Secret Santa

[zerras]

bah seer's are overrated.........

[Circe]

I've been frustrated by the delays as well...but I like the whole concept of a Secret Santa exchange. I'm wondering if anyone has thoughts on how we could do it differently next year?

One idea would be to have everyone submit their stuff to the organizers by a certain date. If it isn't done by then, the list can still be reshuffled so that everyone gets a gift...? I don't know. I'm just tossing out thoughts; I can see reasons why this would not work well either.

[Kraggi]

Are we talking about her cat, as in 'meow', or her 'kitty,' as in 'mee-ow?"

How this managed to get by without a hammering is truly the work of divine intervention. Congratulations, Kraggster, you are officially invisible on Hammeradar.

I'm as shocked as you.

[ProfessorTomoe]

So, is it past midnight forum time yet? It's after midnight CST, but I don't know how this translates to forum time.

[Mythos]

Yes, we should all wallow in a mass, orgiastic flood of presents spawned from the loins of our fellow bunnies...

What?:shifty:

It's basically what everyone else is saying.

Hey, I agree. It's past time everyone. Just post. But make absolutely, not that I really think this'll be a problem, you post who it's to. And yay for pressies!

[ProfessorTomoe]

Okay, then. I'll strike the locks and open the floodgates.

My <strike>victim</strike> recipient is Circe.

Circe, your gift literally brings the past into the Present (pun intended). You may recall that in a previous life I wrote music for computer games. One of the games I worked on was called Rise of the Triad. I did twenty-nine separate songs for it, all in plain old General MIDI format. These songs were sadly limited by the capabilities of the sound cards of the day. Some cards could only handle as few as nine notes being triggered at once, so I had to write to some pretty heavy restrictions.

Another restriction I felt during the project was that of time. I was given only six weeks to write all 29 songs. As a result, I wound up drawing upon every musical idea I could muster, regardless of how suitable the end result was for a game level. I did my best to make true game level music, but one or two works deviated a bit more than others. A couple could be considered downright overwhelming, to the point of almost distracting one's attention from the levels.

One example of this was a song called Havana Smooth. It's a Salsa number of sorts with very heavy jazz influences. It doesn't necessarily make the best background track for a first-person shooter, but I believe that it does work as a pure musical number. I've always wondered what it would sound like if the piece were performed by a full stage band ensemble.

When the EGS Secret Santa project came along, I figured that this might be the perfect chance to try and expand on Havana Smooth. So, I took the original and worked it up into something that I hope is suitable as a present. With that in mind, please allow me to offer the following:

http://tomoe.lbjackson.com/santa/ForCirce.zip

This is an MP3 of Havana Smooth, redone in Sonar with some serious DXi sounds going on instead of the original cheesy Sound Blaster Pro stuff. It has also been expanded waaaaaaaaay beyond the old polyphony limits to include instrumentation for a full stage band, along with a rather substantial Latin percussion section.

I hope this is acceptable in lieu of graphic art. I'm still a novice at that, so I figured it would be advisable to draw on one of my less amateur skills in order to present you with the gift you deserve. Here's hoping you like it.

[Tuitsuro]

I`m not above my own words so yeah, I`m gonna go post mine too!

My gift reciever was Beacon.

I had to do some searching, but I found a topic that I thought Beacon would like in some of the old forum posts. I'm actually hoping that he knows who this character is, because I didn`t actually have a lot of information about her, so I thought I'd just try my own idea of her. If not, then just consider this a gift of a generic fairy-girl.

There are two versions, first is a paint version which started out looking good, except I didn`t get the mixture right and the paint cracked as it dried. I tried to fix it but it really ruined any details. But like I said earlier, I'm posting it for posterity!



The other one is the actual present, a paintshop of the same outline. Everthing's still original except for the trees which were just a googled picture run through a few filters.



Merry Christmas Beacon!

[ProfessorTomoe]

I`m not above my own words so yeah, I`m gonna go post mine too!

My gift reciever was Beacon.

Very nice indeed!

Out of curiosity, in what paint medium were you working originally?

[Tuitsuro]

(Too) cheap tempera. I assume it had too much water and because of the media I was painting on, ended up cracking. I tried using PVA glue to fix it but there wasn`t a whole lot to do once it started. Luckily I did the thing in layers anyway, so I still had the original outline.

Ah well, it was more of an experiment than anything; it turned out 'okay' before it cracked but even then I was having thoughts about just PSing it anyway, the paint just wasn`t doing it for me.

[zerras]

my victum...err...reciver was Malachy19, i know...sprites.....


http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q282 ... pecial.jpg

[Circe]

Okay, then. I'll strike the locks and open the floodgates.

My <strike>victim</strike> recipient is Circe.

Circe, your gift literally brings the past into the Present (pun intended). You may recall that in a previous life I wrote music for computer games. One of the games I worked on was called Rise of the Triad. I did twenty-nine separate songs for it, all in plain old General MIDI format. These songs were sadly limited by the capabilities of the sound cards of the day. Some cards could only handle as few as nine notes being triggered at once, so I had to write to some pretty heavy restrictions.

Another restriction I felt during the project was that of time. I was given only six weeks to write all 29 songs. As a result, I wound up drawing upon every musical idea I could muster, regardless of how suitable the end result was for a game level. I did my best to make true game level music, but one or two works deviated a bit more than others. A couple could be considered downright overwhelming, to the point of almost distracting one's attention from the levels.

One example of this was a song called Havana Smooth. It's a Salsa number of sorts with very heavy jazz influences. It doesn't necessarily make the best background track for a first-person shooter, but I believe that it does work as a pure musical number. I've always wondered what it would sound like if the piece were performed by a full stage band ensemble.

When the EGS Secret Santa project came along, I figured that this might be the perfect chance to try and expand on Havana Smooth. So, I took the original and worked it up into something that I hope is suitable as a present. With that in mind, please allow me to offer the following:

http://tomoe.lbjackson.com/santa/ForCirce.zip

This is an MP3 of Havana Smooth, redone in Sonar with some serious DXi sounds going on instead of the original cheesy Sound Blaster Pro stuff. It has also been expanded waaaaaaaaay beyond the old polyphony limits to include instrumentation for a full stage band, along with a rather substantial Latin percussion section.

I hope this is acceptable in lieu of graphic art. I'm still a novice at that, so I figured it would be advisable to draw on one of my less amateur skills in order to present you with the gift you deserve. Here's hoping you like it.

Prof, I can't tell you how much you've blown my mind this morning! I love it, thank you very much!

I've been involved with music in one form or another since I was in orchestra in grade school. I started out on viola and went on to violin and cello before I got my first guitar and never looked back . I played in Jazz Band in high school and this certainly brought back some memories of that time!

Those were the innocent days before my college band .... Biohazard . Let's just say we definitely were not disco and leave it at that, ok? Since then I've mainly played for myself but recently have been teaching my boys how to play. Anyway, my point with all this is to say that in all that time I've never been much good at writing music; I'm very impressed by your ability to compose!

I can see why you were involved in writing theme music. The big band sound combined with the running bass line in this piece makes you want to get up and move! With the Latin influences and the strong melody though Havana Smooth definitely needed to be a pure musical number. I'm glad that the SS exchange inspired you to do it!

Thank you again, Prof. I'm suprised and delighted all at once!

[Circe]

My Secret Santa gift is for Grim Atescu. I asked around and found that GA is very active in the role-playing forums here in Mayhem, including the Magical School game. One of his characters in that game is Rachel Simon Young -- you can find her bio here.

Apparently Rachel is like many young teen girls, full of contradictions and sensitive about certain things. She's a bit of a tomboy, but has a long thick braid of hair. Her hair is a reaction to the fact that her father gave her the middle name of Simon and that she can be somewhat androgynous...so she at once wants to be feminine and doesn't want to be. Ah, life as a teenager!

Anyway that nice braid is of course something that boys of that age simply cannot resist messing with--and as her bio states, 'she's been able to perfect the agitated mutter of "Touch the braid and you die."'

Here we see Rachel in just such a situation. Personally I think her antagonizer would be wise to leave her alone -- teenage girls capable of performing magic are not the best target for teasing!



Merry Christmas, I hope you like it!

P.S. It will be a long time before I attempt plaid again .

[Circe]

Triple post powers, activate!

(Too) cheap tempera. I assume it had too much water and because of the media I was painting on, ended up cracking. I tried using PVA glue to fix it but there wasn`t a whole lot to do once it started. Luckily I did the thing in layers anyway, so I still had the original outline.

Ah well, it was more of an experiment than anything; it turned out 'okay' before it cracked but even then I was having thoughts about just PSing it
anyway, the paint just wasn`t doing it for me.

I don't know, the cracked paint makes it look like a piece uncovered in an old manuscript or something! I kind of liked the effect. I do like the "clean" version too though.

[ProfessorTomoe]

P.S. It will be a long time before I attempt plaid again .

Those uniforms wouldn't happen to have a touch of Negima! influence, would they?

Very nice!

[Malachy19]

I heart Negima

[bignutter]

I like what I see and I like what I hear..

[Beacon]

I`m not above my own words so yeah, I`m gonna go post mine too!

My gift reciever was Beacon.

I had to do some searching, but I found a topic that I thought Beacon would like in some of the old forum posts. I'm actually hoping that he knows who this character is, because I didn`t actually have a lot of information about her, so I thought I'd just try my own idea of her. If not, then just consider this a gift of a generic fairy-girl.





Merry Christmas Beacon!

Wai! I love it. And yes, I do know who that character is. That's Kyla, my muse, and you did a wonderful job with her! For what it's worth, she's a fairy becuase she's so flighty, unable to stay on one idea for too long, and she's holding a lantern because, like a Will O' Wisp, she likes to lure me onto unstable ground with new ideas when I'm TRYING to walk a specific path. Not exactly good things in a muse, but I love her anyway.
Edit: Oh, and I like the cracked paint version, too. It gives it a somewhat... raw feeling, I guess. Whatever it is, I think it's rather fitting for a muse.
I find this rather amusing, since I'm not sure who the character I drew is, either (see below).
Of course, now I'm wondering when and where I mentioned Kyla before. Do you have a link to that thread you mentioned?

Anyway here's my Secret Santa gift for Azerisii! I've been sitting on this for almost a month, and it's been driving me crazy.
As I said, I'm not sure who this guy is. I was trying to figure out what to do for him, so I peeked in his fanart thread. This character was in a couple of pictures, and he looked fun to draw.
So, here it is. It's not a girl, and he's not sad, either, but he IS in snow.


Deviant link

Edit: On the subject of how to do this next year, how about this: The organizer sets up a schedule of times for each person's gift to be given. This way the person knows when his turn is coming up and can plan accordingly (i.e. if he's not going to be there, he can entrust someone else to post the gift or whatever). Also, since the event would be running on a timeline, we wouldn't need to worry about the possibility of things dragging on into February. ^_^

[Malachy19]

my victum...err...reciver was Malachy19, i know...sprites.....


http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q282 ... pecial.jpg

Heheh thanks Zerra, it was humurous and made me chuckle

I guess I should give mine now. It is for Serendipity EGS. I wrote up a fun story for his character, Serendipity. It takes place in the word of my forum fic and I guess doubles as an origin story. SO here is Serendipity and the First Flight of the Zephyr

-----------------

Serendipity
and the
First Flight of the Zephyr


Serendipity looked down at the old map he had purchased off the half-elf back in El-Town, and just now had realized he was probably had. He had followed the map to the tee, ignoring of course the coffee stains and the obvious smell of soot and ash. Where had this map been anyway? He began to wonder if the little half elf had used it as a sock as his eyes glanced over a peculiar stain, then sniffed it, forcing his face to scrunch and recoil. Yuck. What a waste of money. He could be anywhere right now, instead he was wandering aimlessly through the plains of Har

[Enaronia]

Well, my person has posted, so I suppose I should too.

For the Professor:


I was planning on writing something, but I played around with this idea (which isn't that original, I know) and got into it, and it turned out far better than I had anticipated.

EDIT: Now it actually works!

[peragrin]

Well, my person has posted, so I suppose I should too.

For the Professor:
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o121/Enaronia/PresidentTomoe.jpg?t=1168294463

I was planning on writing something, but I played around with this idea (which isn't that original, I know) and got into it, and it turned out far better than I had anticipated.

um well maybe world peace can be achieved through marshmellows?

[Enaronia]

I remember checking to make sure that was working when I posted it.. I was sure it did... and I don't know what I did wrong.

But the gift is actually in my post now. Oops, sorry

[Tuitsuro]

Of course, now I'm wondering when and where I mentioned Kyla before. Do you have a link to that thread you mentioned?

http://forums.keenspot.com/viewtopic.ph ... la#2281840

[ChroniclerC]

So we're just all dumping our gifts and running? I can live with that. My gift-ee was Falconwarrior, whom I knew nothing about. So I thumbed through his posts, and he seemed to be kinda proud of his creepy avatar. I stink at arts from scratch, but I've got a good enough eye for detail to do colorings and stuff, so I dug though the comic archives and did stuff.


(They're from here, here, and here.)

The last one isn't actualy new, but I think it's cool enough to be included in the set. *flrrd*

[ProfessorTomoe]

For the Professor:
http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/7450/presidenttomoeek7.jpg

I love it - thanks!

I'm not sure if the Professor qualifies for the position, though. The Constitution is somewhat vague when it comes to citizenship status of merged interdimensional companions.

[Mythos]

For the Professor:
http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/7450/presidenttomoeek7.jpg

I love it - thanks!

I'm not sure if the Professor qualifies for the position, though. The Constitution is somewhat vague when it comes to citizenship status of merged interdimensional companions.

Maybe not president. You're overqualified. But you could certainly run for a state governer!