Course Reflection

 

During this course I have worked with mediums that I have never touched before. The only thing I have ever touched on before this class was digital painting through Krita, with barely touching Gimp and Inkscape. I had never worked with video editing or music before. So those two were the greatest experiment for me. While I still need to improve my skills in both of those, at least now I know how to use iMovie and Soundation! I also now have more experience working with vector graphics, which will be useful in the future if I decide to go into marketing!

I have been on a journey to figure out what I want to do with the next, hopefully, 40+ years of my life before retirement. I have been on this journey for nearly 6 years and I'm still not quite sure what I want to do. I am aiming to go into consumer psychology currently, working more on the business and marketing side, maybe even going into advertisement development. I think no matter which career path I end up going down, this course has helped me. I now have digital media skills I hadn't before, and with some practice, would be confident enough to share my work in the future. 

All together I thought this was a great class. It didn't focus solely on digital painting, like I had assumed, which is okay. It taught me that digital media includes so much more, things that I had never even thought or heard of! 

The Ragtag Lionhearts by Taylor Pohlman

D&D YouTube Channels!

In this blog I'm going to introduce you to some YouTube channels that I find useful as both a D&D player and a DM! These include tutorials and just simple videos about the game!


First of all, if you're new to D&D or want to learn more about D&D I would immediately recommend the show Critical Role, found on YouTube. They are "a group of nerdy ass voice actors that sit around and play Dungeons & Dragons". It stars Matt Mercer as the DM, Liam O'Brien, Taliesen Jaffe, Laura Baily, Travis Willingham, Sam Riegel, and Ashley Johnson. They have one completed campaign, which has over 100 episodes and are currently playing another campaign that already has over 80 episodes. Each episode ranges from 3-5 hours long, but it's not like a cartoon or a tv show where you have to watch every second of it. I listen to it in the background while I draw or play video games. You don't even have to watch the first campaign if you want to skip to the second one. I personally haven't watched all of the first campaign. This channel is a great inspiration for story plots or how to better your own roleplaying!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpXBGqwsBkpvcYjsJBQ7LEQ


Another channel I follow is Black Magic Craft. This channel features a guy named Jeremy how has a knack for building his own terrain and models for tabletop RPGs. He has tutorials on how to build your own. He even has instructional videos: painting different effects, how to build different buildings, how to create different terrain effects, what paint brushes to use, and so many more. While he does have many videos on how to paint, his videos focus more on painting terrain and buildings, which don't require nearly as much fine detail as the figurine miniatures.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2Rlv-ug-mtnXuMwlpcqFgg/videos

Wyloch's Armory is another channel that is good for terrain building. He also focuses on building your own miniatures from different materials.  I think his most fascinating video is how to craft an Umber Hulk from seashells! It looks nearly as good as the mass produced miniatures!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrKJd7jQ989DZvtf5C69mYA/videos



Finally, while it is not it's own channel, there is Mini Primetime with Will Friedle sponsored by Critical Role and the playlist for all the episodes can be found on their channel. Not only is Will's approach to the tutorials entertaining, but he also does a great job at explaining the process. While so far there have only been 7 episodes, each featuring a cast or crew member of Critical Role, who are all either talented artists, or have a knack for art, it is amazing to see what they can do with a tiny brush.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1tiwbzkOjQz9kKDaPRPrX2E7RPTaxEZd

There's also SchnauzerFaceMinis for more tutorials on painting the miniatures. I have never watched any of their videos, but if you do, I hope it's helpful. Plus it has dogs!
https://www.youtube.com/user/SchnauzerFaceMinis/videos


I hope you found this blog to be useful in your adventure to be a D&D player, or even a hobbyist that enjoys painting miniatures!

D&D Essentials!

For this blog post, instead of telling the story of Reyna and the Ragtag Lionhearts, I am going to go through some awesome stuff to aid any fellow Dungeon Masters or player out there!

   1.  DM Screen

A DM screen is an essential part of any D&D group. Not only does it prevent the players from seeing the DM's rolls, but a lot of DM screens come with cheat sheets on the inside, full of useful information for any session. 

https://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop-games/rpg-products/dungeon-masters-screen This is the DM screen we currently use in our game. It comes with quick information on status conditions, cover bonuses, a random name generator, an exhaustion chart, and more! The front features a group's worst nightmare: a dragon!

   2.  DICE!!!

This is my favorite part of the entire game. Dice, dice, and more dice! You can seriously never have too many dice. Dice come in all sorts of colors and made out of all sorts of materials! The most basic set you need contains 7 dice: a d4, a d6, a d6, two d10s, a d12, and a d20, though you would preferably want a second d20 for the cases you have to roll advantage or disadvantage. Materials for dice range from to resin to metal to unique gems or even bone! Some dice even glow in the dark! 

https://www.krakendice.com/cotton-candy-10pc-dice-set/?revpage=2%20
These are some of my favorite dice made by Kraken Dice. While it saddens me to know that I do not actually own these dice and wish they would make more, they are beautiful and made of simple resin. 

https://www.elderwoodacademy.com/gemstone-dice-button-rose-quartz/
Then there's these beauties. Made of rose quartz and any girls dream dice set. While I am too scared to actually use my gem dice in fear of them chipping, they are marvelous to look at and make me happy.

   3.  Miniatures

Miniatures are the basic battle pieces of all tabletop games. While it is cheaper to buy miniatures unpainted and paint them yourself, you can find pre-painted ones that cost a little more. There are even websites like https://www.heroforge.com/ and https://eldritch-foundry.com/ where you can create your own custom miniatures for your characters. They are 3D printed in a variety of materials and shipped right to you, or you can download the file and print them out yourself if you have access to that sort of technology. I myself have used heroforge multiple times now, if you use it I recommend using the premium plastic. While it is a bit costly, the quality is well worth it. These miniatures also do not come pre painted. The premium plastic has finer details on it, making it so much easier to paint than the regular plastic. 

Check out my next blog entry, which will be a review of some D&D related channels I follow on YouTube!

Reyna lights a forest on fire

In the farming town of Perdita, the group found themselves in a predicament. The town mayor did not want the group to mingle in the life of Jelly, a fellow resident, and possible intellect devourer, as it was an invasion of privacy and the group had no proof. While figuring out how to get more information on Jelly without breaking the trust of the mayor, the group ran into another problem, a local farmer was having an issue with all his crops being eaten by a mysterious monster and children were coming up missing throughout town.

The group agreed to help this crazy old farmer, who only grew corn and was obsessed with making anything with corn. After many days of investigation, the group found the culprit: a banderhobb, or as the group called it, a crazy corn frog. Chasing the frog away, the group ran into yet another problem! The frog was merely a servant of a night hag, the foulest of hags.

After an epic battle the group rid the forest of the night hag and the banderhobb. However, during the battle the hag had summoned a treant to aid her. Knowing wood is weak to fire, Reyna flung her fire spells at the tree, easily defeating it, but at a cost. The fire quickly spread to the surrounding trees, and before they knew it they were in the middle of a massive forest fire.

With the help of the entire town and the Jade Circle, a known nature-preserving group, the fire was quenched, but the forest has suffered major damage.

Still waiting to get permission to investigate Jelly, the group aided the local enchanter, an orc named Knelvar. He had the group go to a nearby orc camp and destroy the inventions that were stolen from him.

The group found the orc camp and began the massacre of everyone in there. After a messy bloodbath, the chief had holed himself inside. Reyna thought it would be a good idea to disguise herself as another orc and go in and tell the chief that the invaders had left. However, the chief saw right through the disguise. Nearly dying for the second time, Reyna and the group managed to subdue the rest of the orcs, where the group learned that their new friend Lykos wasn't what he seemed. He was a lycanthrope.

The group eventually left without being allowed to investigate Jelly, a mistake that would cost the city much later on.

The First to Go

Reyna and the group had been through a lot over the past few months. They went all over the continent in search of the contestants that had lost the Skyfall Tournament. They ended up in the city of Tennebris first, where they met their new friend, Lykos. Here they encountered their first danger: a demon.

During this excursion, Reyna nearly died due to running off on her own before the group had reformed and came up with a real plan. This would the first of many near death experiences for any member of the party. Thankfully in the end, the group dispatched the demon, who had been feeding off the patrons of a local casino.

The group found Delarin, one of the contestants and broke into her house while she was away. In her basement they found she had a flesh golem hidden away in a wardrobe, along with drawings of a strange teleportation circle and some magic chalked that helped reduce the time to produce the circle. Unfortunately for the group, Delarin returned to the house before they could escape, and combat broke out. After a close battle, where Lykos ran off like a baby, the party managed to kill Delarin and her flesh golem. Upon death, the intellect devourer residing within Delarin, revealed itself as it oozed out of her nose.

The town guards showed up due to all the commotion and promptly arrested the group and herded them towards the jail. That was when the first of the four great stones was stolen. An airship broke through the town's barrier and went to the town's power source and most well-known artifact: the Fell Vessel. A winged being jumped from the airship and swooped up the stone and off they went, before anyone could react. However, Ezmoth was no stranger to this group. It was her old pirate crew, the Lotus.

During the chaos the group managed to flee the city and headed towards Perdita, where the bugbear Jelly from the tournament resided.

The Beginning of Greatness

Skyfall Tournament came and went like any other fighting tournament in Turris. There was challenges that each person overcame either through martial power or magical means. However, at the end, Ra-kir was named the winner. This was just trivial matters compared to what was really going on though.

Each contestant that lost their battle were taken to be "healed" in a private room. Little did anybody know that this private room was actually the lair of a mind flayer that was sucking the brains out of all the losers. This is where Reyna, Ezmoth, and Octavius ended up with a few others, including the mysterious Alex.

After a lot of struggle, the group managed to brake out of their restraints, losing only one on their way out, and escaped the mind flayer lair. Figuring out what to do next, Alex suggested the group need to tell the Grand Master of this, revealing himself to be Xander Loké brother of Grand Master Morin Loké.

Reyna, Ezmoth, Octavius, Ra-Kir, and Xander all met up in front of the palace of the Grand Master to inform him of this news. The group explained what had happened. Morin thanked the group for their work and awarded them, then asked them to go on a mission for him: search Turris for the other losers of the tournament and make sure they weren't replaced with intellect devourers like the unfortunate ones that didn't escape.

And thus begins the journey of the Ragtag Lionhearts.

The Grand Lie

My mother came to visit me first while I was in the jail cell. This was the day she destroyed my life and everything I thought I knew.

She told me of my ancestry, how I was the bastard child of some Elf named Lucan who apparently fell from the sky. How she fell in love with him and before long conceived me. But before she could run off with him some beings from the sky came and struck down Lucan while my mother watched nearby. How she clipped my elvish ears when I was born so nobody would find out about her affair. How she feared I would form powers someday due to the mixed blood, so she made sure I lived a sheltered life becoming a proper lady and would be married to someone who would keep me in my place.

 My father came down right after, appalled at what he saw. I hadn't even noticed that my hair turned a pale blonde and I could see a glow coming from my face. My father decided that he couldn't risk Leon's village seeking retribution for the death of his betrothed, so they dyed my hair black and pretended as if nothing happened, after all, Titus was on the brink of death, he could have just been imagining things.
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The wedding day came and went without any problems and off to Leon's village I went. After years of visiting the village and learning more and more about magic everyday and practicing in any secret moment I could, I knew I was capable of making it on my own outside of this prison they call home. I decided early morning would be the best time to leave, early enough nobody would be awake or want to wake up if they heard any noises outside. Packing up everything I could and snatching a few things from the manor that weren't even mine, I made my escape. I had just opened the front door when Leon peaked his head out of his bedroom. The fool threatened to send troops to my home village if I left, as though I cared what happened to that place after all the lies they thrust upon me. I ignored him as I turned back towards the door and he came running after me. Without even looking, I cast the ground around him into a hand feared by these fools to seize him. I didn't have much of an idea where I was going, I just wanted to embrace this gift I was given and teach these villages that magic is a blessing. I also knew I needed to go back and face Titus one day, show him that he is nothing compared to me when he can only use a sword while I can imbue the sword with power or even create weapons out of nothing.
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On my journey I learned quickly that tricking people into thinking I was a distraught, useless girl it was easier to take advantage of them, making it easier to hitch rides or steal from shops when I was low on gold. I found my way across the nation where I met a lot of people who were weary on the fact that I just had magic swelling inside me, so I decided to start carrying around my book and a quarterstaff to confuse people about how I used my magic. I turned my earring into my arcane focus, so I would never forget how Titus got me into this mess. My dreams were getting worse. The beings wanted me to come to them to learn my role. But I was sick of playing a role in anything, all I wanted to do was explore the world and show Titus what a fool he was for betraying me. I needed to become stronger, both with my magic and my blade. And maybe at the end of all that, I could find these beings and tell them to shove their destiny up their's. I would need to find Lucan for that though since he was supposedly involved with them.

Word about a grand tournament taking place soon quickly spread through every village I passed. Great fighters and magicians coming together to best each other. After so much training I was sure I wouldn't be made a complete fool if I entered. Maybe I could even find a tutor stronger than these city guards to help me practice my swordplay. Or even someone to help me gain even more control of my powers.

Vector Logos!

Queen of Fire

Ragtag Lionhearts

For this week's assignment we got to play around with vector graphics. I have never used vectors before, as I always use raster graphics, so this was a new experience for me. I used inkscape for both logos, a program I have had on my computer for over a year and never actually opened.

 For the flame logo, I actually found a little tutorial on pinterest on how to make a fire using circles. It didn't come out 100% how I wanted, but I was pretty proud of it and found it crazy that it had started out as 7 circles! Creating the crown above it was a little tricky, as I couldn't quite figure out how to make all the lines the same size. As there wasn't just a line tool, I used a box and just played around with multiple boxes until it formed a crown. This logo was sort of a mixture of inspiration from my favorite book series and the D&D games I have played in. The series, Throne of Glass, by Sarah J Maas was part of the inspiration. The main character is known as the Heir of Fire and is a queen. Then my first D&D character was a fire genasi, a being that was part flame essentially, and my current character who's name means unyielding queen. So for this I combined all that and made a Queen of Fire logo!

 My second logo is actually something I've been thinking about making for a while. In my current D&D game our group has been referred to as the Ragtag Lionhearts. This logo didn't turn out quite as good as I was hoping as it was my first try. I think after learning the circle trick, I could retry it. I also wanted the circle in the background to be a heart, but wasn't sure how to go about that. I might play around with it later to see if I can improve it. Overall, this was a fun experience. I have a friend who does his art in vector graphics and I don't understand how. The programs seem to be a lot more mouse friendly than raster graphics, but I think I prefer to free-hand stuff or use the straight line tools available in other programs.

Textorizer!

Zentus: Original Version

Zentus: Excoffizer

Zentus: Textorizer 2

Zentus: Textorizer 1

The third part of this week's assignment was to use textorizer. For these three I used the same image, the drawing I did of our big bad from our D&D campaign, Aen'livion Zentus. The guy is also my character's father, so it's been fun. I enjoyed using this website more than the word art site, just because it was more straight forward. I didn't have to worry about making sure the words would form an image, the program just did it for me. It was also fun to see how all the different settings worked together to make the image more or less defined. The excoffizer was my least favorite of the three, just because it was simply making an image wavy and didn't seem as fun to play around with as the other two. Textorizer 1 was my favorite to use because it made the image look more concrete. Textorizer 2 was still fun to use, but there was a lot of empty space not filled with words that I couldn't figure out how to fill.

Word Cloud Art Creation!

The second part of this week's assignment was to use the website wordart to create an image. For the first image I chose to use a picture of my niece to play around with the website. I couldn't quite figure out how to make it look like an actual shape with the words, so for my next example I just used one of the pregenerated shapes the website has. This would be a cool site to use for a marketing campaign. But trying to figure out which picture will actually crate a decent word cloud image seems to be a little tougher than I would have thought. For the second image I also chose to use the dragon pregenerated shape to keep up with my D&D theme.

ASCII and HTML Word Art!

REYNA STARK HTML

ASCII Version

Reyna's Token by Taylor Pohlman in Krita

For this week we worked with ASCII programs. This sort of art just uses characters in order to create a picture. I remember this used to be a big thing in middle school when cell phones just started becoming popular. It was a fun way to send little pictures to each other based on a keyboard. These programs were simple and straight forward. You just found an image you wanted to convert to text and put it in. Depending on the image I think I like the ASCII version better than the HTML, just because the colors in the HTML are so much darker and I like the simple shading in the ASCII one. Although I did like how I could specify which characters I wanted to be used in the image for the HTML version. For this one I chose to use REYNASTARK, as that is what the image is based off of. 

For my ASCII art I decided to use an image I actually created in Krita. It is sort of a character token for my D&D character Reyna Stark. It is a purple d20, because purple is the color associated with royalty, and Reyna is sort of royalty. Then the green gemstone at the bottom is for her arcane focus, an earring with an emerald gem in it. There's a wand because she has two wands she uses frequently. Then the potion bottle is because she is a healer, and a lot of potions in D&D are just healing potions, then there's a tag on it with her initials that I don't think shows up well in the program. Then the fire wings are because she is a celestial sorcerer and likes to use fire a lot.

Generative Art Update!

Loving Vincent: Scribbler Version

Loving Vincent 

So, after the previous post about the generative art program we used, I learned that my drawing tablet just needed to be unplugged and plugged back in, because it wasn't working in any program. So I did that and retried with the scribbler site. Well, the drawing tablet still didn't work with the site unfortunately. But I got to thinking about how the scribbler art reminds me of a few famous artists, such as van Gogh and Paul Signac.

After watching Doctor Who I had a newfound love for van Gogh, so I looked up some of his paintings to try to replicate in the program. However, I found this piece from the movie Loving Vincent and found it absolutely beautiful. So I tried to replicate this piece. I thought the swirly patterns already in the piece would look neat replicated into scribbler. The background was fun and easy to make, as was the suit. It was the face and hair that I really struggled with this time.

I think part of my problem is I want to put too much detail in it when it is meant to be more abstract. At first I had an eye actually somewhat drawn in there, but I decided to just show the shadows. 

I think I may try this again, but using Krita and using the texture brushes the program has. So look forward to that!

The Ungrateful Prince

     Two years had passed since I had seen my brother Titus. I thought the day he returned would be the best day ever, filled with welcome home parties, and lots of laughter. However, it ended up being the opposite. 
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     The gate bells were rung early in the morning, alerting the town that soldiers were returning home. It was more like a funeral proceeding. It was a line of horribly wounded soldiers from our village. Titus was in the front, being rushed into our home. He was gravely wounded. We all knew he would die by the end of the day. The next few hours went by in a blur.

     I stayed by Titus's bed all day, bawling my eyes out and angry at the stupidity of our village. There was magic all around us that could save my brother, but our village was too worried about an ancient prophecy to do the reasonable thing and accept magic into our society. I couldn't stand it, this placed disgusted me with its ignorance. My grief and anger quickly lulled me to sleep, but sleep wasn't a very welcoming thing in my life.
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     I had the same night terror I normally do. Everything is on fire. I can't seem to find the winged beings that normally annoy me in these, so for once I wandered about the flaming lands. I couldn't actually make out any details of the landmarks around me or tell where I was going, it was very disconcerting. 

     Eventually I found myself atop a hill, where the winged beings finally showed themselves. They told me they could help me save Titus. I didn't care what the cost was, as long as I could live with my brother again. 

     I woke up to Titus shaking me awake screaming for the guards. I was so happy! My brother was alive and moving! But he didn't look happy. In fact, he looked scared of me. He started telling me I was the prophesied damnation of the world and couldn't believe I would delve into magic like that. I didn't understand what he was saying, I didn't do anything? Then he did the craziest thing of all, he grabbed his sword and swung at me! I barely managed to dodge without losing my head, but he managed to cut across my eye. I could hear guards starting to come towards our room, I had to leave fast before Titus told them these lies. He managed to grab me before I could leave though. He was too strong for me to break free from. Damn him! 

     Before I knew it I was in a alone in a cell, but not for long. My mother came to speak to me before anyone else did. That's when I learned that my life was a lie. 
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Emotional Flame On!!

Flame Art: Overwhelmed

Flame Art: Despair

Flame Art: Excitement

The second part of this week's blog involved using Flame Painter 4, a unique program that uses life-like particle brushes to enhance your art. Just like any other digital art program, this program has many brushes to choose from, and allows you to use layers. It is like a Krita or Photoshop, but only with crazy brushes! I had a lot of fun with this program, however, I am cheap and will probably not end up ever buying the full version, despite how cool it looks!


After playing around with the brushes and the different settings, I began creating random stuff. I wasn't sure which emotions I wanted to display, so I started with just creating stuff and seeing how it made me feel. It was hard to do by solely using an abstract form, so after the first two I decided to add a semi-concrete element to the art. 

For overwhelmed, I modeled the person off of Edvard Much's The Scream. Then adding a lot of colorful busy backgrounds, I created a sense of the scene overwhelming the person. The person clutching their head adds to this, as this is a stereotypical action we see people do when they are overwhelmed. Without the person added to this piece, I think it could be interpreted as just a happy piece, which isn't what I was going for. 

Despair was the first one I had created. I tried creating an actual flame, but it was a lot harder than I was expecting. I was going to go with a blue tone theme for it, since we correlate blue with sadness. However, after playing around with the filters, I ended up with this and I thought it looked really cool. The black in the background feels like shadows that are about to consume the light in the center, creating a sense of despair. 

Then lastly I couldn't decide which two I liked the most, so I picked my top 3. Excitement was the last one on this lit. I used a simple stick figure to show someone running or dancing, then added bright colors around them. I tried to make it look as though they were almost playing with ribbons in the air, going from hand to hand. However, some of the brushes are tricky to use, so it ended up a little awkward. Then at the bottom I used this aloe brush the program had. It helped create a sense that the stick figure was frolicking through the grass.

It's Generative Art Time!!

So for this week's blog we are looking at generative art! Generative art is art that has been created with the use of an autonomous system that generates features based on an algorithm. For this project, we used the website http://www.zefrank.com/scribbler/scribblertoo/ The first part of this project was to use a reference image as a starting point. For this, I used an image that I actually used as a reference for the face of my D&D character, Reyna Stark. It took a little bit to get used to using this program. It would have helped greatly if it allowed tablet interaction so I could using my drawing tablet instead of my mouse. It also would have been helpful if the program kept the colors already used in the color bar, that way I didn't have to write down the color code and re-enter it every time I went back to a certain color. I also found it difficult to fill every inch of the face, so that is why I chose a pink background, since that was the skin color I went with. It helped fill in the gaps and make it look more full.  The second scribbler image I created was based off the Flash running. I thought the way this program worked would be a neat way to draw him with his lightning trailing behind him. It's a bit difficult to create a gradient background like I was trying to do. But overall, I think it turned out decent. I didn't want the Flash himself to be the focal point, but the lightning, so I spent much less time on the person than the special effects.  I'm not sure if this is the correct way to use this site, but it was fun to use and mess around with. I don't think I would use it for my own purposes though. I like using krita for art, as they even have pre-made brushes that look similar to the texture of this program.

Video Mash-up Time!!

Boy was creating this a journey! Being an android user, I lowered my standards a bit and used iMovie for this video. I couldn't quite figure out how to use the windows video editor, while the apple version was much more straight forward. I wasn't sure if I wanted to do a specific theme for his project or not. At first I created a neat little list of video themes I wanted to include and the order they would go in. At the end though, I just did some random stuff. I included a lot of D&D and cat stuff because those are my favorite things. I found the Cats movie clip and had never even heard of this movie before. It was so bizarre and freaky I just had to use it. I also included a video clip of a lady dancing around. This clip was actually used in one of the tutorial videos, but I really liked the old fashioned sense to it, so I used it as well. I didn't actually edit any of the videos, other than trimming them. I wasn't sure how to do that in iMovie, and I'm always scared if I do something it'll ruin the rest of the progress I've made and I'll have to start over. It actually took me a little bit of time to even figure out how to trim the videos though, so I'm glad I didn't try to do anything crazier with them. It would only allow me to trim a video to a certain size, so I would have to split the video and then trim, then repeat. For the music, I used the song I had made for the last project. I don't think I ended up getting the exact part of the song I really wanted though. I liked the ending of my song, so I wanted that to be in the video, but I don't think that ended up happening since I didn't know what I was doing at first. Then I really love listening alternative indie and epic music that you hear in theaters, so the last song in my video is one that I've been listening to often lately. I actually didn't plan to have that song line up with the battle scene from Game of Thrones, but I was happy it did. Then there was random music from iTunes that I used. For these I stuck with more "poppy" and happy songs that would go along with the goofy scene of the cat playing D&D and the intro of the Cats movie clip. Overall, I liked this project. I'm sure my video isn't as elaborate as others, with it only consisting of maybe 5 video clips. But, I had fun making it. And now I actually know how to use iMovie! Now I might just have to go and make some goofy trailer for my D&D group!

Soundation Experiment!

This is the song I created for class. I have never worked with music before, so this was a first time for me. It was honestly a really hard little project to do. Finding the right sounds to go together proved to be very hard. Thankfully the website, soundation, was fairly easy to use. I wasn't able to discover a way to change the volume of sounds at different points in the song, but I guess it could be done by just creating a new channel. I used synth music as the basis of the song, then at the end changed it to a more trap. I think together they created a fairly unique sound.

First Animoto Video!

This is the video I created using about 9 of my favorite edited versions of the Urban Landscape photos. I used the song "Remember Me" by Ivan Torrent (ft. Roger Berruezo). I didn't get too fancy with the fade effects for the photos. I thought the basic fade away fit my pictures pretty well, as they all have a twilight feel to them. I also picked this song because it reminds me of a fairy tale song, and the coloring and theme of the pictures reminded me of that a bit. I've never made a video like this before, so this was a new experience for me. It was also my first time using Animoto, and I don't think I used the website to its full extent like I could have.

Urban Landscape Edited Picture

I chose this image as the favorite one I had edited. Compared to the original image, this one creates a much better mood. I cropped the image a little and adjusted the color and exposure of the image to create a stronger feel of dusk. I also applied a bubble effect to create the effect of the sun shining in the camera lens. I also added a color filter over the whole image, a slight blue to orange gradient, that helped make the colors pop more. While the context of the image may not be the most exciting, through the edits it became a scenic view of a basic urban component.

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog about my fantastical Dungeons & Dragons campaign! 
In this blog, you will get to follow the story of my beloved character, Reyna Stark. During this adventure, there will be trial and error, questionable decisions, emotional moments, and those moments where everyone at the table thinks they might want to quit playing.

Before we get started let me introduce you to the "cast":

Reyna Stark, half-elf divine soul sorcerer: played by me, Taylor
Ezmoth Heavens, aasimar swashbuckler rogue: played by Jake
Neville "Octavius" Onespicymeatball, halfling shadow monk: played by Yitz
Ra-kir, tabaxi monster hunter ranger: played by Caleb
Lykos, goliath blood hunter: played by Cody
Our lovely Dungeon Master, the god of our story, the decider of our fates: Alex

I look forward to this lovely chance to tell our chaotic story!

REYNA STARK: The Unyielding Queen's Beginning

Our story began almost two years ago, with the four of us all partaking in the annual Skyfall Tournament in Faermundi. We were all pretty innocent and ill prepared for the darkness of the world back then. We had no idea that the monsters of the world were so close to, yet so far away.

My name is Reyna Stark. I'm a brunette human with golden brown eyes, standing just shy of six feet tall. I hail from the small anti-magic town of Grastille just south of the Wastelands. I am the daughter of Quincy Stark, the chief of our village. Grastille, along with Blastone, formed a coalition that banned the usage of magic within the cities. Due to this, life at home was quite drab and harsh. I should also mention, I'm an unfortunate soul who suffers from night terrors frequently, and they're always the same: mountains ablaze with winged beings telling me to answer the call.

In Grastille, it was a custom for men to join the militia once they became of age, as our village was constantly at war with the brutish orcs surrounding our woods. My older brother, Titus, was about to be one of those men in a few months. Titus was my whole world. He's the one that first taught me how to use a sword, despite how horrible at it I was. He was the only one that didn't treat me like a princess that was waiting for the day to be married off to the Grevuz family of Blastone. Unfortunately, our fun times came to an end the day he left for the front lines. That day he got us a set of jade earrings, one for each of us. I still haven't taken that earring off. 

While Titus was gone I began sneaking out of the village whenever I could. It was during this time that I found myself in a town nearby. This town wasn't apart of the anti-magic coalition, so what I saw was beyond words. Magic was everywhere and it was beautiful. I met wonderful people who taught me how the world worked with magic. I even met a fortune teller who gave me a book on basic magic. It was the most wonderful experience of my life. Every night back home I would read my secret book, learning to despise our village's policy on magic. I did this all while being made into an idol to be married off soon. 

Two years passed before I saw Titus again.