A little rest

Finally moved out of my old apartment and into the new. Still got a lot to sort out, but at least the vast majority is where it should be. Today I won't be running back and forth to clean at least, so that's a relief.
I have instead finished the basics on my Strong Female Pose picture, aka the butt picture, aka Dragon Age featuring Escher Girls and Hawkeye Initiative.

I've worked on it on and off since... late autumn during breaks at the Game Assembly. I didn't touch it for most of spring though. I'm still going to do some basic shading and add magic shine and whatnot but... yeah. Something presentable! Sorta. There are so many broken spines and snapped limbs I don't even know... The poses (all but Hawke) are based on 'female' poses of other works that are meant to be sexy I suppose. Well. It was great fun doing, and I might muster the energy to do a Mass Effect version in the (probably far off) future.

Speaking of the Game Assembly. The second game that I worked on, The Tomte, was nominated for Best Scenario at the Swedish Game Awards 2013. Which was all kinds of awesome, even if we didn't win. Hopefully it will be up at the Game Assembly's homepage soon, free to play.

Now that I've had a proper amount of sleep for a couple of days, it's clearly time to start camp NaNoWriMo. Plans are to continue that No Coffin Needed story.

I also continued doing those scribbly trio character pictures for the story. I've three other characters that have been finished, but no matching trio sets so... eh. Soon. Sooooon.

Bioware dinner and Gamex 2012

It's no secret that I'm a huge Bioware fan. Baldur's Gate was the first game I really loved and it sent me headfirst into fantasy and Viconia and the trip into the Underdark in the sequel made me fall in love with drow for what seems to be for life. Neverwinter Nights, Dragon Age, Mass Effect and Star Wars the Old Republic have eaten large chunks of my life (I regret nothing).

Three weeks ago Amanda and I got invited to a Bioware fan dinner by Lion Martinez. I reacted like the mature adult I am (read: got silly excited, climbed walls and ran to the cloth store for cosplay materials) and tickets were ordered and preparations started. So, despite both of us studying full time and having such a short deadline we sat down and made Mass Effect costumes. I once swore I would never do a cosplay on short notice ever again. Well. Let's not go into the stress level any further than that.
Amanda went as a random scientist and I went as Shepard in her dress blues because I absolutely adore that design. Granted, I love it somewhat less after making it. Easily the most complicated piece of clothing I've done due to the two different cloths and the folding overs and the gold bands and... yes, yes, carry on. I will say this though: it is probably the most comfortable cosplay I have made in a very long time.

And comfortable clothes that look nice are awesome. I wish to extend my 'thank you's and 'good job' to the artists here. I'm not certain about how easy it would be to mass produce though. Still. I've cosplayed Orochimaru. Any cosplay that doesn't cause me pain and prevent me from moving brings me joy XD

Having been so focused on getting the cosplays ready in time, we were completely oblivious to the fact that SM in cosplay was taking place at Gamex and ended up getting dragged in while utterly bewildered. Either way, lots of fantastic costumes! It was wonderful to see such a high standard wander about the building. Sadly no pictures, because I didn't bring my camera.

We also met up with the rest of Svampriket (at long last!) and made some videos with them which are up on the site now.

As for the dinner itself we were lucky indeed. The Skype connection was unfortunately not the best and Amanda and I ended up being the last who managed to get a reply to our questions to David Gaider and Mike Laidlaw. The connection with Mark Meer was better, and by then the speakers were working well enough that we could hear most if not all even in the back of the room. Not going to deny that I smiled a bit extra, hearing his preference for dressing as villains and history of D&D playing XD

The locale (Sjätte tunnan) was oozing with charm, but sadly was not the best for such a large crowd to have conversations in. Throats were sore at the end of the night, but plenty of game discussions - mainly Dragon Age and Mass Effect - were had, from whether or not the genophage really needed curing to tips on how to beat Loghain in a duel (with added pleading from me that they at least consider sparing his life).
We got the request that we'd draw something while at the event, and we were only too happy to agree. A comic diary of the day will be up... maybe next Monday if all goes well (I need a scanner that works with my laptop. Garrus the ever calibrating scanner is too old and incompatible with anything younger than ME1). Until then I just want to add a thank you to the lovely people we got to meet, the people who surprised us by being familiar with the Champions and Heroes comic, Lion who invited us, Jessica Merizan and Chris Priestly for coming, and the Skype guests too :D I would definitely do this again, and I hope that this sort of thing is something that Bioware continues to do - it was great and I saw nothing but smiles.

We came home from Stockholm again last night, having had a wonderful time and having met a lot of wonderful people. I think we've earned some extra sleep, but I've got catching up on Maya to do and NaNoWriMo has started without me for the first time since... 2001. This will not do.

But yes, as earlier stated, no pictures of the actual event - sorry. Have some strong female Dragon Age poses.

It's part of a bigger picture where I abuse the spines of male Dragon Age characters. I lovingly refer to it as 'the butt picture'. More of that in the future.

After SPX 2012

Ok... the layout of blogspot has gone through some drastic changes and I'm... completely lost. I am not a fan of change in my technology.

Regardless, the SPX in Stockholm has come and gone and I have returned home after all the exitement, and I'm looking forward to a few days of doing nothing useful whatsoever. Four out of six members of Think Ink were there and we had a blast. We sold our fanzines, among them the latest Think 6.
Fanny sold her books and post cards and made adorable bookmarks. She had also remade a My Little Pony, and we had a 'name the pony' competition! Diana pimped her online-comic-in-print and a short story called Sägner (rough translation, 'folktales') which you should keep an eye out for. Amanda sold her sketch fanzines, and the two of us also sold Champions and Heroes fanzines for the first time.
May I just say that it was so much fun to meet Champions and Heroes readers, old and new?

And a huge thanks to the awesome cook Gilbert who came by our table with delicious cookes! (also, go check out his stuff - lots of curvy ladies in there ;))

And... Think Ink now has a joined blog which you can find right here. At long last!

Dragon Age fanzine

Got home at ten past ten... having spent the entire day printing this:

Half color, half greyscale, all Dragon Age. It's some 40 pages, and has a younger sibling that we sorted out at the same time. They'll be ready for SPX at the end of the month :D

And now... I am going to tend to my headache, drink some tea, watch some Supernatural, maybe read some fanfic and generally take it easy for the rest of the night. Back to work tomorrow.

One year of dragons

I just realized today that on Saturday Amanda and I have been running the Champions and Heroes comic for a full year. The updates have varied between once a week to twice a week, depending on how much time and inspiration we've had, but even so it has kept updating regular as clockwork. Neither of us were sure we would be able to keep it up for so long in the beginning, but by the look of things it will keep going for quite some time still.


That being said, there's going to be a bit of Mass Effect in the next couple of updates from me at least, due to the release of ME3. It was a lovely game, up until... you know... everything past Marauder Shields and the three Husketeers. Which was essentially the last ten minutes of a lovely series that made multiple gameplays feel pointless and added plotholes for no good reason. Which is a damn shame, because I was halfway through ME2 with a male paragon Shepard, hoping to see how different that experience would be.

In other news, I'm working on a fairy comic (another collaboration with Amanda) at the moment, which is looking to end up somewhere between 12 and 15 pages. I still need to finish the layout, but I much rather just get right to the drawing XD
To do this, I've chosen to start to upload the Red Planet alternative universe/potential future comic Substitute, which was published in Swedish Comic Sin 2, rather than making new comic pages for the Red Planet. That will run until the end of June, at which point I should be done with the fairy comic (well, this part of it). So, more updates to follow :)

And in a completely unrelated note: Game of Thrones season two is coming! Whooo!

And... an attentive new year?

A happy surprise awaited Amanda and I today when we looked at the stats for today's update. And a lot of confusion. It's not every day we get 30k+ visitors, is what we're saying. After a bit of unsuccessful googling I got a sneaking suspicion and went to check my facebook updates.
As it turns out, our comic Champions and Heroes got linked on Dragon Age's facebook page. Whoo! Completely random, but awesome :D

35k later

... and still going strong.
The beginning has been bumpy and uncertain, and more difficult than I am used to. The story is usually flowing during week one for me, so to find it hard to work with this time made me a bit uncertain, but by the second week it started moving and now as the third week begins it's all good. Though I have, of course, started padding like mad. That's what NaNoWriMo is all about anyway. It's quantity, not quality. Quality is for December.
I got real sick this Friday, and considered not actually writing that day. It was a good excuse, but at the end of the day it was an excuse, and so I sat down and did my daily words regardless.
That was followed by a day where I forgot that I had only written 500 words, and ended up writing 1500 in the last 40 minutes before midnight. And then continued to begin the next day's words once midnight had arrived.


Suffice to say, NaNoWriMo is taking a lot of my time, but... I still find time to do other things. Such as draw more Champions and Heroes comics, even though I'm set until December. Too fun to stop.

Now, the Emperor's chosen dozen are fighting pirates on foreign seas and seem to require my attention. Excuse me.

Distractions

For the past month I've been watching Horrible Histories, in theory while working but in truth while being distracted from work (but getting inspired).
However, recently it's gotten some serious competition by Modern Family. Gloria has won me over completely <3 The show has the advantage everyone having very distinct voices, so I can actually get some work done while watching it.


And now, back to preparing for NaNoWriMo.

Like a pirate

So, today is Talk Like a Pirate Day which happens to be the day of choice for Captain Dan and the Scurvy Crew, one of the bands I do the most drawing to, to release their fourth CD. Whoo!
Additionally, it coincides with the completion of Myths of Mars and thus the beginning of The Red Planet. Awesomecakes :D

And by north I mean to this link.

I also managed to make it out into the forest in one of the few days it wasn't raining, for some reference photos and dog walking. I am officially the master of blurry dog. It is known.

Delightful rest

I've returned home, after a brief little trip with my friend Fanny <3 Got a bit of sunshine and a swim in the sea even.
I got a little bit of drawing done, but by no means a lot. Of course, by then I had already finished The Island and sent it off. I ended up pulling an all nighter to finish in time, but finish in time I did, and in color too :)

Now back to the other projects - making new buffers with both Champions and Heroes and The Red Planet, as well as working on a script for Forest born.

Champions and Heroes

Champions and Heroes - the Dragon Age fancomic that I am doing together with my fellow Think Inker Amanda - is still going strong and updating twice a week. Now that I am done with my studies and SPX is over with (so much fun!) I've got a lot more spare time, and that means building a buffer for Champions and Heroes as well as continuing with the work on The Red Planet. And, you know, doing responsible things that are nowhere near as much fun...

And back to work...

So after a month of being... fairly occupied with other things, I return to the real world.
The little escape into the world of Thedas was not entirely uninspired, far from it in fact. My fellow Think Inker Amanda and I have started up a twice a week updated Dragon Age webcomic and I have been practically spewing out art... which is sitting prettily on my computer and released to the world on Thursdays. It's been a great opportunity to do less than serious stuff with my copics, and I find that I've been learning a lot... the most important lesson have been "relax" XD


The final bits and pieces of Think Ink's new fanzine Absolutely Scandalous Stories are being put together at the moment, and will be heading for the printers next week barring any unseen events. It will debute at SPX, as will Swedish Comic Sin 2 and Nekronasses citatbok, which I have also participated in. Hooray!

Fanart

Morrigan, from Dragon Age: Origins. Scanner killed the colors, but... yeah.

In other news, I'm still behind on my studies. I don't think anyone's surprised. And NaNo begins in... less than 25 hours. Ye-es. This is going to be... fantastic. Goodbye social life?