Ah love takin’ pictures and posin’ fer some too but y’see it takes a wee bit o’ pokin’ aboot tae get the results ye want.

What we have here is a rare creature on this blog:  a post about blogging itself.  Not going too far, of course, it’s about something in particular I like to use on my blog (as do many others), namely images.

Images, pictures, portraits, doodles, sketches or representations - whichever type or flavour you pick it will generally enhance your posts.  I have always been a very image-centric person - I like art, animation and video as well as creating websites and ‘graphics’.  It was only natural for me, then, to add a lot of art and imagery to my blog when I began it, though it took a little while to get the kind of pictures I wanted.

Why use images?

Although bolding some of your sentences, adding headings, italics and using various ·lists as well as plenty of  s p a c e s can give structure to your posts I find that it is images which can make me stop and really look at a post.  I could insert a cheesy line about a picture saying a thousand words but, to be honest, I believe that the way I (and perhaps blogs in general) use them is more in line with adding pepper to soup - it enhances the ‘flavour’ of the surrounding text and makes it tastier to eat.  Read.  Devour?

Images can also be used as visual clues - when I write a post about my shaman I usually include a picture of him - same for my druid, rogue and hunter.  A lot of people use this method if they have multiple authors so it’s no big leap to utilise it if you’re a frequent, chronic sufferer of the dreaded altitis.  Using Aurik as a model I hope I can illustrate reasonably simply how I make shiny images for my blog assuming basic knowledge of image editing.

Before I begin I will note that this isnae a ‘how to make shiny images of awesome dhoom’, a guide on how to upload / capture pictures and it also definitely isnae the only way to do things.  It’s  simple few tips / short guide about how to make some half-decent, quick images for your blog - in my opinion, unless your blog is centred around the images you use then making them should not take longer than writing the post. *grin*

There are two types of images I will cover: Screenshots and WoWModelViewer based images.  I don’t really like non-game images in my WoW blog so I’m afraid that’s all yer getting from me.

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I hope Indi doesn’t mind me stealing her char to draw - I  wanted to do her a little doodle. I know my rendition of t2 is pitiful but it’s been a while since I did anything arts wise so I’m a bit rusty.

I’ll hopefully have another one up in the next week or so as I have a few people I want to draw for - since it’s about the only thing I feel I can ‘give’ to those I care for.  /cheesy grin

For those who don’t know:  Indi is my guild lead, she’s a superb administrator and really fun person to be around - especially when she starts telling us stories of ‘ye old days’.   Her current main is a resto shammy but I know she still loves her pew-pew mage. *grin*

She admitted to reading my blog so /wave ^^

Sometimes ah try ma hand at a wee bit o’ drawin’… Ah’v always liked doin’ it but I’ve gotten a bit rusty lately.

A long while back I asked for some help - I prefer drawing people’s characters instead of random ones and needed a few screenshots. Hulan and the newly renamed Wolfrider obliged and since then I’ve been sketching on and off. It took me a few shots at each before I got something workable but it really did help - I’m getting at least a bit more confidant about drawing trolls now!

Female dwarves seem a little harder to draw - there’s a lot of subtle cues which I don’t think I got into the picture of Hulan - a lot of female dwarflyness shows when their whole body is visible as, then, their short stature is more apparent.

Wolfrider

Wolf - I know you gave me reference pics but I ended up ignoring them, slightly. I had been using them but then I noticed you’d dinged 70 and got yourself some spiffy season 1 gear and I just had to draw you in that! I hope you don’t mind - I really did have fun drawing those shoulders hehe… I sorta threw some monochrome colours at it as the lines themselves were a bit messy.

Hulan - I went for something really simple - just keeping the dress part of her outfit as, hey, she’s out having fun, right? I really love Hulan’s stories and I hate the fact I don’t feel I did her justice! I gave her right hand a little darker colour but I wasn sure how badly her burn showed so I didn’t want to make it too extreme. I managed to throw some colour on it because of it’s simplicity, though, so I hope I can be forgiven *grin*

I’m working on a page with the few wow-doodles I’ve done which I’m reasonably happy with, should go up over the next few days. Be gentle…