Secret Santa Art Trade — References

Snippy

Snippy in the Spiritmender set (Spiritmend Robe and Spiritmend Shoulders), probably my favourite non-tier cloth set.

The Character

Snippy has always had a hand for fixing things rather than creating them on his own. As an engineer, that means he was mainly there to repair other people’s inventions and improve their functionality. Since those inventions came from engineering themselves most of the time, he lived a very dangerous life filled with explosions and subsequent shopping tours for new, unburned clothes. Which is why he eventually took up tailoring as his second profession. If he could fix complex mechanical gadgets, how hard could it be to fix his work clothes? Ignoring his initial difficulties, he soon developed quite skillful weaving and stitching techniques (again, based on the ideas of others and refined).

Being good at repairing and stitching things together, it seemed logical for him to pursue the career of a priest when he was enlisted for war. The Light itself has become more of a means to an end and (primarily) a very interesting study case for him. He is not really a devout follower of the Light like many Draenei, but since it seems logical to him that he could only study the Light if he believed in its existance, he believes in it enough to wield it. The fact that this is reverse logic doesn’t bother him at all.

The study of the Light has changed his behaviour quite a bit, even though he is not aware of it. He has gone from the typical gnome (lively, open-minded, overly curious, painfully honest, smiling all day long, and freaking out — both the good and the bad way — about the smallest things) to a much more balanced, calm, diplomatic, and mild-tempered person (still curious, open-minded and smiling a lot, though). This change, however, is not fully carried out, and if his self-restraint fails him he explodes with emotion. He’ll be furious, exstatic or depressed even more than a “normal” gnome in those cases (if any gnome really is normal).

He has a heart for critters and is often seen playing with a moonkin hatchling or an armadillo or has a mechanical pet he’s repairing for a friend next to him.

The Appearance

Snippy is in his late 40s, which in human years equates to something around his mid to late 20s; so he’s quite young still. His face is, for gnome standards, fairly pretty (if no mechanical squirrel has exploded in it) except for the very prominent nose that is the trait of all gnomes, and his calming smile adds to the sympathetic aura he emanates.

Mug shot profile. He doesn't look too happy, does he?

Unfortunately, creating a gnome with a pretty face is an impossible feat in this game. I guess that's what all the facial hair is for.

These are some facial shots so you get an impression of what he might look like.

His very clear-cut hair is more reddish-brown (think fox) than it appears in the pictures, and I imagine his eyes to be azure blue (with a hint of grey) rather than pink (unfortunately, eye colour is fixed to the face).

He is very cleanly and neat (a bit vain, but not overly so), and doesn’t like bad hygiene. He’s a bit of an order (and control) freak and hates irrationality and chaos (which makes him even more angry when he loses his temper and becomes irrational). He shaves daily if there is a possibility to do so (he has had bad experiences with beards and volatile inventions).

He isn’t a very physical person and doesn’t exercise much, which gives him a very lean, but not in any way muscular — almost fragile — look.

The Accessories

Snippy is a gnome of very simple taste. Since he has begun his studies of the Light, he has become more comfortable in robes, to the point where he will wear them almost exclusively (if he’s not tinkering on something). Other than that, he doesn’t wear any necklaces, rings, amulets or other trinkets of sentimental value. It’s just not logical to him why he should overburden himself with things that don’t have a practical use.

Whether you want to portrait him in a tier set-like bombastic and breath-taking outfit or in the simple robes of a priest is entirely up to you. Shoulder pats or no shoulder pats, I don’t care. Most helms I don’t mind. Even hoods that obstruct the view of the face are fine by me. Engineering goggles are fun to look at, and I don’t mind them at all (as long as they fit the picture ). The only exception is the tier 1 head piece. I don’t want him to have Mickey Mouse ears (the rest of the set is nice, though).

My favourite tier sets are

• tier 5
• tier 6
• tier 8 25 (mouth cloth piece or not, either is fine)
• tier 11 regular (although I don’t necessarily like the veil in front of the eyes — again, no pratical use)
• tier 12 regular (this one probably without the fish-bowl-socket-space-suit helmet, though)

Tier sets I don’t quite like as much (I don’t need a list for them) are tier 9 and 10 (they are fine in themselves, I just don’t like how they look on him somehow). But if you can make those look good, feel free to do clothe him in them anyway.

I have attached a few pictures of Snippy in some of his non-set robes below so you can see what he might wear (pictures vary in color, saturation, hue and brightness to better bring out the colours of the dresses- umm…robes; the first one in the series is probably best for skin colour reference and similar things; note that my in game graphics are not very high…poor old machine can’t handle fancy water).

Concerning weapons, you have absolute freedom. I don’t care if its a stick, a dagger, a mace or a wrench. He can have a weapon or have left it at home (he can sometimes be quite oblivious to these things).

ATTENTION! This last one is Not Safe For Work!! Viewer discretion is advised.

YOU WERE WARNED!

The Picture

Not much to say here, really.

Whether funny or serious, fiercely battling or being spit on his head by a troll, in a majestic pose or petting an armadillo, I don’t care, really. I don’t prefer any of these aspects and am happy with anything you can come up. So, no constraints there. Let your creative juices flow!

Not Really a New Post

New header is new

This is just a quick update post for the overly interested.

There is still lots of work to be done on the blog, but as of today, there is one less thing to worry about:

I have completed the header for the blog!

Don’t cheer. I don’t expect cheers. I expect a sighed “Finally!” or a “Slacker!” or something along those lines. I’m a lazy bastard, I know.

For anyone who wants to know: for the individual pictures I searched for some pictures online, used them as my background and painted over them in 4 different shades of grey (including black and white).

I then took the former header, painted the (very) stylized horizon across it and put all the pictures together. Add a little text and voilà!

I have added the individual pictures here for you to enjoy. Click them for original size.

The Nemesis set truly is my nemesis

We can dance if we want to!

Ysera has always been my favourite aspect. Is that because green is my favourite colour? Or because I love to sleep (much)?

I’ll get to posting soon (TM). I swear! Only a couple of days more. It’s the beginning of the semester, so I still have to organize and stuff. And then I need some topics that don’t lend themselves to comics (I like playing around with my first tablet — a Bamboo — way too much). I have too many ideas for comics, but am too much of a perfectionist to just draw something and post it (so far, I’ve deleted all my sketches).

Does that mean you’re gonna see some art on here (if you can call what I produce art)? I think so, but probably only in very irregular intervals. In other words, whenever I can think of something and put the time into working on it. That could mean never.

BlizzCon, Black’n'White Bears and Other Features

Hell yeah, that's ingame graphics!

The following post contains spoilers for this year’s BlizzCon (maybe you have the Virtual Ticket and still want to watch ALL THE THINGS?) and for the next expansion of WoW. If you want to remain unspoiled, you might want to avoid this post. And the entirety of the WoW population. And the internet. Basically, dig a hole and get comfortable there. Or don’t. Anyway, you have been warned and won’t be able to sue me for all my cookies.

To get this out of the way, I wasn’t there. Unfortunately, BlizzCon was not in the cards for me, both financially and studies-related (but more financially, to be honest). I did, however, purchase the Virtual Ticket (or the smell-free BlizzCon, courtesy of the Twisted Nether BlizzCon Live Blog), so I was at least able to see all the panels, big announcements and Opening and Closing Ceremonies. And I have to say: it was awesome. And not only the con itself; the Foo Fighters concert was the best (the best, the best, the best of Foo), although I’m probably biased here (what with being a fan and all). My verdict: the virtual ticket (VT) was completely worth it. At least for information-sucking vacuum cleaners like me. “What? A panel on how they made the new Diablo III cinematic? I don’t care too much for Diablo, but … meh, bring it.” If, however, you only wanted to see your favorite Blizzard IP information announced (or drool all over Chris Metzen/Kat Hunter — see, that’s how you stay gender-unspecific), I don’t think the VT would’ve been for you anyway.

Not Dead Yet — An Indirect Apology

No, I didn't hide from you. Not at all.

Hey, my faithful and probably very disappointed readers. I know I haven’t been the most frequent blogger over the past few weeks (if I ever was).

That has several reasons, which I’m not going to bother you with. Let’s just say I’m lazy, work piles up because of it and, to make matters worse, I was away for some time.

Ultimately, this post is something like me handing you a forget-me-not with puppy eyes and asking you to give me a little time to get everything sorted out before I go on posting in a regular and topical fashion (at least I hope I’ll do that eventually).

Oh, and it is a short recap of “things that were, things that are, and some things that may yet come to pass.”

Stories of Spooning With the Os

Dum duddledum duum dumdumdum dum duddledum duum dumdumdum

A very daunting title, I know. For some obscure reason that I cannot comprehend the two Os — Oestrus and Ophelie — invited me to join their healing roundtable of The Double O Podcast (yes, we are all spying for her Majesty and no, despite my name being Daniel I don’t look a bit like Daniel Craig) as the priest guest. Apparently, all it takes to get onto a podcast is to offer. Who would’ve thought? If that isn’t encouraging, I don’t know what is. I have no doubt in my mind that they were running out of good options, though. Oh, and the fact that I am German and they expect me to have some weird accent might have played a role as well.

The Double O Podcast is not only an eccelent podcast about WoW and hosted by the wonderful and illustrious outspoken, opinionated, openminded, observing, omnipotent, omniscient, off-the-cuff, organized, outrageously original, overpowered, outstanding, outright owning, and otherwise O-some personalities that are Oestrus and Ophelie; one of the points that sold me personally was that they focus on a specific topic (and a different one) each episode and stick with it for the entire episode. In that respect, they are quite different from your normal WoW podcasts, which consist of news to a large degree. So, if you ever wanted to learn more about how to earn more gold in WoW or what it is like to be a gamer parent, listen to The Double O Podcast. Like, now. What are you waiting for? DOOO EEEEET!

The episode will, as I mentioned, be a healing roundtable. Since Oestrus spilled the beans on Twitter already (this IS how you’d say that, right?), I’ll go ahead and introduce you to the other knights of the O-shaped table (all THE awesome!!!). Besides yours truly (who can still not believe he’s going to be on a podcast and is afraid he might serious eff up the whole affair) the episode will include:

• Jasyla from Cannot be Tamed
• Lodur from WoWInsider (or WoWJoystiq or WoW.com or whatever they are now; I lose track) and World of Matticus
• Lynesta from Word of Glory

We’ll record on Sunday evening (or rather night for me) and the podcast will then probably take a few days to get all my “umm”s and silences (as I think of the right word for something) edited out.

Did I mention that I feel giddy as a horse? What? I don’t care if it’s a normal horse or a Worgen mount.

Can it be real?

If you have any healing-related questions, you can either send them to Oestrus or Ophelie via Twitter. Or you can also comment below or email me.

Class Feedback: Priest

A gnome priest in his natural habitat: above the ground. Most times because he blew up.

Blizzard (fairly) recently asked the player base for their opinions on their classes: what they feel makes their class more/less fun, how they feel their class performs and what they would like to see for their class in the future:

We’re looking for feedback on your class as we work on changes and adjustments for a future game update. While we may be making some specific class changes in 4.3, what we’re looking for in this thread is overall feeling on the class as a whole for more long term changes in the future.

As this is one of the few chances to voice your stance on the class(es) you love to play with a good likelihood it will be read, you should seize the opportunity. Now. Go on, spit spot!

Now, without further ado, here is my feedback (on the official forums, it can be found in these three posts):

Why Your ABCs Are Important in WoW

I wonder where they keep the books with 'M' ...

No, I am not talking about the alphabet here. Although being able to read is certainly an advantage in a game whose main ingredients include quests and textual communication between players (MMO means Massive Multiplayer Online, after all). That being said, I personally know a few players that cannot read at all, and there are certainly blind WoW players (I can’t imagine how hard this must be *bows in respect* ).

But as I mentioned at the beginning, this post is not about reading in or about WoW; it is about how new and inexperienced players can get a bit more out of their character. Anyone who has read WoW blogs for some time will now shake their head and sigh due to the silly title of this blog post. Anyone who is still in the dark about it will probably have stopped reading by now. Which is unfortunate, really, because this blog post might be for them.

The ABC Rule

For many WoW players this is stating the obvious; some may never have bothered with it and maybe never will; for a select few, though, this might be helpful. And after all, the WoW blogging community is all about helping others, isn’t it? WoW blogs certainly don’t exist for the mere purpose of venting about one’s raid members (and attaching some obscure reasoning for why this is relevant to it) or complaining about how difficult it is to lead a guild. Most certainly not!

After this detour (not the last one, I can assure you of that) you might ask:

What, then, is the ABC rule?

The ABC rule is very easy: Always Be Casting.

I don’t get it.

In effect, it means that you are hitting your buttons constantly. Sitting around idly will not gain you much DPS (damage per second — is also used for players whose job it is to “lay on the hurt”). Once an attack or a spell has been started, you should already be hitting the key (or mouse button or whatever else, depending on your setup) for your next ability. Example: a mage starts casting a Fireball. Immediately after the cast has started, they are mashing their Pyroblast key (yes, something procced), until that cast has started (or in this case, the global cooldown — more on that below — of the instant Pyro has started). At this very instant, they start hammering away at their Fireball key again. And then another Fireball. And another one. And so on and so forth. The ABC rule is not only for mages, though.