Titans and Demiurges 05: The WoW Sketch Meme

I've made a decision.

No, it's not the one that you're expecting. Despite my long silence and my relative blogging youth, I am not interested in announcing that I'm done blogging or that life's too busy or whatever. The fact is, I love this blog (despite all its rough edges). I have decided that it's time to stop waiting for life to slow down before I "get back to the blog" and start making time and energy for writing a higher priority.

So, here I am to tell you that I'm still here and still committed despite the long, inexcusable silence. I've been saving up all kinds of good ideas and information while I was gone, and I'm eager to share the wonder. I'm also digging away at converting to a new, self-hosted blogging platform, a new URL, and a more mature (less girly *cough*) look for PoC. If that's not NOT giving up, then I dunno what is.

I didn't have the heart to apologize with empty excuses during the long silence, so I hope that the sketch comics were enjoyable enough to be some fraction of the apology you're owed. I will continue the little mini-tale that I've started, and maybe when Rhoelyn finds her way back to the surface, my own life will ease up. (One can hope, right?)

Now, with all that said... Let's do something fun. :)

Anyone who's spent any time running around in the lighter journaling world (like Livejournal, for example), has probably run into a meme or three.

A meme (pronounced /miːm/)[1] is any thought or behavior that can be passed from one person to another by means of imitation. Examples include thoughts, ideas, theories, gestures, practices, fashions, habits, songs and dances. Memes propagate themselves and can move through the cultural sociosphere in a manner similar to the contagious behavior of a virus.

From a more practical perspective, blogging memes are short little quizzes that ask you to give your take on a set of questions, then pass the quiz along by 'tagging' your friends to see their answers. The fun comes from trying to be creative, honest, funny, or just downright weird in your answers so that readers and friends can enjoy your input and give you their own to enjoy. It's a way to slowly and openly get to know yourself and other writers.

The art community has taken this concept and (of course) adapted it to what they love most, and the perfect example of this for those of us who love both WoW and art would be the WoW Sketch Meme, provided by Crimson Viper of DeviantArt. He has written a set of questions to be answered in whatever way you please, either with a sketch, a scribble, some writing, or even a pasted picture or screenshot.

I'm not going to post a thousand links, but if you look at the comments of the Meme's gallery page, you can go visit an easy two dozen examples of how other artists have completed the meme. There are some great and really funny answers in there!

And, of course, I'm not allowed to even tell you about this Meme without having my own entry ready to present as the fee for spreading the madness. If you click the little image below, consider yourself tagged! Go, enjoy, and toss together your own answers to share with the community. I'd love to see how WoW inspires you. :)

Titans and Demiurges 01 - Artist Llanir

We humans, wonderful animals that we are, love to derive inspiration from outside sources. From books, magazines, scenery around us, idle comments from our coworkers - that's the way of the demiurge, the creative force inside each of us. We're always watching, always listening, always flirting with ideas, concepts, and the boundaries of what we know versus what we wish.

Is it any wonder, then, that so many WoW players are inspired by Azeroth, Outlands, and their hundreds of thousands of years of richly-crafted history? 9 million subscribers, even if only a small fraction of them are creators who put these wonderful ideas on 'paper'*, that's a mountain - no, a planet full of mountain ranges - worth of media for us to enjoy. Videos. Paintings. 3D renders. Fiction. Poetry. Software. Web sites. Icons. Sound bytes. Songs. The list is ... well, pretty much as long as our imaginations are deep.

'Titans and Demiurges' is a series that's all about discussing, enjoying and sharing the creativity WoW has inspired. I'll be scouring the internet, bugging friends and contacts, following trails of animus, and gladly accepting suggestions for art, writing, webcomics and anything else that is born out of the inspiration of Blizzard's Warcraft world. Sometimes, we'll have simple showcases, a sharing of beauty and individuality. Other times, we'll discuss sources of inspiration in the game that might help your own demiurge kick into motion. For those that are interested, I will also offer critiques of paintings and stories, giving constructive advice from an experienced** artist and writer.

But enough talk. Let's start this party out right, with some beautiful World of Warcraft fanart gleaned from the depths of the Deviant Art community. Allow me to share with you the work of Llanir, a skilled portrait artist that has turned her hand to a few familiar races:

Llanir's beautiful, semi-photorealistic style combined with lots of interesting angles and dynamic lines really makes these portraits feel natural, graceful, and engaging at the same time. I enjoy looking at them, picking out the carefully-placed details that really elevate the relatively simple backgrounds and uniform skin tones.

* In this modern age, it's seldom really paper. Let's just use the phrase as a euphamism for 'any shareable form'.
** Experienced does not equate to perfect, so don't worry on that account. Critiques will be by request only.