Tuesday Art Day: More Mini-Sketches

You might remember on my anniversary post I was giving away freebies, of sorts. Here are some that didn’t make it into the first batch or that I’ve finished since! If you requested one and I’ve missed you, maybe you could call my attention to it? I had folks who wanted one but didn’t share an armory link and I’ve gotten a bit confused keeping the comments all straight.

Anyway, mini-sketches, 5-minutes each, you know the drill.

In somewhat related news, you can see the gentlemanly murloc I did for Zelmaru over at Murloc Parliament and check out her snazzy new layout while you’re at it!

Rades and Beru each wrote posts that were tear-jerkers for different reasons – Beru’s a moving story of success, Rades’ a lament for a lost friend.

Also, my friend Liala featured me in her comic, Disciplinary Action – after I complained that there was a serious lack of draenei representation. She set out to teach me that the cliche is true – you really do have to be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.

There’s no patch tomorrow, unfortunately. I’ve never anticipated a patch quite so eagerly – I really want those new meta gems. How about you, are you looking forward to the patch for any reason or wish it wouldn’t come? Voss observed cheerfully, “Well, that just means I get another week of being OP!” He has a way of looking on the bright side.

Tuesday Art Day: Wildhammer and Link Love

I feel both guilty and gleeful about the look on the fish's face. The answers to the question, "What does a dwarf feed her gryphon?" were pretty awesome, incidentally, and ranged from "dead orc heads" to...well, fish. You're probably happy I chose the former.

I know that art day posts are a bit boring (what do you say about them?) so I’m combining two time-honored traditions, art day AND link love. I’ve had some links stored away in my file for several weeks now, so it’s time to get caught up! This was a sketch that strong-armed its way into becoming a semi-paint, it’s still a bit rough but for a warm-up sketch, I’m happy with it! (That’s two and a half hours of warming up, by the way).

Without further ado, link love!

Cynwise wrote a great post about warlock CC, if you’re into that kind of thing, but many of the tips and macros could be re purposed easily to apply to mages or most any other class. It’s a good read!

In a similar vein, Ophelie over at The Bossy Pally wrote about all the types of CC there are. I suppose some people feel now that CC is no longer necessary in heroics and everything has become an AoE zerg-fest, but for many of the tougher pulls we’re still CCing. It doesn’t take long and it makes life easier for everyone!

I enjoyed Spinks’ short post about the Women of Cataclysm. I’m always happy to see stronger female characters taking a place in WoW! I would hasten to add there are some great Wildhammer characters there too (have you done the quest with the gryphon rider in Deepholm? I won’t spoil it for you, but suffice to say she is tough as nails).

Perhaps you’re back into raiding again, but do you know how your raiders learn new encounters? Kae wrote about this a few weeks ago and I thought it was an interesting read. I’m visual and tactile myself, which means the videos don’t generally work well for me (and the talking in them mostly annoys me). A good diagram and some hands-on experience helps me more than anything.

Finally, this post is old but I happened across it when the topic came up for us the other night. Anexxia’s post The Changing Face of Spirit talks about how the stat fits into Cataclysm gear. Have you decided what your raid is doing about gear with +spirit? It’s something to consider before you are caught unprepared!

Monday Linking Love

I have another edition of linking love for your Monday – welcome to the week! (I’m not actually that chipper, but by gosh, I am trying!) I’m even writing this a day early because I know it’s not going to happen tomorrow morning, that’s for sure.

First up, Anafielle at Righteous Defense has a message for Low Level Paladin tanks. (Voss thinks the message is “roll a warrior instead,” but I think he may have a slight bias).

ArcaneTinkerTank at Murloc Parliament has some advice for getting your financial house in order for the coming Cataclysm. It’s pretty simple, really – and yet I still have more junk in my alt guild than I’m willing to admit to!

Cayleb from Bubble Hearth is starting an interesting new leveling experiment - The Ethical Alt. I have something of a soft spot for these kinds of leveling experiments, and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens as he progresses!

For anyone wondering what the upcoming patch entails and confused about all the announced changes and what’s going on – Beru at Falling Leaves and Wings has a post breaking it down. It’s simple and no frills. Just the facts, ma’am!

This is a sketch. This is only a sketch. This has been a sketch of the emergency image for a blog post needed system. Had this been a real drawing...I probably would have coloured the bottom of her robe.

I am a big fan of the series Pewter at The ‘Mental Shaman has been writing about World of Warcraft fan art. This past week she tackled the representation of Troll women. I have to admit that I find myself thinking more carefully about what I draw and how I draw it since Pewter got me thinking about it. Well worth a read!

Shintar at Priest With A Cause is getting into the Cataclysm events. Now that’s what I call an invasion!

Linedan from Achtung Panzercow discovered new meaning in the Crusader Bridenbrad questline. Read about it in his post I Feel For The Guy, But… Even before this I knew Linedan and I would have to agree to disagree about Bridenbrad and his quest chain. I have always really enjoyed it and couldn’t quite say why.

Finally, I have a new guest post up at Sword and Board for people who like lowbie warrior tanking stuff. The posts there take me much longer to write generally – and Voss tries to include helpful information.

All of that ought to give you plenty to read while you’re having much-needed morning coffee!

Tuesday Art Day: Talwen

Back at Pugging Pally I used to do art posts fairly often. I think it’s a fine tradition that I wouldn’t mind continuing!

Here is a commission I just recently finished for a friend of Lara‘s. This is her draenei paladin, Tal, and she is awesome (if I do say so myself). The armour was conceived of by her and assembled/altered by the two of us with our brainstorming; it’s a combination of the Tier 8 paladin set combined with Tier 6 (shoulders and crown). I changed the colours of those pieces so that they would look as if they were part of the T8 set.

Because you all know how I feel about draenei. Draenei. Are. Awesome!

So that is thing one; I always enjoy sharing some art I’ve been working on! Secondly, I have written a guest post that is the probable first in a series of guest posts for Vosskah over at Sword and Board. Yes, that’s right, Vosskah, infamous raid leader and utterer of French expletives! Those of you who have been sad I don’t write about pugging as much may like this series, because…

I made a warrior.  And all she’s been doing is tanking (ulp). Meantime, Voss provides useful information about tanking. I think it’s a fun combination, especially for anyone else who may be interested in leveling lowbie warrior tanks. That’s something that Vid was always lacking as she leveled – I couldn’t tell people about good choice to make because I really was just figuring it out as I went along. Unlike me, Voss knows what he is doing.

It may take my little warrior a long time to level this way, but the journey promises to be a nerve-wracking one. Mosey over and read Looking To Be A Great Warrior? if you are so inclined!

Friday Linking Love

This is what happens when I have to draw something in five minutes because it's a contest on Twitter. This is how I feel about lighting things on fire.

These are some blog entries this week that I enjoyed – because there are many awesome entries out there for the reading! I could pretend this will be a Thursday-Friday thing, but let’s be honest, I’ll probably just do it on any day that I remember and name it after that particular day.

Without further ado:

Natalie over at Pocket Heals has five tips to help you to beat the pre-expansion blues, and they’re good ones! I’m still putting off cleaning my bank character’s junk, though.

Beruthiel writes how she copes with juggling her leadership responsibilities even when she’s really not in the mood. She wants us to know that the people in charge get tired, too! Sounds like someone’s got a case of the Mondays…

Antigen from Haz Mace, Will Raid writes a thought-provoking post about the burden of being a hybrid, and he’s not talking about slightly lower DPS. Well worth a read for any class that’s capable of multiple specs – and even for those of us playing pures – sometimes it’s important to think about what things are like for other folks.

I’m late to the party on this one, but Kiss My Alas just turned a year old! Head on over and wish her a happy Blogaversary! I don’t like how that word sounds like “adversary.” Maybe I’m just spelling it wrong.

If you haven’t been reading Rades’ Letters From Northrend at Orcish Army Knife you are missing out! You can read a missive from the Time Lost Proto Drake, all about how Xevozz is back in business, and even Arugal. I’ve really been enjoying them. All they need now is more draenei.

My friend Snack (you might remember him from such guests posts as: From Bad To Less Bad: Pugging As a Tool To Improve) started a blog of his own! Here he writes about how he and Liala  have been schooling lowbies to respect their business area. That’s not exactly how he put it. I expect great things of him and this blog! By the way, it may also interest you to know that the odds Liala was tanking while walking on a treadmill are pretty high. How’s that for skill?!

Finally, last but not least, Payce is blogging again! And he has an awesome story about the Red Shirt Guy. I’m not going to get into it here if you don’t already know who the Red Shirt Guy is. Youtube will tell you all about it if you don’t know. It sounds like being the Wildhammer Fact Checker is paying off for him.