Rough painting of Dwalin and Thorin Oakenshield, as depicted by Graham McTavish and Richard Armitage (movie verse), set in the Battle of the Five Armies.

Fuckin’ twigs. And leaves. THRANDUIIIIL *SHAKES FIST ALA-TENNANT*

Thorin Oakenshield and Thranduil © J.R.R. Tolkien and Tolkien Enterprises
paper texture from CGtextures.com
Thanks to Sei for a crapton of great crits. And to sister for being irrationally pleased with this.

Absolutely loved The Hobbit, and the choices Peter Jackson and co. made that departed from the book. One of the few moments when I really envy the people who haven’t read the book yet, actually. Third movie’s going to be heartbreaking.

Also still so very impressed with Richard Armitage. What an amazing actor. Very glad to have encountered him first from BBC’s Robin Hood, and thrilled to see him (finally) getting some major movie roles.

Made with Corel Painter 7.

Orientation: Portrait

Resolution: 320×480

Notes: Only the application folder background is ssLauncher-specific, everything else is pretty much standard. You can use the illustrations I included as a template for any illustrations you wish to use, simply set the new illustration layer to Multiply, crop accordingly, and lower the opacity a bit.

Preview:

The file includes:
~ PSD + PNGs: home screen wallpaper with 2 of my illustrations, replace with whatever you want
~ PSD: application group wallpaper (background layer subs as application drawer wallpaper)
~ PSD + PNG: application folder background (ssLauncher app folders)
~ Segoe Print font

Credit + link back would be nice, but unnecessary. Enjoy!

DOWNLOAD HERE

For more details + credits regarding the original theme (icons used, apps, etc.), visit the MyColorScreen post.

More Moenardo for those who like it. Got a little sick of having this hanging in my drive, so I gave it a rough once-over. I wanted to keep the strokes light and whimsical on this one, but I think it just ended up looking shoddy. Oh, well.

Thanks to the sibling entity and Sei for looking it over. ♥

Assassin’s Creed © Ubisoft

A masked Ezio and Leonardo sketch for Blacktofade over at Livejournal, who won our Help-Japan fandom donation drive auction and gave us an awesome prompt to work with. ♥ Art is based on Sei’s wonderful Ezio/Leo fic (also from Blacktofade’s prompt), “Anonimo.” I’m really happy she also liked this extra illustration.

Assassin’s Creed © Ubisoft
Art belongs to Blacktofade and is posted for archiving purposes, please ask her for permission before editing/using the artwork.

New article from Gameinformer: “The Characters of Assassin’s Creed Revelations”

Nice list so far, but it looks more like a teaser for a longer article in their upcoming June issue.

Edit for the following content: Wanderingflame over at Livejournal has provided us with much clearer scans. View the replaced scans below.

The two pictures below are from Gameinformer’s “The Multiplayer of Assassin’s Creed Revelations” interview with Live Team Producer Andreane Meunier.

The second Gameinformer article is a three-part video interview with Creative Director Alexandre Amancio, who is surprisingly eloquent and clearly passionate about working in his field. View the videos from Gameinformer’s site – “AC Revelations: Meet the Creative Director.”

People are awesome! Two AC fans have kindly shared scans of the Gameinformer magazine online. The generous Wanderingflame posted clearer scans than the previous ones, and I’ve replaced them appropriately. The first two images are still from user Khriz360 from PS3Trophies.org.

Scans from Wanderingflame start here:

(more…)

AUGH, three of my favorite protagonists as controllable characters in one game.

Assassin’s Creed Revelations First Screenshot from Gameinformer.com. Or just look at the image below.

June Cover Revealed: Assassin’s Creed Revelations from Gameinformer.com

Excerpt from the above link:

“You’ll learn how each of the franchise’s major characters — Altaïr, Ezio, and Desmond — play a part in the story, and how you’ll control each of the three as playable characters. Uncover a brand new part of the world as Ezio travels abroad for the first time to explore the wonders of Constantinople at the height of the Ottoman Empire. Learn about all the new features that set Revelations apart, from a brand new weapon and tool that changes the way you’ll fight and traverse the world, to extensive details on the newly customizable multiplayer game. And what exactly is going on with Desmond after the end of Brotherhood?”

I was so excited about this, until I realized it’ll probably be another year before I get to play. Unless Ubisoft decides to be kind and release the PC version alongside the other platforms.

Also, considering the timeline, Leonardo’s probably dead at this point. That just sapped most of my enthusiasm.

On the brighter side, Ezio was trending in Twitter:

Track this thread on the official forums for further updates.

Whee face needs fixing.

IDK why I end up fiddling with areas that’ll get covered by hair anyway, but I keep doing it. :/

A quote from Rainjewel @ LJ:

Oh the DLC. I was expecting many more shenanigans with Leonardo and then he was GONE for most of it. Jeez. Oh Ubisoft. That aside I was totally going along with it until the very end when it’s like GIANT REVEAL OF GIANTNESS, FULL OF NUMBERS AND MYSTERY and then Ezio just shrugged his shoulders and was all, “Eh, not for our eyes. Also, that looks waaaay too much like math,” and peaced out.

And you know, the multiplayer shenanigans (I HATE YOU ALHAMBRA). Stop adding more men with swords and women with increasingly less clothing. You could add more women with swords and more men with less clothing, that’d work.

XD ♥

Not much, but eh.

Trying to keep this one loose and unblended with strong contrasts once I start in on the colors, but these things never turn out the way I want them to.

The Assassin’s Creed Reveal‘s reached the next stage, and I’m almost positive that’s Altair’s hand they’re showing.

One of the new images also appears to be the Phaistos Disk.

We know Altair went to Cyprus at some point…while not exactly Greece, still pretty darn close.

I’m hoping we’ll get some more Altair lovin’ with this next game, and some Malik if I’m really lucky.

Ezio being a major BAMF in goddamn gorgeous Brutus Armor

Been meaning to post this, but I kept forgetting. Finished the game in three days, fourth day spent mopping up Romulus lairs and other side quests. Currently replaying it to get 100% sync on everything.

On my first playthrough, I feel a little cheated with Sequence 8 and 9, if only because I was waiting ’til the last moment (aka putting it off ’cause I heard from Sei that it’s horrible for PC users) before heading off to the last Romulus Lair. Needless to say I waited a really long time. :/ Being unable to clean up quests and do a final shop run prior to the final stages earn Ubisoft less love from me. Would have traded the Apple for that badass Brutus Armor in a heartbeat. Ezio doing a Mortal Kombat-esque move while wielding the Apple was entertaining, though.

Images are linked to the full PNG screenshots. I’ll make a separate post for 1080p + 1440×900 screenshots soon. (more…)

Meant to post this earlier, but got excited with the game. D:

The sibling entity’s very kind friend Joy made it possible for the sibling entity to buy me the Limited Codex Edition of AC:B. Had a bit of a scare with Philippine Customs and taxes (Customs is apparently choosing to tax certain non-commercial goods now despite being clearly labeled as gifts), but they thankfully chose not to tax this.

Freaking expensive with the shipping and all, but I love it. Will just be buying the digital downloads next time, though. Especially since I purchased the DDE for Sei, and she confirms that it basically has most of the key items from the Codex Editon anyway, just in digital format.

Anyway, on to the pictures. Most of these have larger versions, and apologies for some of the blurry photos. (more…)

For those who have trouble installing the 1.1 version of .Net in Windows 7 (“application has generated an exception that could not be handled” error), the following steps from JasonFJ from this thread worked perfectly for me:

~ Create a new folder named DotNet in C:\ drive (C:\DotNet is used in this guide, you can change to any folder you prefer, but ensure that you use correct path in the following steps).

~ Download Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 Redistributable Package. Make sure the setup file is saved as dotnetfx.exe .

~ Download Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 Service Pack 1 (NDP1.1sp1-KB867460-X86.exe). Make sure that the file is renamed and saved as dotnetfxsp1.exe, so that the rest of the steps can be followed easily.

~ Move both installation files into the same directory (i.e. C:\DotNet), if you’re not saving them together. Open command prompt as Administrator (Start > All Programs > Accessories > [right-click on Command Prompt and select "Run as Administrator]).

~ Change to the directory where the two installation setup files for .NET 1.1 are saved (i.e. C:\DotNet).

~ Run the following commands one by one, press Enter after each one.

dotnetfx.exe /c:”msiexec.exe /a netfx.msi TARGETDIR=C:\DotNet”

~ Then click on “Yes” when prompted to answer “would you like to install Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1. Package?”

dotnetfxsp1.exe /Xp:C:\DotNet\netfxsp.msp

msiexec.exe /a c:\DotNet\netfx.msi /p c:\DotNet\netfxsp.msp

That’s it. It apparently doesn’t work for everyone, but this was the solution that worked for me. Games/programs like Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) require .Net 1.1.

If this still doesn’t work, check out this thread at the LOTRO forums for other solutions.

Brotherhood-Timeline Ezio/Leonardo for DeeNuke (hope you feel better! ♥)

I’ve recently realized that I haven’t played around with Painter 7′s watercolor brushes since I got dual core and a (somewhat) better graphics card. The original brushes are actually way too heavy for me to use — slow anim, lagging strokes, etc. But I found a few variants (BerolEagle’s, wetset’s) that are pertty fast without the useless drying paint animation. I like how lacking in fuss it is when you just want to do a sketch or something, but it feels kind of wasted on me because my sketch lines suck balls. :/

Ezio Auditore da Firenze, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood © Ubisoft
pretty sure Leonardo da Vinci belongs to himself, so…
bg texture from cgtextures.com

Found an old fug sketch of Ezio while I was cleaning out my old art folder. Continued to doodle on it when I should have been sleeping. o.O

Ezio Auditore da Firenze © Ubisoft

Picking up an old WIP to see if I can work out some of the problems in it. And then probably abandon it again for several months because I’m fickle like that.

AltMal sketch for Sei’s birthday. <3 She liked despite the crapola, so yay!

I've forgotten how to draw these boys.