Cadillac of the Skies

After god knows how much training, and more ISK than I care to admit spending... I finally got my new shiny ride, the coveted Proteus. Hopefully my spaceship ADD will be satiated for a while after this one.... my wallet can't handle it! And this ship was definitely a critical blow!

Now lets hope she gets some kills before she is killed. ;)

If I were Maeve...

I would probably look a bit like this!

But really.... I was poking around the new character tool and got a kick out of the fact that my exact do is in the game. I couldn't resist.

For the moment the level of customization seems pretty limited, and depending on the race/bloodline you pick, excluding your hairstyle, you'll pretty much look like everyone else that shares that race/bloodline. I hope they fix that.

I also couldn't find a replacement for Maeve's crazy fro hair, so I'm not sure exactly which way I'll go with that. Ah well... I've got plenty of time to decide!

Maeve Illustration WIP

Some of you may have noticed I've been a bit MIA in EVE lately, but that doesnt mean I am leaving the game by any means. I've just been very focused on trying to get some work coming in (it is horribly slow at this point), so I've been building a portfolio for illustration and character design. Hence this portrait of Maeve I've been fiddling with. Yea... she details her drones in her quarters, you got a problem with that??
Last night for the most part I finished up the line work, and have brought it into Photoshop (and possibly Paint) to begin the color process. I may or may not watercolor the original for myself, which is currently propped against the wall behind the door in my computer room / studio (lol).

Anyways I thought you all might appreciate seeing her progress! :)

Oh, and yes, that is the beginnings of a Roc Wieler poster over her bed. hehe.

Dread 'Naught for Me

Thank you Asayanami Dei for the shot,
most epic WH local comment ever.*

It seems the best fun is had while I decide I need to take a bit of an EVE break.

I got clued in from a Facebook post from a corp-mate, that I missed an awesome night, "killed 2 dreadnaughts", she said. I thought I was being tricked into logging back in, but after quickly looking over the killboards and reading the corp forums, it happened, and I was laying on the couch, watching pre-recorded Tour de France. Sigh.

Apparently over the past couple of days, we have been sieging an occupied WH, kidnapping a carrier and some other goodies when one of their POSs went down early in the weekend. At some point yesterday, they decided to go on the offensive and attack the POS we had set up in their system with 2 dreads and a fairly decent fleet. Two dreads. I dont even think I've seen one dread in action never-mind two. Personally I would have shit bricks, but somehow our gopher game won the day. I really wish I had been there. /o\

Asayanami and all his mad skills put together this video for all to see. \o/


*stuff blurred per request.

Kryptonite is bad, mmkay?

In honor of Hulkageddon going on right now, and in memory of all the beautiful beasts slain, I figured I post this "gem" (heheh, get it?... ok I'm not that funny) of a screen shot that I took a while back.

Nice and big. Use it as a wallpaper to rejoice your Hulk.... or to refresh your memory if you've forgotten what your target looks like. ;)

Irony*

From left to right
Indy WH corp, NOIR gun, Adhocracy

It all started with a random salvager loss to get the boys foaming at the mouth.

I've only been with Adhocracy for a few short weeks, but in that time the best analogy I can give them is that they remind me of those Mad Max bikers in Weird Science that appear out of nowhere, come crashing through a hole in the wall and start breaking everything.

The best sense I can make of it (besides sheer insanity) is that it is a sort of distraction, call it a preemptive strike, whenever our hub WH opens to another.

As Mad Max bikers are to Adhocracy, so is a WH to Wyatts house. Gary and Wyatt don't care where the bikers came from, they just want them out of their house.

We were perfectly happy to do our routine of breaking things til our link collapsed... but they drew first blood, and to be honest I think we were waiting for an excuse to go apesh*t.

Within a half hour of my logging in, we had a POS launched and anchoring in their system, a large logistics/defense/attack fleet positioned and fancy instructional graphs in the forums (seriously, who made those?).

We continued with our regular scheduled programme until we all started passing out.. dropping off with little resistance until our fleet dwindled down to naught. Most of the fleet logged back in the next night, and of course we had to start POS bashing all over, but that was ok, we entertain ourselves by discussing generation 1 My Little Ponies and arguing whether or not orange is a complimentary color to pepto pink.

Yea, we had the situation in the bag. Vengeance was had. One guy kept randomly launching bombs at us without doing enough damage to take out my drones. People started logging off, with dreams of POS pinata. All was good in Wyatts house.


That was until our scout timidly said into his mic, "Guys, I've got a bunch of NOIR appearing in local...."

"...Mynxee..." I think to myself, clicking my contacts, she is online.

This is where the irony comes into the story.

After my year hiatus I returned to EVE as a born again newb, having only lived in null sec prior, I was perfectly happy to carebear it up for all eternity. But Mynxee.... Mynxee and her "come hithers", tempting me to Hellcats, planted the seed of bloodlust that lead me to this very biker gang. The same person who inadvertently put me in this wormhole, was now coming to lay down the law.

By this time our fleet had dwindled down to a skeleton, I knew this was going to happen fast and holy hell did it ever. In the time it took me to call in my drones, over 20 NOIR pilots appeared in the overview, Mynxee wasn't there, I knew more were coming.

Miraculously most of us managed to escape back to our POS and we discussed our plan of attack.
For the most part we were ready for a suicide finish, and many of us lemmingly followed in a game of POS shield gopher just long enough to take out one NOIR pilot, and realized for every one we killed, another would just log in to replace them. They have shifts, we being the disorganized bikers do not. For most of us it was well past midnight. A few made a mad dash for the WH to known space, despite it being camped and bubbled at this point, and actually freaking made it out.

I was just aligning for the WH when our diplomat said he was in negotiations with NOIR and our frenemies.

What? They will let us take our toys and leave? Just like that? Was this a trap? We argued NOIRs honor in mumble, grumbled about "surrendering", pointing out that NOIR pilots continued pouring into the WH like angry wasps. Eventually those of us left agreed their reputation was too high to go back on a logged agreement, they're mercs, not pirates, and time is money. A withdrawal without any losses would be more logical than suiciding to save our egos.

True to their word, they began repping POS mods so we could offline them and haul them away. At almost 4am EST we hauled out the last bits and pieces, still a bit dazed if not delirious.

In the end I think the operation was a success, despite the fact that we didn't accomplish what we set out to do (take over). But maybe I am just too optimistic. We got in, messed some shit up, and got back out with minimal loss (M Thomas I am truley sorry for your lots) I launched and helped take down a POS for the first time, and eventually did see Mynxee on my overview drunk as she was, and probably grateful she wasn't going to have to POS bash for 3 days. ;)

Lessons of the day;

Never underestimate the deep pockets of an industrial corp.
NOIR is not a fairy tale made up to scare the bad people.

*I do not speak on behalf of Adhocracy Incorporated, these events are described from my own personal viewpoint and may or may not be perfectly accurate. Not everyone in ADHC will agree with my feelings of the outcome.

EON: Postcards from the Edge

ZOMG!

So I just got the latest issue of EON to find one of my screen shots has been published! I actually have to say I did cheat a bit on this one, the original was very dark and the lightening effects I exaggerated by doing a bit of painting trickery. I also combined 2 different images because the background was more impressive in one, and the angle of the ship was better in the other. Also had to do some contrast and saturation bumping to make the ship pop a bit more than it did in the original.

Curious to see the original shots?

Background Used

Ship Used

To clarify this is the only screen shot I ever took that I manipulated, I just thought the pocket of space was so impressive and the shots that I came back with didn't quite capture the power and wow-factor I felt when I landed in the middle of it. There was lightening in the pocket, I just couldnt manage to actually get my timing right.

Oh, and the shot was taken on my alt Aurynn, I did giggle a little when they called Maeve a rookie... but thats ok. I'd rather her name be in the pages of EON than my alts. ;)

So... where's my 100m isk??