photo saturday: storm son

A revisit and a refresh for this week's DnD Character Colouring Book. I did the original Izzy back in August, after taking an existing idea and making it, essentially, big. But the more I looked at it, the less it actually worked for the character it was, because it had a lot of leftovers from the first version of the character.

So, he got a do-over. And then he got a second do-over when I updated his face. And a name change to Tuvi. I'm still slightly annoyed that it's impossible to get the new Face Customiser to make a character smile without it turning into a literal nightmare, so there are more than a few characters I've updated where I don't LOVE their expression.

But I kind of dig this version of Tuvi.

Also, in my headcanon... or, basically, canon... because he's so tall, his tunic was made from a wool blanket and leather from a broken saddle. And the boots would essentially be thigh highs on anyone else.

Anyway...

Just quietly... When is seasons? How does weather? What the fuck is going on with the world? It's the end of November and the weather can't make it's mind up what it's doing. Also, basically, I'm still making soup and soup adjacent things. True, that means I don't have to think about dinner, but still.

[clandestine reference to ongoing secret project which is in the home stretch... even though I had to redo part of it because I made a small error and legitimately couldn't not fix it. Even though that meant I had to undo a bunch of work... still totally worth it. For the record, there will be a full post about this... later.]

In other news... blood test came back "yeah, basically take a different vitamin to the vitamin you're already taking... also, you're old", but nothing major. I still need to go do another test next week, which I fully expect will come back "yeah, you're old" essentially.

Anyway...

Today started off as basically winter, now it's basically summer. See earlier point about seasons and weather.

Otherwise, today was just the supermarket.

photo saturday: new faces

So... something a little different for D&D Character Colouring Book this week. This is Madame Fortuna from a few weeks ago... before and after.

The Face Customiser has been... weird. And as I said elsewhere this week, I've been enjoying finding the actual people inside the generic Hero Forge faces. Some of them have been there instantly, others have taken a little work or a couple of tries. It's also really weird that even the characters I was completely happy with just look generic and cartoony now by comparison. But it's been interesting understanding some of these characters as who they would be at the table based on these new faces.

Which means it's going to be interesting in the future when it comes to designing brand new characters.

Is it perfect? No. I still can't make a character who looks like they're smiling (with teeth) properly, because the posing is still... not quite right.

I am working on an updated blog banner though.

Anyway...

[clandestine reference to ongoing project... I finished Stage 1, finished Stage 2, decided that Stage 3 could fuck off/wasn't necessary... and started Stage 4. Stage 4 was... a challenge. It was kind of the same as Stage 1, but different enough that it did my head in a little.]

No Thursday for the next three weeks. Well, this week just gone and the next two weeks.

Friday was... a lot.

It was Chiro Day... but I'd also been feeling a little off for the last week and a half, and had some other little niggles going on generally that I just went to see my doctor. Turns out the "off" is a thing that's going around presently, and it's not really very much of anything, it's just... well... "off". The other things... I feel like it's going to basically boil down to "you're almost 50, get used to it" or similar. But I also want to be sure it's not something bigger than that.

I will say that while I get the slightly more hands off approach to a lot of things that my doctor has (as in, not prescribing me things just for random things that will disappear in their own good time), sometimes it would be nice to hear something more than "yeah, that's going around"... I mean... good, but also, can we make it leave me alone specifically?

But now I have to go get a blood test and some other test next week... so there's that. It's that 50/50 of... "I want to know that nothing is wrong" combined with that "I don't want to know if something is actually wrong".

Friday was also the Most Hayfever Day Ever, so my brain attempted to leak out my nose all day, when I wasn't trying to blow it out the back of my head while sneezing constantly.

And then I had the landlord come fix the catch on the bedroom window and inspect the water heater, because it appeared to be leaking. It wasn't, the pipes leading into it were, so that's a bonus. But he'll still need to come back next week to actually fix it.

Then, even though Fluffy is away, I went up to Mr and Mrs for game night. Board games specifically. Partly I did it so that I wasn't overthinking the Doctor visit... but then I was glad I was doing it because I thought my hayfever wouldn't be so bad up there. Turns out, just as bad. It was also weird because I'm so used to making that drive with Fluffy in the passenger seat, it felt like he was still there as my copilot even though he wasn't.

Anyway...

Today was basically the supermarket, then doing a supply run for the next iteration of [clandestine project].

photo saturday: miss jamjar

Sometimes a random conversation will lead to... an entire character. And then sometimes you need to wait until Hero Forge releases the Face Customiser they had in Beta testing since August.

So welcome to this week's DnD Character Colouring Book starring... the halfling version of Miss Marple.

This started out as a conversation between Fluffy and I on the drive home after the Friday Night game. I don't remember how we got there, but Agatha Christie is a regular topic of conversation at times, so it makes sense. And, of course, we made the leap between Christie and DnD, because all conversations eventually get there. Especially in the approaching midnight zone.

But the idea of DnD Miss Marple kept circling around in my brain, especially after I dropped Fluffy off and was driving home.

Thus, Miss Marigold Jamjar was born.

And, as much as I really don't want to play another bard... like... ever, she had to be a College of Lore bard...

Bards of the College of Lore know something about most things, collecting bits of knowledge from sources as diverse as scholarly tomes and peasant tales. 

They also meet at festivals or affairs of state, where they can expose corruption, unravel lies, and poke fun at self-important figures of authority.

 I mean, that's not the whole description, but it's the relevant bits. Maybe not that very last bit... but the rest of it, yes.

She also needed to be a Courtier, because while Miss Marple isn't aristocracy, she is a gentlewoman of independent means and she does know a lot of people who are, or at least considered upper-class. So that made sense.

And halfling... because... halfling.

Actually, it started off as just a halfling because I love halflings, but then I remembered that Miss Marple has a nephew who is an author. And I just happen to have a halfling character who is also an author. So, yes, Miss Jamjar is the great aunt (rather than aunt, because halflings live longer) of Harland Honeypot and the aunt of Mimosa. Hence the purple in her look also.

And the cornucopia brooch, which is a symbol of the halfling goddess Yondalla, is a gift from Harland. Basically it would be like a real world older lady wearing a little cross on a chain.

I also love the idea that the teacup and saucer are her spellcasting focus and just appears out of nowhere when she's casting. Either that or she just takes out knitting needles and knits her spell effects into the world. Actually, I kind of dig the knitting option.

But the "un-old" version of Miss Jamjar sat on my desktop, initially I was going to just post it as it was, but then Hero Forge said "hey, look, we're launching the Face Customiser for paid users, but we'll be launching it for everyone soon". And one of the options was a "make old" slider.

And that was August. And now we're here.

Is the Face Customiser terrifying? Yes. Does it make nightmares? Yes. Is it going to take some getting used to? Yes. Am I going to remake every single model? Fuck no. But once I have certain characters worked out, they'll make an appearance.

There was one that I updated earlier today where it just worked pretty much perfectly immediately. So, that friend might make his fourth appearance. What's going to be weird for me is that some of these will kind of change the way that some of these characters live in my head. Some of them will get more real, others will just get... stranger.

So that's fun.

Also, would I play Miss Jamjar in a full campaign? No. Would I play her in a one-shot? Absolutely.

Anyway.

This week's soup... it's October, and the weather is still appropriate for soup. What is weather? Why are seasons? Climate Change who? Urgh. But, yes, this week's soup was Minestrone. And it was decent.

[clandestine reference to being about 90% of the way through Stage 1 of the ongoing project... granted, as I said last week, Stage 2 is redoing the original pieces. Then I think Stage 3 is hoping that I actually have enough supplies in order to complete that bit, but I do now have a plan for that, which I didn't really this time last week. Oh, wait, no, that's Stage 4. Stage 3 is prepping Stage 1/Stage 2 for Stage 4. Confused? Good. But, yes, the project consumes much of my brain.]

So, Thursday Night DnD is officially cursed. We were supposed to be playing, but it got cancelled at the last minute. Well, at 8am that day, but still.

Which means there's no game for the next three weeks because DM Fluffy is doing a thing... then we'll all cross our fingers that we actually get any November games in before the enforced Christmas break that generally happens at the start of December. But I complained about that already.

Friday Night DnD was not cursed. Yay.

It had also been a minute since we'd played though. We did get back into it fairly quickly though. And mostly we just wandering around the town we got to at the end of the last game. Also, poor DM Mrs... this group are very "let's all split up in this location and go to three different places". Every. Single. Time.

And we'd probably get the exact same amount of stuff done if we were all together, but we'd all be in the scene. But no. We go off on our own.

Anyway.

Today wasn't much of anything.

Thankfully though, because we both already voted two weeks ago, we didn't need to go bother with that nonsense before going shopping, so that was good. Remind me to do that again later when voting needs to happen. Vote early, that's what I say.

But that's it really.

photo saturday: mister whisper

Remember last week when I said I'd gone in a different direction for an Aberrant Mind sorcerer? Yeah... meet Whisper.

Whisper started out when I was watching someone play Lies of P... So I was shooting for a slightly Timothée Chalamet vibe... but Hero Forge doesn't have the right kind of hair to get the vibe completely right. But right after I made Whisper, they dropped some new hairstyles, one of which was this "side part bob", which I really love. And later I changed his skin tone to something slightly less pale, because, honestly, my default often tends to be "dark hair, pale skin".

And yes, the same pants again... look, I'm going to overuse those pants until they give me better ones or ones that look as good.

Whisper definitely is being put in the "definitely the frontrunner for the next campaign" list. Because I really do want to play another sorcerer. And I also like the idea of doing a "Gentleman Bastard" style criminal. Both in a very mild "The Lies of Locke Lamora" style way, but also in a "we're criminals, but that doesn't mean that we can dress fancy" kind of way.

Anyway.

First up, I totally spaced cadeted on the fact that it was Daylight Savings last week... so woke up, look at the bedside clock, looked at my phone clock and was temporarily confused.

Potato soup went well... and the cold version on Monday was... reasonable. Like it wasn't bad, it was just odd because I'm not used to it. Also because I put bacon in it maybe. Or I didn't take it out of the fridge in enough time to let it come a little more to room temperature. Or all of the above. I don't know.

Was good warm though.

[clandestine reference to ongoing project that has kind of passed the halfway mark... kinda... but I realised that I need to go back and redo a bunch of the original pieces that I did because they're terrible and don't match the later ones, because that's how improving works... so, yay, improvement... also much thought was given to the layout of the final thing... and also much thought given to the project that comes after this one which will be much less clandestine]

A little like last week, the rest of the this week was essentially a write off. Good for the above... but less good for... everything else.

Thursday Night DnD was already out, we knew this.

Friday Night DnD was likewise out because of people doing trips to places.

This week everything should [grip many wooden items very firmly] be all good for both nights before we are on scheduled break for three weeks.

Anyway...

Today was basically just shopping. I mean, we faffed about at my place for a while, but mostly we went shopping, came back here and that was it.