Scythe

Today I learned: How to abuse brushes, effects and other fancy stuff in Photoshop to a non-funny extend. All this happened to me today because of this little image: It was never meant to be, it just "happened" and I couldn't stop messing around with Photoshop then.

Vinyl Scratch the previous leader of the Shadowbolts has officially given Tales and me leadership over the Shadowbolts. I leave it to Tales to be the leader for now, I will instead manage the team by organizing the roleplays and setting them up. A lot is already planned! I have created pictures and banners (for example the one that probably led you here) and now we can finally revive the Shadowbolts. And we are also recruiting new members, since half of the old Shadowbolts have become inactive during last year.

So I thought I was having a lot of spare time, being online in the chat 16/7 and refreshing Canterlot often enough to break the servers alone.

... really? No! But who cares right? So I have to start somewhere and this is it. Let's put some info in my opening entry: I'm 20 years old and I have no freakin' idea what life is going to be for me. This is what most entries will be about. God, how boring. No I was kidding. There will be entries about that topic, but due to the amount of time I have at the moment, most will rather be about entertaining things like images, music, stories and more. Of course I will also adress things happening in the forum like the thing with Imagination challenging Artax on the topic of eg[colour=#000001]g[/colour]plants. If you still didn't come across that hilarious event here is it: Okay back to serious business. I just quit college because I realized that physics is - even though I am really good at it - certainly not what I want to do in my life. They might say it gets better and blah. I don't want to bite myself through one year of boredom and hard work for more years of hard work to end in something that is no fun to me. I rather want to do something creative. Playing in an orchestra, design stuff for a company - anything! Now the world is open for me, but I don't know where to start looking. My mother has serious issues; because she is stupid. Yes I am sorry to write that, but she has to stop worrying in her life for once. I understand her concerns but its really getting on everyones nerves. Back to myself: I'm very intelligent and a fast learning person with an quite creative mind. So I can be everything! Sounds awesome right? Well no. I might be good at adjusting to changes, but even the slightest bit of routine and work can entirely screw my day. Not saying it must - a bit of work is really pushing me up in terms of mood and attitude - if I start cleaning my house I will really get it THAT clean - and I'm happy afterwards. But 90min train to college, annoying readings and endless pages of exercises that you don't even understand in the slightest? Yes that will make me come home and just fall into my bed. I cannot have that. Sorry, I don't work this way. I need way more "chill" and relaxing in my life to actually do something besides work like sports or music than someone else might need. I just seem to have terrible trouble to get something going. I want to do sports as example but signing up to something? Or just going to the gym? Oh the effort! Oh the trouble! Drama! What I want to do: - Sports (a ball sport and martial arts) - Music (Guitar, Piano and if I ever ever have the power for it - violin) - Art (I already do that a lot, since I can just sit on the PC for it) - Writing (I work on the plot of my novel since over a year) - Science (if not as job I still want some science in my life) A last word: I have chosen this blog title for a reason. Not only do I know the trailer/cinematic music company "Two Steps From Hell", but also it describes my situation quite fittingly. I'm not directly at it, but I am very close to deciding how my life is going to look like, what my destiny in this world is going to be.

So well, here I am. I usually don't do this kind of stuff since I'm quite sensitive when it comes to critique. I cannot say wether I'm afraid of critique in general or just of bad critique, but I can say that usually it turned out better for me not to share my stuff, so this is something special, keep that in mind. I'm a very super slow working person. I can do quite some stuff in a short time but before I would call it "final" I do a thousand little edits What I do is - how I call it - recycling art. Since not only in music where there is an finite amount of tone combinations that sound good (yes they are very limited!) the same applies to art. And if everyone is trying so hard to make something new, something that hasn't been there, then it might turn out badly. So I go search for pictures that suit my purpose and cut them together, add filters, effects, redraw what I dislike, change stuff, erase and so on until I'm happy. Still I don't write my name under it, because I feel like I'm doing injustice to the original artists, even after hours of editing (which more often than rarely surpasses the time the original images were created in). Thats what I did the last two days. The happy version is in the galary. But this one is for many reasons better. If you compare them you also can see those "little edits" I was talking about. If you want to know which pictures I used in the process and what I did: I am sure I could draw it all by myself too, but that's not the way I do stuff. I always take things that are already there and improve them rather than creating something new that I barely can stand looking at because it would be just what I tend to use and then improve. In my mind that would be like going a step backwards *g* Hope you don't mind me - but before you answer keep in mind what I said at the very top. Cutiemark I did for my OC: Due to the white background of the forum I added a stroke (the black line around the moon) and that messed up a little, but ya get the idea.

The wound hurt quite a bit, but Chrysalis couldn't care less about pain at the moment. This was solely about killing this alicorn and then vanishing - that was her only hope. If she didn't kill him he would kill her and if she didn't vanish after the fight the army will just tear her apart. [colour=#009966]"Grrr, he is slow, but still too fast... stupid wings"[/colour], she thought, having an idea. Her horn was glowing green and pink at the same time and she could see Despair getting read to dodge more of her deadly blasts. But instead a pink beam came out of her horn, paralyzing his wings, what made him fall to the ground. She used the short moment in which he tried to get up to hit him with her own amplified magic. She could see him flying a few meters - how much damage it did to him wasn't to see yet, but soon it will turn out as she walked closer.

Well thanks, I couldn't stand those extra brackets.

Oh I think you misunderstood me there Rosie. I only want that I don't have to write [Tier 3] infront of my cast apps that I put into the app section anymore - because - due to how the system works they are Tier 3 by default. What does the zerg-sign under your post?^^

Well, since my last cast app there has been a bit of a change to how they are handled. For those who don't know what I'm talking about: Tier 1/2 apps are supposed to be sent to a Staff Member instead of posted in the app section. Tier 3 apps are still to be posted in the app section like other apps. Now since all Tier 1/2 apps are basically gone, every FIM Cast app in the app section is Tier 3 by default. I was being poked by someone *looks into the direction of the science lab* with a PM that I have to write it infront of my app nevertheless. May we change that maybe? Since all Cast apps are T3 by default I don't see a reason for this. I know its a very minor thing, but it saves the staff the time they need to write a PM and people don't have to think about adding anything into the title anymore except for the Name and Status. Aka it is simplified for all apps then. I'm super perfectionistic and that [Tier 3] is really bugging me.

Just wanted to point out what I would add or ask. I never know if a character is for a certain RP or if you rather have a rough plan for a character but no RP - in the latter case I appreciate every help I can get.^^

Hey Steel^^ Firstoff I really like that you are apping someone rich - feels different to me, but I haven't read too many apps yet. But I know quite some stuff about character design through novel writing, so I hope I can help a bit. As far as I have understood him, he tries to make the less rich ponies win more than it is good for the business, but instead takes out those who have a lot anyway right? (Sorry my english is not the best so maybe I didn't get it right). Now this is a certain conception of fairness, would be good if you give a reason why he has that conception, even if its only his parents teaching him it. <- Thats the question that bugged me the entire time reading. From what I read he is quite the busy pony. Caring for a business is consuming a lot of time. That he helps here and there when it is needed is believeable though, it gives the whole casino something from a family business. But you might need to think that he needs some free time to interact with somepony outside of the casino and that with the amount of things he already does it might get a bit complicated? Doesn't mean you have to scrap that, but maybe mention how he manages to have time left for more fun sides of the life - e.g. an agent or proxy (not sure what is the right word, but you get what I mean) - or his parents care for the casino if he needs some time off. I thought about this when I read about his obsession with magic and - now that is a very biased and personal opinion - but I think that with his love to his business he has quite an obsession already and magic is rather something like a hobby. Besides that it looks really good - only objection I would throw at anybody now would be: Do you want him to be super sympathetic? I ask because I only see one flaw in his character - that he is silly and overdoes it with jokes sometimes - and if you want him to be more interesting and realistic you should maybe add a few more points to the negative side. That can be something very small, like that he absolutely hates people who give him excuses rather than telling the truth or a real big deal - a dark secret that he is caring arround - of course the latter is sometimes a bit... overused, nevertheless it would make him - at least to me - a hundred times more interesting. It could be something he is still doing, or something he did in the past and is really not proud of. Keep in mind those are just my thoughts, nothing I wrote is simply truth. But I guess you know that.

Thats what I did with my character too, it really helps flesh out ideas and remove flaws. By flaws I mean things that seem odd playing to you - of course your character should have interesting character flaws. ^^

It's alright, Chrysalis is not so happy that she has to fight for her bare life anyway^^

You think thats definite? Let me find my picture... ... though I have to say I exptected it. Without the blue line you wouldn't be able to compare it >_> Dunno why I'm 0% Fluttershy... I'm probably way more Pinkie and Fluttershy and way less AJ. RBD fits though.

I liked the cartoon... but well. The cartoon. It ends there, exactly there.

E.g. I want someone to play Cadance for my Chrysalis to love^^

Uh, I would go with Lilith then... I think. Let me think about it first, its the first flower that came to my mind.

Well then I'm all in for that. Possible names: Nightingale, Skywing? Or did you have something in mind?

If I can still be a fighter chick... I mean I don't wanna sit around being a symbol for something. Look at how I play Chrysalis, she's not just a symbol of their monarchy, shes the mightiest changeling and she can protect her subjects herself. Other than that... sounds fine to me - Pegasus check, Mare check, possibly filly fooler check.

Trixie was interesting, but somehow I liked Gilda the most. She was so wonderful mean and well, like the only real griffon character in the show. Also I like how they didn't mess up griffons in MLP - they look really good. Edit: Most important about Gilda is how she reacted at the very end. One would expect a show for little girls will end with everyone being friends but instead Rainbow Dash loses her as friend because she rages about everyone instead of accepting it - that was very cool in my opinion.