FANGASM...  ISM...  OR SOMETHING

Those of you who know me at all know that I am an avid tabletop-- and to a degree, Play by Post-- RPG gamer.  

Those of you who know that very likely also know that I've been outspoken in my touting of the Pathfinder Role Playing Game by Paizo Publishing.  Not only does their game continue the tradition and feel of D&D version 3.5 (as opposed to what I feel is the more videogamey, MMORPish feel of Wizards of the Coasts'... er... Hasbro's 4th Edition), but Paizo's Pathfinder line-- from the PFRPG book to the Adventure Paths and Chronicles products-- seems to have a cleaner, more professional look; feels as though it is better edited, and in cases where necessary, quicker with web-available addenda; and has far better quality overall-- ask some people about the smudgery in recent WOTC products.  When I've met the people from Paizo at Gen-Con, there is a genuine "aw shucks" feel to them, too.  They're not full of themselves, they're people like you and me who love the game they created adventures for before WOTC cleaned house, and took control of Dungeon and Dragon magazine... and now love the work they do for the PFRPG.  So at any rate, I've become a pretty hardcore Paizo-ite in the last few months.

So imagine my surprise and glee when, on Friday, I hit the front page of Paizo.com (which I do quite often to see the daily blog of what cool new thing's for sale, much to my wallet's chagrin) and found this little gem, Mega Feats Revisited by Otherverse Productions and Scorched Urf Studios.  Check that link out; you may have to scroll down to where it says "Feats Don't Fail Me Now!".  I'll wait.

Now, in case that graphic doesn't look familiar, here's the original:



That's right, a piece of my very own artwork was not only featured on the cover of a Pathfinder-Compatible Book (okay, okay, PDF, but still!), but it was featured on the front page of the Paizo Store Site! And some of my art is also used for interior illustrations, too!

I have sold off some of my fantasy art pieces under the banner of Darker Age Press, specifically for royalty-free use by FRPG supplement creators.   The fine folks at Otherverse/Scorched Urf bought one of those packs and gave my pic of Keylyn the cover, and Paizo decided to feature it for their storefront blog, and overall, the whole thing has made my freaking month.  (If you buy the PDF-- which natch, I highly recommend-- you'll notice that an editorial goof listed the cover artist as Kenshin, although I got interior art credit.   I've contacted the publishers to tell them, but I'm not frothing about it... Kenshin does some phenomenal Poser work, too, and I know my art when I see it, and I don't know if the decision to put my piece on the cover was a last-minute decision by the editors.   Either way, I'm still in the middle of a fangasm.   )

FINDING GREATER AFFINITY

I know a lot of you follow me for my statue art, and are probably sitting there wondering where the hell all the hottie statuification victims have gotten off to...  after all, since now I have my computer back, shouldn't I be chomping at the bit to put some Poser models into some sort of petrificative peril?

Well, not just yet... which requires a little 'splaining.  And no, it's not because I've suddenly become a eunuch.  

I've got my rendering computer back, yes, but it's still not completely up to snuff.   Apparently, when I do really busy renders in any program (and I should note, most of my renders qualify as busy unless I do them piecemeal), the computer has been really overworking the processor... to the point that it will shut the computer down in the middle of a render.  ossibly an overheat or power management problem, although the fans, power supply and heat sinks are all working fine.  

At any rate, considering that I prefer to use procedural materials for my statues rather than image textures to give my statues what I feel is a much more realistic and visually impressive look, and considering that procedural mats are more memory/processor intensive than wrapping an image texture around the model, that would be what we call a "problem."  Hell, the bikini elves pic, which is a less busy one than many I've done, shut the computer down 5 times in the middle of renders before I figured a way around it, simply because of the procedural sand mat.  That simply won't work.

While waiting to put the computer back into the shop-- actually, giving it off to one of my gaming buddies who does stellar computer work and has specifically asked me if he could work on it to get the bad boy back up to specs-- I've found a workaround to at least get some work done.  I have a dual core processor, so I can go into the task manager and tell XP to only use one core for certain processes in the Affinity Settings.  It makes a render obviously take a MUCH longer time, but for the time being, that's keeping me from being back to square one, and it'll do.

So the statue pics will come, certainly.   But it may be a little while.   Just keep your eyes open.

STAMP PIMPING

[Reserved for Pathfinder RPG Stamp]

<sub>"So you were born, and that's a good thing,
So you will die, and that's a shame.
But somewhere in the between, is a life of which we all dream
and nothing and no one will ever take it away."
- Streetlight Manifesto, Somwhere In the Between</sub>