Monday, May 21, 2012

Fivey

You know, at the beginning of all this D&D Next stuff, I was mildly optimistic that WOTC's design guru's were on the right path to making a game I might enjoy - you know, old school in a new can.

However, the more I read from Mr. Mearls, the less warm fuzzies I get.

A lot less.

J. Geils comes to mind for some reason:

My blood runs cold
My memory has just been sold
My angel is a Centerfold
Angel is a Centerfold

:sigh:

- Ark

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Glacia's Smiley Farm


This is Glacia, my barbarian character in our 2e game.  I haven't been as productive as I'd like to have been this weekend.  I've got most of the basic line work down, though I still have to do the clothes sketch for the 'PG-13' version.  I've gone through quite a few poses - that's where most of the time has gone - lot's of redraws.  But I think she is shaping up well.

Enjoy - if you like this kind of thing. :)

- Ark

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Dungeonspiration: Glacia


Meet Glacia.  Yeah, she's not done yet.  She's ending up to be less cartoony and more comicy-realistic, which is taking me a bit more time to get right.  Glacia is my replacement character for Chartreuse in Crazy-Ass-Tim's 2e campaign.

During the campaign, the party acquired a flying boat that only spellcasters could pilot.  One day the cleric blew his piloting roll, and we ended up in the frozen northern wastes.  While there, we attacked by some Yetis.  We killed one and captured the other, then hauled it aboard the boat and lugged it around with us.  Some of us were wanting to train the Yeti to dance while wearing a top hat and a monocle, and others had even more interesting plans.

Well, Chartruese died on me, so I needed a new character.  We had a distinct lack of tanks (or people who were actually willing to get into the front line,) so I decided to make a fighter.  I wanted a kind of wildling type fighter, so Tim pointed me to some splat books.  After much though, I settled on a Barbarian Ravager, dispite my loud oath to never use, or even touch, a 2e splat book ever ever ever.  Let's just call it scope creep.

Since Chartreuse's death had left me all 'coitus interruptus' in pursuing my Beard and Boobs Badge, I decided to make a lady barbarian.  Glacia is of the Ice People, a tribe of the Frozen Northern Wastes that had intermarried with Yetis generations ago.  That's right, Glacia is a half-Yeti.

Note - these are not the stupid looking gorilla yetis in the Monstrous Manual.  In my mind, at least.  The Yetis all look like Bumble, The Abominable Snow Monster of the North in  Rankin/Bass version of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  The half-Yeti offspring have a varied feature set, ranging from almost human to very Yetish.

Glacia is 6'2", pale skinned, has light-blue eyes, and miles and miles of bright white Yeti hair.  Enough hair to make another person, in fact.  And as a ravager, she can't wear armor, so the whole fur bikini thing makes sense finally!  All those poor baby seals.  So sad.

So, some moths ago, Glacia saw a flying kayak steal away with her very hairy half-Yeti brother, and she's been chasing after it ever sense.  Come to find out that it wasn't a giant kayak filled with birds - but the PCs in their flying ship.  But instead of killing all of the PCs, Glacia found out that her hairy brother (who was actually the smartest half-Yeti in the tribe,) actually has been enjoying his adventures as a captive, exploring new lands and learning new things.

Glacia is not really thrilled about cavorting around in a flying ship with an abundance of small, hairy children (i.e., dwarves,) but it's something to do other than brain baby seals to death.  Or eat her fellow tribe members when they die - a socially acceptable and tasty alternative to burial.

On her first outing into a dungeon, things got weird.  She very muchly enjoyed killing the Stone Giants.  The Carrion Crawlers fought unfairly with their tentacles, which she did not like.  The Mummies concerned her, as the concept of the undead horrifies her and is clearly the reason why the proper thing to do is to eat anything that you kill.  But the thing that really confused her was the whole Deck of Many Things that Crazy-Ass Tim rolled up in the loot stash.

She took a card for fun, which let her pick two more.  Suddenly, Glacia's charisma shot up to 18 and she acquired possession of a keep somewhere.  The next card brought into being a 4th level fighter to serve her.

While she's much more charming now, she still insists on coating herself in the blood, juice, or ichor of anything she kills.   And that keep?  She doesn't understand the concept of property that you can't eat, or that kills things so you can eat them, so her Yeti brother will probably have to explain real estate law to her.  But the 4th level fighter?  She very much understands the concept of slavery, so she's got a 4th level one now - whether the fighter agrees of not.  The card said so.

However, she did watch the deck rip the soul right out of the dwarven thief, and just kill poor old Torvalds outright.  (Remember good old Torvalds the useless magician everybody?  Yup.  Toast.  Go read all about poor Torvalds' convoluted and painful death here.)  So Glacia will not be touching any more cards.  Ever.

Glacia, the half-yeti girl has been most inspiring to play.  She wild and crazy and psycho brave - exactly the opposite of cautious and cowardly Chartreuse.  It's kind of nice to completely reverse gears, and helps to inspire whole new avenues of creativity.

- Ark

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Grrr . . .


I'm up waaaay past my bedtime.  Time to put the stylus down. :)

G'nite.

- Ark

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Wild Hair Lady WIP


In case anyone is interested, here is a sketch of a picture I've been working on.  I've been experimenting with Autodesk SketchBook Pro, at it is pretty nifty for sketching.  I'm not so sure about using it for anything else, but for sketching, it blows away Photoshop.

In case anyone wonders WTF is going on up there, I sketch in different layers and colors, so I can keep track of newer bits as I experiment with different sizes, shapes, and positions of things.  Eventually, I just take my favorite bits and trace over them in black, then blow everything else away.  This one still has a whole lot of work to do on it before I get to the coloring stage.

So enjoy, or not.  Your choice. :)

- Ark

Friday, May 11, 2012

That Man Is Playing Galaga


The Boy and I went to go see The Avengers today.  I must say, I'm not sure how you could make a more perfect comic book movie.  By letting Joss Whedon do a sequel maybe?  And the lines - wow - just great.  Robert Downey Jr. just lords over the screen.  Galaga.  Really.  Just Galaga, man.

;)

- Ark



Thursday, May 10, 2012

Yeah, That's a Pool on Top of the Tower


The evil wizard Chernobog's Tower must be quite an eyesore for his neighbors.  It's primarily designed to keep his teenage daughter Yazbella locked up and out of trouble.  It's way too high for even Rapunzel.  However, Yazbella did discover the concept of rope at a young age, so the poor evil wizard never had a chance.

I actually finished the strip on time again.  I owe it to the greatly shortened format - only three panels.  The top bit has undergone a change - the indicia, masthead, whatever the right word for it is.  Nicer font, I think, and not as obtrusive - but there if you need it.  Of course, my style continues to - morph?  Evolve?  Mutate?  Something.  Change.  That's the word.

And in case you missed it - I'm keeping Chartreuse in the strip.  I was bummed when she died in the D&D game, but I think I can go on with her alternate reality adventures in bizarro comic world.  After all, it appears she has fans, and we can't let the fans down, can we? :)

- Ark