Creatures of Fantasy

I made a Venn diagram that compares unicorns, Satan, and Your Mom. Because it had to be done.

And hey, if you want it on a T-shirt, I can oblige.

Waking the Dragon

I've been practicing my tablet drawing!

"LFG"

To create this picture I sketched it in pencil on paper first. Then I scanned it into my netbook, hooked up my Wacom tablet, downloaded GIMP and started inking over my pencil sketch. Note: You have to change the pen sensitivity from "opacity" to "size" in the GIMP drawing pen settings.

See this picture on deviantart

Book Review - Dragon Haven

Dragon Haven (Book Two of the Rain Wilds
Chronicles) by Robin Hobb

I love Robin’s unique take on dragons. She builds off of the telepathic dragon concept many may be familiar with from Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern. However, unlike the juvenile Eragon books, Hobb’s dragons only start with that concept.


The Rain Wilds dragons have a unique life cycle where they start off as sea serpents, then undergo a metamorphosis to eventually become majestic flying creatures with arms, legs, and wings. Unfortunately centuries have passed since the last dragons ruled the skies and the sea serpents forgot how to become dragons. Old and tired and guided by the last remaining dragon queen, they embark on a journey up a river to a place where they can undergo the metamorphosis. Only a few survive to hatch, and they emerge as small, deformed and clumsy shadows of what dragons are supposed to be.

Of course, this all happened in the first book. In the second book, which I just finished reading, the fledgling dragons have to swim up river again, this time trudging along in the shallows, guided by their keepers, a few hunters and a barge and its crew who have embarked on a journey to lead the dragons to their ancestral home… which is only rumored to exist. The dragons and their keepers grow and change both in character and physically during the journey. The author takes us deeper into her unique dragon ideas with a concept that dragon blood can alter humans and turn them into magical “Elderling” creatures, which seem to be strange but beautiful mutated dragonish humanoids. However, the changes are not always predictable and can go horribly wrong…

I found the second book to be as enjoyable as the first, and look forward to the third. I thought it started out a little slow, with most of the plot revolving around romances and relationships, but halfway through it got interesting and the end is worth the wait and leaves you interested in what while happen in the next book.

I would love to see someone make a costume based on the character Thymara from this book.

PAX 2010

We went to PAX on Saturday!

For those who dont know, PAX is the Penny Arcade Expo which basically is the Video Game Convention for geeky Seattle. WOOHOOOO for the OVER 52 THOUSAND people who showed up!!!

We completed a quest, acquired some PHAT LEWTS and defeated a DRAGON!

Screenshot or it didn't happen? BOOYAH:

Ava tanks the beast while Rini deploys a creative offensive strategy.

Symbiote Studios sent us on a quest! We had to run around the exhibition halls and advertise for Symbiote at different vendors. As a quest reward we got toys from Symbiote! Symbiote actually makes some cool stuff, they are working on Fraggle Rock figures now!

Symbiote gave us a Dr Tran and a Ninja toy.  Who's Dr Tran? Apparently it's a YouTube hit.  Off to YouTube I go once I'm done here.

To the magical #th world of an unknown floor

To the shop of the table top gamer for the almightly 20-sided dice

This is a the biggest cardboard standee ever. It's a Deiva (demi-goddess) named Aiva from the MMORPG Aion.

If I had serious skills I would love to do this as a costume! Ironically my latest main character in WoW was actually named Aiva (Ava and Avalyn were already taken on the Gorgonnash server) but when I played Aion I used a different name.
- Avalyn

This might just be my favorite giant prop in the exhibition hall - the area dedicated to a new game called Rift had some weird giant plant conglomoration handing from the ceiling with fruity orbs pulsing with faint illuminescence amid a mass of floral and vines.
- Avalyn