Tumblelog
Blog probs
Oct 17th
LikeTheme change day at Greywulf's Lair
Apr 30th
I has new theme. Like it?
This is the rather lovely Lothlorien theme by Karen Blundell, so all kudos and credits goes to she. It’s three-column without being fussy or over-crowded, and fantasy rather than corporate. Good stuff.
Themes are tricky beasts at best. 99% are meh, and the remaining 1% are used by everyone else. It’s rare indeed to find one that appeals to reader and writer alike; I, for example, much prefer a simple minimalist one-column layout with no sidebars whatsoever. This emphasises the important stuff – the content. Readers on the other hand prefer a helping hand. They like to see their names in the Recent Comments, and their own blog in the Blogroll. Categories and tag clouds provide nagivation and context to the blog, and the sidebar is the place to link directly to the most popular pages on your site. Sidebars given customer friendliness.
So, it’s a balancing act between what I like, and what you, gentle reader, want.
I hope this one finds approval.
Coming up: Another DAZ Studio tutorial (layering renders in Photoshop!), and a rather special RPG Week begins on Monday.
And I still want to know why the Chainmail Bikini Pirate is angry. Closing date is 16th May!
Coming soon
Feb 25th
She’s ba-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-ck!
It’s been almost a year since she last made an appearance on my blog, but Lynn Ux, Geek Girl to the stars is coming back!
While we’re talking about “soon”, expect the next RPG Week to begin next weekend, and it’s going to be a biggie – none other than Mutants & Masterminds! Expect a whole seven days coverage where we take everything from the very basics all the way through to building your own superhero campaign. This is going to be a tricky one to pull off as I’ve said so much about my favourite game already, but I aim to bring whole new goodies to the table.
Stay tuned!
DAZ Studio Toon up
Feb 11th
Want to know how to create toon-style images like this in DAZ Studio? ‘Course you do! Stay tooned for the next First Steps with DAZ tutorial, coming….. toon!
Meantime things are slowing down a little here at Greywulf Towers as I’m fighting off a cold so feel just a little more achy and drained than usual. I’ve a Character du Jour based on benpop’s description of this lovely Elven Maiden to put together, the Sunless Citadel 4e conversion pdf to complete, a couple of commissioned renders to finish and the next panels for Sin20: The Life and Death of Callen Oncedark to…. uhhh…. start. Ouch. I’m so behind!
Instead, I’ll end with a mini-rant.
There’s a lot of noise out there regarding Wizards’ issuing a cease-and-desist order to Ema’s Character Sheets site. I’m not going to be drawn into that because we don’t really know the facts behind it, and to the best of my knowledge never visited the site in question. So it’s not fair for speculate about something I really know nothing about.
However, this has renewed a call for Wizards’ to issue some kind of fan-site policy. I’ll say this only once: I don’t want no steenking fan-site policy, ok? In other industries where these things exist they do nothing but drive a wedge between companies and their fans. Policies like these are anathema to the whole concept of “being a fan” in the first place and only serve to further limit what we, as fans, can or can’t do in our own private corner of the internet. Wizards’ quite rightly pointed out that having a fan-site policy would make no difference in cases where their IP is abused. I’m hoping that they’re coming to realise that having a fan-site policy in the first place is a Bad Move.
And don’t get me started on the whole “Intellectual Property” myth. I’ll save that for another day, ok?
But anyhow.
Your own personal “policy” when it comes to D&D or any other game should be the same as it is on the internet as a whole:
- Use common sense
- Respect others
- Respect the law
Do we really need the specifics spelling out to us? Hell no!
Rant over. Think I’ll lay down now.
I am blogging in the future
Jan 1st
Departing Dystopia
Dec 28th
DAZ Studio, no postwork. Click to enlarge.
Here’s a quick render for an upcoming DAZ Studio tutorial, but I liked it so much I thought it deserved a little airtime all of it’s own. Yes you too can render this entire scene yourself – for free! But more on that, another time.
I’m contemplating hosting another RPG Week, just like the ones I ran for Dragon Warriors and Marvel RPG, but this time all about the venerable and much loved D&D Rules Cyclopedia. At the same time, I’m conscious that I’ve raved like the rabid fanboi that I am about it a lot (probably too much) already, so this might get boring for you, dear reader. Time to hit my extensive RPG bookshelves. Runequest is beckoning. Hmmmmmmm.
You decide. D&D Rules Cyclopedia, or Runequest. Which deserves to be the next RPG Week?
Also, I’ve a post outlined for this week’s Blog Carnival, the subject of which is Transitions and Transformations. It’s all about the paths to Immortality and the evolution of D&D Godhead. Or something. Anyhow, that’ll be up…… soon!
Finally, I’m working on creating a super special Dragon-themed 2009 Calendar as a gift to the good folks around the RPG Bloggers Network. It’ll be free for anyone to download, print, use as your desktop wallpaper, throw darts at, or anything else you want to do with 12 images of dragons doing dragony things. Again, it’s coming soon.
Till later!
Upgraded and survived
Dec 11th
Well, that’s one more blog upgraded to WordPress 2.7 and it’s working spiffinlgy. Lovely new interface and only one minor problem to report – my lovely Admin Bar plugin is borked, but the author is hard at work fixing that as I write. Great stuff.
Things I like: new dashboard and interface, seeing my word count in blogposts (I’m sad that way), better integration with WordPress stats (and Statpress too) and just a nicer feel all round. And the media uploader works with Flash 10 now. Which is excellent. Good work, guys!
Now, a return to our scheduled programming…………….
Shameless ebay self-promotion
Dec 6th
Quick heads up. I’m selling a copy of Knights of the Old Republic for the XBox over on eBay which I bought in error. Damned seller didn’t make it clear it was the NTSC version which doesn’t work at all in my non-chipped PAL-only UK console. Ah well. Live and learn.
More accurately, croxie is selling it for me as she’s better at ebay’ery than I am, so I just handed the game over to her and asked her to deal with it instead. Either way, it’s mine, and it’s for sale. :D Bidding ends on Monday, so if you want to grab hold of one of the best games ever made for the XBox, cheap, you know what to do.
Thanks, y’all!
Do you connect?
Dec 5th
If you use Google’s new Friend Connect, welcome to the club! I’ve added the widget to my sidebar so if you want to share the linklove and try out the newest big kid on the block, you know what to do.
It’s very early days for Google’s MyBlogLog wannabe, and it’s offerings are still a little sparse and rough around the edges, but considering this is the foundation to the behemoth’s foray into social networking it looks likely to grow at a massive rate over the next 12 months. If nothing else, it’ll be great to have a MyBlogLog-like service that’s not been spamblasted to hell and back.
Watch this space, as they say.
A day of changes
Oct 11th
It’s taken a while to catch up with the world now that we’re fully, finally and properly back online, and to celetrate I’ve switched themes to something even more minimal. Gone are the funky post titles and cool wobbly blog title, and in is pure, simple…. uhhh….. simplicity.
The original plan was to replace the current theme with something that used less flash, but added an extra sidebar. The challenge of finding a decent 3 column theme that met my needs (simple, uncluttered, original, monochrome and non-corporate) proved too much, so I decided to stay true to my own preferences and ditch the sidebar completely – at least for now. Content is king! My only concession is the footer which shows by email address, my latest tweet, archive links and a short list of upcoming posts. What was in the sidebar (blogroll, feeds, etc) I’ll put into a separate page or two.
Why am I doing this? Why, just wait and see………….
