Wormholer btw

I think I mentioned it before, I am always lost when it comes to nullsec politics. Recently there was a lot of shittalking regarding Pandemic Legion. Had to draw this.

Never give up. Never surrender.

I am not a role player but I still wonder how the Sansha feel about the fact that they never manage to actually expand their borders. And would it be possible to change Eve’s spaghetti code so the Sansha could actually expand their borders, meaning change the map of New Eden? Thought I doubt that people would be happy about that.

Eve characters reimagined, part 3: NoobMan

Even if you don’t follow wormhole politics you might have heard of NoobManHK. As a member of CSM XI and CSM XII he was one of the more active/outgoing representatives. He also used to be the director of Hard Knocks, the main player in wormhole space.

I had this piece planned for a while but then NoobMan won Eve and so the project got lost in my pile of “let’s do this later”. I am happy that I managed to finally finish it, even though it is a bit late.

Side effects

Problems sleeping is one of the annoying side effects of my medication. So I spent the last 2 hours making another reimagined pic of an Eve personality: Sapporo Jones of TEST Alliance.

Artwork

If you haven’t noticed yet: I like making stuff. Scribbling, sketching, Photoshop, Illustrator etc. But job, family and my non-existent ability to commit to something leave me with many unfinished projects. There is a comic I would like to do. Some pixel art I’ve started. Lots of scribbles.

Yet, my drawing tablet is still in a moving box somewhere. I haven’t touched it in months. (And yes, there are still some unopened moving boxes). Thanks to a stomach flue I am stuck at home and finally felt like finishing some pieces.

To me one of the most fascinating things in Eve is to see how people interact. Corps are the most common way to play with like-minded friends and learn how to navigate Eve many niches. But then there are the Null-sec and Low-sec alliances, where the level of commitment is mind boggling. To me at least.

You have hundreds of players willing to follow a small number of leaders. I would understand if it was for the sake of combat. But in many cases they contribute by bringing their everyday skills to the table: setting up servers, making websites, writing scripts etc. Even I do this once in a while (more about this later). As a result alliance leaders become public figures, which in Eve’s case means lots of coverage on Reddit and Eve-Media.

I always thought it would be funny to draw them in a way people describe them on Reddit. Below you’ll find two of my brain farts: Gobbins (Pandemic Horde) and The Mittani (Goonswarm Federation). Hopefully I’ll be able to finish more in the future.

Silly Stuff 1

I hate it when people are late. Especially when it is in situations where I can’t do much else. Today a meeting got delayed for a whole hour because of bad traffic. Too long for me but not long enough to warrant a trip back to the office. So I spend my time drawing. It’s not the most sophisticated work to be honest I am not good at drawing to begin with. I’ve been working on a few things on and off over the months but never had the energy to finish them. I should try again I guess.

CCPlease: Your Merch section

CCP’s business behavior is a big mystery to me. On one hand they introduce Alpha clones and nuPlex in order to increase player numbers and purchases. On the they are being accused of ignoring the opportunity to merchandise their material. And with good reason. Right now there is not much in the store which would tempt me to pull out my wallet, not only because of the content but also because of the prices.

And it doesn’t even look like they were trying: Their shop is a Shopify site, which doesn’t take a lot of time and effort to set up. To add insult to injury the shipping costs are often so high that one has to ask what they have been thinking.

The store’s contact page refers the visitor to a company called dpipromo. On their horrifcly designed webpage they write this: “We specialize in Custom Design & Manufacturing creating unique items that bring your product launch to greater levels of success. Development Plus, Inc. has extensive experience in the Video Game and Entertainment industries. Unlike other agencies, we manage the entire process from concept to delivery, so you can spend more time focused on exceeding your product to excellence. Explore our Product Showcase, Collector’s Editions, and Unboxing Theater that highlights some of our highly accomplished projects.” For me this reads as if they have no clue what the Eve player base wants and just threw a bunch of generic stuff together they anyway have in their portfolio.

CCP could grab so many low hanging fruit to make their Western playerbase happy: ship models, lore specific items, exciting skins etc. Personally, what disappoints me the most is the bland selection of t-shirts. I like shirts, I buy many and I know three things: for 23 bucks per shirt I should have more color options, considering the amount of beautiful artwork they have at hand just printing some generic player quotes is kind of underwhelming and because of that I would be very hesitant to spend that amount of money.

I make t-shirts once in a while and sell them on various platforms. So I decided to make a few Eve specific ones. They might be not great but should mainly serve as suggestions for what CCP could add to their store. And once I manage to reliably work with Eve ship models I believe I could make some really nice stuff. I have asked Eve support whether it would be ok to offer my files for free to the players and of course haven’t heard back from them. So until CCP tells me to fucking stop I am going to put them on this blog.

On the Eve stuff I make page you will find a bunch of things I came up with over the months. I will add more once in a while. You can download the png files (for free) in print quality (300dpi) and use any print on demand service to make one. There are some designs which don’t contain any CCP material; here you can either download the file or go to the linked shop to buy one. I don’t care what option you choose. If possible please menation me as the creator, also I am asking to not use those files for your personal profit. Of course I can’t control this but should I notice something in that direction I will just stop making this stuff. Should there be something wrong or if you want me to modify something, contact me and I’ll see what I can do.

Again: Dear CCP, if you feel that offering these files for free somehow violates the EULA I will take them down instantly. But please at least consider improving your merchandising approach.

 

 

Split-Depth Gif, first try

Split-depth(ing?) is a very interesting technique, allowing you to generate a 3D effect without specialized hardware. I am still going through the details but I believe that I have the basics down. Luckily there is a plethora of HQ Eve videos online, so I should have enough test material.

The example below is from CCP’s “Birth of a Capusleer” trailer. Next time I should make the bars wider, I suspect that the effect then would be more obvious. And I still can’t figure out how people manage these high quality gifs.

Low Poly Style

Makoto Priano is one of New Eden’s experts in Eve lore. And after CCP started their Kyonoke story line he and his friends decided that this would be the perfect setting for some Eve roleplay. Capusleers were asked to produce Kyonoke propaganda material surrounding those events. To make this more attractive Makoto and his friends had collected a nice pool of Isk to distribute among the top entries.

My submission was not a very serious one, but then again I am not a very serious role player. I love the low poly effect but don’t work with it very often. It involves a lot of clicking and unless

you enjoy setting up PI (if you do you are a very sick person) it is a rather tiresome process. I have started a few low poly projects with ships I like but can’t find the energy yet to continue. I could save some time by going for less detail but I feel that the final product would look…lazy?

Trying to share

An upside of getting more rest: I feel much more creative again. Since things have balanced out I felt motivated again to brush up on my Illustrator and Photoshop skills, something I have neglected for quite some time. I also have a small Wacom tablet but drawing is still a challenge with it. My sketches tend to look better than the final product. There is no rush, so I don’t mind.

Opposite to Eve I never feel the urge to continue when I work on images. When scanning there is always one more signature I want to resolve before I leave. Not when I draw. I notice that it is getting late, save my stuff and go to bed. Regardless, I am looking forward to finishing a piece though I am rarely happy with it.

Over the last months I have made a few things I feel /r/eve might like. I just need to set up a gallery but WordPress turns out to be extremely user-unfriendly when it comes to it.