Whirlwind keyboard

Well met, wanderer's of the interwebs!
This time I'll be babbling a little bit on this and that, having new stuff on the go with my characters and what not, some drawings I'd like to show you etc!
On behalf of the blog and such, I am still terribly sorry for the horrible background image that seems has not changed to any better, even though we had a slight experimentation with it. Sigh. Our beloved Ratslayer Zylvíth was trying to help me with it by suggesting some other background image, but the one he sent was too big. QQ Blogger for having such limitations for background images! /fist

Anygays, I've been a lot on my holy moo, the Sunwalker Alairn, since it seems in all other ways than RP, I feel a lot more needed with it, whether it be our rBG healer, some raids we're going or arenas ( <3 ), I have a lot more action on her.
- Lately I've realised that Alairn has no maxed out professions. Taken that I chose JC and mining for her, the idea of [Brilliant Chimera's Eye] and other equally amazing shizzle that I could get, just blows my mind and so, I went to the amazing quest of mining for JC mats woo!
...And I gotta say, folks, it's absolute shit.
I mean, I've got maxed out inscribulation and herbdevourism on Naïma, and I recall that leveling them was pretty easy and required little blood, sweat nor tears - it was actually "fun", and I love both of those professions ( well, I mean, which tauren druid wouldn't like nicking every herb in front of the other player, preferably from the opposing faction? kek! ). I have to say mining is the most tedious shit I've ever done, and now, as I am progressing into Northrend, I have to say the biggest thing that causes me to rage is the fact that you can't even find the fucking nodes! I've been getting all these so called "tips" to go here and there and even got this amazingly confusing map to follow in order to get moar fel iron.

wtf is this i don't even - no wait, it's a mutant bunny!

I mean seriously, what the hell is going on there? What sort of a route is that, eh? Well. Whatever. I had numerous amount of competition as well, mostly Horde so I couldn't even try to kick their asses in my holy spec, QQ. I did have a little joy while farming when I met a few lowbie Alliance levelers - having one holy cow's holy shock kill them was a great way to bring a little smile on my face.
   I do remember when I was in Burning Steppes, I hammered one Alliance priest who's name I don't remember, so I stopped him from mining and without getting feared or without him trinketing, I simply mined the node in front of him and laughed the whole time. Sadly such great times are over, so fml.

What mostly seems to be the problem is that I just cannot put my mind to the fact that mining is not as simple as herbalism. You cannot just fly around happily, you actually have to think - what are nodes and other iron thingies? Answer that and go - well, where would they exist? ...'tis not as simple as my herbdevourism.
- The fact that I got more competition than a herbfarmer in Uldum at the prime time made it all the more irritating.

This happened to me like once. Seriously.

It must be fairly easy for them bots to just puff! out of nowhere and take the mine and stuff, but I do believe even they would have a little difficulties with the aspect of the game so deliberately putting packs of mobs next to the deposits that it's an absolute must that you have to kill a series of monsters of the same kind. Now at the levels that I am atm, starting in Northrend, it's no problem for me, but thinking of Cataclysm mining, every deposit being swarmed by mobs, it's gonna take half an hour for me to kill absolutely anything. I'm so going to be looking forward to that. Or not. We'll have a look when ( ...or if. ) I actually get to that level.

Anyway, in the end I'm planning on actually dropping mining afterall and paying some friends to mine for me in order to get blacksmithing to 400 skillpoints so that I'll have those juicy extra sockets and more epic gems to put in then and and and then to just... have my quest for epicness finished with all these profession crap.
- On the matter on leveling the famous JC itself, is a bloody annoying thing as well! /moar rage!
 Not mining enough means not enough ore to prospect for gems, because it means you can't smelt the ores into bars and actually level the bloody profession. It has taken too much time already and I really wish it was over already... grrr.

I'll leave this subject with a picture that most likely sums up my feelings about this grinding I've been occupied with for some days now.

...if you actually read the whole thoughtstream, congrats.

On the matter of a lot nicer things, the Grey Company has finally started doing some rated BG's, which is incredibly fun. We've now had the chance of having a full group pvping with us, which has been one of my personal wishes as the PvP-Officer for some time. There'll be a lot to learn for us though, working as a team and actually getting a useful composition so we actually have a chance of winning! Our finest victory, imho, must be the one that we got against a certain guild that has been abandoned for now by its master Lampshade - a victory we all cheered over since the match was very even. We're hanging around 1500-1600 rating, see where it'll take us in the future!

A i d s for grego - you can thank Myst for the name :P

Also as mentioned earlier, I've got some arenas going on Alairn which is why I've gotten my small amount of ruthless gear. Mostly it's been 2's with Myst, one of of my favourite ferals in whole of Ravenholdt, but lately we've been doing 3's of a weird shadowcleavish-not-quite-great-comp-team, and it's been fun to learn a little more of the class. Serious issues with the new arena that just came back because amg gotta move constantly to have some los possibilities even. Having the team consist of the dk Alliance roleplayer's love feverishly, Grego , Myst's shadowpriest Taynt and moi respectively, I've been feeling like the nub of the centure among my heroes. It's been ups and downs, sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, and sometimes we win because Myst is screaming at me in skype to HoP him ( a darn useful skill I usually ignore totally and go lalalala when we go against a kittycleave. ).  Good times!

Dwelling more into the /afk part of WoW, I took a wee break from the game, due to not having enough money to pay for my subscription time. I had plenty of time at that point, since I wasn't no-lifing away on computer, so I decided to pick up some drawings etc. I was speaking with my guldie Lily, who then after he found out that I was drawing, asked me to draw his blood elf mage.
Well, if it hasn't come up already, I'm really not a fan of drawing humanoids. There's just something in the human face that I absolutely have no skill to put on paper, so I ignore them and continue my furry way! Yet as we kept speaking about it and Lily gave me screenshots and images of the set that he wanted his mage to be in, I felt inspired so I wanted to try my claws on it. I actually had fun with the whole thing, I loved to draw such luscious hair and such beautiful gear, dwelling into the details and stuff. This is what then came out, and I have to say I'm happy about it :)

That gear is so pretty <3

I'd really love to colour it with markers, but we'll see about that - it's not even inked so let's not get ahead of things :P

While I was drawing Lily's picture, the almighty Zylvíth was in skype from time to time and the huge fanboi as I am I like chatting with him a lot. When I posted my last blogentry, he complimented a lot about my work and asked why I had never told him of my "skills". I was of course very flattered and I think I offered to draw Zyl, wanting to try the undead and stuff.
He has recently put his gazillion WoW screenies into some order ( find them here ), and said that I could go there to find some reference and yes, t10 of rogues would suit him well gearwise.
- Well, I go through his screenies and get the nerdgasm of my life as I notice that he's got both Thekal's Grasp AND Arlokk's Grasp, making him have Primal Blessing, which: "(2) Set: Grants a small chance when ranged or melee damage is dealt to infuse the wielder with a blessing from the Primal Gods (blahblah increased this and that blahblah)."
Now.
The reason it makes me gasm is because the weapons have a chance of a proc - changing you into a bloody avatar of the old Zul'Gurub tiger God! AMAGAWD!!! <333 I've only ever seen this proc ONCE live, and aaaahhh it's amazeeeeng why there no weapons no more QQ~
So I dwelled into the picture with great enthusiasm, only to realise how bloody horrid the rogue t10 is. I mean, oh my heavenly God in... heaven! That tier is horrendous to draw, and the details in it are just... infinite! I thought I'd never be as happy to finish the piece. ( although yes, I loved drawing the tiger. Absolutely loved it. ) 

And yes, it's "just" a night elf.

During the break I chatted a lot in skype, also to my fellow finsky ( as Grego would say ) Genkku! The absolute jokemachine of the guild, I have to say, and a little troll, but nevertheless a great guy to talk to. We were talking about this and that, and of course drawing came up in the midst of it, since I was often getting reference from the internets and spent a lot of time near my computer when I was drawing. He then asked if I could draw Gentlehorn, his tauren shaman and I said game on! I love taurens as many already know, and I've been drawing a lot of the females, so it was cool to finally get to draw some males :)
Well. Yeah, it kinda was.
And then kinda wasn't.
Genkku asked me to draw Gentlehorn in the ruthless shammy gear, with the new shield and weapon and stuff, and provided a lot of visual material for me to dwell into. Even though that, I got the blood, sweat and tears of my life when I was drawing this picture - I HATE the shoulderpiece, it's so big and so difficult to draw in this angle, the shield contains numerous details, it's just, rrrgghhh! @_@ I listened to the Wrath of the Lich King soundtrack Kravtuk so kindly shared to me, and the picture got a lot more... feeling, emotion, to it, than the earlier two, in my opinion. It's good to look at the picture now, after I've done it. And I really like it.
Taurens <3

In the end I love this picture. I just do.

So my beloved Sazz was of course thrilled that I had taken hold of my pencil and paper again - always wanting to inspire me to do more on the creative side, which is very sweet of her.
- Now, I made this topic  in order to get some good screenshots of roleplayer's night elves, which I thought would have nice gears and something to look forward to. Even 'till now, I haven't gotten any replies containing images, and at the time I then asked Sazz, who has her little Khaeron, to send me a couple of screenshots I knew that she had, and mashed up together something in WoW modelviewer. She wanted her in tier3 mage armour ( I think she nearly broke her computer when she found out she couldn't get that tier anymore :/Poor thing. ) and well - a try on the night elf side!
I loved studying the differences of night elves and blood elves, especially the female facial features, how the night elves are so much wilder in appearance and are, I think, a tad more exciting as their blood elf counterparts.

 I'll never draw water again.

I think that's it for it now :) Strength and Vigilance!

- Naïma xxx

World of Artcraft

Well hasn't it been long since the last update. Let's blame it on the summer, okay? Okay.
- School's ended, summer jobs ( hopefully ) started, and so many of us have fallen to the beast called RL. There's been a lot happening to me and Sazz as well, and apologies for the inactiveness of this blog. At least we live up to Zyl's example!

I could probably write about a million subjects, especially about the Firelands patch etc etc, yet this time I'm actually going to be focusing on another aspect - World of Warcraft art!
As many of us know, Blizzard keeps up a fan-art section that weekly or so gets updated by the most game-aspired artists around the world. The place is filled with a lot of great stuff, and those who haven't been feeling like checking it out, DO IT NAO. Seriously. One can really be amazed by the time and effort people put into their work just to show how much the game actually inspires them artistically.
- And they are not alone! This time I would like to share some art that I've made myself about the characters in WoW. So let's start :)

I felt like trying my claws in drawing goblins some time ago. At that time Ferbian was actively leveling a goblin mage called Ferinar, so I automatically thought of him and asked if he had any screenshots of his character. He didn't, but he took some for me, and I started sketching.
- First thing I learned, damn, goblin males have such angular faces and wrinkles everywhere! I started to think of goblins as a bit ugly, but nevertheless pretty fun to draw. I tried out a bit with Ferinar and thought that as a character it was more so towards the prettier goblin males. I wished for change!

So I asked our Kravtuk if he had any pictures of goblins. As an artsy person which he is, I hoped that he'd have some screenies of his various goblins characters - ...aaaand I wasn't disappointed. Quite the opposite.
- I asked for a few screenshots of his characters, and he got a little overboard with it :P My internet connection at the time was shitty as hell, and I had hoped that I'd get a couple, perhaps tops five pictures through, but the man insisted on sending me 82 SCREENSHOTS. 82! ...at least I have goblin models in every possible pose and expression for the rest of my life...
Also, I asked Grego ( who just very early this morning got tGC the achievement [Classy Orcs] by racechanging the goblin to an orc! ) to send me some screenshots of his gobliny-self, so I got plenty of different sorts of screenies to look at and practise. With Krav's screenies I started to think that even though goblin males first seem quite ugly, there's a certain kind of charisma in them as well. There's something in their lips I really like to draw.

So after having tried goblin males, I naturally wanted to try goblin females.
I didn't really know anyone who'd play with a goblin female at the time, so for another picture that I had huge inspiration to draw, I let Sazz play around with female goblin designs and let her choose what she wanted. I took some very poor shots of the result in the character creation screen, since I couldn't make another character - yay for having all ten slots for the realm used! ... Here's the result after that.

I learned that goblin females, as every female counterpart in the WoW races, are so much more cuter, prettier and just way... well. They have none of the roughness of their male counterparts. There were no lines in their faces ( in most of them - of course there were the VEERRYYY OOOLLDD-looking faces, but nothing in between the beautiful and young//old and ugleh. ), but I was lucky enough that Sazz chose a lot of all sorts of jewelry on the goblin's face. I learned a lot about the differences of the facial structures. Was cool :)

So for a bigger picture I also wish to share this little piece of sketch - a tauren female head.
One day I started thinking what would me and Sazz be if we'd ever end in to the world of WoW. Well, for Sazz, she instantly said that I'd be a tauren and I'd definately be a druid. I started pondering that if that'd be the case, I'd never be able to find myself in flesh in the front lines - rather be fighting as restoration, healing my allies and keeping them safe. I said that Sazz would be a hunter, for she loves guns and would be a bloody good one with a pet as well, but she wouldn't be a troll hunter, like Raega, but a goblin instead! Fiery spirits and the child-like joy that they have ( fem. goblins! ) is just awesome, and fits her like a glove if you ask me. I asked her what her pet would be, and she said fox, so here, you have the adventurers!

It is the druid Crow and her friend, the goblin hunter Sazzer with her fox Ashtail ( named after the rare fox in somewhere in... Redridge? )! Pencil and inked versions :)

Also playing so much on my paladin Alairn inspired and still does for a lot of tauren Sunwalker art. Tier 2 for paladins, the Judgement armour, is by far one of the most awesome sets ever made in the game. Also the ever beautiful, amazing, legendary, Naïma's-quest-to-get-ffs [Sulfuras, Hand of Ragnaros] is something I've always loved, lookwise and all. So! An image containing these both on my beloved little Sunwalker happened. This is the result.

That was all for the serious artsyness that you'll see me for now.
...I think it's time to go to Naïma's Cataclysmic Adventures!
- The idea for these silly comics started after a few... "unfortunate" happenings that I got after the Cataclysm and half of the ideas I haven't even brought to paper. These are a few clips that have made it to the paper, tho! Hope some of them make you smile at least :P

The first one is Sazz's reaction the day I told her I made a tauren Sunwalker. It's very truthful to the original scene irl. Trust me in this.

...yeah. We sort of agreed on one point that paladins suck. But it's a Sunwalker, not a paladin!... cough.

Next we see two different skype conversations with my respective guildies, the ever-lovable Stonie and our master of pervert jokes, Gentle!

He has a lot of cats. Sometimes it's very confusing.

He's really a helpful guy! ...I'm serious now!

Lastly, but not least.
I was making an around 3-4 page long comic about questing in TB at the time when the three of us, me, Lylma and Vozor went everywhere and did everything together, but somehow I never managed to go past this first page :/ I still felt like I wanted to share this already, so here you have it. I might make more pages to this and finish it, but we'll see about that then! For moo and the jazzin' saunatroll.

'til next time!
- Naïma xxx

P.S. I love worgen males. I love worgen male druids. Myst spent a small time as one when he went into this spiralling insanity disease called factionchanging. What it did though was give me lots of time to ask him for screenies!