Lachwen Decides It's Makeover Time

Big night for Lachwen tonight. With the help of some friends from the Valar Guild, she completed her L60 class quest in the 16th Hall of Moria, as well as picking up her last legendary trait and finishing a double-handful of deeds and quests in Moria. But before all of that started, she decided to celebrate having hit level 60 (the original Mirkwood expansion level cap) by getting a makeover in Lothlorien.



As you can see, it's a softer, friendlier look than she was previously sporting, with flowers and highlights in her hair and an actual outfit designed by some of the finest crafters in Caras Galadhon, rather than a bunch of random pieces just tossed together. They couldn't get her to abandon the peacock color scheme, tho -- Lachwen just isn't Lachwen without the colors of the rainbow. Unfortunately, the outfit is a touch lacking in the yellow/green portion of the spectrum, so she compensated for that a bit by adding a touch of gold to her signature winged circlet.

All that said, she's still the same badass lightning girl under the skin -- some of the deeds completed involved slaying vast numbers of orcs. ;) And she hit L61 halfway through the instance run. It was actually the first time any of my characters had been through 16th Hall, despite jamesbarrett's insistence that I'd done it before. It is conceivable that one or two of my characters might have stepped in the door and I forgot it, but I would have remembered those boss fights, they were definitely new to me.

Anyway, 'twas a fun night. Alas, likely to be the last major amount of time I can spend in LotRO this week -- I've got a con coming up this weekend that I need to prep for -- but now all of the major roadblocks are overcome and when I do get to go back into the game, Lachwen can just follow the Volume II quests on through to the end, and go back to catch up with deeds and other such things later.

-The Gneech

Random Art Thoughts While Waiting on a Reboot

I’ve mentioned before, mostly in connection with Arclight Adventures, that I’m trying to “break out” of my established art style. My recent apparent obsession with drawing My Little Pony is the most visible part of this process, but I’ve been doing a lot of simply studying other styles and trying to break down in my mind how they work.

This morning, as I was waiting for a reboot from yet another Adobe update, I started doing some sketches of John Dunn’s redesign, and I’m trying to utilize some of the new stuff I’ve learned. I’ve never been real comfortable drawing human faces (one of the reasons I gravitated towards furry art), and honestly with a few exceptions I just don’t like them very much. But one of the things I’ve been studying is how to get past trying to realistically depict an exact human form and create a stylized form that “reads” human.

I haven’t quite gotten it yet, but I’m improving. In the case of John Dunn, tho, I’m still coming to grips with what he should look like both “realistically” and “stylistically,” which is making it a little harder. I might end up just finding pics of an actor online and using them as a springboard (but not a direct model), like I did with Verity. Character-wise he’s been revamped to something like Beast from the X-Men with just a dash of Isiah Mustafah’s “Old Spice Guy” thrown in (as opposed to the Woobie Frankenstein he was originally), so I need to find a model who’s physically imposing in a way that Isiah Mustafah isn’t, but still has a hint of wry humor about him. Maybe Michael Jai White? I’d love to hear any nominations folks might have.

Ah well, back to work for now. But come lunchtime, that sketchbook better LOOK OUT!

-The Gneech

PS: Oh yeah, I meant to mention! Arclight Adventures has a launch date now! January 9, 2012. A bit later than I anticipated, true, but given how rough my early 2011 was, I hope you’ll forgive it.

Originally published at gneech.com. You can comment here or there.

John Dunn Dev Doodles

Hmm...


New John Dunn Dev Sketches by ~the-gneech on deviantART

Noodling around with ideas for the "non-Frankenstein" version of John Dunn. I kinda dig the moustache version, actually, but I think he might have to lose the 'stache.

Comments, suggestions, etc. welcome and desired. :)

-The Gneech