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.

Ravalation's 2017 holiday card swap

You know that you're late with your annual card swap when... a Christmas card from a blogger friend arrives in the mail before they even could sign up on your blog. Oops.

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.

Pokémon Go day trip to the Amstelveen Safari Zone

Last weekend was the last opportunity to visit one of Europe's so called Pokémon Go Safari Zones. For three weekends in a row, in various shopping centres that partnered with Niantic, kangaskhan (normally only available in Australia) could be found. In addition, an increased spawn rate of the unknown letters forming E-U-R-O-P-E was in effect in these areas. You didn't have to pay anything in order to participate in the event; you just had to be there and look for those pokémon.

I do love catching myself some cool pokémon. And while I don't usually travel beyond my municipality for pokémon and shopping isn't exactly my greatest hobby, it seemed silly to let the opportunity go. Especially so when I found out that the closest Safari Zone, in Stadshart Amstelveen (the Netherlands), was less than an hour drive away.

I was prepared to spend some time on my own, maybe drop by the Cobra Museum (modern art) if I got bored of the shopping centre, but then I found out my brother and his girlfriend wanted to go as well. So past Saturday, all three of us got in the car early to catch us some pokémon.

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.

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.

All the feels of Life Is Strange: how a video game helped me cope with life

So this is another post in which I come out as a lover of non MMOs. This one is dedicated to Dontnod Entertainment, the French game studio that developed Life Is Strange.

There are many praising words about originality and beauty that befit Life Is Strange. But for me, the game stands out because it helped me through a difficult period of my life. I've been meaning to write about it for a while now, but never managed because it's an emotional thing (although I did mention the game in my Steam Awards article). It's now more than a year since I played, so I will give it a try.

When MMO love is complicated. The ambiguous relationship of a seasoned raider with LOTRO

I have an ambiguous relationship with Lord of the Rings Online: I seem to be part of an eternal cycle of embracing and rejecting the game. On the one hand, virtual Middle Earth calls to me, always. I love immersing myself in its gorgeous landscapes and if there's something new, I want to check it out. On the other hand, it's hard for me (as a seasoned MMO progression raider) to ignore fundamental flaws in its combat system. For reasons already stated elsewhere, the gameplay simply isn't what it used to be.

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.

My to be read pile

This week's Five Fandom Friday topic is - once more - not about gaming: it is about reading. I used to fill my hours reading anything I could get my hands on as a child. At school, we had weekly tasks, and each week I finished them as fast as I could, so I could spend half of Thursday and the whole of Friday reading. Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that at university and since I now need to read so much professionally, I don't feel like reading for fun so much anymore. And now there is gaming, too, to distract me. 

Fandom Friday seemed like a good opportunity to look at what books I have laying around that I want to read this year. Turns out it's a very diverse company! I love reading in my native language (Dutch) as well, but somehow I don't have any Dutch books waiting for me at the moment.

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.

Ravalation's 2016 holiday card swap

If you're a long time Ravalation reader, you know I love snail mail. In fact, I had such a great time getting mail from readers and other bloggers and making my own new year's card last year, that I'm doing it again! As always, I'll be drawing the card myself. I haven't settled on the theme yet: might be Rogue One, might be Fantastic Beasts, might be Knights of the Eternal Throne... anything geeky. If you want to mentally prepare for what type of abomination you might be faced with, check out my Drawing diary entries.

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.

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.

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."

Playing Pokémon Go when chronically ill

One morning, about one year after I started Ravalation, I fell on the floor and couldn't get up again. It happened a few times that month, and ever since I'm experiencing chronic pain in my legs and extreme fatigue. An MRI scan revealed irreversible brain damage and from that moment onward it was clear my life would never be the same.

I will spare you the details of my journey onward, but for this article it's useful to mention that, as I had to give up most of the things I like doing, gaming suddenly became a more important part of my life than before. Physical activity makes me suffer more when in a lot of pain; gaming, however, requires little of it and creates a positive distraction so I am not aware of it as much. Due to my fatigue, I don't get out to meet people as much as I'd like anymore: I simply don't have the energy to spare. Voice chat allows me to still socialize with people on a regular base. I can definitely say gaming has saved me from isolation, in a way. But what about augmented reality?

If you read Ravalation regularly, you know that I loved the pokémon Game Boy games and that I couldn't wait to start playing Pokémon Go. There is one problem, though: the game revolves around moving around in the real, physical world to find pokémon, and it is necessary to walk distances to let eggs hatch. Because of this, I was a bit worried that I would not be able to enjoy the game. Nevertheless, I had to try. In this post I'll share my experiences of playing Pokémon Go while chronically ill. I am aware that everyone is affected differently by disabilities in some form or another and I definitely do not want to pretend that my story represents that of everyone in a similar situation! However, I could not write about my experience of playing Pokémon Go without mentioning my health: the two are strongly tied together. Thus I hope you'll forgive me that this post will be a bit more personal of nature than usual.

Pokémon, mobile phones and hype resistance

My latest blog post I'm dying to play Pokémon Go mostly got responses from fellow bloggers that said they did not grow up with pokémon and hence didn't understand what all the fuss is about. (I decided to take this as a compliment: I'm obviously young in spirit.) Bhagpuss even wrote a post in response entitled Why I'm Not Playing Pokémon Go (Like I Have To Have A Reason). Spoiler: it's because he doesn't own a phone. To keep up the tradition I'll now reply to him with another post about hypes and, err, phones. (I know, it's not exactly MMOs, but it'll have to do.) This is a lengthy one, so you're warned.

Running with stealth poodles: a creative blogger award

It's that time of the year: I got hit by a creative blogger award. The person I need to thank for this honour (literally, it's in the "rules"!) is Shadowz of The Legacies in SWTOR: so thank you, Shadowz! Shortly afterwards I found out I got nominated by Pizza Maid as well, but I totally missed it. Epic fail, Rav. To make sure I wouldn't try to escape this one, I got knighted to "Ravanel: Literally the Last LOTRO Player in the World" by Targeter of Imperial Intelligence and burdened with the mission to accept that damn creative blogger award (even Constant Warfare chimed in). Which I will do now.

Soul-searching, the blogging edition

A few prompts were floating about in the gaming blogosphere earlier this month that I wanted to reply to, but I never got around to it. One was Tyrannodorkus' post How you can use gaming to explore your love for writing and Rakuno's response Why I write. The other was the revelation of some well-known bloggers that they were playing with the thought of giving up on blogging altogether (check Liore, Belghast, Waiting For Rez). That gave me a good scare. They seem to reflect totally opposing sentiments, but somehow in my mind they make a connection by expressing the two conflicting feelings I have about blogging - sometimes even at the same time, to make things even more confusing.