Unfortunately you fine folks have missed out on quite a bit since the last time I posted anything!
The story I wrote for Basil culminated in a dramatic incident following Icebrood Saga. The excess magic released during the deaths of two elder dragons caused the demon that Basil bound to her book, Ipos, to grow more powerful, allowing it to start influencing her.
With Maikoâs help, the two were able to fully banish the demon. The ordeal had mildly scarred Basilâs mind and given her a lust for battle, so she gave up the scholarly life to become a true reaper, with a unique shroud called the Lemure Shroud (any FFXIV players in the chat?).
She also got some new threads at the same time.
Why the change? Because Basil is linked by fate to a similar being from another universe entirely. That other being is Ruby, my Xaela Au Ra from FFXIV who is basically Basil transplanted into a new setting. Their link means that when one undergoes major changes, the other does too. Case in point, they both became reapers at the exact same time.
Honestly Iâm not sure if itâs a surprise that Iâm immediately moving on to upgrading Anna, but here we are. Sheâs now a Bard, a shortbow-wielding Mesmer! That shortbow was made using bits of, of course, The Bard precursor. I actually bought it to extract it. It wasn't that expensive actually.
Anyway, yeah Sworddancer was lame, and I love Bards so... Anna Bard!
So what would a Bard be like in GW2?
They would have a new utility type called Ballads that puts class-specific buffs on allies for 30 seconds. It uses the power of inspiration to enhance what your allies already "know" about their professions. Like for example, the elite Ballad could give revenant get tiny buffs to condi, toughness, and damage/crit as well as reduce the cooldown of legend swap by like a second. Thieves would get tiny crit bonuses and get reduced CD on Steal/Swipe/Mark, engis would get tiny condi and precision buffs and slight CD reduction on a random toolbelt skill (including forge and function gyro), Necro would get a tiny condi damage bonus and death shroud/reaper shroud/random shade skill CD reduction etc. etc. Iâm not sure if this would powercreep beyond what Chrono used to be able to do but itâs a good thing Iâm not actually making this real lmfao.
Furthermore, the clone-counter gauge is replaced with a new meter called Inspiration, which slowly goes up over time, in and out of combat. Inspiration fuels the new profession mechanic, Songs, which replace Shatters. they apply a little buff onto allies that, when it expires, does an AoE effect. An example Song would be Seduce, which places a little buff on allies (I guess up to 5 targets with 10 targets in PvE) where, after a short delay, they shatter and apply AoE confusion to foes. Yeah, Bards would give their shatters to other classes. F1 would cause your allies to Mind Wrack, F2 is Seduce, F3 would be an AoE daze (or maybe blind to prevent power creep), and F4 would put distortion on Allies. All of this would of course be about half the damage/duration/condi application/ of regular mesmer shatters. And yeah Shatter-improving traits would apply to Songs. All of this means clones would be useless.
So what happens to clones? Doesnât this make them useless? Well, yes. So clone-spawning skills will instead spawn little balls of "insight" that mini-shatter for a tiny packet of damage and also give bonus inspiration. Phantasms still spawn and do their attacks, but instead of becoming clones, they become insight.
âOh god, another Chrono situation,â you may say. Well this doesnât actually have the capability of being a boon bitch, it would be a power DPS with very very subtle party support. The buffs would just be for rounding out small gaps in party DPS, it wouldnât be able to carry groups like Chrono could. At least it shouldnât be able to lol. I donât raid >.>
Hey Tumblr! I upgraded Ellaâs... well, everything. Sheâs got a new body (that you can take a peek at over on Twitter), a new rig, new materials, and just a new look overall. I also rewrote big parts of her backstory. She lost her left eye during a battle with centaurs, hence why itâs glowing; itâs a prosthetic! That story and more are explained on her updated character page.
Iâm rewriting big parts of the catalog as well since I never really was a fan of the narrative I came up with last year. For example, Ella is no longer a member of a âkrewe,â sheâs just former military engineer now making machines for the public sector. Dazzu no longer runs a misfit krewe, etc.
Iâm also rewriting their elite specs. Iâm not sure why I made Ella a spellslinger considering engineer can already use dual pistols. Same with Anna and sworddancer. So I changed them to Pyrotech (torch, as in a welding torch) and Bard (shortbow) respectively. I even updated Basil from a âdemonic reaperâ to a âdemonologist,â inspired by the Summoner job from FFXIV. Can you tell Iâve been playing a lot of FF14? (Speaking of which, my sub recently ran out q.q but thatâs not why Iâve been working on all this stuff lately, honest >.>)
idk why iâm rambling now, Iâm just working on my characters again and thatâs all that counts!
As you all know by now, Iâve been finding it hard to dredge up the motivation to work on commissions lately so I did a warmup render of something Iâve wanted to do for a long time. Long Live the Lich is ancient history now but does anyone remember Lady Camilla, our fangirl herald? I'm sad I never thought to do anything with her at the time but better late than never I suppose.
...Now Iâm kicking myself for not grabbing Duncan (PoF commander stand-in) during Dragon Bash for some Commander-on-Camilla action. That might have been the last time we could have seen him too. :(
EDIT: This just in, the Guild Wars 2 Tumblr actually posted details on how to make a character that looks like Duncan in the character creator. So looks like Cammie is going to get some company. :D
I want to do more images of Cammie in the future, so consider this the first image in a set.
I donât know why Iâm still giving Tumblr a chance. Trying the new Blender 2.8 renderer with a fun Basil render. Uncensored here.
So Iâm thinking, with commissions going away soon, Iâm going back to the old days of posting fun/cute/sexy renders and WIPs of my characters on Tumblr. The only difference being Iâll have to censor the renders and have a link to the uncensored image on Twitter. So itâs extra work to do the same thing as before. No wonder I stopped posting here... but yeah.
Iâm coming out of break soon, so Iâmma make a few announcements! First off, this is Alice Rose, one of three new characters added to the catalog today. Sheâs a sneaky shape-shifter (see below for examples). Feel free to read about her and the other two characters on my (heavily NSFW) site.
Alice as Ella:
Alice as Basil (itâs really unsettling seeing Basil frown):
You know, I could be using my free time during my break to play some games, catch up on TV shows or movies, or meet up with friends I havenât seen in a while. But my brain has decided it would rather be using that time to work on stuff. So to compromise (with, er, myself) Iâm going to post a teaser of a new catalog character. You may recognize her...
Uh oh, Iâm feeling the pull to go back to work. Iâm thinking about putting out a new commission page this weekend. I also should be saving up for my GW2 guild beach house meetup in July so I may be opening commission again soonish. Somebody please, just save me from myself.
âDott, the HoloCrafter: Sweet Dreamsâ Â by DOOT
DOOT became my handle after someone mistyped my characterâs name Dott, and it kinda stuck ever since. So, while I wouldnât say sheâs my âmain,â she definitely holds a warm place in my heart. In my head, Iâd always considered her a designer (specifically of fashion and outfits) but the more Iâve been working on 3d models and art, the more Iâve thought of her as doing very much the same. Thus, Dott the HoloCrafter. Because why couldnât characters change their hobbies & professions to follow their dreams?
Just two Asuras trying on some clothes. Srisa on the left there is letting (and then eventually forcing) Kayla to try on clothes for, I assume, an upcoming date. Both characters belong to @omegavalsharel-blog
Tressa Solenaceae, an assassin known only as The Black Rose, lies waiting among the rooftops in the cover of night with her dark leaf-like skin, the perfect cover for stealth and subterfuge.  Her prey lingers below, stumbling out of a tavern within Divinityâs Reach⊠The flash of her glowing yellow orbs and her red bio-luminescence shall be the last thing he sees.Â
I went back and modified my 3D model of Tressa to be more âsylvari likeâ to reflect her GW2 counterpart. Â While I know this isnât exactly like the model in-game, Iâm really happy with the results. (For comparison, below is an in-game screenshot of Tressa).
At the behest of a friend, I decided to repost these as a single post and tag GW2 fan submission.
Basil and Alistair. I recently redid Basilâs body model to give her more shortstack proportions and actually resize her model to be shorter instead of just resizing the armature. This is a SFW preview of them cuddling and absolutely nothing naughty is going on...
Previews for a commission for @burning-firelina! Sandriella was intrigued by Ellaâs inventions, like the SNAP, and so they had a lot of fun with one of the naughtier machines...
âEnjoy your next journey, friend. May the Force be with you.â  by DOOT
I really wanted to do something for May the Fourth, but was a little late getting this one out. Nevertheless, hereâs wishing Mr. Mayhew a wonderful journey beyond the starsâŠ
