From the High Bard's hand

Hey my loyal lovely readers, just wanted to say thanks for reading and you're all awesome! Have some news to share as well, especially those of you interested in my rp characters. You've heard me talk about my Glavane project, from webcomic to costumes, but now there is something else to tickle your fancies. There is now a blog to go with it! The blog is going to tell the story through Thorne's journals and books, givng you an intmate look inside her mind. Now, due to violence and the nature of some things Thorne will say, this blog will not always be kid friendly. the link is www.fromthehighbardshand.blogspot.com and should have something on t here soon as I literaly made it two seconds ago. Hope to see you there!

I finally started playing the multiplayer for space marine on the PS3 this week. For the record, I don't like console multiplayer. I don't like how it feels like a only the strongest survives competition where team is used very loosely and often players are used as bait. However, I adore Space Marines for one thing: Exterminatus. Exterminatus is brilliant because you feel like a team player and are forced to work together or get owned. It's a lot like what a table top rpg feels like and it's amazing. Now,  do play versus some, and  am proud to say last night I did better than I normally do and got three kills and two assists. Yes, that sucks to normal folks, but I don't play online on console for the above reason stated.

  I suck at versus, but am getting fairly good at Exterminatus, to the point I have memorized most of the waves on several stages. Now I am not epic lvl or anything, but I have fun so that counts. Do any of you want to play with me? If so my gamer tag is o-reed so send me a request!

 In other news, costuming is getting done! After  make candies today I'm gong to work on my Sister of Battle cosplay backpack!

Yeesh! Sorry for not posting at all in April, life had a real go at me. Sadly, not a whole lot has happened to set my nerd radar off, and I don't really have any games to go on about....so how about I start talking about rp chars? I say this because I am currently working on the outfit my elder vampire blackguard assasian thing wears. Her name is Briar and she is awful. Awful to where people love to hate her. Or in the case of my players, they love to tear her up in new and creative ways. Thank the rp gods for fast healing and regeneration! The best one so far was throwing a bucket of holy water on her while the bard halfling gunslinger shot her in the ass with a pepper shooter.

 Now, the bitchfit know as Briar first appeared on a server in NwN that I won't name as there was an extra special amount of hate and superiority on that server. Well, I stopped playing there and was wandering around the ever so uninhabited server of Sigil (it was so lovely and awsome!) when I ran into my buddy Bolar. He and Tamarath I had both met on said unnamed server and after getting royally treated bad, made their own server, the World of Glavane. This server got to see my character Thorne trounce around on misadventures and in turn got Briar. Thorne and Briar you ask? What's with the names of the smae object? Well, that is because Briar is the evil that was removed from Thorne's soul by her great great great grandmomma silver dragon Autumn. Yes, i know, it sounds lame to you but it's my story and I'm sticking to it!

  Briar on Glavane was hysterical, especially after I became a DM. I was just chilling as a non-existant DM ghost when I went in the tavern and low and behold the players were talking about Briar! So ofcourse I gave them a little quest. And exploding kobolds. Briar was a bit of a joke villian when I first made her, but somehow she became one of the big baddies and sure she was eccentric, it was weird haveing her be a big villian with ties into the world being destroyed. Ofcourse any of Bolar or Tamarath's chars could wipe her off the map but it was funny in a way. One of the funniest things i did with her was her trying to off a character named Sion. Briar is a vain, fickle, jealous woman and hates anyone associated with her other half. Ofcurse this meant when Thorne got a dark elf assassian bodyguard/husband Briar didn't like him at all. 'Course him being a darkie ekf didn't help (I swear I'm not racist it's how Briar said it!) and she constantly was trying to kill him. Only she lost every time.

 I hope to get the costume done for Briar soon so I can work on getting pictures taken to promote the Glavane comic I'm doing. There are also going tobe other characters done: Thorne, Fade (Thorne and Sion's daughter), Ka'Lis (Fade's god baby son), and possibly a few other chars from that server.

Wow! Thanks to everyone who has been reading this blog! Got on just to see if anyone left a message or something and bam! Saw a ton of people looked at this! Probably due to the half arsed Space Marine review, but it still makes me happy! So you guys are getting new art and another review! Hope no one minds retro games as that's really all I play anymore as Call of Duty and Halo have become as stimulating as watching my cat nap. Which all -that- does is make me want to nap, which sadly, most of today's games do that to me.

 Assuming no one cares, here we go. Today's half arsed review from the Geek and her Machine, is SWAT Kats for the Snes. Now, growing up, I watched the cartoon all the time. All.The.Time. I never missed an episode, even if I had just seen the same one the day before. What tiny, bispeceled nerdy girl child didn't like a show about anthromorphic felines cruising around in a bad ass jet fighting super gross villians that the local law enforcement was too inept to handle? Okay, maybe not a lot of anyone, as most folks i ask "have you seen SWAT Kats?" look at me like I'm insane or from the stone age.

 So, when my mother handed me a badly wrapped Snes shaped package for whatever occasion it was, I about flipped my shit finding out there was a game for my favorite childhood cartoon! Now, this was about 5 years ago, so I was already in college at the time, but that did not keep me from prancing around the house like a school girl having her first boyfriend. If only I knew this game would be the shittiest date ever, minus E.T., but we'll cover that another time...

 What you have to realise is that this game tried. To be fair it kind of felt like the show, if only for the fact that you play as either T-Bone or Razor. Which to choose you ask? Razor. Now this is not because he has been my favorite of the two since the begining of time, but because of what he gets. T-Bone is slow and can barely jump but comes with a rocket launcher. Cool right? Hell.No. You can't aim it and most enemies shrug it off and by the time you have it stronger, you just want to rage quit the game. So what does Razor get? A jump pack. Yes, I picked a jump pack over a rocket launcher. Believe me, it comes in handy. Especially when a pair of stairs is kicking your ass. Stupid subway...

 There are four worlds, with a fifth one you unlock after you beat the others, or so I assume. The game was so terrible I've yet to beat it. The game itself is a side scrolling platformer, which honestly, works I suppose. Until you get to the Turbocat, the jet. trying to get to the giant bacteria was so stupid ans nauseating I almost didn't finish that level. Neither did my brother who is the champion at games in our household. The controls are subpar too, but it's an Snes game, so that's a given. The levels aren't much better, often turning out to be a total cluster f*ck in erms of enemies or they are positioned terribly to where you can't hit them, but they can hit you and your one hit wonder self. Really, whoever designed the subway area should be ashamed of themselves for that. Worst stage in the game.
 There's not a whole lot more I can say about this awful game seeing that there was no plot, no character intereaction, nothing, seeing as it's for the Snes. I only still try to play it as I loved the show so much. So in short: Show is amazing (go watch it on you tube!), game blows hard. Now if you guys are enjoying these half baked reviews, be sure to follow me and leave comments about what i should play and review next, be it old or newish. Also, what art would you like to see on here? And I promise, some sewing will eventually get done for those who come looking for that. Ciao! <3 you guys!

Long time no read, dear readers. Once more I am sorry for the delay, but this time the Geek has come back with something to write about! As you all know, the machine in Geek and the Machine, normally stands for my sewing machine, who is on break due to all the sewing I did for Ohayocon. This segment, her stand in is my trusty PS3. Yes, I game on a PS3, as lame as a lot of people think. The controller fits better in my itty bitty raptor claw hands, okay? Anyways, on to todays topic: Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine.

  Let me say it right now, I am not a fan of Space Marines. I play Sisters of Battle and Guard, and I'm not into all the hype Marines get, or how everyone floods on the newest codex army. However, that did not stop me from absolutely adoring the Space Marine video game. The story was Grim Dark in the fact that you and your fellow Ultramarines show up on a decimated planet to stop an ork WAAAGH! from getting the Titans. And spoliler alert! A chaos Lord shows up to ruin everything. The charcters were as good as you'd expect from everyone being a Marine or guard, and two Inquisitors. Though the A.I. for your cohorts outside of cutscenes is......frankly awful.

 Really, the A.I. is my biggest issue. I was constantly getting shot by traitor guard and ork boys due to my newbie Marine Leandros blocking me constantly. And there was one special moment when he glitched some what and decided walking in circles in the Manufactorum while the Seargant and I watched him. And Drogen wasn't much better, as he loved having herds of squiggs around him and not shooting them. At least until they were on your's trully.

 Now, I know a good bit of you probably alreay played the game, but I don't want to ruin the ending for anyone, however, the ending made me rage. The blow was only softened by Black Templars being pretty for me. What? I may not be a big fan of Marines in general, but Templars are my weakness. I do however find fault with them doing nothing to help me fight off chaos. The blood ravens did but no Templars. Story of my life.

  The gameplay was fun, geeky running around chainsawing Orks. It was fun, the executions making me giddy. I'm not a violent person at all, but when I game i tend to get excited. Wow, that sounded a little bit like Codex....

Well, that's all I have for today, but I should be back here in a day or so with at least a few sewing updates!

Herp da derp! Been a while hasn't it? Ofcourse, not having much nerdy rants lately due to work I'm all like "what should I blog about? None of my sewing is getting done, no drawings, and certainly nothing on the nerd radar". Which is why I'm taking a short list of drawing requests from you all! They'd look something like the pic up above, only it can be anything. So have at my readers!

 Short update for today. First, I have a Tumblr going by Geek and the Machine as well, so anyone interested should go check it out as it's actually easier for me to update that than here. Second, Tallis has been started! The hood is super sexy...just saying.

Okay, today's post is about my art. I'm opening commisions to raise funds to get a new computer and for artist alley tables if I can find cons. Above is an example of what I can do. For those curious, she's my Sister of Battle OC O'reed. Prices for commisions:

Bust Sketch: $8
Chibi sketch: $5
Full body sketch: $12
Bust colored: $12
Chibi colored:$10
Full body colored: $17
Stickers: $3 (colored and all)

I also am offering prints and stickers I have already made. I'll include those in another post with prices for each later once I finish some pieces I have been working on.

 Tada! Finally pics of Codex for you guys! These photos were taken by two photographers at the con, the top being by the Ramencon Little Neko guys, and the bottom being done by Neitling photography. Not much of an update for you, but a lot's going on right now so this will have to do.

 One week to Ohayocon and guess who still has stuff to do! Yup, this girl! However, it has a total of maybe three things to get done, one luggage bag, and some smaller pouches for Link. Oh, and hand stitching the bias tape on my corset....I can get it done though, especially now that I have hours to kill between taking siblings to school and work as I am now their transportation. Sorry about not having pics up yet guys, but my camera is awful and it's refusing to take any SD cards so it's gonna be a tad until after the convention that I post some. Ofcourse I will be getting a better camera once I really start getting costumes done for the store. I'm super wanting to do Adventure Time with Fiona and Cake as I love Ice Queen's dress, evil as she is. And Cake hoodies!