Author: Sleepypete

Hello everyone,

Back home again after the Xmas festivities. Tired, so no drawing from me for Elitecember today but I’ll have some pics in a bit including some sketches that happened while I was away.

I had an oops when I left and realised when I was about an hour up the motorway. Realising when I’m an hour away seems like a standard thing for me. I forgot the advent calendar ! This could only mean …

Marshmallows today !

The advent calendar had 2 doors remaining. On the 24th, we had a Mint Choc Best Chip marshmallow and for the 25th, a hot chocolate with marshmallow thing. The spoon remains and will be consumed imminently.

I’ve picked up some more goodies …

Tasty.

Good little Xmas break. Tired now though. It was good to see the sister and blokes again and definitely good to see the mum. Many tasty munchies were consumed.

Items were procured, in some cases built and exchanged :

Tiny papercraft frog from the Jigzle people (of last year’s Squirrel). This one went together much better than the squirrel. The shop had more stuff there from a place called Ugears and I’ll be ordering something from them imminently too. More when it arrives and gets put together !

Good to see the dogs again too. Here we see my arm being a hostage to a rather tarty Murph who was definitely enjoying belly rubs. Let’s see that from another angle :

Same rubs different day.

Icey was much more chilled out this time around.

Perhaps compensating for the Slurp Monster :-D.

I thought I’d try a little sketching again …

Could have done with more light shading around the eye.

And the Icey one enjoying a little snooze.

Back home now, looking forward to some determined chill out time to recharge the batteries before going back in to work. I’ll need to head out again at some point due to :

Cooker
Need new shoes
Glasses
And because it’s not good for me to stay indoors for that long.

Elite pics ? 25th was missing because it was Covas, or voice assistant and I had no idea what to do for that one. For the 27th, the theme is Gas Giant and I’ve run in to a few of those …

A ring around a gas giant on the way to the Rosette Nebula.

That’s from when I restarted the character and found myself outside a station orbiting a planet in eclipse. Pretty.

Last one for today is where I found a moon on the verge of a gas giant’s rings … with a wonderful canyon to park by.

Hello everyone,

Day 26 of what’s now Elitecember !

Hope you all had a great Xmas and are heading into a food coma Boxing Day.

What’s the theme for today ? It’s life support today.

I like his spirit.

Hopefully you all had sufficient cake yesterday. Perhaps too much :-D.

The ships in Elite are set up a bit curiously when it comes to life support … and a lot of that is down to gameplay mechanics. Your commander flies the ship wearing a flight suit … but the air they breathe is ship air. Suffer enough damage to the canopy and the glass screen separating you from the outside will blow out and then you’re down to what remains in the emergency supply to get home. And that’s better or worse depending on how much cash (and weight) went into the life support system.

I don’t think I actually have a shot with the canopy blown out (It’s not something you want to do too often). As well as the air, you lose the external Head Up Display references too, as the system attempts to project them on to glass that isn’t there any more. This can be a problem … Although not as big a problem as it could be as there are other references you can use.

Add that to the limited amount of time left to get to safety and it’s nervy times. It’s not like you can get out and push when you’re in a spaceship :-).

Anyway, that’s it for me for this Boxing Day (erm – actually writing this on the 23rd!). May add more later.

Hello everyone,

Day 24 ! What’s the last in the Star Wars collection today ?

Last in the set is a Xmas Porg.

These critters came in for the last few movies, apparently because the island that those scenes were shot on was covered in Puffins and instead of trying to shoo them away, they CGI’d them into Porgs.

But … what’s that in the background ?

What’s happening around that fire ?

Oh.

Oh dear.

Don’t look.

You looked …

Today’s Elitecember theme is “Moon” and I’ve found a few of those over the last month or so … Will our Dwagon Commander find one ?

Is there a face in that moon ? Dwagon wants to check it out.

I found this curious little arrangement. The planet is off to the left and the moon is just about visible eclipsing the sun over to the right. Can we get a better look ?

That was on heading in to this couple of planetoids.

And on the other side. Little moon is in eclipse again.

And a little potato moonlet seen from the Captain of Elysium.

Not sure if a post will come out on the 25th, we shall see what happens ! The Elitecember theme for the 25th is Covas or Cockpit Voice Assistance. I have one idea of what could come out for that but it would need a considerable stepping up of my skills to bring out what I have in mind. We shall see !

Addendum – I forgot to bring something with me ! No marshmallow advent calendar today. Catch up when I get back.

Have a great Xmas everyone.

Hello everyone,

Firstly, before I dive in, the next few posts are going to be a little weird in how they come out. I’m not sure how much writing chance I’ll get over the next week so I’m writing them in advance and hopefully adding in an update or two. This one might be a little shorter than usual too, because I’m actually going to be writing three posts now !

Day 23 ! What’s behind the doors …

It’s a favourite of the original movies, the Gonk droid wrapped up in festive colours. You can get a Gonk droid now (and an R2D2) with motors in from the Lego people. (Linky) It’s the Droid Commander set. Shop around though, you can get that set so much cheaper than the £180 that Lego are asking. (More like £125 from a local shop).

It’s another set I’m very curious about … but space is even more of a factor with this one.

The marshmallow is another Butterscotch marshmallow.

We’ve hit the last of the Mass Effect posters ! I think they’ve been pretty good. They borrowed a decent amount from other scifi but they created a wonderful universe for Mass Effect, that you could happily lose yourself in. And the games did an excellent job of letting you do just that. I must play through them again some time and do that journey again.

The Elitecember theme for today is Shields and after getting his shiny new Sidewinder yesterday, the Dwagon wants some defences for it.

I don’t think those are quite the right kind of shields but his heart’s in the right place.

I was enjoying doing some combat in the Fer-De-Lance acquiring some more pictures for this theme …

Ockali there was about to have a really bad day as their shields failed and the guns started chewing into their hull. The combat damage looks fairly spectacular in game, as lasers leave molten scars in the hulls of your enemies.

But you have to get through those shields first. This over curious (aka canned scripted lines) fella was about to get a surprise as my guns lit up those shields.

And another enemy feels the force of those multi-cannon. This one was firing back though, my shields are a little down and the distortion starts coming in on the displays.

I didn’t win all the fights that day (I was very surprised by how effective a little fighter was) but it was a good day in the Gingery Nonsense.

Back tomorrow for you with more of the saga of the Dwagon Commander.

Hello everyone,

I may have opened Stellaris again today. This is very dangerous. I have managed to extract myself from it though. (Smells were coming from the kitchen and I didn’t want that to turn into burny smells)

What’s behind the doors ?

Milk and Cookies again today, with someone who I think is a guard of some kind. Ah ha ! Jays Brick Log comes through again and it’s the pilot of yesterday’s Cloud Car.

The emblem in the background is for Commander Shepard of Mass Effect’s N7 space marine organisation. The best of the best and all that.

Before I do Elitecember’s theme for today, I’m going to mention buying stuff. Elitecember includes a quick drawing today ! Hurrah, drawing soon. Natter later. Or natter first. I think part of my brain is still subjugating the xenos in Stellaris. My neck definitely is.

I’m seeing the usual offers pop up for places like Steam, Humble and I’m even on the Epic Games store as well now. But I haven’t pulled the trigger on anything yet. Probably very soon. I think it’s because I’ve collected a bunch of games that I just haven’t played and acquiring more seems like a waste. Maybe I’m being more careful with my money. Maybe I’m thinking of house stuff that needs to be acquired. The cooker is the latest. It still cooks stuff actually quite nicely but the fan’s died on it. Just means you cook things for longer.

It’s Amazon too … I haven’t bought any new music for a while. Probably soon, when I come back from the Xmas break. Posts are going to be a little weird over the next few days by the way. I need to do a couple more drawings, including another attempt at a real face … We’ll see how that works out.

For now though, the Steam cart has 4 things in it :
Far Lone Sails – a charming side scrolling adventure game.
Stellar Tactics – a promising looking space strategy game.
1000 days to escape – a fun looking game about getting Earth’s population to escape before a calamity hits
Motorsport Manager DLC – something I’d avoided so far but it’s only £1.50.

Fuzzy playing Alien Isolation has me more curious about that game again. Surprisingly though, it’s only on the standard 15% off sale on Humble and not on sale on Steam. Must look at Amazon again.

Elitecember’s theme of the day is the Sidewinder :

That’s going all the way back to the start of my character and the ship is the Money Spider. The tiniest ship in the collection that’s still a full fledged starship.

There’s the one from my previous save, named Humility.

The Sidewinder is essentially just a box with a hyperdrive on it. A small, get you going ship. Nippy. Couple of guns, bit of cargo space. You could get going quickly in it doing fast courier missions between neighbouring stars.

Dwagon’s first starship if you will. He looks excited. may the little ship do him proud.

See you tomorrow !

Hello everyone,

Advent Day 21 and what do we have :

There we go. Another gingerbread marshmallow, being a cloudy base for the Bespin Cloud Car from Star Wars today. Nice little model, one of the best of this bunch. I put in last year’s Cloud City (and cloud car) model too, just behind there.

Today’s Mass Effect is more concept art from Mass Effect 3, where the enigmatic and relentless Reapers have arrived to wreak terrible destruction on the sentients of the galaxy. They were a group of machine AIs, which would return every 50,000 years or so to wipe out all those sentients who were beyond a certain level of sophistication and it’s our turn when Mass Effect comes along. The DLC of Mass Effect 3 adds a little more backstory to what we knew. Must play through the games again sometime, although I have that “I have many other games unplayed … it’s a shame to go back to one that’s been finished”.

I’ve been having another flying day today. For nebulae, I thought I’d run an expedition* that’s popped up with the title “First Nebula Circle For Rookie and Salted” and it was a good, quick 13,000ly or so around a small selection of the nearby nebula. (One issue – there are heavy permit locked zones between two early waypoints and it needs a bit of a zig zag).

*Expedition – this is something that EDSM tracks and assists in the organisation of (Linky). I don’t join in with the multiplayer aspect but I have enjoyed using them as a series of waypoints to find Shiny Pretty Things In Space.

But before that, today’s theme is “Triple Elite”. I’m not quite there yet :

Getting closer though. I reached the rank of Elite Explorer earlier in the year. That’s gotten a lot easier since this character restart, mostly due to the vast improvement in the exploration system. There’s a full list of the ranks at this convenient link. A bit more trading and I’ll hit Elite in that one as well (Tycoon is the last but one rank) but combat will need more work. That’ll come in time. Expert in combat is the middle rank with Master, Dangerous, Deadly before Elite.

But I do enjoy the exploration more than the combat or the trading. Where was I today ?

A slightly moody shot looking on at a very distant Rosette Nebula.

Little bit of ring surfing along the way.

A spectacular close up of the Rosette.

And heading off again. I was very curious here about how the cockpit was casting a shadow over the bow of the ship.

The Python isn’t supposed to be that good at exploration, because the jump range isn’t as extreme as some ships … but the Odo’s Courage has done me proud. There’s still an almost 54ly jump range on this one, although I was missing the detailed surface scanner and didn’t fit a rover bay. It was handling neutron star transits very nicely without being bounced around as much as the Asp or Orca were.

Next stop was a little teaser of the Jellyfish Nebula.

And closer in. I have to say I’m loving the Predator paint jobs. I switched the colour out before this run started and the more purple shades have been very pretty.

There was no rover on board but I thought I’d still try and get a landing in. Gas Giant is peeking over the horizon as well.

And we’re off again, this is what I was seeing while heading through hyperspace to another neutron star.

The game allows for some truly spectacular shots.

Finishing up for today, the last stop on the trip took me to the California Nebula.

And looking back at the sun.

That’s all folks for today ! See you tomorrow and if you’re disappearing to Xmas festivities, have a great holiday.

Hello everyone,

Advent things first but there’s a fair few shiny screenshots coming afterwards … definitely worth it :-D.

Advent Day 20 and behind the doors we see :

Lovely backdrop today. Back to that in a bit. There was almost a catastrophe today as the rather heavy Mass Effect poster book decided to fall over and flop into the Lego … Oops.

Marshmallow of the day is a Salted Caramel marshmallow, which is one of the packs I’ll pick up when I get the chance (or if I’m ordering, which will happen after Xmas !). Tasty and different. It’s good to go for different.

No idea what the Star Wars thingy of the day is, I’m guessing that it’s the Ion Cannon that protects the Hoth Base.

In the background we see SR2 Normandy, the ship that sees you through Mass Effect 2 and 3, this time in Systems Alliance colours. She’s a heavy frigate, upgraded from the ship you have in the first game. The Normandy was a prototype experiment, engineered and designed for maximum stealth. (The lore in game is really good at expanding this out) The idea being that the ship is your hub from going from place to place and can get in and get out without alerting any hostile people with say, anti space ship guns. You can walk around the ship too, visit the various spaces and talk to the crew. They feel like living ships that could properly do a job in their universe. They’re fighting ships too, unlike the unarmed scout ship of Mass Effect Andromeda.

The design follows that aim, of a fighting stealth frigate … but they also made it a pretty one too. A great centrepiece for the games and when a Certain Event happened in Mass Effect 2, that was incredibly sad to watch happen. (No spoilers)

The Elitecember theme today is Nebula … Bit had to draw one of these because it’s essentially a cloud in space. I’ve visited some before and posted the screenshots but I thought for today’s post, I’d go on a journey.

I dropped off my previous ship and headed over to pick up the Python (not had a penguin in years), refitting it as a basic explorer. No rover this time around … partly due to fitting the ship in a rush !

Paint job update – check it out :-D.

One thing you get in this game is a certain sense of perspective, as massive objects in space like Nebulae steadily increase in size and detail as you get closer. That particular nebula is quite far off.

Passing by the various suns on the way to top up the fuel tanks.

Just a bit closer and heading for the eye.

Just taking a moment …

And then heading off to another target, the NGC 2353 nebula. Just a little cloud in the distance at this point (I think around 1500 ly away!)

And taking another moment …

The latest expedition definitely found one of the pretty nebulae.

And arrival ! This is where I started looking for a place to land tonight. Sadly no rover this time around but I was still looking to see if there was somewhere to land …

What did I find in the end ? Well, one place is waiting for a later post but …

I wonder if the sentients on that world have a mythology around their local space phenomena ?

Apologies ! Late one today.

Let’s see …

Watched the new Star Wars movie today, liked it. It’s not for all the fans, some will hate it, some will love it. Me ? I’d happily go see it again while it’s in the cinemas. It was a nice finish to the saga. And that’s all I better say before I head into the spoiler zone …

What’s behind the doors today ?

There we go.

Sitting in the back contemplating an unknown sun sits the Illusive Man. Enigmatic figure behind the Cerberus organisation of the Mass Effect universe. No one knows his motives, outside of being a human supremacist willing and prepared to do anything he can think of to further his aims. Oh wait, that pretty much sums him up. You don’t see him in the first game but he’s a central plot character to the second and third games, like him or loathe him. (Spoiler – you’re more than likely going to loathe him).

Another S’mores marshmallow today, dipped in tasty breadcrumbs. Probably the best of the marshmallows I hadn’t had before this advent calendar. And being propped up on top, a beastie which I think is a Mynock from Episode 5.

They’ve done well in pulling in figures and characters and ships from all the films so far. Whether that’s the droids, droid carrier and droid tank from the first, Ach-to Island from the new movies, Rebel Troopers and Chewie from pretty much all the movies … Turrets and Gunners from eps 4 and 6.

It feels like a good tribute for all the movies.

Today’s Elitecember theme is Combat Zone … Gotta be honest, I don’t have much for this one. I’ve been distracted this evening too, so no drawing (and not much idea for one either to be honest !) Let’s see …

Yeah, got nothing really from the Elite files. However …

Yeah … It’s gonna be daft stuff :-D.

You go get that red dot kitty !

Ben was always keen to do battle over Toy.

I never did find out who won this one.

My money’s on the speeder.

Wearing my shiny new dice t-shirt today.

It was fantastic watching these people do battle throughout their Round the World Yacht race. I’ll see everyone tomorrow, a little earlier but before I go. I cannot resist giving one Star Wars spoiler …

 Time to run.

Hello everyone,

Late one today, just finished watching The Last Jedi again ahead of watching the last one in the series probably tomorrow. Got things to do and they’ll take me near a cinema … Convenient huh ?

Well, maybe not quite as advantageous as it sounds because my ankle is still poorly and I should really be resting it completely.

What’s behind the doors today ? Small confession, this was meant a little bit as a Behind The Scenes pic …

There we go. I’m happy with the set up, where I have last year’s Advent Calendar box lifting everything up to a good level compared to the Mass Effect pictures. What I tried to show there was my left arm holding up a rather heavy other end of the posters book … while my right hand is holding the camera. It’s needed some nifty fingering and the timer to get the pictures, hopefully they’re working out !

4D is still around but he’s left the stage to my microwave hot cow this time. 4D will be back. One negative thing I think from this set up is that the new lego is disappearing into the backdrop that they’re standing on. They’re not distinct enough. Always learn, always keep an eye on what you can do better, while recognising what’s good enough to do again next time.

In the background, we have Turian Rebel Garrus Vikarian posing with his sniper rifle. Lovely voice on the Garrus, another bit of excellent voice acting brings the character to life. Garrus is a bit of a lost soul in the first game (I almost said movie there and the Mass Effect games can be a bit like long movies in their storytelling and events). But you help him find a direction. A moral compass. A prompt as to whether to go towards light or dark.

Oh – tonight’s might be a quick one because it’s late already and I kinda need to hit Publish before midnight again !

Marshmallow of the day is another Butterscotch marshmallow and it’s being guarded there by a Rebel Trooper. However the Rebel Trooper could not save this marshmallow. I feel there should be a MUAHAHA in there somewhere. Hmm.

Today’s Elitecember theme is “Rebuy”. I’ll start with the drawing today … and it’s a bit more of a development in to ideas for how the dwagons would fit in to a cockpit. Not easy with a tail, wings and those ears …

Yep. Not looking good for our Dwagon Commander today ….

Poor fella, sitting in his pilot’s seat, hearing scary warnings going off all around … ship coming to bits … so he has to go for the last resort and eject lest he share the fate of his failing ship. Normally an ejector seat sees the pilots reaching down between their legs for the pull thing that triggers the explosive ejection system. But … the arms are kinda short there so there’s a pull thing that has a chain going to the ejector handle.

Ingenious dwagons being ingenious.

It actually might have to be more like a folding in survival cell than a float in space in a suit thing. The ears and wings make it very awkward to fit on suit and helmet. I’ve seen the survival cell idea before … Timothy Zahn wrote it in to his Conquerors Trilogy. Things didn’t go well for the humans and their fleet finds itself coming to bits, with the designed in survival cells forming around the occupants as escape pods. Neat idea.

But yeah, the rebuy system kicks in in the game when your ship goes :

Uhoh.

Everything went dark, save for the explosions. This was a Type 9 at the weekend, one of two that went BOOM. It’s not a mission ship. It was strange actually, I usually have no problem navigating out of interdictions and to safety … the attacker this time was from a mission, so they must have been considerably more difficult / powerful than the average.

Quite quickly after the boom you see this :

That’s the rebuy screen. For the cost of 5% of the value of the ship, you can have the same one back again with all upgrades and equipment in place. If you can’t quite afford that, then you can turn off bits of kit. If you can’t afford it at all, you have to choose the other option, which is the basic Sidewinder again.

The idea is that you should never fly without enough credits to afford the rebuy, otherwise it’s a bit too much risk. My Commander is running on quite a bit of credits in the bank at the moment though, so that’s not a problem. I don’t think this one will be wanting for money any time soon, although I will need probably double that to fit out the big ships. There’s no rush.

The rebuy is a bit of a strange system actually, you only pay the insurance cost when you lose a ship so the insurers are losing 95% of the value when they pay out. They don’t make any money. Still, it’s a game and not a real life thing.

Phew !

Off now, probably seeing that last Star Wars film tomorrow so I don’t have to be paranoid of spoilers (and cos I’ve always been a Star Wars Star Trek devotee). Don’t worry, I’m not planning to give out any spoilers. And then off work until 6th Jan ! (With a possibility of having to come in for Something. I’m not sure if Something will happen though)

See you tomorrow for “Combat Zone”. I think that one’s going to need a little imagination …

Day 17 !

What’s behind the door today ?

I erm … had to censor that a little to make it blog friendly. No one will notice. (I’ll get back to that in a bit).

Mint Choc Marshmallow today ! These are my pick of the bunch. Very tasty. Beside it we have an escape pod, from the original Star Wars movie. Where could those droids be ?

And the Mass Effect picture of the day is Jack, crazy psychotic biotic with a grudge against pretty much anything. Although, as the character develops, a softer side appears from underneath the crazy destructive side. Jack’s another great character, utterly unique in that universe. Harsh at first appearance but there are massive hidden depths there as you get to know her.

But … part of that uniqueness is the outfit and Jack doesn’t wear very much on top. The outfit can be optimistically described as “straps”. So I had to add something …

The Elitecember theme today is SRV, which is the rover. I wanna talk about a couple of other rovers though, a couple are from Mass Effect !

That’s the MAKO, from the first game. A tough little buggy with a big gun. It sees you through the planetary exploration sections and is a neat extra little thing to do. There was a Mako Mountain Climbing t-shirt a while ago. Still want it. Apparently MAKO is available in papercraft too …

And then there’s the Nomad, from Mass Effect Andromeda. This one was more of a scout vehicle and the control scheme was more developed. I should go back to Mass Effect Andromeda at some point.

There we go.

But how about the dependable rover of the Elite universe ? I’m gonna open this time with a drawing …

Might be a bit dim again. The coloured pencils I picked up are pretty hard and the colour doesn’t transfer quite as well as I’d like. However … I’m looking to develop this into a more sketchy style. Instead of filling the surfaces, I’ve attempted to use shading that follows the line of those surfaces.

Like in the Kolo Kult Leader pic :

The robe and feet are too wide and I need to figure out faces. But … hopefully some more of the details are there ! This particular pic is picking up on a developing meme that our Kolo is the leader of a potato cult. Not-a-cult, honest.

Oneofus oneofus oneofus oneofus oneofus.

Errrr … How about the SRV in game ?

I called that one “Thargoid Crumbs”.

Other stuff ? I did some shooting of things in Elite earlier, partly in the hunt for a Shields screenshot. Will have to see what got acquired. And then I had to do more shooting of things in Elite when underestimating the powers of the little fighters that can be equipped to ships. Scratch another ship … Oops.

I watched The Force Awakens tonight, I should be able to watch The Last Jedi tomorrow ahead of watching the new movie on Thursday. There’s a chance to watch all 3 movies in town tomorrow night but I don’t fancy my chances of getting there for a 6pm showing and definitely think the chances of munching something before would be remote.

Finished Athabasca last night, that book took far longer than it should ! Another Alastair MacLean and a ripping yarn as always. I was just always a bit too distracted on other things. I think it’s going to be Ignition next.

Kaboom 🙂 See you tomorrow.