Thoughts on Character Creation - How Creating Characters Can Get You Invested in Other Things

Creating characters is always great fun, but sometimes you come across something that gets you not only invested into your character, but into what inspired them too. It's no surprise that I love the movie Zootopia and it would not be long before I'd create my own OC (Original Character), but what to choose?

It had been such a long time since I created a bat character and I absolutely love bats. At first I wanted to use the Grey-Headed Flying Fox, but since my earliest characters were Flying Foxes (and they look less like the bat design in the Zootopia art book), I wanted something a little different. I went through a list of all of Australia's Bats, but couldn't find a fruit/nectar eating one with the design I wanted. Yet one name kept coming back to me: Ghost Bat. My young sisters know my love for bats and over the years they have gotten me a few Bat products, the best being a TY Beanie Boo called Igor (the girls were collecting them, saw the Bat one and thus, I got a great Birthday present). But it was the little Aussie animal cards from Woolworths that the name came from, the girls having given me those cards. So I decided to research more on it.

The largest of Australia's micro-bats, the Ghost Bat is known more for their light-grey to white fur and how their thin wing membrane gives them a ghostly appearance. They are called the False Vampire Bat, but they are known to eating not only bugs, but mice and other bats. This would help shape my character and his bat family, a group of stuck up nobles, the ghost bat reputation used to invoke fear and respect. My character himself is a victim of his family and does not share their views. As I went deeper into creating my character (his first name being Bartholomew), I found myself drawn more into researching into this bat. While trying to sort out a problem for my mother at the local museum, I got into a discussion with a paleontologist there, whom also had an interest with a number of animals. I learned that up north around mid state there is a set of caves that are known to house lots of small bats and at night when they leave the caves on mass, the ghost bats strike. Apparently its like watching large groups of fish dodging a shark. Sounds fascinating. Sadly, they are dying off. This is mostly due to man and our environment destroying nature, but also partly due to something that scientists can't explain. Makes me feel sad, yet I want to know more.

Bartholomew wasn't the only named character as his family also has a rival family. From them comes his love interest, Miranda. I feel they would have a sort of accent, something french, but I hit a snag. See, being a 'false' vampire bat, I wanted their rivals to be vampire bats, but they only exist in South America, which would put the accent at odds. So I went looking for European bats that would be something similar to the ghost bat. I came across the Greater Noctule Bat. While not exactly the same, it is known to eat birds and is noted for attacking them on the wing (in flight). They are European, which I feel would be close enough for the accent I want. That said, it was even harder to find information on this bat and despite hours of research, I still don't have a big enough pool of knowledge to satisfy me.

I admit, this sort of thing is more focused on more animal anthropomorphic characters, but this could also apply to other areas. Careers are another example as if you want to write your character to have a particular job or even a combat style, doing research can not only help you write them better, but you just might find you take a keen interest in that subject.

Taking interest can help you improve the visual design and writing of a character, but that character may help you better understand the world around you and who knows, you just might find that interest turns into something greater.

King Nick now up

Shot of King Nicholas Von Wilder is now up: Link

Should have more up before the end of the month with luck.

Projects - February/March

So I manage to find my Tomb Kings stuff, along with both my unfinished Vampires and even a Banshee I did. As a result, Many will need to be re-based to be usable and I still have the Necromancer project planned too. I've decided to go for a 20 strong Bowmen unit, so will need to turn some old warriors into archers. I'm also going to use both Tomb Scorpions as they are amazing models and I would feel bad to leave them out. I also have one Liche Priest on foot, a Liche Priest mounted, one Tomb King with shield, my High Liche Priest conversion (don't know what to use him as), 3 Ushabti, 10 Horsemen and 6 Mounted Bowmen. All are usable, but am uncertain if I'll convert them to AoS straight away or if they will just be used to fill gaps in the army.

Problem is that it's Summer here and I struggle in the heat. Given it was the hottest January on record this year, that may be a big problem for this month. On top of that, I have gone back to study, so time is limited. The plan is for the following (no particular order):

AoS:
+ Necromancer Conversion
+ 20 Skeleton Bowmen (most just need a touch up, 8 need converting)
+ 2 Tomb Scorpions (really, they just need bases and their done)
+ 2 Vampires (needs re-basing and a touch up of paint)

Malifaux:
+ McTravish and Gators (mostly done but that epoxy really stuffed this one up)

Other
+Not sure, but might work on finishing more of those Empire models I have lying around.

Again, this is just a list to focus on as time will be limited due to the bs that is Summer (really don't like the heat). Also, the Wight King is finished and shots have been taken. Will try to use my spare time in class to put them together for uploading, so hopefully this week it'll be up.

Update: Oh boy, turns out there will be a few problems, partly due to time limitations, the other being financial limitations (turns out I have a few big bills to pay in April and I need to save). That said, working hard to finish the Bowmen and I should be able to get the bases I need for the scorpions cheap enough. Getting both done will free up more space to focus on other projects (assuming I have the time free). As such, updated the title to now include the March month to it. The Necromancer conversion will also be late as the guy who I order from is recovering from surgery (get well soon mate) and the order won't go in for a while.

A new path for Age of Sigmar

So having played a lot of Warhammer video games lately, my brother has been considering a return to the warhammer universe. While he still has his Elves, he wants a detour a bit and focus on Chaos. Given he still has a bunch of Khorne daemons from our army painting challenge that he lost interest in a while back, I think it was playing as Chaos in Total War: Warhammer that triggered his interest.

Now I know what you might think. With the Skaven and Tzeentch models I've got, my AoS force is set. Thing is, that while I will keep going with those projects, I want to focus on a new area myself, so I'm going back to what got me into warhammer fantasy in the first place: Skeletons. Yes, my first warhammer fantasy miniatures was a box of Skeleton Warriors. Since Hero Quest I've always liked the idea of Skeletons when it comes to the Undead, so going back to them seems like a good idea. I still have a bunch of Tomb King models I can use until I can get some newer ones and I'm already working on a Wight King to lead them. I also plan to have a Necromancer as well, but instead of the current range, I want to create a portable base and use my Skeleton caster from the Hero Quest models I have (their in a box here somewhere).

Update: So yeah, after looking at the model, it seems it will not fit my original plans. I do plan to use it at some point (perhaps on an Undead war machine/monster), but for my original idea it just won't work. That said, I do have a solution. I plan to use a Tomb Banshee model, alter the arms with skeleton bits and a themed base or some boots from say, a witch elf or something for legs. Use her original hands to be more like gloves and maybe convert a royal staff n tiara/crown to show her connection to the king. Good plan in theory, converting it on the other hand may prove problematic.

As for the lore, well, I think I'll name the two heroes after the two leads in my current obsession, Zootopia. Nicholas the Wight King and Judith the Necromancer. Brought back through dark magics, but who have resisted the will of Nagash to lead their skeleton troops to battle injustice and stop evil wherever it may hide. Helps clarify some story elements if I'm force to battle another Death faction and since they are dead it means the so-called good faction would fight them without hearing them out. Still need to come up with a background and heraldry to use, but I could explain the different sizes in skeleton models (Tomb Kings were larger and bulkier then those of Vampire Counts) as simply those from another land who came as mercenaries and stayed loyal to the King after fighting for him for a while. Like I said, still needs work. What I want is a mixed Skeleton/Bat themed group. I have two Vampire models, one with that bat wing arm and a second converted with scourge wings, so they will be the start of the bat theme. This will be the harder of the two themes as their site seems to be removing many of the bat stuff, but I hope I'll get something for the theme.

I'm hoping that this change in direction will re-spark my interest in the hobby once again (Depression is good at destroying that).

Gratz Zootopia

Congratulations to everyone behind Zootopia, which won Best Animated Feature Film at the Golden Globe awards. As my favourite movie of the year, I am so happy it won.

I know this is a bit late, but was away helping family when the awards was on.

SC2 - Stukov is now my chosen Co-op Faction

I can't help it. The theme, the playstyle and the shear amount of fun I am having playing as Stukov is exactly what I look for when playing a game. We finally got to play a brutal game and I just had a blast playing it.

He's not without his flaws of course. I do have some issues with timing (due to the timed life of ground infantry), problems with stealth detection and disappointing air units. Despite that, I just love the infested hordes and while they only move towards the one beacon you have, with well placed bunkers and barracks, you can have a nice endless wave of minions charging forth.

Or at least, a sizable distraction to help give your co-op partner the chance to help deal with objectives. So far the worse map I have found as playing Stukov is the jungle gas collection one, as we found out that trying to compensate at times to help your partner is not something you can do well on that map. Still, I am having a blast playing as him and hope to start getting some custom mutation map games soon.

2016 - A Reflection

Yeah I know 2016 isn't over just yet, but I'm doing this now cause I'll probably forget or something. So anyway, the year is coming to an end and oh boy, what a year. I'll try to keep this both brief and simple, keeping politics out as best I can (cause I could go on for hours on that and that's just on Australian politics) while also keeping personal life matters out (save for the first one on this list anyway). So here we go.

The Diploma

So the first half of 2016 was me trying to cope with the disaster that was the latter part of 2015. I won't go into it (well, not in this post anyway), but it was a rather unpleasant experience. So it was during this time I decided I wanted to do something and that something was videos. Having seen so many possibilities, I wanted to have a go and do something beyond just another gaming let's play channel (though they're always a good start). Problem was, I had no experience with video editing, effects, etc. So when it came time to take up some study, all the courses I had originally wanted to do were not mid-year, but a Visual Effects course was. So I took it up.

No it was meant to be part-time due to my health, but sadly it seemed that option went out after I had signed up. Luckily for me, support services have been great and the teachers are (for the most part) aware of my conditions, which has helped a lot. It's nice to have people be understanding when you need a week off to help recover from extreme suicidal thinking, something I'm very thankful for. I'm doing good so far in the course, though next year will be a lot harder. I'm hoping for another cool patch and to get over this current bad depression streak I'm going through (it seems to now be a regular thing that hit every year now around Christmas time), so I can sit down and work on some stuff. Wanting to get a title screen for the Zargooran video page and to work more on visual effects and green screening. I'd love to do some animation work, but we never did 2D and we won't work on 3D till next year. Still, looking forward to in.

Television, Animation and Youtube

It's amazing, but I think I watch more online videos then normal television now. Perhaps it's more entertaining or I find the people on there have more charming personalities (just avoid the comments section if you value your sanity, worst aspects of humanity are found there). I am finding I'm watching less of the bigger channels and more of the smaller ones, though it might be more to do with people focusing on less group content. Heck, it's helped me find some of the more smaller fandoms that produce much more wonderful and respectable content (trust me, I've seen some really messed up shit in some fandoms).

Television saw the return of one of my favourite shows, Shaun Micallef's Mad as Hell. It's a comedy show mostly making fun of politics and some of his gags have left me with a near on Asthma attack they were that good. Have you been paying attention was another that still got a run this year, though I had to watch the encore versions as I missed them when they were on (study nights). I find most television these days are either stupid reality shows, uninteresting sports or biased programs with a political agenda. Maybe that's why I've turned to Youtube.

Animation is still going strong. Re-runs of Gravity Falls are nice. MLP is still going (but as I've stated in the past, I don't like the idea of another season or the movie in fear that they'll screw something up) and I even checked out some episodes of Star vs the forces of evil, which I did enjoy. Thinking back, there really hasn't been much in the way of great shows released recently, though once again, there are some nice animated shorts on the internet, so keep an eye out for them.

Movies

I haven't been to the movies in a long time, but that hasn't stopped me from seeing a couple of them. I got to see two movies that were released in previous years. The first was Guardians of the Galaxy, which I freaking loved. The other was Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which I found to be a lot less enjoyable. As much as I'll tick fans off with my opinion on it, I felt it was trying too much to be like episode 4 and the first two acts were rather boring. The writing was off, I just couldn't connect enough to care about these characters. Well, save Rey, who parts I enjoyed watching. For a pass over, Rey is a great character and I hope the next one focuses more on her.

As for my movie of the year, that has to go to Zootopia. A great story with a wonderful cast of characters, the animation was amazing and I just wanted to see more of it (and yes, I've already made my own fan character, a bat cause I haven't made a bat character in a long time). The meanings in the movie I feel was a great way to project the messages and I'd like to see it taken further, perhaps a predator/prey relationship and some of the stigma with that (though a nice happy ending, cause I feel the residence would be more open and more positive about such things in the city then outside it). I was surprised we didn't get any animated shorts, given the way most major 3D studios add them in their release products or released seperatly. What I feel was lacking was merchandising. Surprisingly, there is Frozen still all over the place, yet good luck trying to find Zootopia stuff beyond the movies and books (I did get the Art of book, which was better then I imagined). I like a few display pieces for...well...display. Hell, only found out recently they had Disney Infinity models, but they were so rare to find and only became harder when DI was terminated. Given I have some display pieces like Chip N Dale, I was hoping for some similar display pieces, but I guess Disney isn't interested in that anymore. Shame really (Still not sure why there has been little promotion of Zootopia compared to Frozen, but then again, maybe it has something to do with having a lot more songs to sing along to...maybe?).

Gaming

Well, it's been interesting. Played a few games myself, seen games played by others. I have no great one of the year as most of my enjoyment from them comes from playing with others, not so much the game itself. I was disappointed that Disney Infinity got cancelled, but given what Disney has done with it since shutting the studio down simply confuses me. It's clearly a popular game, so why not give it to someone more trustworthy to keep it going.Given peoples reactions, it seems a shame to do this, especially after that horror called Skylanders Imaginators. Seriously, the story in that game is not only terrible (given they took all that was good and decided to make it into a long episode of that blasted Netflix show and yes, Kaos and Glumshanks are the only good parts of that show), but characters like Flinn and his friends rarely get an appearance and the villain's 180 flip at the end makes no sense nor what happens to him after. DI deserved to beat that damn product. I'd point out the Lego version is overpriced compared to them, but I'm more concerned that Gremlins is an actual product. People do realise that Gremlins was a horror themed film right and Gremlins 2 was more of a horror comedy? Gizmo may be cute, but how many parents are really going to show the first movie to their kids? Didn't think so.

Ah well, nuff raging on that crap. There were some great games out this year and while I didn't play many of them, I am going to try some of them soon. What I am looking forward to are ones like the Civilization 6 and Planet Coaster. I have been playing some Total War: Warhammer and I do hope to get my own little review of that one out soon. I've had some excellent fun with StarCraft 2, it's Co-Op gaming is a lot of fun (so far I've level 15 Kerrigan, Abathur and Stukov, with Stukov being my favourite to play at the moment. Infestation is fun). Beyond all that, I've returned to Warhammer: Age of Reckoning or rather, Return of Reckoning as it is now known. Yeah it's a buggy mess and it needs a tone of work done to fix it, but given those working on it don't have the original code and are merely fans trying to set up the game so people can have fun, I won't blast them for it (unlike some of the player base does). Perhaps I'll do an update on that one in the future too.

Miniature Wargaming

So I'll wrap this whole thing by looking an miniature wargaming for me. Malifaux has had some interesting miniature releases and just recently set up their kickstarter for their larger miniature battle game called The Other Side. Thus far, I'm probably going to side with the Gibbering Hordes. I got a bunch more miniatures done, but still have a lot more to do, so thank you for being patient for waiting as I slowly get them done. I will have something uploaded soon, that much I can promise. I've been opened to a bunch of new games and some of the miniatures look amazing, only fueling my want to paint the odd one here and there. 

It would be wrong not to mention Games-Workshop for the year in this. I'm sorry, 'Warhammer' is what they call themselves now. I'm still not buying the reason they gave for the name change, still saying it's to distance themselves from the bad rap GW name has attached. Still, if what I've been told is true, then some new guy at it's financial head is an actual fan of the hobby and if so, that would explain the recent changes. We got classic, long thought lost armies returning to 40K, they put points in Age of Sigmar to make a competitive scene, White Dwarf has returned to it's former glory somewhat and we saw the release of Bloodbowl and shock of all shocks, they plan to support it too. While I'm still questioning if I'll return to AoS, a Bloodbowl team is something that does look interesting. It's a good change for the company and it's a path I fully support.

Conclusion

It's a mixed bag this year. We lost some great people like Prince, David Bowie, Gene Wilder and today (Australia time, this blog uses a different time stamp to me) we lost Carrie Fisher. It's been a sad one. That said, take out politics and stuff and I just realised just how boring my year has been (or was it, I just realised I'm a boring person.....). I think the hardest part is that unlike most end of years going into the next one, this one feels the most uncertain. Fear is more rampant then ever before, but if you step back and look, it's not the ones you think to fear that are causing it. Still, there are plenty of good things coming next year, so here's hoping it'll be a great one in disguise.



Note: I know this wasn't much of an end of year report, I'm not the best at writing these things. Sorry.