Forest Creature

Gosh it's been a while, hasn't it?

I have lots of WoW screenshots to share, but that's not what this post is about.

Gaming update:
These days I play Hearthstone (Finally out of beta, now to wait for the iPad version!) and WoW, in which I'm kinda just exploring and collecting pets while waiting for the new expansion, doing the things I usually don't take the time for.

New doodle:

This is what this post is actually about, my new drawing. Just a fun sketch (with pen, so little chance to correct mistakes) with a quickie coloring done in Photoshop. I imagine it would have been faster/easier if I had some sort of Wacom tablet. Someday, someday..

Feel free to leave comments, just remember this is not me at my finest or most refined. You can also visit my DeviantArt and leave a comment there! I'm also doing a $10 commissions promotion, so get 'em while they're cheap!

Thanks for reading!

sketch of the day 2

I sketched these.. what feels like a week or so ago, right before I fell sick. I'm recovering now, and finally got around to snapping a photo to post.

It's concept sketches for an idea I want to develop.

sketch of the day

I've been considering doing a sketch-a-day thing, and I'm gonna make this the first one and try to keep it up from here.

About this sketch, it is character development for a concept I have for a new comic. I'm going for simple and cute.

Hillsbrad Foothills

I think I once wrote that I would play WoW again when things stabilized. Well, things stabilized.

I went in and the first thing I did was look for a group on the Timeless Isle to go and kill the world boss Ordos, the Fire God of the Yaungol. After defeating the "final boss", and completing Wrathion's legendary quest chain and receiving my legendary cloak, this was the last item on my bucket list in the end game. With that out of the way I have gone back to the low level area of Hillsbrad Foothills, to catch up with low level story lines I skipped.

My Hillsbrad experience has been part disgusting an part hilarious, with a bit of awesome and lots of solitude. The whole time I was there I never once saw another player, but ironically some of the quests involved npc's that mimicked players, which was the hilarious part.

The "Jenny Awesome" storyline was especially funny because this crazy undead guy kept taking this elf dude for a girl, which is a joke I've seen before, but I can't remember where. Orcus the Kingslayer's story is another one worth mentioning. Saving him from shallow water reminded me of a scene in Robin Hood: Men in Thights, and when he died a true hero's death it was a little strange, because you kind of expect him to be able to resurrect like a player would, but since he can't it was kind of sad.

I just remembered. I actually have one last quest line to go finish there, the plants versus zombies one. Speaking of zombies, the undead can be really disgusting, like when they breed spiders in bears and your mission is to help collect the egg sacs.. Ew.

These are my thoughts for tonight, if you have any thoughts to share on the subject you're more than welcome to do so in the comments. Thanks for reading!

Path of Exile

Path of Exile is a pretty awesome game, especially considering that it's free to play.

I started the game with a Duelist character, which is a melee class. The character introduced himself as having been exiled for killing a nobleman that was insulting him, so he as defending his honor. Sounded nice enough, and the class played nicely enough.

At one point I acquired a skill that belonged to the Witch class though, a fireball spell. Suddenly I had range and when it hit it exploded and damaged nearby enemies as well! It was great! And even later on I found a spell for raising zombie minions, also belonging to the Witch class, and it is at this point that I asked "Why am I playing a duelist again?"

So I deleted the Duelist (I didn't have to, but I like to only have 1 character most of the time) and rolled a Witch, went quickly through the zones I'd already cleared before and finished the first major zone of the game.

While I enjoy leveling the Witch, and following the story, I'm starting to find the game grindy in the sense that it's just the same thing over and over. Enter zone, kill everything, find exit. Since it's free I will continue playing if I feel like it though.

Laffie strip 2

Sorry if your mobile device doesn't see the flash object. If you click the link it should take you to the image at deviantart.

comic 3 - Laffie 2-01 by dxantonio on deviantART

Hello! I am recovering from being sick over the weekend and I can't think of a better way to celebrate than sharing my newest comic strip! I've changed the style a little from the previous strip, and intend to change it again for the next strip. The next one will be a simplified version, or I will at least try to keep it simple.

On the topic of drawing, I've been meaning to do a "doodle a day" thing, but keep forgetting to do it. It's too bad, because I could use the practice, not just for my hand, but also for my creativity.

Game Samples

Don't let my previous post fool you.. I have not reactivated my WoW account yet. It was just something that occurred to me while reading about private (aka. pirate) WoW servers.

EVE ONLINE
No, I'm also not playing Eve Online, even though I've advanced enough in that game to be able to play for free, It demands a certain consistency and time spent on "upkeep" and not really playing the game, for as long as I want to play for free, which is always.

DIABLO 3
I'm giving the free trial of Diablo 3 a shot, didn't make it very far yet though. Took a little walk to town, killing some undead on the way, and logged off in town. I haven't formed an opinion on it yet, since I've barely played it so far.

STARCRAFT 2
Another freebie I'm trying from Blizzard is the Starcraft Starter Edition. I did the tutorials and first mission. I'm completely unfamiliar with the terms and abilities, but since I have experience playing Warcraft 3 it's pretty intuitive. The characters and story are interesting enough for me to come back at some point and continue.

HEARTHSTONE (BETA)
Then there's Hearthstone, the upcoming "card" battle game from Blizzard. I signed up for the closed beta and got in. I liked it a lot, and did my duty as beta tester, sending a crash report to Blizz. For now I don't think I'll be going back to play it again though. You see, at the beginning you get a "starter deck" which happens to be a Mage deck. Each deck has a Hero character that acts as your avatar in the game.

I have nothing against mages, but I wish I could have chosen my starter class. I would have picked Paladin, because that would be in line with my WoW character. Anyway, once you do the tutorial, you're ecouraged to play Practice games, where you can challenge the different classes in easy difficulty, gain points that eventually unlock more cards specific to your class, and unlock the classes you win against so you can play them as well.

So, I challenged the Paladin first, of course, and after refining my strategy I eventually beat him, but by then the Mage had a good deck set up and had many unlocked cards. Instead of switching to Paladin I decided to waste no time and just use the Mage to defeat the rest of the classes, which I did, and some on the first try. I then collected my rewards and wondered what to do next. I could go try the classes on "expert" difficulty, or go challenge other players, each would help me unlock more cards and play modes I reckon.
Well, this is where I decided to just leave it. It felt like having killed the last boss on LFR in WoW, and thinking "What now?" The last boss is dead, and you can go try it on a higher difficulty, but it will still be the same boss. It's either that or PvP. And PvP can be nice, but it has no story, and I like a good story.

PATH OF EXILE
Yesterday a friend told me I should check this game out, it's free, and so I did. From playing it about 1hr 30 mins I can say it's like an instanced open world Diablo MMO. It's dark and gorey like Diablo and has a similar hack n' slash gameplay. I do like it and will play this occasionally, until I reactivate WoW.. most likely a few weeks before WoW's next expansion gets released, so I can kill Ordos (unfinished business).

That's in a nutshell what I've been up to game-wise.

Have you tried any of these games? Do you like them? Have any questions? Let me know in a comment!

Thanks for reading!