I have been thinking about creating a new DA group for Sygnus-type projects, especially to showcase artwork created by friends and fans… so I finally did last night!

I’ve been sending out invitations to those I know have DA accounts and have submitted Sygnus fan art in the past. If I missed you somehow, just go ahead and join the group and I’ll put you where you belong as a contributor. Contributors are free to add works to the group without prior approval.

Members and watchers are quite welcome to join! And don’t be surprised if I add your art to our galleries out of the blue as well!

I also decided (quite quickly) that I would NOT be going back and posting old Wayrift pages. There are just too many (1,000+) to archive on there. Not only would it take way too much time, but would also inflate my account and probably make all my friends unsubscribe from me! *laughs*

So here’s the link to the Wayrift folder gallery on DA!

I’m considering making a Sygnus group on DA… not sure how many of you guys would be interested in joining if I did..? I already have lots of Sygnus fan art from over the years to add to it!

As you might can tell from all the recent artwork on DA, I’ve been testing and learning and trying things out with the Tablet PC that Syn gifted me for Christmas last year. I’m slowly getting a better feel for it and inking in Flash… which has led me to reflecting on the current state of Wayrift strips.

When I first got the Tablet PC, I changed the page size for Wayrift, just as an experiment for this chapter. I wanted to see if I could make pages a little less cluttered and make updates quicker for me to handle with a bit less art. But looking back on this chapter, while I enjoyed much of it, I think the pages are a little too sparse in content.

So, starting in Chapter 40, I will be experimenting with longer, more scrolling pages, rather than boxed shape. The challenge to this is far more content in each page — a lot more drawing and painting for us. But also making sure the pages don’t fall into the too cluttered trap as I felt some of the pages in the past have.

So onwards with more experimentation! After inking the pages yesterday, I have to say that I was more pleased with how they turned out than the pages in Chapter 30… or maybe it’s just because I’m going back to drawing people rather than Dragons! *laughs*

You guys will have to let me know what you think when we get there next week!

Anyhow! You came to see art. So here it is: Suzume, SaRa and Lucci planting a sapling on the Islands in Nefol. This isn’t a group of characters I draw often, and SaRa always gives me a big hassle. So I think it turned out alright.

This is part of a larger Dreigiau art project. But I won’t say anything about that just yet. ^_~

Click for larger image

Quickly! Click to see Syn’s art before she makes me take it down! ^_~

A few years back, I inherited Syn’s Intuos 3 tablet… and it changed the way Wayrift was created and looked forevermore. This year, she upgraded her technical arsenal to include a Cintiq and I was gifted with her Fujitsu Lifebook Tablet PC! Needless to say, there will be more changes to Wayrift in method of production as well as format because of this.

Firstly, I’m proud to say that Wayrift will be going 100% paperless starting with next week’s update! This has been something I’ve wanted to accomplish with Wayrift eventually — I’ve always done my best to be environmentally conscious about my online projects. All roughs were always drawn on the backs of used sheets of paper, for example. And I have always recycled where I could.

But this year, with the Tablet PC, I will be working on learning how to do all steps of comic drafting digitally so that no paper is involved at all. I’ve already roughed and inked one week’s worth of comics this way and I feel with a little practice, you guys will never know the difference. ^_~

Secondly, due to the fact that pages are going to be inked and roughed digitally, the format of Wayrift may go through some changes as I try to figure out how everything works. Lately, I’ve felt that some of the newer pages felt a little too cluttered in both number of frames and amount of text. In the next few weeks, I’m going to be experimenting with this.

Next week, you may notice that the dimension of the page feel a little shorter than what you’re used to — more square shaped rather than rectangular. This may or may not become the standard. But fewer, larger frames are easier to draw directly to the screen and easier to produce at the rate of three pages a week. Fewer frames per page may also allow me more time per frame, meaning more detailed frames than what I’ve been doing recently (especially background wise).

So that’s the end of 2009 news for Wayrift. Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season!

Forward into 2010!

The 2009 Yule Festival has begun in Lord of the Rings Online. This year, there’s a new area in the pub of Thorin’s Hall, new events to take part of and, most of all, a new way of earning the festival mount.

I’ve been waiting to earn the Yule Horse for my Champion TsuYa ever since I saw it last year. Ben and my namesake Minstral, Aywren, have both earned their festival mounts during this year’s Summer and Fall festivals.

Since the original horse races bugged out earlier this year, Turbine shut them down, and earning a horse was as tedious and simple as gathering the right amount of festival tokens to trade. With the introduction of the new mount system in the Mirkwood release (I love, love, love what they’ve done with mounts — soooo much better!), comes a new sort of horse race (tips follow below) to earn the festival horse. And a new festival horse, too.

You have your choice between last year’s Yule Horse and this year’s new Yule Snow Horse. There is a difference in the looks — the Snow horse has a beautiful, intricate pattern on the blanket which I love, a very full black mane and a brown-splotched white coloration. It’s a well designed horse and I’ve heard a lot of folks really liking it. As for me, I love the new blanket, but I just couldn’t get into the white splotches on the brown. So after much back and forth, I chose to earn last year’s Yule Horse instead.

Yes. You CAN get them both, if you’re wondering. But you have to win the race twice… and you have to fork over some cash for the Document of Mount Ownership. This document will cost you 4 gold if you have never owned a mount before and a discounted 1.6 gold if you currently own a mount.

I have a little grouchiness about this — in previous festivals, you would simply trade your current mount for the festival mount and never have to pay a single silver. But now that mounts are skills and not items, that isn’t possible anymore. I guess I understand why they make you pay for a new mount since you don’t actually give up your old one and only add to your mount collection. It’s nice of them to discount it, but honestly, I would have gladly handed in my old yellow horse for the Yule Mount and saved what little gold I have on hand. I’m not a rich player, so buying both horses is seriously out of the question.

Anyhow… back to the new races. I have to say that it’s very very tricky! It took me much practice, luck and frustration to win the Yule Race Token. Here’s some tips and ideas on how it works:

Tips on Winning the Festival Horse Race

The new horse race is a timed solo quest that pits your riding skill against an obstacle course on the festival track. You no longer race against other players to win (though other players will be riding on the track at the same time you are).

There are two tracks and two questgivers:

• Sally Threshing (24.9S, 52.0W Breeland Festival Grounds)
• Carl Proudfoot (35.3S, 73.1W Shire Track, right outside of Michel Delving)

Tip #1 - If you lose the race, you have to wait an hour to try again. However, each track is on a different timer, so you can actually attempt the race twice, once at each track, every hour!

Tip #2- Practice the track before you make the run. Practice racing around the track will allow the objects and land to load fully and help reduce lag when you go to do the real thing.

Tip #3- Keep in mind that the horse you race on during the quest is FASTER than your own normal mount. So as much as you may practice, the real thing is going to be at a higher speed, which can be harder to control.

Tip #4- You MUST make it through all of the gates to win the race. I’ve made it across the finish line before time expired a few times to still lose the race, much to my frustration. The reason for this was that I didn’t make it through all the gates along the way.

For areas where you have to choose to try to ride over the water on narrow planks… or run through the water and get mired down… take note that there are two gates to ride through. One is above the planks. One is over the mire. These are the gates I’m guessing people are missing.

When you successfully ride under the gate while racing on the planks, you will see an on-screen announcement that tells you that you have a speed boost. I found that you MUST be ON THE PLANKS when riding under the gate for this to count. So if you fall off the planks and try to ride through the plank gate, it won’t work.

If you’re in the water, your ONLY choice is to ride through the mire gate, which gives you an on screen announcement that your horse is now slowed in speed. If you try to “cheat” by running through the gate under the planks, the race will not update and even if you cross the finish line before the time is up, you will lose.

On the time I finally won, I managed to make it through one of the gates on the planks for the speed boost, but had to run through the mire the second time. I suppose this balanced out somehow because I crossed the finish line JUST in time to win. Whew!

So if people are having issues with the race, those are some things to keep in mind!

Moving Day Lotto Winner!

LoTRO held a Moving Day Lotto in honor of their database and hardware move. I haven’t been a big follower of these lottos, which take place as part of My LoTRO. But while I was waiting between horse race quest timers to renew, I saw the post about it, hopped over and signed my characters up.

I’m not the kind of person that wins much. So I didn’t expect a thing…. especially since I’m fairly sure only a limited number of players actually per server actually win (something like 20?).

So imagine my surprise when, in running back to Dolven View to log off my main for the night, I get an in game mail. Curious, I open my mailbox to find it stuffed to the brim with some seriously amazing loot (for my level and compared to what I own!). A second age Legendary, some teal relics, a teal sword… I was bug-eyed at the sight! I kept thinking, there has to be a mistake. How did I win all this stuff!? I guess I should have actually read the description of the loot you win for entering the lotto. *laugh*

Major moment of wow!

I got my Yule horse. I won the Champion’s Legendary lotto. Was a good night in Middle Earth.

Thanks, Turbine!

To check out all of the artwork in our galleries, click here!

Tirition

Wayrift Holiday Gingerbread Peoples

Fantasy9998

Ben and Leona Fireflies

Jenna

Azula meets OMEGA…

Kip likes rainbows… got a problem with that?

Chrys

TsuYa Is Srs

Zemi Dragon!