#k8 rambles about swtor

[hurricanek8art]

My brother was catching up with Loki and made a comment about Sophia di Martino as a live-action face claim for Lana Beniko this afternoon and now I can't unsee it.

Like it's not perfect but... huh. Okay. Face claim accepted.

[hurricanek8art]

Okay, so, um... Hi? So, I've been a lurker on Tumblr for a while, including the SWTOR tag, because I've got major social anxiety. Recently, I think I've finally worked up the courage to interact, which is great! Especially now, because I think I need advice about the game and don't really know where else to ask! Other social media sites scare me and I'm not currently a subscriber, so I can't access the SWTOR forums. :P

I've just finished Corellia on my Jedi Knight. She's technically my main, even though I already finished the class storylines for Consular and Smuggler. I got burnout on doing the planetary missions and side quests around Balmorra (I'm a huge goody-two-shoes, so I was doing almost every quest I came across) so I figured, hey, I'll just focus on the story for a while and come back to it another time! Except now I feel kinda bad for skipping them because my Knight's leveled at 53, when my other two finished their class stories around 60/65. I know over-leveling's pointless, but at the speed I take getting through stuff, they'll have to have raised the level cap again by the time I catch up. 🤣

Should I go back and do them before finishing the class story? I know it's pretty harmless to skip them but I dunno, I want to do as much as I can with my Knight so I haven't missed out on anything. My brother plays too, we share an account, but his philosophy is skip absolutely everything that's not important unless he's underleveled, so obviously we have differing opinions on the subject. 🤣🤣🤣 Can some more experienced players give me some advice? I'm paralyzed with indecision, help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, etc., etc., you get the gist.

Unnecessarily adding pictures of my Knight because she is awesome and I love her to pieces and I only really get to talk about her with my brother. I'm a writer/artist and I've got loads of stuff I've created about her and my other legacy characters but. y'know. extreme social anxiety says no sharing yet. You guys make such cool stuff and I'm a huge chicken, but I'm working on getting over that, so maybe someday I can actually tell their stories!

[hurricanek8art]

Okay, I don't know what's going on with Tumblr and everything has been absolute chaos with my life the past few months, so y'know what, screw it. I think I'm actually brave enough to share some of my art. At least it won't just be sitting on my tablet that way.

This is my Sith Inquisitor turned Force-sensitive Outcast from SWTOR, Roodaka Greatstorm-Kallig. I haven't really plotted everything out with her regarding her story, but she's not my Outlander. She leaves the Empire right after Ziost, after losing all of the family she'd used her Dark Council connections to find and save from slavery, and Lana recruits her to help Sana-Rae run the Enclave about two years before the Outlander (my Knight Aja Verdona) is rescued. She's prickly and petty and spiteful but I love her dearly. And because I've never posted art before, art process and a little bit of character lore ramble under the cut, I guess?

I usually work with lined art/sketches that are admittedly very messy, but when I did the first one back in May I was experimenting with actually rendering/painting, and I saw a fashion post thing that looked like something Roo would wear, so I was mostly just playing around, it's not a solid outfit design for her. It's janky and wonky and oh Lord please don't look closely at the anatomy or face it is not up to my usual standards, but I was so proud of myself for the lighting on this one, as well as how I managed to render the muscle. Like, the lighting! I have no idea what I'm doing but I think it looks so flipping good! And I was happy with how the crackly lightsaber blade turned out—it is supposed to be Aloysius Kallig's lightsaber, meaning it's at least over a thousand years old, right? It should be a little janky with age!

The second one is supposed to be post Fallen Empire, after she's left the Sith and become sort of a wandering Force-user—think Ahsoka as of, well... Ahsoka, but more on the side of Ventress if she'd survived TCW (don't get me started on that choice 🙄🙄🙄). I came into it knowing a little more of what I was doing, but I kinda got in over my head and gave up on the 100% lineless thing, you can definitely tell with the sword/clothes. 🥴 The second piece has been sitting unfinished in my WIP folder for months, so I just said screw it, finished up some details and called it because I am SO PROUD of her face and hands (I DREW A GOOD HAND WITHOUT LINEART WHO AM I?!?!) and how I rendered her skin, I don't want it to live in WIP purgatory forever. You can actually tell that's muscle! And a neck!

I'm proud of how her tattoos turned out, too. I played around with Cham Syndulla's tattoo pattern, turning it at different angles. It felt like a good way to root her in Twi'lek culture despite the Kallig bloodline having been separated from it for so long. She gets the first one to cover up a slave tattoo, and the rest after Ziost to further reclaim her identity and culture, leaving the Sith behind.

I have no idea how to close this post. Um... thanks for reading all this, if you have? I've never posted art before, I'm kinda terrified. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[hurricanek8art]

YES SWTOR BOUNTY CONTRACT WEEK IS COMING BACK IN TWO WEEKS.

MUST GRIND REPUTATION.

My Knight was CHEATED out of keeping the sleen she tamed in KotFE Chapter 12. She NEEDS the Desert Sleen mount. I don't care if it doesn't make sense for her to have it, she needs it. I have spoken. 😠

[hurricanek8art]

I was cleaning up some old boxes and stuff during a major depressive episode yesterday (like really bad, I don't want to talk about it with anyone but my therapist kind of episode, if ya wanna send prayer/good vibes/whatever you're comfortable with I'm not protesting y'know?) and. and guys.

I FOUND ALL BUT ONE OF MY FIRST SIX SKETCHBOOKS. 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Seriously. All but Sketchbook #2. Nearly every drawing I made from around Christmas 2011 to 2014. Baby's first fan art is in there. Baby's first OCs are in there. I hadn't been able to find these in ages, I thought they got lost in one of the moves! And now I keep looking at them and sobbing because the 12-year-old me that drew this stuff would combust if she saw my art now. Like the Inquisitor pieces from a few days ago? Holy @%!$ I never dreamed I could do something like that. Just—here, look!

Left is basically my first SW OC from 12/23/11, and right is a WIP of my SWTOR Jedi Knight I've been fiddling with the past week or so. They're not the same character but I realized a few months ago that Aja (my Knight) basically evolved from said OC subconsciously. I woulda picked something finished for Aja but the face/anatomy on this one are already done, it's just the outfit that's the WIP, and I love it so much already, that's her.

Look at that, though. I have fine motor skill control issues because of my autism/dyspraxia. Art has been hard for me. And I had a tendency to beat myself up over not progressing as fast as other artist my age seemed to. But look at where I started from versus where I am now, almost 12 years later. I've grown so much. I'm still growing. I think something in me healed, just a little. 😭😭😭

[hurricanek8art]

So! Update on my SWTOR woes! I figure putting it in the main tag makes it so everyone that helped me sees it. Thank you everyone for your advice! I was so nervous about asking and you guys are so cool!

I'm planning on just doing Voss and Corellia for now to keep from burning out! This is like attempt three at me making a Jedi Knight because I wanted her to be my Outlander and then I'd freeze up and panic because I wanted it to be "perfect" but y'know what? Perfect's overrated anyway, this is supposed to be fun! I'll keep the other planetary storylines on the backburner in case I need to level up any further, but since I hit level 50 before I was out of chapter one and I thiiiink I hit 54 last night finishing Maelstrom Prison, I don't think I need to worry about my level being too low for a while. 🤣🤣🤣

(side note—thank you so much @greyias I GOT THE STUPID WHATSHISFACE COLONEL GUY WITH THE EYEBEAMS FINALLY 🤣 I do not know why I didn't think of using those crates as a shield before, I am so dumb :P)

You guys were so helpful and nice and I don't know what else to say I'm so bad at this 🥴🤣 but thank you! All of this actually helped me work up the courage to maaaaaaybe share my stuff? At least screenshots and backstory rambles because I have to share it somehow. I can only yammer my brother's ear off about it for so long, and he's the only other person I know IRL that's as into all this as me, so y'know. 🤣 I might make a masterpost to introduce everyone but I gotta gather up all my screenshots first and I'm kinda meh about getting good ones, so :P we'll see. And condense about two and a half/three-ish years of my brain hurtling backstories at me faster than I can write when I'm supposed to be writing other stuff into readable paragraphs. Uh... yeah, maybe don't expect it too soon. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 I'm queuing this for tomorrow because I only got the chance to actually sit down and write this at midnight here, it's been crazy. Thank you again, everyone! I'm so bad at social stuff I don't know what else to say but thanks!

I don't know how to end this, so uh... Here! Unnecessarily adding all my Republic side characters in because I love them and I constantly want to infodump when it's not the time or place! 🤣

Aja Verdona, my Jedi Knight; Reilly Hawkins, my Smuggler; Ataraxia Kestis, my Consular (and my smuggler's twin sister); and Ijaaka Ordo, my Trooper. They have permanently rewired parts of my brain and I love them all dearly even though I accidentally play favorites with Aja. 🥴

[hurricanek8art]

If you have trouble connecting with the baddies in swtor, I'd recommend trying the Bounty Hunter and Sith Warrior. BH can be honorable and Light Side SW has some hilarious dialog options. Anyway, happy gaming!

Oh, I have a character for each class and they're all light side, my brain can think "huh, this could be a plot hook" and then I lose complete control until I have at least a barebones idea. 🤣 I'm playing my Hunter as a Mandalorian exile fighting her way back into the clans after the Crusader's Schism, so I've noticed the 'honorable' options, but I haven't encountered too many dialogue options that have connected me to SW story just yet. I am just on Korriban, though. Some stuff has come up around the house that has kept me from getting a chance to play SWTOR, but I'll try to give SW another go once I've gotten my Knight all caught up on class story. Thank you for the advice!

[hurricanek8art]

For the record, I still think this should've been an animated sequel. This should be Ashley and Tiya's show. I will continue to maintain that. Rebels holds a very dear place in my heart—it premiered during a period of my life with a lot of upheaval, including my dad dying and moving twice in the span of about thirteen months (long story). I was fifteen when it started, right between Ezra and Sabine in age. With the way time passed both in the show and in the real world. I quite literally grew up alongside those two. And that's not even getting into how important TCW and Ahsoka already were to me. Animated SW shaped my childhood and my teen years.

So when I say I like the show, I really do like it. I mean, I'm actually *posting* stuff instead of lurking! I joined Tumblr over a year ago and I've made more actual posts instead of reblogs (two) in the past hour or so than I have in a year! I don't really think I have a point to all this, I just feel like counterbalancing some of the negativity. There's plenty of things to be negative about, I acknowledge that. But it's been 1,996 days since Rebels ended (thank you, where‐is-ezra blog, I don't know how to tag people) and they're finally setting off to find him! And Zeb was in Mando! And Hera's here and Chopper and flipping Huyang I thought he was destroyed! And Jai Kell is Lothal's senator now?! There's so much going on and even if it's different I missed these guys so much!

I have so much more to ramble about (Sabine's intro was PERFECT, the starmap is something straight out of Treasure Planet, a.k.a. my favorite Disney animated movie ever—the music, the music, I missed you Kiner family!) but it's past midnight here and I've rambled enough for one night already. 🤣🤣🤣🤣 Long story short, I like the show a lot, and I can't wait to finally bring Ezra home.

(...but they're building an Infinity Gate or something, aren't they? That's totally an Infinity Gate. Sorry, old EU nerd me s poking her head back up, too. 🤣)