Category: Guild Wars

Year of the Charr.

We broke out and actually started work this weekend.

As spoken of, last year in the rain, one of the totems turned all mushy, and it’s still unsure whether or not it will be salvageable.

Still, those things inspire quite the intimidation to children. Something with that fog, lights, ‘fire’…If I could capture a piece of that in a NEW addition…one that will fit future themes as well as the current one…

Thinking primarily on this, and reflecting on the last year. Project Nightfall was Jen’s favorite thing we’ve done to date. PERSONALLY, I found it the biggest pain in rear to date. The rain also played havoc on IT, and I have yet to open the shed to assess the carnage. I truly hope it’s not totally destroyed…all that work for one year….What we DO know of it, is that it was not a winner of the art contest.

With us moving away from themes that will mesh well with things found in Guild Wars, I also wanted to give one last go at that contest. So, I searched my archive of photos from Guild Wars, and have found the Charr. Or, most specifically, the Charr’s Idols.

From Year of the Charr

I’ve always loved the Charr in the game to begin with. Big, carnivorous, menacing. Worshipping fire, and viewing humans as a meal. It was said, the more of these idols they made, the stronger they became.

From Year of the Charr

Of course, as they worshipped fire, most often these things were seen ablaze.

From Year of the Charr

And, some of their other “decoration” just fits RIGHT in with our yard…

From Year of the Charr

In fact, it was the Charr that inspired much of the yard to begin with. It feels only right to give them one last nod before we move on to Spider Woman.

The challenge now, is to bring these to life.

From Year of the Charr

There is a plan set in motion this weekend, but some of the hardware proved to be a bit on the weak side. Once that is replaced, we’ll get some pics going.

The Guild Wars Halloween Art Contest

At last, it has begun.

The Guild Wars Halloween Art Contest 2008.


Guild Wars Halloween Art Contest 2008
Official Rules and Conditions
We invite you to put your imagination and creative talents to work by crafting Halloween art with a Guild Wars® theme. This is our fourth annual opportunity to celebrate the autumn season with the entire Guild Wars community. Dream up your own way to bring a Halloween twist to Guild Wars, and enter the contest before 12:00 Noon PDT, October 27, 2008!

How to Enter:

Create a concept and bring it to life.

Some suggestions:

Carve a pumpkin or create a template for other pumpkin carvers.
Sketch a costume by hand or on the computer. If you’re extra creative, make that costume and model it in a photograph.
Design a desktop image or wallpaper.
Decorate a cake, bake some cookies, compose a menu, build an edible haunted house—put your culinary skills to the task.
Decorate your home in a Guild Wars theme.
Find your own way to bring a Halloween twist to Guild Wars, or a Guild Wars twist to Halloween.

Emphasis added.

If there is one thing I do around here, it is creating a concept and bringing it to life.

As for bringing a “Guild Wars twist to Halloween”, well, that’s where one might argue against me. Yes, Guild Wars has something to do with it, but I’m also pulling inspiration from South African tribes, and Plains Indians nations respective mythologies while making everything flow with the intended rest of the yard as well.

But, with snow coming this weekend, I expect to begin work next week, and have Project Nightfall up and running 10/17, weather permitting. As a teaser, here is some Guild Wars screens, and some work in progress photos in slideshow format.

Just what color IS the underworld?

So, let me recap.

We have these graves from Guild Wars, onto which I’ve applied the religious rights of several African religions: The grave is where the body is buried, but the spirit remains with the family for a number of years, and is given a ‘pot’ to live in. After some time, the pot is taken to it’s resting place as well so that the spirit is reunited with the body, and the person can continue their journey.

However, if these rites are not performed correctly, or the person is not happy with what sacrifices were made, the deceased will become a ‘wandering spirit’ and inflict death and disease upon the land and family. Thus, fences, posts, and wards are made at gravesites to further help prevent wandering spirits from escaping.

For Halloween, that just sounds like fun.

Just what, however, does this underworld look like that the wandering spirit is struggling to escape from?

Is it a place red in nature?

Perhaps it is green…

Maybe it’s different for each spirit?

Let me know what you think. And try to imagine the above fully implimented with 7 graves, all finished, not stark white, more poles and charms in place to keep the spirits in, and fogged up properly.

Coming together.

Bought some more rigid wrap last night. There’s now enough for 6 “tombstones”. Time to figure out just how many graves we can actually make.

Normal graveyards on halloween, it’s perfectly good to throw out just the tombstones. For these, however, no one is going to associate an overturned pot on a stick with a grave marker without the mound to make that connection.

Chicken wire, cloth, and joint compound, possibly turned into monster mud, will be the tools used to make the graves. I just need to see how much chicken wire I have left, and how many graves we can get out of it. But, more on that later, for we have a few surprises in mind for the grave mounds, to give them that special Halloween menace.

I also went back to Guild Wars and took a tour of some of the more prominent locations for these graves to get more reference photos. A very special thanks to the folks of the Last Platoon Alliance for pointing out prospective locations.

I went here on a hunch. The place was named “cemetery” after all. Only 3 lonely graves, however.

The rest here were located in a beautiful canyon, pointed out to me by Boid Ronseyder of the Last Platoon, in a place I had never been before.

A shelter and some offerings.

The 3 ‘tombstone’ designs represented.

In some site news, I have been getting some requests to make all the links pop in new windows. This post has thus been enabled. However, looking over blogger, it’s not immediately possible to edit the HTML in the links on my sidebars, so I’ll have to rebuild them as an HTML piece, deleted the templates, then add the HTML code back in. That’s going to take some time as I’m not all that quick with the HTML quite yet.