A colour scheme from hell…

As promised! A new mini!

Now, please keep in mind that this miniature is:
1. Only half done
and
2. Was intended to be ‘themed’ for Wyrd’s Halloween painting contest Rotten Harvest.

The colour scheme currently looks a bit tragic, but I’m really hoping that with her equally themed BASE attached, it will all make sense in the end.

The beginning…

She was originally primed (air gun sprayed) with an all dark yellow and then a light yellow to have a go at the whole pre-shading concept. So far I’m liking how this works.

The glowing eyes were step by step explained to me by beloved Painting Sage. I think I might con him into doing a tutorial. Not only for my future reference, but a few people have asked me how it was done, and I’d like to be able to link to the source of the wisdom.

From there, she progressed to getting her colours in. Can anyone guess what I’m trying to accomplish with those horrid colours? hahaha.
Well, even if not, all will be revealed eventually!

Highlighting the orange actually blew my mind, because it started as red, and from there ALL I could see was red – I was convinced it was not looking like orange. Painting Sage had to tell me it was time to put the brush down before I had an aneurysm.

Last session I worked on her, she got her hair. This is the first time I’ve attempted a proper ‘brunette’, and her hair has a lot of ‘layers’ making it easier to highlight than most so I’m really hoping it comes out in the photos.

Painting Sage was actually out snapping some nice shots of his own miniatures and took her with him to get me a good photo – and I forgot to upload it to be available while blogging away at work – so I shall add that in the next post!!

Hahaha, I’m hoping she’s going to look a bit more…um…acceptable when she’s shown with her full fancy themed base. That or she’s forever going to be staring at me with her creeper eyes from the back of my shame shelf.

Talk soon!
~ The Ellinator.

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Battle for Sophia Oct 2013

Ok everyone! I would like to begin this post by advising that I am not connected to this event in anyway – merely that I have been reading about it and thought it deserved a spot on my blog.

So, the Battle for Sophia is an Oxfordshire-based wargaming club are set to play the popular tabletop game; Warhammer Fantasy, in an endurance marathon for 48 hours in a bid to raise donations for Sophia – a young Witney resident with Spastic Diplegia, a form of Cerebral Palsy, who is in need of a crucial operation and months of post op physio.

The event, dubbed ‘The Battle for Sophia’ will take place Friday 25 to Sunday 27 October, at the club’s headquarters in Carterton.

Sophia having her photo taken for the local news paper

The tabletop game will play continuously for 48 hours with players taking shifts, and will be broadcast live over the web for supporters to see the action progressing. The game will be played on a massive 12’ by 4’ table, will use more than 50 terrain pieces and over 2000 miniatures, many of which have been beautifully hand-painted.

And here are some links to further information:

http://innsmouthgamingclub.wordpress.com/

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?380215-48-hour-Warhammer-Game-Battle-for-Sophia

http://www.sophiassteppingstones.co.uk/

Eating, Gaming and Miniature Painting!

Heeeeeey, that title kind of rhymes?

So, I’ve been ridiculously stressed out lately. University Exams were on, at the same time as my job get’s super busy, at the same time as a number of my friends suddenly dissapear off the face of the Earth (Not dead, just avoidant!) and yea – you get it.
*First world problems, right?*

Well, I explained that because when I’m stressed out I cook – so the other day I find a fishmonger selling Moreton Bay Bugs, so I nabbed a few and did them in a garlic, butter and parsley dressing, sprinkle of rock salt and optional lemon.

Yea, kinda tasted like … fish prawns. Very meaty.

Another stress release, painting up my new Malifaux miniatures! Arrived safely in the mail the other day and I’m having a crack at painting up Myranda first.
Now, please keep in mind:
1. I am not very good at this
2. Any level of ‘success’ I achieve is because I’m planted next to a professional painter who’s saving my arse every time I stuff something up hahaha.

So this is her with skin and blue fabric done so far.

Oi, El…You’re not leaving me GREY haired are you? This is awful.

With the FLASH on looks really bad, but wanted to show that I’d painted on shine…even though, yea it kind of looks like smudge like this hahaha.

Other than these two activites, got in a little Neverwinter time, kind of dull now that the Event is over – but either way got to questing.

I was sent into this dungeon when a lot of sections of roofs have caved in and you walk up the debris to get tot he next ‘level’ of the dungeon and I discovered a somewhat glitch.
Was stuck here for a good 10-15 minutes trying worm my way out of the crack.

Don’t step on a crack, or you’ll fall and break your….ability to move forever.

Hunting a dead dog

I have been kicking around on Neverwinter for the past few days due to the event currently on!! Oh, how I love events.

This event releases monsters through variously placed portals through the main city (Protector’s Enclave) and the players can all run and kill them to protect the loving defenseless citizens.

Paaaartay! Who brought the boom box?

Once the portal closes a minute or two later, every get’s a ‘bag of bones’. Collecting these bones allows you to turn them in for various rewards – the top one being a new skeleton dog companion.

Keep moving you creepy citizen, I will not follow you into any suspicious looking lane-ways.

So, you need 40 bones to get the companion dog, and I was up to 35 when maintenance was announced to hit shortly. So I scrambled to get the rest of my bones and pick up my new puppy.

Looks like everyone else had this idea as well?

Because there are so many people at the spawn points, it can get a little messy trying to see what the hell you’re doing.
A problem I successfully solved, by planting myself on a pillar and casting from there.

Go team! I got your back! … from up here…

It also allowed me some good digital photo-ops between spawns…

Well, minutes before server shut down – I had success.
Everyone say hello to my new friend, SPARKY!

Arf arf?

Dream out, with your Steam out

So, I have discovered that one of the easiest ways to distract me from study is to queue up and old faithful TV show and check out Steam sales.
I think the Steam people ACTUALLY know when I have my university exams, and put on all their good sales at that moment.

Even though I am swearing to not play even a minute of Neverwinter, Dragon Age or ANYTHING ELSE while exams are right around the corner (4 days = I hate life), I saw that Anna (A game I have been curious about for a while) was on sale so nabbed it up.

In addition to now wanting to download it immediately and try it out, I’m holding myself back under some kind of pretext that I can still read study notes while rocking out the story lines that were Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Dem special eeeffects

Despite this, I do thoroughly enjoy my Trek, and it’s made all the more amusing when you see Wil Wheaton in his younger years on TNG and know that he grows up to be an awesomely respected super nerd. Good going, bro.

Although…I would have reconsidered that jumper….

My Face?

I’ve mentioned in the past, that I like to use myself as a basic template for my in-game persona’s. By this I mean I like to keep them female, short, long black hair and blue eyes (and when possible, I’ll attempt specific facial features and body shape as well, but that’s often not much of an option).

So, I thought I’d put a short collection of some of the ones I have shots of at the moment. I wonder if I over-layer all the images, I would see my face?

Skyrim.
Oh how I love this game. I was playing it on PS3 and this image was taken with my phone, hence looks a bit warped sorry.

Star Trek Online.
I do not in fact have pointed ears and extremely slanted eyebrows.

Dragon Age: Origins.
I actually love the characters faces in this game. They’re not overly ‘pretty’ all the time, and makes them a little more realistic.

DC Universe Online.
Yea, can’t really see her face but without the mask she basically looks like the STO girl. Her long black hair is in a ponytail but I didn’t have a good screenshot on hand showing it.

Neverwinter.
My current love. This is actually a really nice angle for this character to be shot on. Straight on she has A LOT of white in her eyes, making her look a bit creeper.

Well! That’s all for today!
🙂
~ El.

Adventures of the Neverwinter 3.0

So, still playing Neverwinter – wow this game is ADDICTIVE.

I have been mostly doing my questing alone.

Here, let me teach you the dance of my people.

Questing alone appears to be getting more and more difficult. Beginning to think I might need to re-spec my Cleric because she literally can’t do diddly squat without Mr. Meat Shield – and even with him, life’s getting tough.

Don’t just stand there taking photos for your Instagram, help me down!

I did however managed to talk a few friends from both work and university into signing up to play.

First place I show them, is obviously the bar.

When questing alone, it’s moments like these ones that send my stomach into a knot. No matter how pretty it is, it still looks very ominous.

Welcome to my home, would you like a cup of tea?
I DRINK COFFEE, BITCH. IT’S OOOOOON.

I have been basically signing into the queues as soon as I log on because I’ve been enjoying group dungeons so much. I think because I don’t often have friends on to play with – this kind of forcibly gives me party companions for a while haha.

DOOF.

So the tokens you get for horses when you turn level 20 do not let you keep the horse, merely ‘rent’ it.
So I saved up my gold and went and purchased ‘Laddy’, my new palamino…something.

Don’t kick me off, buddy. We need to go forward. FORWARD. I knew I shouldn’t have let that merchant talk me into the bargin equine.

Final discovery for this week – I finally worked out where the bloody ZOOM button is.

I are so pretty in the camp fire light.

It also wasn’t until this discovery, that I realised how much bigger than me Meat Shield is!!

Hold back on those steroids, brother. I think you’re done.

Well, da da da dats all folks!

Sincerely, Ellison.

Neverwinter, Neversummer

Hello friends! So, my adventures in Dragon Age Origins appear to have been placed shortly on hold to make way for my new found addiction to Neverwinter.

To be entirely serious, I would have to say that this is one of the best games I’ve played in a while. And it’s an MMO? Surprising, given that most new F2P MMOs actually somewhat annoy me due to their keyboard warrior type player communities.

I had the opportunity to party with a group of people doing a PvP. It’s a kind of ‘capture the flag‘ but a little more – capture the ‘magical spiral tower’.

Ello ello ello, you gots a purdy mouth

Started healing a random person on my map who turned out to be very friendly and took me on a tour through some dungeons.

T’was great fun!

Ended up queueing up for something that was a daily dungeon event? Or something similar? Unsure – either way, joined with a random group of 3 and off we set.

And if you’ll look directly to your right, you will see a supernova in it’s natural habitat.

Our groups bravery was rewarded with a big treasure chest.

That yielded EXTREMELY little for me. Poo!

Went on dungeionearing by myself and found this one that involved turning these giant statues to activate hidden pathways.

There you go, ladies. A nice view of the park.

I am actually in love with looking around a lot of the dungeons and buildings in this game. They are actually quite pretty to look at. Most of my screenshots aren’t for this blog, they’re because I’m like ‘woah that’s cool, lemme get a picture’.

I shall call her Lydia.

Got myself a few nifty treasures for getting levels. The first of which is my beloved companion named ‘Mr. Meat Shield‘.

He’s a tad full of himself…

If you look at him up close, turns out he has green eyes and a bridge scar.

Oh Mr. Meat Shield. Cut yourself shaving again?

In addition, upgraded my head to have some level of defense. Unsure what was protecting it before, but it makes my characters eyes look far less…er…creepy.

Any my personal favorite, I GOTS A POOOONY.

Don’t kick, Neighneigh. You might hurt someone.

Oh, and due to some people taking advantage of a fault in the games ‘Auction House’ the entire server got rolled back by 7 hours (I think?) losing a few completed quests of mine, but no big deal.
As compensation, the admins decided to give everyone a gift.

This is my ‘I survived Caturday’ cape.
Uhhh….I don’t think I’ll be rolling about in THAT somehow.

Neverwinter Nights But it’s Always Cold

So, I was over at a friends and they hopped onto Neverwinter to give me a tour. Needless to say – first thing I did when I got home was download it.

I love that this game has it’s own beautiful graphics, and not the stock standard half arse disappointing cartoon looking style that the majority of F2P MMO’s seem to have lately.

So after signing up and customising my character, I was dropped into my first quest. Basically the ‘learn how to use the controls’ quest that everyone expects.

My new friend, waving his sword around like as if he knows what he’s doing…

The quest ended with a ‘mini-boss’ of sorts (after my friend had been incapacitated).

ME WAANT A COOOOKKKIIIEEEE

The world, cities and dungeons are all actually quite beautiful. I spent a bit of time ignoring my quest path (the sparkles on the ground act as a quest path guide of sorts, HALLELUJAH) and just explored the city and checked out other players and vendors.

On my travels through the city, I also found my friend in-game goal.
GET ME ONE OF THESE BAD-BOYS.

Come with me, little pony. I have a carrot?

Most area’s a conveniently equipped with a ‘camp’ which acts not only as a save point (yay, don’t end up back in the city) as well as healing you.

On more than one occasion I wasted a pot and then discovered one of the camps right around the corner *ugh*. Learn to game, El. You’re an idiot.

Well, I might leave this there, back to killing rats.

Myyyyy milkshakes bring all the rats to the yard, and they’re like you wanna take 45 damage per hit?

Anyone else playing this game at the moment?

– Always, El.