Attache

And the drawing yielded...Scarlet Finch!

For those who are wondering, I picked about 12 of the 16 submissions that I personally liked as finalists but I don't feel comfortable saying which 4 were excluded since it was so lopsided. Trust me that I really analyzed each one and mostly picked the folks who provided enough reference material to make some good art. I didn't really let my likes or dislikes about particular character types come into it. I think everyone had a fair shot.

If I feel bad about anything, it was #5 who was hoping to give it as a gift to someone special. I was rooting for you, man.

Jophiel, I'll get this off to BAKART tonight. You might want to send me an email address over on deviantART that I can give to him in case he has any questions or clarifications. He may also try to reach you through dA as well.

Thanks everyone for taking part!

The final submissions are:

1. Ronzorus
2. Robot H3 Nri
3. Echo So'Kar
4. LadyLiberty
5. (This one is a gift for someone...so I'll keep the name to myself)
6. Comrade Hero
7. Chloe Macomber
8. 2 characters whose names I were not given - they are a couple
9. Lady Arete
10. The Mighty Mirage, Kid Kilovolt, and Shooting Star
11. Oryo Ryou
12. Burnt Matchstick
13. Scarlet Finch
14. Massacre Melanie
15. Philly Girl
16. Allastor Darkflame

I'll need a little time to study them and pick my favorites. No more submissions, please.

I neglected to mention the time zone - time runs out at 12:01 AM Pacific...so there is just under 6 hours to go at this point. Plenty of time.

Also, I've gotten quite a few and it looks like it'll be a late night at work so pouring through them, picking favorites, and then drawing one might take longer than anticipated. Hopefully, I'll have a pick by 2:00am.

Pacific.

That a damn fine piece of work. Great detail on the costume and I really like the fact that the hair is kind of wispy and flyway. It adds something to the characterization. The eyes could have a little more of an intense glow but otherwise an amazing reference.

Just a quick update to mention that your references should include everything specific you'd like represented in the piece. The artist has done some CoH art but is not a player so if you want your hero fighting a few Nemesis soldiers, for example, he needs to see them too. The more detailed your references and description, the better. Make this as painless for me as possible, please.

As some of you know, my father passed away this past month and it has left me a little unmotivated to do any serious art collecting. In and of itself, that certainly isn't a problem - it's not like I have to collect art - but I was in the queue for another BAKART piece and I'm just not feeling in the mood to develop another scenario for him to capture as brilliantly as he usually does. My lack of motivation will undoubtedly pass but it is my turn and I don't want to keep the guy waiting any longer.

So here is the deal: You send me your idea for a scene featuring your own character with all the proper references as soon as you can. I'll put my favorites into a big bowl and pick one at random to send it off to Fauji to immortalize. And I'll pick up the tab. A few rules:

1. You're going to have to link your references so make sure all the links work and are of good quality. Please don't ask me anything about "is this good enough?" or where to host image files because I likely won't answer. Just be as thorough as you can as good references make for a good piece.

2. You can send the references to me either here or over on deviantArt. I prefer to get them via dA because it will be much easier to forward the selected references to Fauji from there. Make sure to be prepared to provide an email address so you can receive your image file in the event you are selected. The link to my dA account is in my signature below. Do not send anything to BAKART. He has given his consent for this but is uninvolved in the selection process. Send the references to me and me alone.

3. Try to not get too crazy with the number of characters, scope, etc. He does great epic stuff but he's not going to make a career of your piece. You can check examples of his work in here - BAKART's Gallery - to get an idea of what he can do but understand that those multiple character pieces probably carried a slightly higher price tag. Try to keep it to no more than 3 characters.

4. The references must be received by 12:01 AM Pacific, January 8, 2011. That's a little more than 26 hours from the time of this post. I'm sorry for the short notice and time frame but he's been waiting for me this week and I've let the guy down. So chop chop. Please.

5. All of the regular art collecting folks are certainly welcome to submit references but I am leaning towards trying to give the shot to some folks who maybe don't normally have the resources for this occasionally expensive hobby. That said, if I just love your idea it'll get a fair shot no matter if it is your 1st or your 50th piece.

6. Only one "entry" per person please. You folks with multiple CoH accounts and multiple dA accounts are on the honor system. Don't screw me over. Please.

Get cracking!

Happy Belated, CR.

Great guide and reading it helped my team succeed. I had a failed run the previous day and didn't want a repeat so I formed the team up specifically to have the bulk of players able to do their damage from a distance. One tank and one scrapper was all I could allow. Definitely get a couple of debuffers and I think a taunting tank is a must. Getting her taunted out of the Blue Death helped us a lot.

I'd advise that squishy types stock up on purples from the combat medic. It won't help you against the Blue Death but it will help you safely ignore the animated swords and Champions that spawn when she returns. The repeated debuffer deaths from the minions and the occasional mis-step into the Blue Death allowed her hp to start to climb up before we got wise. Wasting time trying to kill them is pointless...we had the swords respawning even after mission was over. Ignoring them seems the best tactic.

For melee types, it is also tempting sometimes to try to get in a few extra licks before the Blue Death zaps you. This is a mistake. When you see it forming, move as soon as your animation is over and wait patiently. Sometimes she follows and you can attack immediately or sometimes you have to wait it out. It might seem to take forever but it certainly takes less time than a run from the hospital. All the time you're doing that, you're not damaging her either. Be patient.

Again, great guide! Thanks for the help!

Thanks, LG! More are in the works!

I'm trying out another MMO that has weather effects and while I haven't experienced the complete wide range of them, it is one of the few things I actually like about it. It is atmospheric, immersive (I don't think that is a word), and non-evasive. As far as I can tell, visibility doesn't drop to zero when it rains. You get the rain and the sound effects and that is all. I like it.

Our Devs do sometimes seem to get hung up on realism so if they took that tact and said weather has to come with fog, lowered visibility, and some other kind of mild debuff....I'd likely still be in favor of it. I've never really run into this "oh noes Dark Astoria" attitude in-game...it is true that folks don't go to hang out there and I ain't looking to build a summer home but I haven't detected rage when a mission has sent the team there. My RP SG has used it for a number of storylines as it can work in a variety of supernatural scenarios. I'm personally glad that we have Dark Astoria if only for a change of pace.

More than most MMOs I've played, a fair number of the CoH crowd really seem to cry foul when anything is introduced that makes the game a wee bit harder. I'm not talking about zone events that make street hunts impossible until they're over - I'd be pretty annoyed if I were running Numina on a challenge setting and failed because a zone event prevented completion in a timely manner but if fog in IP caused a mild visibility issue and slightly reduced range accuracy, so be it. It would be part of the challenge and fun.

I still say yes to weather.

Duo Deathtrap - by the mighty Carlos Valenzuela!



I'd always rather liked the character PinUp Girl, owned and operated by the The Masked Shrike so when it came time to put my Golden Age version of Satin Doll in peril, who better to team up with then PinUp Girl? I picked the artist and Shrike provided all the cool fictional elements for this cover homage to that post-War era when a lot of superheroes were being co-opted for the more popular and lurid True Crime fare. Shrike and me have never hung out in game but again you have to love dA for the opportunity to do duo with people just because you like their characters. There are a lot of great people doing this art collecting thing.

PinUp Girl's Virtueverse Page was the inspiration behind a lot of the cover content and is worth a look.

And if this piece needed anything else to make it extra-awesome, fetish model Mosh agreed to allow her likeness to be used for the GA Satin Doll. I wish I could link to her page!

Carlos is building quite a cottage industry over on deviantART with an amazing retro style and his love of pin-up and classic movie monsters. I discovered him through a Daily Deviation and thought he was so amazing that I tossed a 3-month membership his way and that gesture snowballed into my being the go-between for him and one of my favorite models and dA buddies, resulting in a "commission" of her he did for free and sent to me. She's since become one of his favorite subjects and she's been in like 3-4 pieces. The guy is just a class act and it was a pleasure to finally get to pay him for all his hard work. I can't recommend him enough.

As always, clicking the image takes you to my dA gallery. Links to the artist, the Masked Shrike's dA page, and Mosh's dA page can be found in the description.

I'm digging both versions CH - the characters look downright lethal! I've had both those artists on Watch for some time...I might need to do something about it now.

Shadowshot - now with colors by Roc Upchurch



Finally got some color on Noel Rodriguez's pencils for good ol' Shadowshot. I was unsatisfied with the first pass on a few elements but Roc kept tweaking to make sure I was happy. That guy is aces and he works well within Noel's insane lines.

As always, clicking the picture takes you to my dA gallery and more information on the artists that worked on this piece will be in the description.

Satin Doll & Friends by Paulo Barrios



The awesome thing about this one was that it was a single character commission but Paulo was a little intrigued by the SG in Satin Doll's description and wanted to see the other characters and then included them! They are all mine and they are, from top and going clockwise: Trojan, Ladybird, Doctor Epoch, Satin Doll (centered), Jen X, and Shadowshot.

Of course, the SG was just designed as a catch-all for some of my independent alts so I don't get bugged about joining SGs all the time and they were never really designed to be viewed as a team - if I had had that in mind, I probably wouldn't have used the same mask on Trojan and Ladybird and might have done different eyewear for Shadowshot and Doctor Epoch. All in all, still a pretty cool picture and damn nice of Paulo to volunteer the extra work just because he thought it would be cool. We had a little bit of a communication problem but fortunately I live in So Cal and there was always a Spanish speaker a few feet away whenever I got an email.

As always, clicking the picture takes you to my dA gallery and more information on the artist will be in the description.

Poison for Corruptors and Defenders, preferably with some alternate animations in case I don't want to use super-spit to subdue my enemies.

I'm a latecomer to this conversation so I'm sure someone has said this already but comics are just chock full of atmosphere and weather is an element of that. How many times has the Punisher or Batman stood in a rainstorm? I kind of look forward to the Winter Event more than the others because there is just something different to look at. With the ability to shift zone appearances like in RV, you could freeze over the small pools of water and add the slide effect. It could be, you know, fun.

Of course, you could make it optional if it would cause performance issues but I vote for some weather. War Witch is completely out to lunch on this one.

Incidentally, while running a mission with some RP friends who started to claim that we needed to shut down a machine that would control the weather, I spent the entire mission quipping that maybe we should give the supervillain a shot at it since I hadn't seen a drop of rain in 5 years.

I have a few pieces I need to get up here...

Liberta Model Sheet by Gavin Michelli!



Another model sheet, this time of Liberta my BS scrapper and second Level 50 character. I was pretty excited to have Gavin on this as I feel he has a really cool yet deceptively simple style that gives a potential artist a great guideline for a character while still giving them the freedom to play around and bring their own interpretation to the table. I haven't used this one at all yet but when I do, I think it will be a great asset!



Another Janet Planet! by Dominike Stanon!



What's one good thing about goofing around on deviantART because you can't sleep? You get to see that one of your favorite artists has posted a journal offering a quickie sketch for $5.00! Dom is the Man!



Neowolf and Satin Doll by Gerard Ramos Fernandez!



One of the cool things about the art collecting thing is that you meet your fellow CoH art collectors and you get to do crossovers that might not ever happen in-game due to different social circles, time constraints, and play styles. Neowolf's player is a great guy who always has something nice to say about my commissions and it was his idea to put these two together for a little Beauty and the Beast motif. Of course, if anyone else calls Doll a Beast, I'm ripping out their lungs!

As always, clicking the images above with take you to my dA gallery and the artists are always in the description. Neowolf's gallery is definitely worth checking out too!