East Ronfaure

So I said I'd have a version up this week, and I do! It's unfinished, but it should give a good idea for when I throw together a proper tileset. Actually having some difficulties finding a spriter though, so that's troublesome. I'll go ahead and do a map for West Ronfaure too, but if I can't find someone to work on the graphics, I might just have to drop this (right after I decide to do it too, lol). I don't think you can really still call it FFXI if I just use the crappy base graphics package that comes with RPG Maker XP.



The map takes about 40 sec to cross from the top left to bottom right, which is ~4min shorter than what it would normally take in FFXI, haha. Obviously, this'll get a revamp with trees, stone walls, slightly better grass, and mountain textures if I'm able to continue.

Justice.

Supplies!

I'll start off today's post with pictures yay! Unfortunately, I forgot my camera when I went home this weekend, so the quality is kinda shit. Though I guess it doesn't matter *too* much, since this isn't artistic photography or anything.



Here's my workspace I set up to do all the painting in my basement. It's nice, but it's right next to the window, so on sunny days the light gets brighter and dimmer constantly and pisses me off. Good thing I mostly paint in the evening. The next time the midget's home for more than 3 hours during the weekend, I wanna plow through some more of the basement mess, hopefully letting me move the workbench out of the way a bit.



Here's what I had accomplished thus far, after we cleaned up a bit of the basement during the snow break, note that about 2/3 of all my models are already painted from my last HeroQuest stint several years ago, but almost all of them desparately need touching up. I picked up some 10/0 paintbrushes on Friday just for that purpose, and they've been working great so far. I might still want a smaller size though. XD



And the Orcs are finished! There really wasn't too much to do, so I got them all to a point I liked late Friday night. Like ~2am, haha.



And a closeup on the center. I have more Orcs than anything else, totaling at 34. 31 are from my three games of HeroQuest and my Kellar's Keep expansion, and the three unique ones in the middle are from a Warhammer Quest packet I picked up a few years ago.



And the next phase, the Goblins. These come in just under the Orcs at 29, and you can see a few more pieces I acquired from Warhammer Quest in the front row. I actually spent a good while painting these over Saturday and Sunday, but I had to leave kinda quick earlier, so I didn't get a chance to take any more pics. I'll have some up when I go home next weekend.

The painting's going fairly well, and I'm looking forward to all the rest of the creatures, which are nowhere near as numerous, haha. Looking at finishing up the minis I have by the end of March. Of course, I have Spring Break next month, but I don't really have anything to do, so I'll probably just paint and play video games, haha.

Anyway, to announce the second project (which most of you know by now anyway, haha). I'm looking at making Final Fantasy XI Offline. Why? I'm bored, lol. Really though, Vana'diel is pretty awesome, but I don't think it's going to last forever. It'll be around for several more years yet, of course. But I wanna be able to do a marathon playthrough FF1-25 when that comes out, and if FFXI is *still* around then, it's got some damn good life support. It's possible S-E might release a single player variation on their own down the road, and it's possible one day projectXI might not suck. But as you know, both of those things are highly unlikely.

Anyway, here's the basic premise of what I aim to do. I'm going to be working with RPG Maker XP, so the game is going to have an (I hope) FFVI/Chrono Trigger feel to the graphics. I think I'm going to have a rotating party based on all the NPCs you could possibly have fight alongside you, but I've not worked that out. Alot of stuff I have no idea how I'm going to get it work, but I've taken an initiative and started learning Ruby on my own, which can allow me to insert custom programming into the game. Hopefully with experience and some tips from other RPG Maker users, I'll be able to put together some way to make everything work. Heck, I've even got some ideas for making use of Ballista, which at first I was just going to axe out.

I can't do this alone though. First off, while some call me an artist, there's no way I can do the level of spriting I would need for this. I know some places where spriters hang out though, so hopefully one of them will bite on the 'Final Fantasy' name, and not run off after I work them like a dog for the 352196103593159 NPCs and landscape objects, hahaha. Right now I'm putting together maps of East and West Ronfaure with generic RPG Maker objects, so I can at least show prospective sprtiters something when I try to recruit them. I'm hoping to have East done later this week, I'll have it up here then. I'm also trying to recruit my old LS mates to collect some ingame data for me, but they seem to be busy these days. Hoping to get at least a few zones of data. :3

I'm baaaaack, and I've got a new triiiick~

Gonna start using this again, starting this weekend. (Well, I guess technically starting now, but don't get smart). Since I know all 0 of you have been foaming super-rabies at the mouth since mid-November, I expect the response to this will be EXTRAORDINARY. LIEK TOTALLY.

Unfortunately, there won't be comics. Since that's the reason anyone actually looked at this, I expect my viewership to maintain at a healthy 0 (+/- 1). This is because I hate drawing with a mouse, it takes too long. If I ever get a tablet, and I haven't abandoned this blog again, you can bet your grandmother's bobby pin collection I'll have new comics up, since I've got plenty of material. But since it would be silly to just find a tablet wrapped up with a pretty bow on my bedroom desk, I *might* be able to buy one by the end of the year. Maybe. Rawr.

So what am I doing here? Blogging about my boring school life, and making math jokes? No! I'll spare you for now. Projects! Yes, I bored and feel like I should do *something* that vaguely resembles incremental updates, and I've got two projects I'm currently working on.

First, as all none of you know, is I'm re-refurbishing my old HeroQuest board game system. I cleaned up all the furnishings, make new cards, collected way too many dice, and now I'm painting all the minis. I don't have all the ones I need (4 more and I'll have enough for 30ish quests though), but that should be fixed if I ever get around to some hobby stores again to find some cheap D&D minis. Anyway, I'll put up pictures of the painting progress I make each weekend. I figure by the beginning of April I should have everything painted, including anything additional I buy.

There is a second project, but I can't talk about it yet. Because I like being mysterious and spooky and JUSTICE.

Also, Superawesomemegajusticesparklerainbowhappy Birfdei~! You know who you are. >;3