The Father of Illusions

Lianothin, born the 10th child of a growing merchant family, was never really considered to reach greatness. With very little chance of him inheriting the family business, he had his own uses to them. Where a family representative was needed to secure a new trade route, off he went without anyone worrying how a sudden disaster could mess the inheritance. By the time his magic manifested itself in his early twenties, he’d already spent many years travelling the land.
Magic, at the time, was still a relatively new discovery. People had no idea of its capabilities, let alone where it suddenly came from, or how it chose people. Lianothin, stripped of many of the wealthy possessions he didn’t even think he’d miss and kept within the walls of the magic school he was enrolled into, soon turned to a little experimentation himself. Bare floors and walls were boring and so he tried to see if his magic would liven them up a little. In time, he managed to shape the magic into a visible object- the very first successful illusions. Feeling smug, he developed his art further, making entire walls look like windows with seemingly minimal effort. The reality was it stretched him near to his limits, and required extreme concentration to keep up. But if theres one thing his business background had taught him, it was how to keep his expression in check to get people to do exactly what he wanted. Seeing his chance for fame though, and not wanting to be outclassed, he refused to teach much of what he had discovered to people, leaving the world still wondering what his secrets could be many years after what was known as his Fall and the creation of the Sinniht.

So this was a piece that went a little differently to how I intended to. My intention was to play around with more atmospheric lighting with cel-shading, but after doing a small amount of background work I realised I just didn’t really feel confident enough in backgrounds for that. So it ended up with me very quickly painting something instead. Typically it turns out the bit I like the most… is also the most hidden. And the bits that really need more work? The most on show.
Then I completely and utterly decided to abandon the idea of more atmospheric lighting to focus more on trying to work out bands of colour within skin. Trying to do both was likely to completely and utterly confuse me because I need a LOT more work on both areas just to build my confidence in them. Working with a darker skin tone than usual on top of that, and I just don’t think I could have pulled it all off. I’d rather focus on a few smaller areas and get those right than try and work on everything and.. well make a complete mess of it.

Art Dump the Second

Because I really am no good at updating this blog as I work on things, I have yet another backlog of images I should probably get to uploading.

So without further ado, roughly December 2012 to now

 

December 17th, 2012

January 4th, 2013

January 7th, 2013

February 27th, 2013

February 27th, 2013

March 2nd, 2013

March 9th, 2013

April 1st, 2013

Final Fantasy 8 Review

One of the things I’ve noticed when writing about games is that, despite their flaws, I very much enjoyed each one of them. I find it hard not to get a sense of enjoyment out of games and pretty easy to avoid the absolutely terrible ones. So I think its about time I really got to writing about a game that I gave up playing because I literally could not stand it any longer.

So here it is, my little opinion segment on a game you may have heard of

Final Fantasy 8.

I quite enjoy a few Final Fantasy games, especially 10 with its very tactical turn based system, so I wanted to try out one of the older ones the entire internet seems to adore. I had already ruled out 7, for its completely ridiculous graphics and the fact a friend of mine had recently played it and told me it was simply ridiculous. So the next option people gave me to play was 8. Since I was going to be out of the country for a week, I brought the game on PSN and downloaded it to my PSP to entertain myself. Not long after returning home, I had to fight the urge to throw my console at how ridiculous THIS game was too.

Now before I really start, I do want to point out that this was nearly 2 years ago that I played this game and I did give up roughly 3/4 of the way through. I have very likely forgotten a lot of the details about it and what I will write about is that sticks out the most in my mind about this game.

Assassin’s Creed 3- mini review

So now I feel I’ve played enough of the new Assassin’s Creed… I’m going to have to let my opinions known here. Theres an awful lot I really want to say on this game, so I’m not going to really hesitate and just jump right into it.

First of all, this post WILL contain spoilers. If you haven’t finished the game completely (That is, Epilogue as well)- you have been warned.

 

Massive art dump

So one thing I’ve been failing to do is update a lot of the art I’ve been doing. So instead of sitting around and eventually getting around to making individual posts for everything, I thought I might as well just throw it all up in one go. It’s going to be a big one, so everythings going to be under the cut.

How Bethesda can make the next Elder Scrolls the best it can be

So I, like many others, have been swept up in the Skyrim fever over the last year. I mean, Skyrim is a pretty great game after all. Add on top my general love for high fantasy, and you’ve pretty much got the perfect game for me. In fact, for much of the first months of the year… I didn’t think there could be any game to top it. It was beautiful, a huge expansive world you can get lost in without any nasty “area loading” messages (Like Oblivion). It had hundreds of hours of content.
And then when it got to May… I was bored of it. I’d done practically everything. So naturally I turned to Capcom’s very similar game- Dragon’s Dogma. And it started me really thinking… Skyrim isn’t as good as it could be, you know?
And then I got myself into the Fallout series (Well, Bethesda’s Fallout games anyway). Right now, I’m pretty damn addicted to New Vegas. And in terms of RPG games… I got to say it. Fallout is vastly superior to Skyrim. Theres so much Fallout does that Skyrim fails to even touch upon. In fact, compared to Fallout, Skyrim is really limited in terms of roleplaying. Oh you get to create your character and choose what they do or don’t do… but nowhere to the scale that Fallout does.
So all this really got me thinking- How can The Elder Scrolls titles be improved upon?
Before I really get into things, I will admit… I am basing my opinions mostly on Skyrim, and a small amount of Oblivion. I’ve really yet to find myself sticking with Oblivion for too long. I’ve started three characters now, and none have gone all too far in the storyline. Not only that, but Skyrim is the more recent one and more likely to be the standard the next TES game is based upon.

Now, this probably isn’t the most eloquent article ever made. It’s really just a bunch of random, mostly unrelated points where I think the game is falling short. And I know I have trouble explaining my exact thoughts, or even wrapping things up. I definitely am not saying “yes this must be implemented” either, just giving ideas as to what could be done to improve on the game.

Fallout 3 mini-review

Alright, time for a new review/ opinions post.
This time I’m going back a few years to 2008 and talking about FALLOUT 3.

Now, I do own the Game of the Year edition, however I have yet to really touch on the DLC (I have done Mothership Zeta). So I am just going to talk about the base game itself.

Featured Skyrim Mods- 1

So, one thing I have done since obtaining a new computer is play around with user created mods in Skyrim. I admit, I am not as much into modding as some people out there and tend to stick only to the Steam Workshop, so I don’t have so much installed at a time. But heres a few of the things I personally rather enjoy.

Lightstar’s Console Command Books
I’ll start off with a very simple mod- all this does is add a collection of books with every single console code into the game. The chests containing these books are found in numerous places around the world so you can’t miss them. Its entirely a convenience mod for people using the console, as it eliminates the need to alt-tab out of the game. I haven’t been using it for that long, but is proven its worth so far.

Sabre Cat Gear

This one is a modified version of the Stormcloak General armour, making it factionless and available on both heavy and light versions. It comes in different colours for different pelts, as well as three different hood styles (in each colour). Oh, and its a Sabre Cat, not a Bear- infinitely cooler. It’s an exceptionally lore friendly armour perfect for hunter characters who prefer to wear their kills.

Scout Armour

Next, more equally lore friendly armour- the Scout Armour. Now, this is a fairly high level armour (dragon smithing) that I have only played on a cheat character. But the level of detail in the texturing is outstanding, as well as the amount of stuff on offer in this mod. It says its armour, but it comes with numerous weapons, including a dagger that acts as a shield, and craftable arrows (Without Dawnguard). Theres also a choice of different coloured cloaks and hoods on offer. The only issue with the mod is the helmet is not made for Beast races- which just so happens to be my preferred race choice.

Thalmor Armour

So, I got to say it, despite being a Stormcloak sympathiser and a Thalmor hater (I personally do not believe in the banning of worshipping Talos)…. their robes are my favourite clothing in the entire game. But wearing clothing is pretty much going to get you killed, unless you want to be constantly using spells to combat that.
And well… if its not toasting my enemies in arcane fire, summoning something TO toast my enemies in arcane fire, or healing myself… I don’t use it.
So its no wonder I’d get myself a mod that allows you to craft a light armour version of the robes. And, as a bonus, theres two versions with a recoloured texture (blue and black) and the hood is split from the main robe. My mage finally has some appropriate looking clothing that wont get me killed the moment I step into battle. And with the recoloured versions, he doesn’t look like a Thalmor agent while doing so.

Non-linear perks

So, the first of my cheat mods. Non linear perks is exactly what it says on the tin. As long as you are at the right level for a perk, you don’t need anything else in the tree to get it. It just makes it so you can’t waste precious skill points on perks you’ll never use… all because you wanted to sell anything to any merchant. Or 100 extra carry weight without any pickpocketing buffs

Dwarven Luggage

Now this is a good mod for more than one reason. It’s a limitless chest that can follow you around- meaning you never have to leave behind good loot because you ran out of carry space. But also the very mod itself is a huge nod to Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series- of which I am fond of. The very personality (Yes, the chest has a personality) of the Dwarven Luggage is akin to the Luggage from Discworld. Sure, its not running around on hundreds of tiny little legs but… well Dwemer Spider legs don’t need custom animations and make the mod a little more lore friendly.
Regardless of if you like the Discworld series, a good helpful mod, although perhaps a tiny bit overpowered when you think about it.

The Reserve

The Reserve is just one of the player house mods I’ve downloaded, and one of the three I’ve currently checked out. But so far this one has thoroughly impressed me. The player enters the house to a large hall filled with trees, and ponds complete with fish. The bedroom has a candlelit atmosphere perfect for a character wanting to unwind by the fire with a good book. The basement area is huge, with all the chests and mannequins a player could need. It also contains a custom merchant NPC with her own house behind yours. Oh, and it even has a small outhouse, complete with reading material.
The amount of work thats gone into this mod shows, and it really stands out.

Bandolier- Bags and Pouches

A rather popular mod, that has probably had a good amount of publicity to begin with. But regardless, Bandolier- Bags and Pouches is a brilliant mod. Its very simple- it adds wearable pouches into the game. You can craft them at the tanning rack, and each one will raise your carrying capacity by a minimum of 25 points per pouch. You have 7 slots to customise however you wish with differently coloured pouches (That match most outfits), alchemist’s vials or book pouches. Not only does it add immersion (Now you know where your Dovahkiin hides all that stuff!), it means you have to put less stats into Stamina just for the extra 5 carry weight with this mod installed- making it an amazing mod for mage characters.

A little bit of an apology here for the lack of updating in what seems like forever.
I’ve had plenty of time to work, and update but… I just haven’t.

See, summer hit and… summer was not very kind on my laptop. It has problems with the fan, causing it to overheat if I just used Google Chrome, MSN/Trillian and iTunes as I normally do. For a year and a half I had been using a USB fan to combat this, but during the middle of the day it was literally impossible to keep the laptop cool enough. So I kept off my laptop during the heat of the day back in July or so. It all worked well until the end of the month. The weather hadn’t really cooled down… but the USB fan? Cut out. Simply stopped working. And there was nothing more I could really do to fix it. There was no literal way to open it up. And that meant anything more advanced than Microsoft Paint was probably out of the window. Now, not saying Paint is bad but… I like painting more than pixel work.

Now, literally the day before this happened… I had ordered myself a new computer.
Not just another similar laptop that has a better fan, and can get the job done. Oh no.
My laptop, as nice as it was, was not up to scratch with what I wanted it to do. I needed something with a dedicated graphics card for starters, a good amount of RAM… at least a 4 core processor.
And thats when I started looking at Alienware. The inner workings of a computer aren’t my strongest point, so I wanted to go with something I knew could do everything. Originally I was going to go for an Mx17. I was used to a 17 inch screen, and it would have been harder to use anything smaller. But the base price was more than the desktop.

So, thats what I have now. An Alienware Aurora r4, Intel i7, 4 core processor, 1 TB harddrive, 16gm RAM, Nvidia GTX 550… lots of fun stuff.
So my reason for being a little absent??
Ultra High settings for Skyrim, Dawnguard and Fallout 3. Plain and simple. Mostly Fallout 3 this last week. I have Mass Effect and The Witcher to start playing sometime, and my computer came with a Steam copy of DOTA 2 I should probably try out.
So yes, I really don’t have an excuse but instead of doing something relatively productive this last month…. I have been playing over 80 hours of video games so far.

I have three finished pieces ready to add up sometime, I was kinda hoping to make more in the series before I uploaded them (Since they’re relatively simple pieces). I have a vexel series I started work on, but never really did much of. I have a character reference image in the sketch stage, which I really need to get to work on.
And I did start work on a Skyrim (non-player) house mod in the Creation Kit, but I haven’t worked on it in a few weeks, and I think I should start over. The rooms seem too big, I haven’t really planned anything out, and I could probably find better pieces for what I want to do if I looked harder. What I aim to do is get a floor plan laid out, get some in game screenshots of the buildings to find the best pieces to put together, and begin working on something MUCH nicer than before.

Anyway, I’m going to type up a mini review-post that should be up tonight or tomorrow. Depends on how quickly I can get it finished.

Dragon’s Dogma review

So this is quite a new thing for me, but I thought I might start documenting my opinions on different video games in a kind of review. Not really a particularly professional review with a rating system, but pointing out the good and the bad.

First up, is the game I’ve most recently finished- Dragon’s Dogma, created by Capcom.