Stand behind me
We approach
My second D&D doodle. Drawing these characters keeps me sane when my hands start to shake and I think of World of Warcraft or Dark Age of Camelot or Everquest or any of the MMORPG or RPG or D&D nights that kept me up long hours. Conjuring these costumed Horribles is as good as rolling up a new character, leveling him up, and then casting large fireballs. Well, almost.
Notice Julie is in front, and we're cowering behind her. That's exactly how we play video games: Julie runs ahead, and I cast from behind. Allegory for life, or just my love of magic coming out. I'll let you decide.
Seattle, WA | 2007.07.17 | Cast of Horribles | Blood, Blue Guy, D&D, Julie, Ranger, Warrior, Wizard
So we meet
When I drew this, Julie thought the dragon looked too wolf-like. I was never able to fix his snout to make him less wolfy.
The rain finally broke in Seattle. Today was beautiful, and tomorrow I hope to jump back in the saddle and bike home from work. I can't wait.
Seattle, WA | 2007.07.24 | Cast of Horribles | D&D, Dragon, Ranger, Warrior, Wizard
Just a few hours, really
We were discussing the new Warhammer Online with Steven. Julie and I haven't played a MMORPG since I destroyed my second set of World of Warcraft discs. We decided it was time for us to try again when Warhammer releases.
We talked to Steven, who is an even worse addict than me. He hasn't played since Everquest because of his addiction. We told him that as long as we stick together and only play when we all play, he should join us. This strategy has failed me in the past, but there's always this time.
So come mid to late 2008, we'll be knee deep in orcs and swords.
Seattle, WA | 2007.12.16 | Cast of Horribles | Blue Guy, D&D, Julie, Ranger, Warhammer, Warrior, Wizard
You can't say I never take you anywhere
Julie and I had this discussion on Sunday: we were sitting around in the evening after visiting the Villa to choose paint colors. We had watched too much Grey's Anatomy (a wonderful show I found on the xbox a few weeks ago), and I needed to get out of the Castle as I was being smothered by the television and the dogs and the stillness. We couldn't figure out where to go. We already ate dinner (leftover Drunken Chicken, which was better the first time around), and it was getting late and dark and cold. It wasn't snowing anymore, thankfully, or thunderstorming, although it has been doing more of both lately. (Funny thing about Grey's Anatomy: it's set in a fictitious hospital in Seattle, and, not surprisingly, it's always raining. But instead of rain it's always thunderstorming, which is probably easier to portray than the sprinkling rain Seattle is famous for. I pointed this out to Julie, and she agreed: it almost never thunderstorms in Seattle. That night it snowed, thunderstormed, and the sun came out. I think it all happened in a fifteen minute window.) Anyway, so we're sitting around and I'm slowly going crazy and I'm trying to figure out what we can do. It's getting late as I download and begin watching yet another episode of Grey's. We can't go to the movies anymore because tomorrow (that is the tomorrow of the weekend, which was on Sunday which meant Monday) was a work day, and I needed to sleep at a normal time to be normal and get work done. So after three more episodes, we decided to call it a night and go to bed. We never did end up doing very much. The next day I thought we should have gone to Lottie's Lounge and drank something. Julie doesn't drink and I'm not much of a drinker either. That said, we could have done something, which would have made this paragraph much shorter--a win-win for all of us.
Don't ask. I'm in a weird mood after closing yesterday and I felt like sharing. The doodle brought it up.
Seattle, WA | 2008.04.01 | Cast of Horribles | Castle, D&D, Julie, Stars, Warrior, Wizard
Life is the pursuit of random numbers
Returning to our regularly scheduled program. It's amazing how much of life's obstacles are seemingly random. Life is like D&D only you don't know what you rolled until long after you threw the dice.
Steven and I continued our slow drudgery through Too Human during last evening's video game night. It has a D&D-esque character building and loot collecting substory. The rest of the game is rather blah.
Today is the company meeting. I'm wearing my corporate-love t-shirt. They give us free shirts to show our loyalty to our particular group. I'm wearing a jacket for two reasons: (1) I hate advertising on my chest, and (2) it's usually very cold in the baseball stadium where they hold the meeting. This morning is overcast but warm. This might be my first meeting where I'm not slowly freezing to the bone.
Mercer Island, WA | 2008.09.18 | Cast of Horribles | D&D, Dice, Warrior, Wizard
"It approaches"
I love these D&D tagged doodles. Little did I know that this doodle was the precursor to our Warhammer Online addiction. We are finally over that game, as it grew a bit repetitive at the end. Julie still wants to play, but after trying out all the character classes, I'm satiated. The only thing left to do is choose our favorite characters and doodle them. I'll try to resist playing when we log in for the group photograph.
The cold weather has left Seattle, and we're now in the midst of warm, wet rainstorms. While the snow was nice for the first day, thanks to the terrible plowing and lack of salted streets (!), it grew tiresome quickly.
Work is busy after the holidays. It's a pleasant busy, kind of how you feel after a good meal, full but not overly so. I've been doodling a bunch but haven't seriously put pen to paper since the Marathon. I had high hopes. Now I barely have hopes in that direction. At least my Kindle is seeing lots of use.
Mercer Island, WA | 2009.01.08 | Cast of Horribles | D&D, Stars, Warrior
They're surprisingly good at role playing
Dogs playing D&D! I know I'm using too many exclamation marks these days. It's part of my new optimistic outlook. Okay that even made me laugh.
I miss playing D&D. The last time I played was in college. Yes, I was and continue to be a geek. I like to think of myself as the king of geeks. Not in the sense of being the best geek, just in the sense of moving seamlessly between the world of geeks and the world or normal peeps. As I said, I like to think of it that way. In reality, I'm not that good at geekdom, and rather terrible at normal livinghood.
Did you notice Button (that's the dog on the left) staring at the Cheetos? She loves food. And Ziggy with the cigar? It's like that dogs playing poker painting, only not as good, and with D&D.
Mercer Island, WA | 2009.02.17 | Cast of Horribles | D&D, Dice, Dogs, Warrior, Wizard
"You know you want to join me"
I do, I really do! We're almost out of video games. We're scraping the bottom of the console. There's not much we want to play. We've played through Horde mode on Gears of War II too many times, hitting the ceiling at level 40. It looks unlikely we'll make it to 50 unless we find a fourth person. We gave up on Warhammer Online a couple of months ago. We talked about going through Halo 3 again--although that seems tiring. We need a good sword and sorcery game, something that lets us level up and keel the bad guys with large lightning bolts; preferably one with nice outfits for the Julies.
After a bad start yesterday morning, I evened out after a dose of Advil and a small cup of coffee along with our delicious Crepes. I even managed to make a new chicken recipe for dinner. It turns out not all beer is the same in chicken stews.
Mercer Island, WA | 2009.03.02 | Cast of Horribles | D&D, Julie, Warrior
Let's go find us some castles
This is certainly not timely. We played and beat Castle Crashers back in September 2008. It's a fun 2.5D romp with four square-masked and armored heroes through a cartoony world filled with damsels in distress and oversized ogres. It was a good three or four night game with a very shallow learning curve. We even had a fourth player, which is rare for us. My fingers were a bit tired at the end, and it reminded me how challenging the old-school games were in finding the proper horizontal plane to attack the enemies.
Mercer Island, WA | 2009.03.03 | Cast of Horribles | Castle Crashers, D&D, Video Games, Warrior
You have nothing to worry about
. . . nothing at all. We went to a soccer game last night: the Seattle Sounders verse DC United (which is a different team from Manchester United, very different). We arrived a little before half time, and watched as the Sounders blew a 2-1 lead to tie at 3 (or something like that).
Tomorrow my internets get an upgrade. I also have big plans to drop ethernet wires in more rooms as I'm sick of fighting the losing wifi battles (draft-N my left foot!). This involves crawling up into the attic, fighting large spiders and insulation monsters, and trying to avoid cutting unseemly holes in the walls--at least avoiding it when Julie is watching.
Soon I'll be flying through the internets. Flying! This should improve the Horribles quality tenfold. Imagine, more bits on your screen, faster. I haven't exactly figured out how this benefits my overly large and thoroughly engaged internets audience. But somehow improving my video game playing and movie watching will indirectly benefit you, my dear readers.
Mercer Island, WA | 2009.06.18 | Cast of Horribles | D&D, Dragon, Warrior, Wizard
"Keep up, will you?"
I've been waiting to post this one for a while. It's one of my favorite D&D doodles. I need to create more of these.
Tomorrow we're off to a hike for the first time this summer. We used to be such good hikers.
Mercer Island, WA | 2009.08.14 | Cast of Horribles | D&D, Luggage, Naginata, Warrior, Wizard
Who's the real seeker?
We finished watching the first season of Legend of the Seeker. It was surprisingly enjoyable given that it is based on that terrible Terry Goodkind series. I read the first book and hated it: it reads more like an old-school adventure video game than a novel. You find a shiny purple sword. You see a monster. The monster can only be killed with shiny purple swords. You kill the monster! You see a magical key. Three rooms later there is a door. Only a magical key can open the door!
Okay, maybe it wasn't that bad. There were some elements of the magic and world in the television show that appeared to be taken from the book that were quite enjoyable. I might not have given the series a proper chance. Speaking of chances, I've been speed reading through a bunch of fantasy novels. I'm not sure what brought on my new addiction. I'm hoping it's my body's way of preparing for November.
It's another week. I wish it was a good week. I did manage lots of doodles. Sometimes my doodling reflects my mood. You'll find out the type of mood in a few months when these Horribles come around. At least we're having good weather. See? Always a silver lining of sorts.
Mercer Island, WA | 2009.09.16 | Cast of Horribles | Anime, D&D, Legend of the Seeker, Warrior
We're ready for your adventure
Happy New Years!
If you visit my website then you might have noticed I spruced up the place. I decided to go with a cleaner more colorful look. Let me know if what you think (and if you see any bugs). I fixed a few internal bugs, but mostly played with the CSS and formatting. Julie helped by suggesting I add the Horribles to the menu above (check out the cool hover effects). I still have plans for a photo slideshow. One of these days.
I was inspired to code after helping my sister update her website.
Mercer Island, WA | 2010.01.01 | Cast of Horribles | D&D, Warrior, Wizard
What if all I had was a sword?
Sorry for the late update. We hosted a group of high school students this morning. They did a mock negotiation of the type I normally do at work. I'm worried that maybe I'm a bit more replaceable than I suspected.
Mercer Island, WA | 2010.03.02 | Cast of Horribles | D&D, Dream, Sword, Warrior
There's violence afoot
Much violence (usually on me).
Another relaxing weekend cut short by a Monday.
Mercer Island, WA | 2010.04.05 | Cast of Horribles | Bogu, Naginata, Warrior
Epic journeys begin with small steps
Happy Monday!
I refreshed the design of Cast of Horribles this weekend. I tried to clean off the dark lines and used handwriting instead of a font for the titles. I also added a nifty navigation section. Julie thinks the navigation is confusing. I decided to stay with the grays instead of move to colors. I tried different colors but nothing stuck. Don't forget to refresh the website (F5) to clear your cache. I didn't think to rename some of the graphical elements when I recreated them.
Dallas, TX | 2010.04.12 | Cast of Horribles | Anime, D&D, Naginata, Quests, Warrior, Wizard
We miss fighting for you
A busy Thursday morning. The weather promises to be decent this weekend. I hope it holds to its promise.
Mercer Island, WA | 2010.05.06 | Cast of Horribles | D&D, Warrior, Wizard
"Enough with the talking"
There's a version of this comic where the troll has a head. Julie didn't like it so I cut it off. It had the added benefit of making the troll taller. Everyone wins.
It's sunny again. And the forecast shows sun all weekend. These are good days, good days.
Mercer Island, WA | 2010.05.07 | Cast of Horribles | D&D, Troll, Warrior, Wizard
Does she know what she's doing?
Happy Tuesday morning! It's warm and sunny, and expected to get more so. Too much so, if you ask me. We go from a bad Spring to a bad Summer, all in a single day! Yeah!
