Pokémon GO community day: real life pugging for dratini

Tomorrow Pokémon GO celebrates Bulbasaur Community Day. For the first time I'm actually planning to participate, and that has a lot to do with how much fun I had the last time around, catching dratini.

Drawing diary: Insta-Inktober

I haven't written in a while, but don't worry, that doesn't mean anything is wrong. Out of my two main reasons for blogging less, it's the more positive one: I'm just really busy with studying right now. I've taken on a big project that's also going to be my master's thesis and it sucks up almost all my energy. Graduating is way more important to me than writing blog posts, so that's just how it is for now.

However, I've had this drawing diary post sitting in my drafts folder for ages; I may as well publish it, so you have something to read! If you'd rather read about gaming, check out my latest article Why we love doing dumb things in MMOs over at MMO Bro.

Drawing diary: July - September

Hi guys! It's been a couple of weeks since my last entry and I have good and bad news. The good news: I'm doing Inktober! The bad news: I'm doing Inktober.

Drawing diary: June

With me utterly failing to catch up on my drawing diaries, I might have to settle for skipping some months. Indeed, lately my thoughts haven't been with blogging so much. Setting up my last rMA research and thesis plus managing my health have absolute priority, and take up almost all of my time. 

That said, I would like to share some drawings I made during my trip to Switzerland this summer. It wasn't just a holiday; I went for the PhD defense of yet another friend (yes, my friends are too smart!), this time in Zürich. It was amazing! Since you don't know my friends, I won't bore you with the details, but here are some sketches and (crappy phone) photos I made while traveling.

Drawing diary: May

If I keep up this pace, I'll be catching up on my drawing diaries forever! I really should try to get them out more quickly. What's putting it off is that the scanning is a lot of work. But I enjoy sharing my drawings and adventures with you guys, so that's no excuse. Here is my entry for May!

I spent plenty of hours painting in May, especially when I was in Sweden with my family for two weeks. However, the month started out on a sad note.

One year of drawing diaries

A picture for each month, starting May 2016 (top left)

When I was working on my drawing diary of May, I got a déjà-vu. It suddenly occurred to me that I've been documenting my drawings on this blog for a whole year! Time for a Reflective Moment.

Drawing diary: April

During my two holidays, I didn't have the opportunity to blog. And when I was home again, I needed to catch up with my offline life. Hence I'm terribly behind with my drawing diaries! So here's a quick post to catch up.

Drawing diary: March

Star Wars: the Old Republic launched a new update (including a long expected new operation boss) and Lord of the Rings Online started off its tenth anniversary event this week, so what am I going to write about? Neither, apparently. I have plenty to say about SWTOR's 5.2, but I want to take the time to write it all down. You can expect a post early next week, and of course I'll talk about it on Corellian Run Radio Saturday. With all that's happening, I still need to set foot in LOTRO to try out the anniversary event, but that should happen somewhere next week as well.

Meanwhile, my drawing diary of March is way overdue, so I'll write that instead. I usually try to write these entries at the start of the month, but back then the Developer Appreciation Week (DAW) took up all of my time. I also may just have put this diary off because there was so much to scan. I made so much!

The solution to command crate schematic OCD

Disintegrate all the things!*

I have a confession to make: I suffer from command crate OCD. You know those schematics that drop from command crates? Well, I want to collect them all. And because they typically drop on a character with a different crafting profession that they're meant for, I kept logging over and over to check my alts before I decided to claim or disintegrate them. It was starting to drive me crazy.

I was probably in the process of complaining about it when Conrad showed me a spreadsheet he made of all the armor schematics that drop from command crates. It was brilliant! I quickly got to work and added tabs for cybernetics, relics and weapons, so the document truly covered all schematics that can drop from the crates. Then I filled it with X's of the schematics I already had and pinned the document to my taskbar. No more relogging to alts when opening command crates!

I'm sharing the empty file here with you, just in the off chance that you suffer from command crate OCD as well and want to make your life easier.

Drawing diary: February

This Drawing diary is not what you're used to: I decided to try something different and did some abstract painting. So you've been warned!

It all started when I stumbled upon Tara Leaver's post How to make a simple abstractified painting. In it was an extremely helpful video that showed how Tara sets up her abstract paintings. I loved this. It happens quite often that I see an artist post something cool and inspiring and I just don't get how they did it. Seeing someone actually go through the whole process is priceless.

Drawing diary: January

After finally having finished my new year's card design I didn't have to think about what my next drawing project would be, because Kay of My Open Sketchbook had it all covered. Kay namely came up with a 30 Day botanical drawing challenge, and because I love plants, the decision to participate was easily made.

Drawing diary: December

It's time for the first Drawing Diary entry of 2017! I know it's the new year and all, but for this one we will briefly travel back in time to the final weeks of 2016. Drawing in December revolved all about that one thing I had to make: the new year's card (dun dun dun). After all, I promised you guys I would send you one if you signed up for my card swap! Unfortunately, that horrible thing happened that typically occurs when you ' have to' do something rather than just do it for fun without pressure: I suffered from a creative block - I had no idea what I wanted to put on my card. Eventually, I forced myself to sit down and draw all the nerdy creatures that I encountered in 2016.

Rav's Review of the Year 2016

A lot of bloggers have been writing about their past year and their new gaming goals and I love reading those posts! I wanted to join in the fun and do something similar, but I'm not one for gaming goals: planning how to have fun makes my hobby feel like a job. But then I read Kay's post Bye-bye, 2016 and discovered the Review of the year tag by Princess Deia (how could I have missed a blog with such a title?!). I liked it so much that I decided to do my own version! So here is my year reviewed in her nine categories. Warning: there is little gaming involved; this is mostly an off-topic personal reflection of 2016. There are plenty of geeky and nerdy elements, but you're safe from the mushrooms. Promise.

Alright, here we go.

Drawing diary: November

These drawing diaries have slowly transformed into nature nerding sessions and I'm totally okay with that. Usually, I keep my blog posts strictly on the topic of gaming, but I've found it's really nice to have a place to talk about my daily, analogue life every now and then (and post photos of pretty things). My Drawing Diaries are best suited for that. I've added the label Nature to the appropriate posts, so you know beforehand you'll not only have to suffer through those drawings, but through my nature fangirling as well.

I've considered removing the "drawing" part of the title, but for now they are a great reminder for me that I actually need to draw stuff.

Drawing diary: October

I'm over due for another drawing diary: November is almost over already! So let's see what I've been up to in October. In this blog post I'll be talking about hula hooping birches, my slacking health and a brief visit to lovely autumny Sweden - pictures included.

Pokémon Go's Halloween event

Although I haven't written about Pokémon Go recently (I haven't been able to write as much as I'd have liked overall), I have been catching pokémon whenever I could. I know the hype has died down a bit, but that's no reason for me to throw in the towel. Catching "wild pokémon" just doesn't get old for me. Despite my relative immobility, I have even managed to catch up to most of my friends - who became less fanatic over time - by sheer obsessing determination.

So when I heard there was going to be a Pokémon Go Halloween event, I was pretty excited... that is, until I realized I would be abroad in Sweden without mobile internet for the full duration of the event.

Drawing diary: September

This isn't much of a drawing diary entry: as predicted, I haven't had much time to draw at all. I almost decided to skip this month, but I'll use the space to give you guys an' girls a general update of sorts.

Drawing diary: August

August has been a very busy month for me. Unfortunately, this means I don't have much to show you drawing wise. On the upside, it also means you won't have to dig through so much text for a change. If you find yourself thinking "more pictures, less talking, Rav", this post is for you!

I basically did two things this month:

Studying and keeping a blogging schedule

"Hey, I've found a way to know how you're doing!" my friend Marinka declared on voice chat. We just landed our evil inquisitor duo on Balmorra. "Oh?" I knew she meant 'without asking you'. I always know what she means. "Yeah, it's easy:" she continued, "if you don't blog for a while, things are obviously not well."

Drawing diary: July

Drawing for me is not just about skill, it's also a psychological challenge of sorts. You never know exactly what the result will be beforehand. It is addictive, yet damn scary. Confession time: there's always a barrier I need to pass before trying something new, even though I know I'm just drawing for my eyes only and nobody else would care if the result sucks. In July, I tried not to be a whimp and drew a lot of things just for the heck of it.

Of course I'm screwed, because I'm going to post them here for everyone to see even if I'm ashamed of the result myself! With my degree of perfectionism, I wouldn't end up posting anything otherwise. And it's always interesting to read you guys loving the things I hate, and vise versa.