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Blog Movie Reviews Movies/Film

The Hobbit: An unexpected Journey Movie Review

It’s winter, and with the cold weather and darker days it’s not unusual to feel a bit down in the dumps. That is how I was feeling when I went to see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey but it succeeded in lifting my spirits. It is the story Bilbo Baggins, a fussy, stay-at-home Hobbit who has barely been beyond his front door, that is until Gandalf the wizard volunteers him to join an adventure with 13 Dwarves as their ‘burglar’. It is a feel-good film with a lot of humour and a satisfying conclusion, even though it is the first instalment of three films.

Bilbo Baggins is going on an adventure!
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Blog Lifestyle

NaNoWriMo 2012

This month I am participating in National Novel Writers Month, aka NaNoWriMo. This is an international challenge to all writers to write 50,000 words during the month of November. It is like a marathon for writers. It’s also a big kick up the butt for people like me who say ‘I’d like to write a Novel someday’ to stop putting that day of and actually do it!

This is my first attempt; I am a NaNoWriMo virgin. So I’m looking for writing buddies to encourage me and help me through this. My NaNoWriMo username is amuletts (as it is pretty much everywhere), so if you’re participating in NaNoWriMo too add me. I will be working on a piece of fantasy fiction called ‘Desert Story.’ It’s about eeevil characters!

Synopsis

Wilf and Gladys are assassins, exiled to the desert after a political upheaval. Survival is treacherous, precarious. When they find a genie bottle they believe their luck has changed, but what they release is an evil Ifriti, angry from its long imprisonment and intent on destroying all life. They also release a human, Tam Y’lset, who originally helped capture the Ifriti but in doing so became trapped with it. Having spent a thousand years sharing it’s prison he is insane and obsessed with revenge. Now these three anti-heroes must work together to undo what they have done, put the genie back in the bottle, and save the world.

Excerpt

“You know I always admired your professional detachment,” Gladys chided cruelly. She could only be patient and kind for so long. It wasn’t really in her nature.
Wilf rounded on her. “Gods woman! You think I can just kill you like anybody else, as if you were just another contract?”
“I think you’re capable of anything,” she said.
Wilf angrily turned away from her. She had rendered him speechless.
“It’s a complement!” she insisted, “You’re a cold-blooded killer. Fortunately that’s just what I need right now.”

___

Anyway, wish me luck! Hopefully I will succeed in writing 50,000 words and therefore be a NaNoWriMo Winner instead of an epic failure!

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Blog

Sunday Sketch #21: Tasslehoff’s Maps

Maps I drew whilst role-playing Tasslehoff Burrfoot in Dragonlance. As you will see these are from Xaksaroth and Pax Tharkas.

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Blog

10 Amazing Origami Dragons

10 amazing origami dragons for you to enjoy! This is just a list, not a ‘top ten,’ because I just don’t think it would be fair to rank them – they are all amazing! Which are your favourites?

The names I have used are those given them by the artists.

1. Grand Dragon


This amazing origami dragon is by Joseph Wu whose work I have featured before. It is called the Grand Dragon and is made out of six pieces of folded paper which is apparently dark orange – not red!

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Blog Maguffins

How to Make Origami Dragons (Video Tutorials)

How to Make an Origami Dragon
Origami Dragon photo by awrose on Flickr

I did a blog post a long time ago about D&D Fantasy Miniatures – In Origami! It was pretty popular and I was asked for instructions on how to make an Origami Dragon. Well ask and yee shall receive – eventually!

I’ve put together a playlist of video tutorials for Origami Dragons all by jonakashima and tadashimori. I’ve put them in order of length, so the first one is the shortest and simplest to make (6 minutes) and the last one is the longest and most complicated (about 2 hours). So the tutorials go from Beginner to Advanced, and you can pick which you want to do based on your level of skill – or work through them all!

The Origami Dragon Tutorials are embedded below or you can click here to view the playlist.

Also, here are a couple of simple origami dragon diagrams both based on a bird base, one standing, one in flight.

How to make Origami Dragons:

Click to see all items in ‘Origami Dragon Tutorials’ Playlist

I hope this is useful and you’ll soon be making an army of fire-breathing monsters out of paper. Only don’t actually make them breath fire as it’s incredibly bad for their health!

Oh and if you do make any of these I would so LOVE to see your pics!

Categories
Art Comic Art Drawings Sketches

Sunday Sketch 20 – 25 Essential Expressions: Tinuvielle

25 essential expressions challenge - tinuvielle

My 2nd attempt at the 25 Essential Expressions Challenge this time with Tinuvielle. I did Amuletts before and I think I will do Clodin next. It is a good exercise and I think you all know how much I enjoy drawing expressions and putting personality into them. They really make the characters come to life in my opinion. I think this one turned out a lot better than the previous Expressions Challenge. I guess I’m improving.

As always your constructive criticism would be much appreciated.

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Blog

Interparty Conflict

Interparty Conflict is the final piece of card art for the WAGON Webcomic Battle Cardgame which is on pre-order right now! I’m not exactly sure what the cards effect will be yet, but something along the lines of characters belonging to the same group fighting with each other! I thought this was a suitable Plot Device to reflect Epic Fail because, as you all know, it happens in the comic all the time! You can’t see the plot through characters squabbling with one another!

I decide to use Dirk, Tinuvelle and Yoru on this card because they don’t have their own Character cards like Amuletts, Clodin and Martin and I didn’t want them to be left out. I thought covering Yoru’s ears so he doesn’t hear any bad language would be the sort of sweet, protective thing Tinuvielle would do. Don’t ask me what they are arguing about – I haven’t a clue. I just had fun doing the facial expressions.

By the way I found a fun Video on YouTube about interparty conflict in D&D. Just thought I’d share.

Categories
Art Fan Art Recieved

GUEST STRIP: Gun versus Dragon

This week in Epic Fail: Tinuvielle and Jake (the Evil Hare) plan to test whether guns blow Dragons away, but they have a back-up plan if it doesn’t work.

Creator’s Commentary: Poor Clodin! Sam Medina of Jake The Evil Hare seems to have it in for him!

Besides Jake the Evil Hare Sam Medina also makes a fantasy webcomic called Darkfell which is really good, and you should check it out. On a related note he has recently launched a Novel called Katrina the Dragon Slayer which I am reading at the moment and enjoying immensely.

Sam has drawn Epic Fail a Guest Strip before and here’s a link to it if you haven’t seen it.

Categories
Art Fan Art Recieved

GUEST STRIP: Gun versus Dragon

This week in Epic Fail: Tinuvielle and Jake (the Evil Hare) plan to test whether guns blow Dragons away, but they have a back-up plan if it doesn’t work.

Creator’s Commentary: Poor Clodin! Sam Medina of Jake The Evil Hare seems to have it in for him!

Besides Jake the Evil Hare Sam Medina also makes a fantasy webcomic called Darkfell which is really good, and you should check it out. On a related note he has recently launched a Novel called Katrina the Dragon Slayer which I am reading at the moment and enjoying immensely.

Sam has drawn Epic Fail a Guest Strip before and here’s a link to it if you haven’t seen it.

Categories
Blog Epic Fail Related News & Announcements

Epic Fail wins 3rd in TGT Tournament

Last year I went on the TGT Webcomics Podcast to talk about Epic Fail and as a result was put into their yearly Tournament: Episodic Battles, where all the episodes are put head-to-head and voted on to decide which is best. There’s a video of Kurt Sasso announcing the winners below and he does a good job of describing the contestants and the action so I recommend watching it.

I’m going to describe what the TGT Tournament was like for me and Epic Fail. As you’re probably be aware, due to me hassling you for votes over the month of August, there are four rounds. The first three are head-to-heads, one-on-one, mano-a-mano… you get the idea. One webcomic episode must knock out the other, halving the contestants each round. At the beginning there were 40.