Pattern Ghost

Garbage by Garbage particularly my theme tune

... And yet they sound like a malfunctioning car alarm.

My wife is always dropping her cell phone from those puny jeans pockets. It's downright silly. Then there are the completely FAKE pockets some women's clothing has. I mean, WTF?

Baby wombat!
 

One of my favorite pieces of character art in the books.
 

 
Edit: Now, the character having a chain gorget but showing cleavage is a bit  . . . off. But the overall look is nice. She looks like she'd inquire you to death in a heartbeat.

I'd pay good money to see a Hermit-scripted Martian Manhunter movie.

I'd pay good money to see a Hermit-scripted Martian Manhunter movie.

I think the piss-poor Jedi storyline was very typical of the way Bioware approached Jedi. I've played through the tutorial for every single class.
 
Republic
Trooper: On the Republic side, I consider this the best of the stories. There is no stretch to understand that a trooper follows orders and this particular trooper happens to be good enough to be assigned to an elite squad. Story is oh so predictable though. Jedi Knight: Bad for all the reasons Pattern Ghost mentioned. Combined with the sense that this is not the Jedi Knight you were looking to play, my least favorite story and start and character. The story does improve after the tutorial. Jedi Consular: Bad for similar reasons to the Jedi Knight. At least the Consular has some fun gameplay that isn't crippled. Again, the story starts to improve once you get out of the tutorial. Smuggler: Good. No major issues with the story. The character, as a class, is a bit bland for me. That doesn't make the story any less good though.  
Sith
Bounty Hunter: Okay. I wanted to like it and I do like the Bounty Hunter on the whole. The story is pretty typical underhanded underworld stuff, but solid enough that it shines in comparison to either Jedi. Sith Warrior: The mirror to the Jedi Knight in every way. Good story, motivations that make sense, and though the mechanics are similar, they seem to fit the character type better. Sith Inquisitor: My favorite start on the Sith side and my favorite character in the game. I played a female and that British accent kicking back some very sarcastic comments was absolutely worth it. Imperial Agent: To be honest, I don't think I got very far before I dumped the character. I can't seem to recall anything about it. I suppose that says all it needs to.  
The game was just too restrictive. Space combat was not fun. After the last patch I was around for, even the garden variety baddies got too tough. That disconnected me from the story of playing a jedi and put me into the position of playing a frustrating MMO. Like all MMOs, the missions are usually Go Here, Fight This, Activate That, Repeat Until Brain Dead, Collect Reward. he worst is when you go to point B, do whatever it is you do, return to point A only to find point C was right next to B. 
 
And that is the last I am going to say about Star Wars the Old Republic.

I know two things about Blizzard: 1) It employs people of all genders and orientations, and seems not to be discriminatory in its hiring practices, and 2) A lot of their key people are pretty juvenile.
 
With that in mind, I'm going to post some thoughts on the points made in the above link:
 
The sexual harassment of Draka: We don't know what Draka's response is. So . . . what do we have? A villain saying something that's out of line to a major female lore character? How shocking that a villain would belittle a woman! It's really Draka's response that should form the context of this situation. It's stupid to say villains shouldn't ever say anything sexist. Next thing you know, people will complain if a villain kicks a puppy!
 
Rape jokes are even endorsed in hearthstone’s card set: There's no rape joke there, sorry. Typical bent over female elf, sure. I'll give you that one. Then again, female Night Elves are the warrior caste in WoW. Seems like NEs have a lot of female badassery going on. Not to mention the whole Sylvanus and her Dark Rangers, who are so badass that people have been asking for playable Dark Rangers since the game came out. It makes the whole bouncy-boobed idle animations, skimpy armor on females (belly button plate!) seem even worse, though. It's like, "Hey, we have badass female warriors!  . . . . In bikini plate!" Kind of a wash on how they depict females in game. But the negative there is really the art. There may be some bone-headedness in the placement of the text and the image, but I think claiming it adds up to a rape joke is a stretch.
 
What if gender roles were reversed for in-game dialogue? I actually thought the dialog sounded fine with Thrall being cast as the female. Well, not fine. It was some crappy dialog to begin with. The whole damsel in distress, implied rape thing is very tired, and yeah, more than a little sexist. I found two things disturbing about the "fixed" dialog. First off, it's "wreaked" not "wrecked." Seriously, if you're going to frame a large part of your arguments in semantics, learn the idioms of the language you're writing in. Second, she strikes out "my love." What in the holy hell is sexist about that phrase? Is it the "my"? My wife calls me "my love," and I call her "my love' all the freaking time. It's a term of endearment, not a term of belittlement. Striking the phrase strikes me as overdoing things just a bit. No. It strikes me as way too over sensitive and ignorant, but I was trying to be polite.
 
Here's the bottom line: World of Warcraft has always had cool, strong, female characters. They've frequently been given awesome storylines and dialog. They've also tainted them in some stupid, sexist ways starting with the art. Because nothing says powerful and respected female leader like belly button armor.
 
Will Warlords of Draenor actually be any worse than the norm for Blizzard? I doubt it. They don't have a sterling track record anyway. If the author of that article thinks Jaina's storyline in MoP was in anyway an elevation of the character, then she has some seriously rose-tinted glasses on, and that's only looking at the current expansion.
 
WoD will definitely have sexist elements to it, just like every past iteration of the game. But declaring it some kind of huge step back on the three above points is may be premature. The damsel in distress point -- particularly the talking around the implied rape -- is probably the most damning. But if that's the worst of it, then WoD will likely be about an average effort for Blizz in regards to sexism. Probably on par with Classic or BC.

HUGE art dump!
 
Folks, I've had such a horrendous time with my failing computer.  I won't go into it, except I'm still down a video card (which I love having dual monitors, having reference on one screen while working on my Cintiq), but the rest of the machine is up and running with new motherboard, new processor, a bit more RAM, new power supply etc.
 
But I've been plugging away at doing art, sometimes pilfering my wife's laptop and using my ancient wacom while the main puter is all in pieces.
 
So, got a ton of images for you.
 
First up, I was honored and lucky to get a chance to do the cover for "Wield!", John Wick's RPG on being powerful, mystical, highly intelligent and cunning artifacts and trying to get that lame brain barbarian who carries you to do the things you want him to do.  Or that pathetically weak, sorcerer king to give you something for all that strength you lend him.
 
Check out John Wick's Kickstarter video...  
 
On that youtube site are links to the pdf of the game itself.  Seems really cool.
 
So.  Without more rambling, here is the cover!  Hope you like!

 
 
Next up, I have several commissions for Death Tribble I've been meaning to get up for some time, but computer woes, deadlines and sheer inertia have prevented my from getting these up til now.
 
Here is a bobby with some kind of shadow powers...

 
 
Next.  Death Tribble wanted a straight up Kendo master, no apparent super gadgets or anything...

 
Next, we have a huminoid crocodile.  DT picked up on what I thought was pretty subtle Egyptian motifs immediately.  Can't get nuthin past that guy...

 
Next, a modern-ized Roman Legionnaire.  I got this one today, having put it off for deadlines for the video card game, Clash of Dragons.  I am not sure when I can show CoD artwork, still checking in with the client on that one.  But this was one I really was looking forward to doing.