Science!

I had my birthday party this past Friday, it was a joint 21st party with my friend Katie and the theme was Made in the 80s since we were both born in 1989. Of course my friends are all nerds and about an hour into the party one of my friends in the physics department shows up with a tub of dry ice and a container of liquid nitrogen, how cool is that? So the party went from 80s to a geeky science party pretty fast, but it was awesome regardless. We put dry ice in our drinks and froze oreos with liquid nitrogen, it kept everything chilly and we looked totally boss.

Trailers Galore

With the arrival of E3 suddenly all these trailers and teasers are floating about on the internet for a million games I'm dying to play, not the least of which is Space Marine, which promises to be amazing. I've been following this one since last year's E3, and I'm glad to hear it was picked up again, because the gameplay looked absolutely phenomenal then, it's sure to be even better now. I understand why they went with Ultramarines, they're practically the poster child for 40K, but I'd hoped for a little more variety. It wouldn't be totally unusual for Relic, considering they went with the lesser known Blood Ravens for Dawn of War II. Either way, it's totally irrelevant because there seems to be a 40K MMO in the works, let's just hope Dark Millennium Online doesn't go the way of Warhammer Online. However, with a trailer like this, my hopes are high.

My Sketchbook

For my birthday I got this really pimpin' Canon scanner/printer, and I gotta say, it's really nice to finally have a way to save my sketchbooks digitally, my bookshelf is really getting full. Now I just need to find a new pen for my Wacom Intuos 3 tablet, unfortunately they don't make 3's anymore, and with the price of the pens on Amazon and eBay, I might as well get a new tablet. Being in graphic design is expensive. :(

But here's some little doodles from my sketchbook I wanted to share, I picked out all the ones with nerdy references since this blog is for nerdy things, so they're mostly cartoons.

A little excerpt from our adventures in my online 3.5 D&D campaign I do with 2 of my friends. I play a Halfling scout/ranger that rides a dog, Rob is a Draconic dragon shaman and Brian is a Elf wizard.

Mortal Kombat

So I just realized I start off pretty much everyone of my blog posts with "So..." Well, anyway...

I just caught this earlier today on a blog I read, it's supposedly just a proof of concept trailer and hasn't been picked up by a studio yet, but it's already caused a lot of commotion on the interwebs. Personally, I think it looks interesting, if not a bit over the top. It does seem they're trying to make way too much character development in a movie that should really be just about people getting their asses kicked by Scorpion. But honestly, if it made it to theaters I'd go see it, and I'd probably like it.

Birthday Girl

Today is my birthday (hooray!) and in addition to making up for the lack of 40K-related things in a supposed 40K-related blog, I'm now officially 21, so here's something awesome that fits both those themes.

I'm having a joint birthday party with a friend of mine who also turns 21 in a week, and we went with an 80's theme, so that's a day of sequins and hairspray to look forward to. Speaking of themed parties, I went to a friend's classy dress party in some totally kickin' attire.

(Left to Right) My roommate Jeslyn, her boyfriend Andrew (his party), Me, Vicky, and Andrew's roommate Ryan.

For one brief, yet glorious moment, I knew what it was like to have a truly epic 'stache. Then I tried to drink with it on and it was wet and tasted like ginger ale for the rest of the night. Oh well, some things are just not meant to be.

Abaddon Books

So following my sudden internet fame when my post on the first page was me mourning the time lost to trying to read a zombie romance novel (in my defense, I thought it would be more comedic than anything), David Moore, an editor for Abaddon Books, contacted me and asked if I was interested in reviewing a comp copy of Hungry Hearts, another zombie romance novel. With it, he was generous enough to send me three other books to read, all about my great obsession, zombies.

Prince of Persia

So I went to see Prince of Persia tonight, if only to prove myself right in assuming it would be horrible and a disgrace to the video game series. Well, I've never been more satisfied to be wrong about a movie, it was actually pretty decent overall. I know a lot of you gamers were disappointed in the casting of this movie, and my inner culture nerd cried a little bit at the lack of anything resembling an actual Persian in this movie, but inaccuracies aside, still okay. Not amazing, but a pretty good, all-around average action movie. It's saving grace was the amazing stunts and parkour-style choreography, some of the roof-hopping chase sequences were absolutely incredible. They could probably have just made 2 hours of some scruffy looking guy clambering all over buildings and jumping into hay wagons and called it Assassin's Creed the Movie, I'd watch it. Other than the movie being meh, it was also pretty predictable, but as it was pointed out to me, when you go into it knowing the movie's about time travel and important people start dying, there's really only so many ways it can end. I just can't believe how many scenes there were with Jake Gyllenhaal and Gemma Arteron almost kissing there were, I mean really. I wish I knew more about the game series to comment on it's accuracy, but from what I know, there's really no way something from Disney could have done a revolutionary video game franchise proper justice. Lately, they've been bastardizing my childhood with the rumors about the new Spiderman so they're officially on my bad side.

DC Comicon

So since I slept through most of Free Comic Book Day I swung by the D.C. branch of Comicon this afternoon up at George Mason University. Other than getting lost on their crazy circular campus roads for a good half an hour, it was pretty cool. I picked up some old 1990 Batman issues (good thing I had a friend there to borrow money from) for a Batfan friend of mine's birthday coming up and Jo Chen was there, the lady who does the Runaways covers that make me drool. Chen was really nice, and I got a good look through of her prints, I really wish I hadn't forgotten my wallet in the car and could have bought a couple. Check out her DeviantART gallery, too, she's totally amazing. Unfortunately there was a total lack of booth babes, very disappointing. :(

Clash of the Titans

Unfortunately, Clash of the Titans wasn't playing in 3D IMAX anywhere local (I'm not sure if it was available in 3D IMAX anywhere to begin with), so I saw it in 3D in a really big theater, which I guess is kinda close. Anyway, overall, I was pretty disappointed with the movie, my biggest reason being the entire plot was extremely serendipitous, it was just one fortuitous coincidence after another. Of course, it is Greek mythology, which by near definition is always serendipitous without explanation, I know that pretty well, being named after a Greek epic, I've read a lot on it. So going into it knowing my mythology more than the average Joe, I will give them credit that they got the facts (or fiction, in this case) down more or less throughout the whole thing, and they did give good nod to the old 1981 movie.

Oldschool Dr. Horrible

So this has been floating around the internet for less than a week and it's already a huge hit so I thought I'd share. If you haven't seen the viral awesomeness that is Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, I highly suggest you go to Hulu right now and check it out, it's incredible, and besides, this video will make pretty much no sense if you don't know it. So this guy, Doctor Octoroc, made a version of Dr. Horrible in the style of an old 8-Bit Nintendo game, right down to the soundtrack. Check out the news on this amazing homage on the Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Game website, and if you haven't seen it already, enjoy!

How to Train Your Dragon

AMAZING. This movie was one of the best I've seen this year by far, and to top off the incredible plot, voice acting, and scenery, it looks spectacular in 3D. I know this is probably a hard sell for you hardcore action movie fans, but I very highly recommend dishing out the extra buck and seeing it in theaters. The animation is beautiful, the story is an old one, but delivered in such a charming way with such compelling characters you barely notice, plus the ending is very satisfying. Sure, it's predictable, and a lot of it's sell comes from the goofy main character's awkward charisma and his absolutely adorable but mischievous dragon companion, but it's just one of those movies you can't help but walk away from smiling.

Pokemans and Pokeladies

If you haven't guessed from the title, this is why I haven't been posting lately, or doing much of anything really. Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver came out a week ago on Sunday, right on the last day of Madicon. So I went from being really busy with real things to being even busier with digital things. I got SoulSilver, in case anyone was wondering, mostly because, well, it's way more awesome. Lugia is a certified B.A.M.F.

Repo Men

So I know I'm a bit overdue on a couple posts, which I'll explain why later, but I went to see Repo Men yesterday and I still can't decide if I liked it as a whole or not. It's one of those movies that was totally boss until the last 30 seconds, then it threw all this stuff in my face that I didn't want to see and ruined the entire movie. Never have I ever gone from being so ecstatically happy with the ending of a movie, to near breaking down crying in the theater, which, for the record, I haven't done since V for Vendetta (totally acceptable). I can see where some people would think the ending was awesome, and a huge dramatic twist, but if I wanted to have one of those OMGWTF moments I would have gone and seen The Happening again and proceeded to smash my face into my television repeatedly for making myself watch The Happening again. Anyway, it's one of those things you have to see for yourself, but I'm sorely tempted to suggest to everyone that you walk out 5 minutes before the credits.

Madicon Day 1

First day of Madicon 19 is over and so far it's been awesome. The con opened at 11 PM and went til midnight and I was there the whole time, mostly in the wargaming room, painting some minis. My workshop went pretty well, I taught some people some stuff but mostly I just hung out with some more experienced players just looking for something to do. Here's some pictures from later in the day.

Madicon!

It's the first day of Madicon 19 today, huzzah! The first half of my basic miniatures painting workshop is today from 3-5 PM, but I might be tempted to cut it a little short since the Guitar Hero tournament starts around 4... The scheduling has been kind of hectic, but oh well. The costume contest is tomorrow, I'm thinking I might go home and get my old Zoey costume since my friend that dressed as Silk Spectre with me is going as female Spock. Anyway, I'll post more about the con later tonight after day one ends at midnight, hopefully with pics!

WIP Commissar

I mentioned before that the director of Madicon 19 hired me to paint the prize miniatures for the Warhammer 40K tournament. Here's the almost finished 2nd place prize Commissar in all his badassitude. He still needs base terrain, which I haven't really decided on yet, probably some sort of desert or rocky stuff.

Chaos VS Darkspawn

Dragon Age: Origins and Dawn of War II are two of my favorite games of all time, but unfortunately, it turns out the release dates for the expansions Chaos Rising and Awakening are a mere five days apart. Personally, I haven't decided if I'm getting one or the other (or both) yet, but here's the rundown.

Facepalm

So I was walking to Five Guys for lunch the other day and I parked the Zephrimobile next to this car with a baseball cap sitting in the back windshield. I took one look at it and was like "Man, this guy must really like Ultramarines" then immediately facepalmed. It was the Indianapolis Colts.

Not Even Close

So attempt two at defeating my epic level 3.5 party didn't go over as well as expected. The first thing they faced was the Great Wyrm Gold Dragon like I planned, and it held them off pretty well for a while. I had him standing in a ring of protection spells, like protect from evil and such, and that kept the Fiend of Possession living in the Berserker's sword away for a good while. Holy Word seemed to work extremely well against them, if only because it has the chance of banishing the fiend for 24 hours (which it didn't), but after I buffed up the dragon and debuffed down the party, he didn't have much to hit them hard with and the Berserker killed him the next turn anyway.

Moar Bronzecrons

The new USB cable for my camera finally came in the mail today so now I can upload some of the pictures I took of my WIP bronze Necrons. Unfortunately the cable seems to already be broken and is having trouble staying connected long enough for me to look through my photos. That's what I get for ordering it from some sketchy camera cable company online, I suppose. Anyway, I've made a few changes to my initial idea of oxidized bronze and so far I'm pretty happy with it. The painting on this first one's a little sloppy but you get the idea.

100 Thank Yous

Tombworld hit 100 followers earlier today so I thought I'd write up a quick post just to say thanks to all of you who follow, read, and comment on my blog, it really means a lot to me.

An Epic Mistake

The first session of the epic level 3.5 Dungeons and Dragons campaign I am DMing met earlier today, and I have thus far failed to even knock one of my PCs unconscious. I tested the waters with what I thought would be a fairly challenging battle, a Kraken. I pumped up the monster with a couple thousand extra hit points and stronger attacks, putting him around challenge rating 22 or so, nothing big, but still tough enough to be a decent test of their abilities. I see now that I horribly underestimated the Berserker. It took two rounds before I had the Kraken's head appear over the prow of the ship since its tentacles were doing a pretty good job of smacking the party around. As soon as his little squid head peaked up over the railing, the Berserker charged and leaped into the air, landing on top of the Kraken and literally cleaving it's face in half. He did 1,900 damage, which was about 300 more than the poor thing had left.

W.T.F.

Wolfman

So I'm going to go see The Wolfman later tonight. Yeah, I know I'm like a week late on this one, but I'm pretty sure by now you all know how crazy busy and stressed out I've been these last few weeks, I'm just glad I found some time for fun.

Epic Dungeons and Dragons

Ever since the 4th edition rules for Dungeons and Dragons came out (on my 19th birthday so long ago, no less) I've had my poor old 3.5 manuals sitting on the shelf at home gathering dust. A part of me missed the good old days of ridiculous character builds and broken spell chains, so when I heard my friends nostalgically discussing 3.5, I jumped on the chance and offered to DM an epic level campaign for them.

Happy ♥ Day

Normally I don't celebrate Valentines day, I think it's kind of silly that people had to invent a holiday so that guys would feel obliged to do nice things for their women for one day out of the year. On the other hand, a friend of mine paid me to make a little Battlestar Galactica themed card for her nerdy boyfriend, so yay Valentines (money) day?

I thought it was a cute idea, even though I kinda rushed it (she asked me at about 10 pm the night before) so I took some quick cell phone pictures to have once I give her the card.

Rouge Trader Wednesdays

I forgot to post this earlier, but I usually play Rouge Trader (the pen & paper RPG) on Wednesday nights with a couple of friends. We used to play Dark Heresy together, but once the new RT book came out, we switched, since we the notion of ship combat was very tempting. I took some pictures of the session with my phone while no one was looking.





Twiggy (left, our Rogue Trader) and Jeff (right, our Astropath).

Lolbringer VS God Tower

I mentioned offhandedly that I took the Nightbringer out of my 1500 point Necron army in lieu of a Monoloth in a post last night and some people have asked why so I thought I'd break it down for you guys. For the record, I'm not totally for or against either of the C'tan in any sized army, if you can make it work, more power to you. This is just why I, personally, chose not to.

Yes, I'm Real

Well I'm a little late to the party, but I'd still like to give a warm hello to all my visitors coming here from Bell of Lost Souls and Chainfist who read about me in the two-part article, Anatomy of a Gamer Girl Part One and Two. I was totally blindsided by all the feedback, and even more surprised at how astoundingly positive it was. I'm ecstatic to be welcomed so openly into the online gaming community, if not completely overwhelmed by the sheer number of comments and e-mails I've been getting. So apologizes if I'm a little slow to reply, but I am earnestly happy to hear from all of you and am trying to read and respond to everything without too much delay. Luckily, it's been another snow day, so I can put aside my graphic design project of zombifying Billy Mays for a poster and spend the rest of the day reading blogs. :)

I ♥ Zombies

So because of either the massive snowstorm or a faulty router, my internet has been rather sporadic, on the side of non-existent the past week, leaving me trapped indoors with nothing to do. Instead of painting the rest of my Necrons like I should have (like hell I was going out in 40 inches of snow with a can of spray paint to primer them) I dug out my car and meandered over to the bookstore for some reading material. Unfortunately in my local Barnes and Noble, the Science Fiction section is directly across from the beginning of the Romance isle, where, as I was perusing the shelves of Warhammer novels, something caught my eye. Against my better judgment, I bought a book entitled My Zombie Valentine thinking, "Oh, it's about zombies, and I like zombies. Maybe this will be funny."


I WAS SO WRONG.

Bronzecrons

As you might already know, I have a love-hate relationship with Necrons. I love Necrons because they're awesome, like robotic space zombies, but I share the blight of many a Necron player in that I can't stand how absolutely dull to paint they are. So I was messing around with some spare/unpainted Necrons I have, trying to come up with a decent color scheme and I think I unwittingly stumbled upon something interesting (at least for a Necron).

Apologizes for the crappy quality, my desk lamp went out today and I can't find a light bulb anywhere in the apartment for the life of me.

Goodbye Weebly

I'm getting rid of my Weebly site, it's just too much of a pain to work with layout-wise, not to mention nobody knows what the heck Weebly is anyway. So while I'm looking for a new host to build my miniature painting commission site on, you can just email me here if you want to hire me for painting related activities. I know it's a shot in the dark hiring someone who doesn't have a site with a gallery of nice looking minis, so I'm not expecting any commissions anytime soon until I get a new site and more pictures of my work. Maybe this was the Emperor telling me I'm not ready to try and handle my own business yet. But still, if you were wondering, this is where you reach me for that stuff for the time being.

Madicon News

MADICON NEWS! I'm still on for doing a basic mini painting workshop at the 19th annual Madicon, which is March 12th to 14th. I'll be there all 3 days (hopefully) but my workshop is in two parts before and after the Warhammer tournament, for 2 hours a piece. I'll cover basic techniques like base-coating, dry-brushing, highlighting and washes, as well as some mass-painting speed tips for those of you that just want to play. Also, fingers crossed, I'll have time to compete in the tournament and enter in the nerd auction, where a dinner or dance with me will be auctioned off for charity. So if you're in the western portion of Virginia that weekend, swing on by and say hello!

Gamesday 2010

Got my tickets for 2010 Gamesday in Baltimore! I'm really excited, and since I have family in Baltimore, it's going to be a much less stressful event than when I tried to get a hotel in San Diego for Comic Con the month before I left. Which, of course, will leave me a lot more stress-free time over the summer to work on a costume, instead of piecing one together the day before...

Almost Famous?

My friend Paul, who taught me much of what I know about Warhammer and painting miniatures, posted about me on a BOLS article today, 40K ASKEW: Girls, Girls, Girls. He wrote about me under my gaming handle Zephri, which I started using in World of Warcraft where I met him and most of my friends, and contradicted the thesis of the article, being that no girls played 40K, by saying,

"Hard core gaming girls ,while rare, do exist. When i first met zephri, one of my old wow guild mates, in real life she pulled out her necron army, and more video games than i owned from her little pink back pack.( And by video games i mean 50 + hour rpgs that were all beaten. )She then proceded to give one of our players a sound thrashing with her crons. Not only was she a gaming girl but she was also smokin hot."