gratuitous art post: The Kiss of Awakening

Sometime during the latter part of the Suramar campaign*, one of the Suramar citizens whom Kaelinda had helped to rescue from the City and bring to refuge at Shal’aran took a fancy to her and began to court her. His name was Burgaux; he was an artisan — a glassblower who had created many of the beautiful vessels that held arcwine, some of the lovely beaded curtains found around the City, and a multitude of wondrous objects d’arte**. Kaelinda was charmed and flattered by his attention.

When Burgaux kissed her, however, she instantly realized two very important things.

One, she did not want this relationship to proceed all the way to the bedroom.
Two, she would really much rather be being kissed by Ianestin, who had been her best male friend, and indeed one of the closest of all her friends, for decades.

She broke off the relationship with the hapless Nightborne immediately.

~*~*~

Kaelinda’s “Pretty Posies” outfit (#47) was designed as as “date” outfit — though I didn’t know at the time just whom she was on a date with. When this story started developing in my mind, then I knew.

~*~*~
*specifically, the 7.1 “Insurrection” stage of the Suramar storyline
**think Chihuly, only enhanced with arcane magic, and you’ll be imagining the right sorts of artisan glasswork

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Gratuitous Art Post: Ma-ma! Ma-na?

Another pre-academic year college meeting, another cute Elf doodle.

See also 2019, 2020, 2021

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gratuitous art post: diversity circle

I drew this many years ago — it’s not dated, but it was probably around a decade ago — just to play with the various skin tone-like colors available in Crayola’s marker line at the time. There was a box of 8 beige to bronze to umber shades called, I believe, the “Multicultural” set, which I supplemented with peach and 3 other browns from other sets. After the events of summer 2020, just before the 2020-2021 academic year began, I pulled it out of the art binder I’d had it stored in and stuck it up in my office window as a sort of subtle “diversity welcome here” statement.

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gratuitous art post: twelve beautiful brown Orcs

I suppose I could have drawn furry folk such as Tauren, Pandaren, Worgen, or Vulpera to play with different shades of brown, but Orcs were what my brain wanted to draw.

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gratuitous art post: Mama Elf

Keliora with her husband, Taelorien, and her daughters

Keliora and her youngest

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gratuitous art post: Kaelinda’s study group

Clockwise from lower right: Kaelinda, Ianestin, Kaelyla and Ishaleron (newlyweds, but not completely insufferable about it). Tigerlily the cat is a library resident who has adopted this group of students; she was adopted in turn by Ianestin after the fall of Silvermoon.

My Void Elf Mage, Kaelyla, has been one of Kaelinda’s friends since their Academy days. After some initial tension, their friendship survived the disruptions of the expulsion of the group who would become the Ren’dorei from Silvermoon following the near-disaster of Alleria Windrunner’s visit to the Sunwell and the subsequent migration of the Ren’dorei into the Alliance.

Only Kaelinda’s clothing is meant to evoke an in-game item; it is a less skimpy version of the Light Silk Robe.

I drew this picture as an illustration for a story that I’m writing. I’m posting it on its own, though, so I can more easily link it on my “Drawings” page.

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gratuitous art post: afghans I have crocheted

When I was in my late teens, I asked my maternal grandmother to teach me how to do her afghan crochet stitch. This is the first afghan I made, and I still have it:

In the succeeding two-plus decades, I’ve made dozens of afghans; this past weekend, I finished #42. Most of them have been approximately queen-sized and have been given to friends or relatives as wedding presents. Several have been crib-sized and have been given to friends or relatives as baby shower presents.

The Geek Afghans

#14 “Hydrogen”: This piece is based on the atomic emission spectrum of hydrogen. Each of the 100 rows represents 3 nm of the approximately 400 – 700 nm wavelength visible range of light, with 700 nm at the top and 400 nm at the bottom. The red, green, violet, and purple stripes are located at the correct locations for where those lines actually appear.

#31 “And There Was Life”: Each of the four grayscale and greenscale shades in this piece represents one of the four nucleotide bases. Every two rows is a nucleotide base; every six rows is a codon. The sequence, when translated into the one-letter codes for the amino acids, reads “AND THERE WAS LIFE” from top to bottom, with the “LIFE” section in green.

#39 “Pi”: This crib-sized afghan is based on the first digits of pi up to the sum of 100. Each digit from 1 – 9 is represented with a different color and the block of that color is that many rows wide. Single-crochet rows in black and white represent the decimal point and the digit 0, respectively.

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Cheerful Chibi Elves

How I entertained myself during the college meeting I attended yesterday. I drew the lineart during the meeting, at any rate; I did the colors (Crayola colored pencil) that night at home.

After I drew these two, I thought that their proportions weren’t quite chibi enough, so I tried again.
I did Kaelinda first, then Kaelydia, then the others from right to left.

Kaelyla, Kishalla, Kalaneia, Kaelinda, Kaelydia

Transmog Pop Quiz: Can you identify the robe that each of these characters is wearing?

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#KyrianButStillMe and other thoughts on the Shadowlands alpha data dump

Something that’s been bothering me about the Kyrians of Bastion ever since the initial previews at Blizzcon is how they all look like humans. My characters of other races won’t want to turn into humans in the afterlife, they’ll want to stay themselves.

I’d love to see some more skilled artist than myself create a set of images depicting each of the other player character races with the stance, clothes, blue & white coloration, and angelic wings of the Kyrian, but with the proportions and features unique to each race. #KyrianButStillMe

Looking at the Oribos and Bastion quest sets, Covenant cloak replacements, miscellaneous armor bits, and weapon models — and the various NPC and creature models, though I’m not going to link those Wowhead datamining posts — I’m definitely finding myself drawn most strongly to the aesthetics of Bastion/Kyrian and Ardenweald/Night Fae.
* Kaelinda will still be pursuing Revendreth/Venthyr (because Kael’thas), and my Demon Hunter and Rogue are getting all googly-eyed over what has been shown so far of the Revendreth/Venthyr leather gear.
* All of my other Mages are going nope-nope-nope about the Maldraxxus/Netherlords gear. Yes, even my Forsaken Mage. Kivrinne says, “I’m not that kind of Forsaken! When I eventually go to the Shadowlands for real, I’m going to want to be Kyrian!”
* My Warlock, however, is looking at the Maldraxxus/Netherlords stuff and rubbing her chin saying, “hmmmm, I could maybe go for that cloak replacement with the green floaty stones…”

I haven’t yet pre-purchased Shadowlands because I decided to hold off on doing that until I’d gotten a character of each armor type to level 120 in BfA. So I’ve still got to get Kerisa to level 120 before I’ll buy Shadowlands — but when I do, Kerithian and Kalaneia are now bickering over who will get the level 120 Boost.
* Kalaneia says that she should get it so that she can go be my ambassador to Maldraxxus/Netherlords, since all the Mages are too wimpy to do it.
* Kerithian says that she should get it so that she can be the Druid who will go to Ardenweald/Night Fae, because now that I’ve written two small children into Kerisa’s RP story, how can I possibly put Kerisa’s family through the trauma of sending her to the Shadowlands? and it is uncertain if I’ll manage to get Kasheena leveled to 120 in time for Shadowlands.

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preliminary thoughts about Shadowlands

The story concept of Shadowlands isn’t hooking me any more than the story concepts of Warlords of Draenor or Battle for Azeroth originally appealed to me. Warlords had some great characters & character moments (I love Draka in Warlords!), though, and the Alliance-side leveling story story, being unified by the meteoric trajectory of Yrel, felt more cohesive than the Horde-side leveling story. I’ve also found myself much more engaged by the stories of Battle for Azeroth than I initially expected to be. So I am tentatively optimistic that Shadowlands will also have characters, moments, and locations that I will discover that I like very much indeed.

With four different endgame campaign stories to play in Shadowlands, I’ll want to have at least four characters at level 120 by the end of Battle for Azeroth. Three of those four characters will be Kaylynda, Kaelinda, and Kerisa; who the fourth will be, I’m not sure yet. Kerisa will of course Covenant with the Night Fae of Ardenweald. Kaylynda will probably choose the Kyrian of Bastion. Kaelinda is the most likely candidate to choose the Venthyr of Revendreth because the concept art for that faction suggests that their gear will coordinate nicely with the Sin’dorei Heritage Armor for Mogging mix-and-match and also because Kaelinda would like another chance to poke Kael’thas in the eye. That leaves the Necrolords of Maldraxxus… If I want to send a clothie there, the most logical choice from an RP-standpoint would be my Warlock, Kalaneia. The Vulpera Mage that I’ll be creating as soon as Patch 8.3 goes live could also be a good alt to team up with the Necrolords — the Vulpera have that scrappy fight-for-survival attitude and, thinking of Nisha and her maps and battle plans, could work with the “spy” angle of the Necrolords.

Kamalia will be retiring for Shadowlands. During Legion and again in Battle for Azeroth, I was more interested in doing end-game activities — specifically LFR for Transmogrification shinies — with my cloth-wearing Mages and leather-wearing Druid than with my mail-wearing Shaman. Because Kamalia had leveled first, however, she had a huge lead on story and reputation progress toward the Pathfinder achievements, so I felt like it would be better to keep going on those things with her than to play catch-up with another character. In Shadowlands, I want to have the character(s) who I’ll actually want to do end-game activities with be the first one(s) to level.

In-character, Kamalia finally met her match in Haitou Rivermane (one of Jale Rivermane’s sons) and will be getting married and settling down to attempt to give her parents some grandcalves before she gets any older. Kerisa, meanwhile, spent the latter part of Legion and the first year of Battle for Azeroth being pregnant with her second child, then nursing the infant. She weaned her son, allowing her to return to active service with the Cenarion Circle, just in time for her to help with repelling the Void assaults on Nordrassil and the Emerald Dream.

I’m most likely going to purchase the Heroic Edition because of the special armor set — and the level 120 boost will go to Karaelia so that I can have a character of each of the four armor classes prepared to move into Shadowlands. However, I will most likely not level Kamalia and Karaelia in Shadowlands until the end-of-expansion lull.

I am relieved that there isn’t a new Class. That would be another alt that I’d definitely want to play, but considering that I haven’t even got a second character to 120 in Battle for Azeroth yet, when would I find the time and energy for it?

I’m excited for more character customization options! Kjerstin will be getting herself some Wildhammer tattoos. I wonder what new customization options Tauren and Blood Elves will get?

I’ll probably roll up a Pandaren (or maybe a Void Elf) Death Knight to check out the Bolvar Needs More Minions starting zone, but that character won’t be a permanent addition to my roster. I’ll need another temporary toon to explore the new 1-10 tutorial zone, as well.

I’ll continue to work on leveling my Allied Races characters (Highmountain Tauren Druid, Void Elf Mage, Kul Tiran Mage, Vulpera Mage) for their Heritage Armor. The level squish and ability to level from 10 – 50 in any previous expansion’s content (Wowhead, Blizzard Watch) will help a lot with that, I hope!

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