Ye ken that silly gear all them Brewfest lot are wearin’ fer the tourists?  Seems they’re sellin’ it as souvenirs noo, too! Haha! An’ even worse, thon shaman has gone and got himself some.  Never laughed so much in mah life!

My guild lead knows me far too well…

Ye cannae get past the beauty o’ the Alliance’s capitals.  Ironforge, o’ course, is the best lookin’ but Stormwind has its charms and Darnassus is sorta pretty if ye like that sort o’ thing. I really need tae take a wee jaunt oot tae the Exodar one o’  these days.  If ye can call that a capital…

I was trying to take ‘iconic’ pictures of the capitals - that is, ones which I could use to represent them in future blog posts.  I quite like how they turned out so I thought I’d put the full un-bannerified versions up!

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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Bloody great big dragons! Ah mean, it’s all well knowin’ what’s goin’ on in Stormwind, but it’s a whole bloody other thing tae find a big flamin’ dragon when yer just mindin’ yer own business…

In an effort to stave off boredom I’ve been pottering about trying to do the Onyxia quests.  Finally got them done after a few hours of running back and forth and, for the first time, I walked through Stormwind and got to see Onyxia spawn! Sadly there were no curious lowbies around. *ahem* Now I only need a trip to UBRS!

Ah telt ye that thon bloody Paladin wis gonnae end up healin’ an’ a wis right.  Ah caught him goin’ we some other adventurers tae the Deadmines (they still huvnae sorted that wee problem oot it seems…) and he had some interestin’ clothes on.  In fact, when he came oot he had even more interestin’ clothes oan…

What is this monster I’ve created….

I love Nagrand - it’s a place I could (and have) happily spent hours grinding in.  When I was working on my next post (it’s a big one, hence the dearth of other posts this week) I took this screenie and I kinda like it - the beautiful hills and waterfalls of Nagrand slowly being eaten into by the Forge Camps!

Through the hard times and the good.

I have to celebrate you baby…

- Fatboy Slim, Praise You

Wow, just wow.  Wow.  Did I say WOW yet?

WOW.

Welcome to your 100th post edition of /hug!

I can’t believe I’m at 100 posts and I can only offer immense thanks to those who drop by, read and comment once in a while!

I started this blog back on the 5th of February.  I had no real goals regarding writing about a particular aspect of wow but simply said: “This is a blog about me, WoW and what I like about it.” I wanted to share, I wanted to become a better writer and I wanted to play with making pretty pictures.  It took me a little while to get into my stride, to be able to write posts shorter than a small novella and to figure out how to make those shiny images sit correctly on the page, though.

Blogging about wow has increased my love of the game - I investigate things more now, I get linked to things concerning aspects of the game I never realised.  I’ve made some new friends via blogging and learned an awful lot.  I can’t thank the Blog Azeroth community enough - not only for bringing me to all of those bloggers, but also for giving me awesome post fodder.

So, what are you getting for this special (to me, anyway) post? This is a post about growth, about goals and personal achievements and the biggest ‘growth’ factor in WoW is our characters.  Whether we have one or five we have all made that journey from level one up.  Thus, I went searching through my archives and dug up some old-school screenshots of my characters when they started their journeys.

I hope a few others will do this too -  find the earliest possible screenshots of your now super-cool 70’s! Kind of like your mother embarassing you in front of your friends with your baby photos, mwuhahaha!  So, 100th post and Sunday Screenies all in one.  /score

Oh and I forgot in my last post (I pre-write them) to say a big HELLO to Leafy! He’s taken refuge from G-Drama to come visit Softi and I on Bloodhoof.  /hugs  I think Softi and I both scared our guildies with all the squeeing…

The first screenie is one I took a month or so back (whilst still levelling Jhai) - I’d completely forgotten it and only found it when I was poking through my screenshot folder today - an oddly pretty picture of Burning Steppes as I was flying over it.

The other two?  Some silly shots of my playing with my new toy - the [Orb of the Sin'dorei] in Mount Hyjal. *grin*

Haha! That wee druid really has a thick hide - she decided tae go show them uppity inmates fae the Stockades o’ Stormwind what for! It wis a sight tae be beheld, ah’m tellin’ ye.

I wanted some wool cloth and a quick google told me the Stockades was my best bet for grinding some.  I have totally missed this sort of thing - barelling through an instance, pulling as much as I could and swipe, swipe, swipe.  Unfortunately Stockades has the problem that many of the mobs ‘backhand’ which stuns you no matter what your level so my health dipped a few times when I did some or the larger pulls.

Three runs and about 11 stacks of wool later and I was grinning from ear to ear.  I really missed having a tank char!  It’s so much more fun than killing things one at a time.

In the middle o’ a battle ye don’t usually hae time tae look around yae and appreciate the beauty of the landscape - if ye dae yer likely tae leave wi’ no heid!  However, thon young druid told me she’d found a nice spot and so ah took a picture tae keep her quiet once the heat of the battle had progressed further down the Valley.  Turns out she’s not got a bad eye, eh?

I spied the tree branch and just had to stand on it whilst healing - no idea why - and then noticed the really nice scenery behind me.  Odd to see such peaceful scenery in the middle of a battleground…