Lines

I feel like this thread is going in an ironic direction. Maybe just stick to the suggestion?

Day 4 - Radio. Radiation. A new character, my NRG/Rad Sentinel, Powerlines. I didn't think I'd use my handle as one of my characters at all, but I got the name and it grew on me. I spent a bit longer on the sketch using stuff I'd learned from the last three. The thing I'm really struggling with is getting an expressive face at such low resolution - I ended up overworking this one almost into blankness. I guess I could up my resolution, but it's already fairly high. I'll try and practice this over the rest of the images, but I think it'll take a few studies once October is over. Another thing I want to practice is using my photoshop marker brushes to represent different materials. They're a pretty rough facsimile of using actual markers and I don't really know how to represent things like hair and cloth with markers anyway. Again, something for after October. We're still not talking about hands.

I imagine it will appear on Tuesday with the server reset.

Day 3 - Bulky. SENTRYMAN! my Inv/SS Tank. Not my bulkiest character, but those characters suited other prompts better. Bulky in that not much is going to move him. This isn't even the most contrived of my associations. When this month is over, I want to try and do some portraits of this guy. I don't feel like I got his face looking the way I want it to, but I'm not entirely sure why. The expression is his, but there's a roundedness that isn't quite right for him. The messed up mask might not be helping. I also want to do some actual muscle studies - I was just guessing in a lot of places, especially the legs. Looking at it now, something about his right leg looks too far forward, like his foot should be further up the page, in line with his waist. I knew something was up with his stance when I was drawing it, but I only see it after posting. Edit: Well, since it's the weekend and I have time, here's a quick portrait in a style I'm more comfortable with. And playing with some halftone photoshop brushes. That jaw just needed to come waaaaay out, is the main thing.

Well, now I want this as a costume option. If we get buttcapes, it's only fair that we get neck underwear.

Here's Day 2 - Wisp. My Warshade, Vessel. I wanted to try something a bit weird with the transformation. There are a lot of anatomy bits I'm not sure about, but I was overworking the sketch and running out of time. I think I know where it could be better. Also, we're not talking about the hand. Nobody mention the hand.

My aim is to try and find my character which best suits the day's prompt and try and get them down. Superheroes are sort of new territory for me, and so is this crisper line style (I normally just attack paper with a graphite stick when I'm figure drawing). Plus time is pretty limited to do these in. They'll all be in fairly neutral angles to save time. For now, I'm sticking with familiar grey marker style for shading, so at least I can crack that out quickly. I don't need to stay inside the lines. I AM the Lines! But here's my Fish, Man o' War.

I don't mind cutscenes at all, but also going through games fast isn't really a quality I look for in a game. It's making me think, though, the fact that many of us have seen the same few cutscenes repeatedly may be more of a sign of a narrow, player-built meta-preference for a few bits of content rather than the cutscenes themselves being bad game design.

This is the sweet spot, in my perspective.

If you click your name on the toolbar at the top of the page, there's an option for 'Ignored Users'. You can add users there.

I'm never riding the tram again.

You guuuuuuys! ❤️

I like these a lot! Edit: would you mind if I had a crack at editing them for my own use? The colourfulness of the insp tray has always been a bit of visual pollution for me, so I'd quite like to see how these ones looked a touch desaturated.

My position is that the game has developed largely in a way that conveniences and empowers players. The vast majority of those changes have been great, and rolling back verbatim would mean sacrificing a lot of really good stuff. A lot of stuff does fall into greyer areas, as MTeague says. Things get a little subjective in that area: for me personally, I'm no big fan of when conveniences feel 'meta', or unthematic. I don't like to feel like I don't have to engage with the world, or parts of the world only exist to convenience me. Some harmless things like the /enterbasefrompasscode command, the /ah command*, the goddamn nonsense TUNNEL system and even the P2W vendor irritate me for that reason. I'd like to see those things find a more organic place in the game, at least. In terms of player empowerment and going oldschool, I truly believe there is scope to develop forward into a game that has more bite. Maybe even a whole different sort of bite than the early game had. Certainly one with less grind attached and one with more varied challenges. I think the world we occupy needs to be empowered against us a little bit. I do want to progress my characters towards new challenges rather than just the current feeling of overpowering old ones. That's been discussed in a lot of depth elsewhere. But the positive development of the game does, for me, outweigh those things. * which, sigh I have gotten a bit too used to. Maybe it could be a temp power with an animation similar to the police radio scanner. I'd like it if the actual auction house buildings had something to offer. Obsolescence bothers me.

There might be a few other routes you could go down. There's the obvious alien side, which opens up some prefixes like xeno-, exo- or even astro- or cosmo-. The kheldian forms are 'memories' of their past hosts, so you could play with names in the concept of memory. I have a warshade called Vessel, playing on the host/symbiote relationship. There might be some other similar words. Another named Eidolon, on a villain where the nictus is fully in control. But something else in the area of 'companion spirit' might help. The struggle and oncoming near-extinction of the species could be a prompt for a name. Any of those help?

I don't want to put words in Lumi's mouth, but I read it as "Escort missions are badly designed", rather than "The concept of saving citizens is a bad one". It more calls into question the mechanical AI pathing issues that CoH is famous for. It's easy to imagine a better execution of those sorts of missions. Edit: The one that really grinds me is from that same Johnny Sonata arc, where you need to kidnap Akarist from the Shadow Shard. He struggles to path over the terrain, and then when you lose him he'll say "And here I am left to my own devices. There are few things as depressing as an incompetant kidnapping." Mate, I'm not the one who's confused by a slight incline!

Recharge might be an issue. If you use it and then don't survive (which seems like it will be a common scenario), then you'll be down for a while. Unless it has some unique recharge mechanic that instantly recharges it when you die, and recharges it if you use it as a rez.

Not even the cel shading - I have just the outlines and a bit of posterization turned on. I think it looks really good but it seems like just activating the graphical mode does stuff to portraits - it looks to me like it renders low LOD versions of the models. And sometimes decides NPCs don't need all their body parts, I guess.

I think it's because I like St Martial a lot, especially the Golden Giza and the weird mysticism around it (though it would be a bit dream of mine to remodel the interior). I also know what I'm in for with that mission and just relax into it. It feels like it works, at least, which is more than can be said for the Croatoa finale. Last time I did it was on a DB/Ninja scrapper, who had the stealth/escort issues. That was a little annoying. But all the ambushes consolidated into two MASSIVE groups and I had the best time testing the limits of that character slaughtering them all. Edit: Also I like the chilled out Mu guy who just wanted to go home and relax in front of the TV.

I love that mission Cli-- Wait, Clave? I've been reading your name as Clive since forever. I'mma call you Clive. Too used to it. I love that mission, Clive! 🙂

The experimental graphics does some weird, weird shit to those portraits. I've had a bunch of contacts with no head altogether.

This thread went in a weird direction. I like it!

Do 10 of those and you become Scottish.

*restrains excitement*

I see you guys running around together every now and again. It's always a welcome sight! 🙂