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The winners of WoW Insider's Fan Art contest
You probably remember that a few weeks ago, WoW Insider ran a fan art contest with some pretty sweet SteelSeries items as prizes. We said we were going to show off the winners, and we will! We wanted to contact the winners before we told you who they were, and these things take awhile sometimes. We've now spoken to every single one of them, and it's time to show things off!Our winners are... Grand Prize: Raymond Liang First Prize: Shawn Gaston Second Prize: Russ Harp Third Prize: Connor Murphy Remember, winners were chosen by the editorial staff, taking the theme of the contest into consideration along with the scoring system detailed in the official rules. You can check out all of the winners and submissions in the gallery below.%Gallery-51014%
Blizzard legal censures Shakes and Fidget
First the legal crackdown on fan-made iPhone apps, and now this: German-based webcomic Shakes and Fidget, a longtime sight in our Sunday Morning Funnies column, has apparently been smacked with a cease-and-desist by Blizzard. Our German isn't that great (and we've reached out to the comic's creators for further comment), but a translation of this forum page tells us that Activision-Blizzard's legal department suggested to them that there was enough similarity between the official game and the unofficial comic to cause a problem, and while they believe that they're covered under parody laws, they decided to take the "offending" comics offline anyway, and are apparently currently working on editing them so that they can be put back up without any issues.Obviously, since the comics are offline, we have no idea what material Blizzard objected to -- you could argue that depictions of certain gear created by Blizzard artists in the game or specific names are under trademark and thus could be protected under copyright law. But even then, Shakes and Fidget is one of many, many fan-made webcomics to obviously depict World of Warcraft and Blizzard-designed items specific to the game, and we haven't yet heard of any other webcomics that have been approached in this way.Still, as they might say in Germany, wir riechen eine ratte. Without knowing the exact nature of the comics that Blizzard had an issue with, this seems like a complete overreach on their part, especially considering that it's some of their biggest fans who are making these comics, and that many artists have portrayed many videogames in webcomics without anyone confusing the issue of whether they were official or not. We'll keep an eye out for more information (and we've also contacted Blizzard for comment) -- if you know of any other webcomics or fan artists who've been approached by Blizzard in this way, definitely let us know.Thanks, Henry!
Reminder: Enter WoW Insider's Fan Art contest
It's Saturday afternoon! What are you doing? I have no idea! I know what you should be doing, though. You should be finishing up your submissions to our Fan Art Contest! You only have a couple of days left, the contest ends the evening of April 20th.Again, submissions are judged based on artistic skill, presentation, and creativity. Creativity is weighed much more heavily than the two. If you can make us smile with a crayon doodle, you probably still have a chance to win. Plus, it'll get you featured on our front page even if you don't win, so that's pretty cool. Right?For the full rules and all of that, head on over to the official contest page. Good luck!
The Guild in Second Life on The Copper Robot
Our friends at The Guild made an ingame appearance the other day, but not in our game -- they showed up as avatars in Second Life as part of a talk show called the Copper Robot. Felicia Day, Sandeep Parikh (Zaboo), and Jeff Lewis (Vork) all stopped by to talk to journalist Mitch Wagner (whom I met on the TUAW Talkcast last night), and you can watch video of the proceedings over on their blog, or just listen in to the audio if you'd like. And there's news about season 3 in the interview -- it should be happening, though Felicia says they haven't gotten "an official pickup" yet, and she hasn't started writing yet. The season 2 DVD is also coming soon.What's perhaps most interesting about this interview is that the Guildies all used custom-made avatars to appear in the game. Second Life, if you've never played it, is more of a sandbox MMO than the strict rules and design of World of Warcraft, and players have mostly complete freedom to make themselves look like whatever they want. And so a few fans from a site called World2Worlds actually made some avatars for the Guild folks, and they based them off of the (also fan-made) art of the characters. We've never seen footage of "the game," as the characters in The Guild call it, so this is the first time we've seen these avatars represented in any game. Very interesting. The show has a Flickr group, so if you want to check out more shots of what they looked like in-game (including some nutty Vork antics), check that out as well.
WoW Insider Show Episode 85: Appeasing the Ret Monkey
A good time was had as always on last weekend's WoW Insider Show -- Adam Holisky kindly stepped into the broadcasting booth with Turpster and I, and we answered some emails (including whether it's OK to give cloth drops to leather wearers, as long as it's an upgrade, and more on which tanking class is the best to take with you), and talked turkey on the biggest stories in the World of Warcraft. We chatted about what might be in store for the next content patch and expansion, what's up with WoW's numbers still going up, and what's new with Wintergrasp in 3.1. We also had a straight-from-the-scene report about the PETA event -- stay tuned for more about that later today.And we got some interesting Ret Monkey pictures -- the one to the right is by Hydralol of EU Magtheridon, and the other one in the gallery below is by Abbort from Hellscream. Both of these, and any other pictures that you can come up with of the Ret Monkey or any of us who work on the show can be eligible for our Fan Art contest, so enter that if you'd like.Finally, we have rounded 6,000 followers on our Twitter account, and we're headed to 9,000 -- as we say on the show, it would be great if we could hit that by our 100th show, and combine everything into one big party-down spectacular. So tell your twitterfriends, especially those interested in WoW, to give us a follow. They (and you) won't regret it.Get the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Listen here on the page:
Team Fortress 2 meets World of Warcraft
Yo dawg, we heard you like Arenas, so we put an Arena in your Arena! Behold, WoW's Circle of Blood Arena map, transformed into a Team Fortress 2 map. Sure, it might not have the subtlety of Dustbowl or Well, but as a reproduction, it looks terrific. They even got the starting areas working right. And look at that sky!You can download this map for TF2 and a very similar one for Counter-Strike: Source over at the creator's blog. I doubt it'll jump to the top of any major playlists any time soon, but if your usual group of TF2 friends also have spent some time in the Arenas, they'll probably get a kick out of it.
Breakfast Topic: Six word stories about World of Warcraft
The idea of a six word story has been around for a while -- Ernest Hemingway famously wrote one that went: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." But Pink Pigtail had the idea to bring the format into the World of Warcraft, and challenges her readers to write some six word stories about Azeroth and/or its inhabitants. Larisa's "Last mage quits. Working as intended." is probably my favorite of hers, but you WI readers are pretty creative, too. Here's a few of mine:"Fandral Staghelm is angry. Nobody cares.""Lich King laughs, teleports away. Again.""For sale: Gnomish capital. Slightly used."Ok, that last one is pretty bad. Surely you can come up with some better ones, right?
WoW celebrates four years in the EU
Slorkuz posts that yesterday, February 11th, marked the four-year anniversary of World of Warcraft's release in the EU, and Blizzard is throwing a few contests to celebrate. You can see all of the giveaways over on their site -- there's some nice Swagdog and Dell gear to win for coming up with a great t-shirt slogan, a piece of fan art, or answering some lore questions. Unfortunately, participation in the contests is limited to only a few countries, due to local rules, but if you're interested and able, have at it.Congrats to Blizzard and the EU for four full years in Azeroth! North America had our anniversary late last year, and WoW Insider put together a look back at what it was like for us. We all (including the EU) got the anniversary pet as well, so apparently, other than these contests, Blizzard is just giving this date a nod rather than a big in-game celebration. But there's always the ten year anniversary -- we'll see you in 2014!
Classic LucasArts artwork turned into movie posters
All too often when mixing genres, the results – like that Mountain Dew left over from last night – fall flat. However, one enterprising forum-goer has has defied convention (and warmed our hearts), successfully marrying classic LucasArts adventure games with our wall's longstanding desire to be covered in nostalgia. The results consist of several beautiful posters, most based on original artwork lifted from an era when LucasArts wasn't afraid to point and click, including Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman masterpieces, The Secret of Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle. Designed to be printed and hung, we can't think of a better way to hide that unsightly crack above your bed.
More WoW license plates from our readers
Last week we posted an epic license plate and asked for more, and you guys responded in force. We've added four new plates to our gallery, which you can browse below. My favorite is seen above -- Jeff N. actually took a picture of it at BlizzCon. It's not his car, but it is a pretty awesome plate.The Hawaiians plate comes from Leialoha B., who gave the plate as a Christmas gift to her guildies in Hawaiians on Thaurissian, and the "MPG FTW" (which isn't really WoW-related, unless there's an "MPG" acronym we're not thinking of in the game ("Mana per gallon"?) comes from Angelo. More MPG for the win, indeed. And finally, the ZOMG LOL (also not necessarily WoW-related, but we'll accept it) plate comes from Joejohn, who saw it as he was driving around the other day in Washington, DC.All awesome. If you've got another plate for us to add in, drop us a note with a picture and we'll get it included.%Gallery-20183%
Amateur sculptor molding Illidan into shape
This is awesome -- Jason Babler (who apparently works as a Creative Director at a videogame company during the day and sculpts for Mantle Studios at night) is putting together a sculpture of everyone's second favorite baddie, Illidan (Arthas is number one, right?), and as you can see above, it's coming along nicely. He started using a material called ProClay, but found it wasn't hard enough, so he's now using a wax called FUSE. It sounds like it's been quite a journey -- he says that he's resculpted every part of the figure at least twice. That's a lot of work.But it does look good. As professional as his site looks, this is just a hobby for him, so unfortunately we probably won't get a chance to someday get a copy of this. But then again, you can really tell that Jason is doing this just because he loves it so much. The finished product will probably turn out great, but you can tell he's more interested in doing it the way he wants to rather than getting it done fast.
World of Warcraft pom-poms
I have no idea how to describe pom-poms. I guess they're like little furry balls that you can assemble, along with the usual crafting supplies, into cute little figurines or objects. And as you might expect, since you're reading this here on WoW Insider, someone has assembled these materials into World of Warcraft-related objects, and as usual, the results are awesome.This time it's Eldrian, sister of Pike over at Aspect of the Hare, and her creations are amazing. She's a Druid, so there are all the Druid forms for both factions (there are the two moonkins above), and she's also made a Hunter and pet, a Warlock and a Voidwalker, and even mounts and little Warsong Gulch flags. We've compiled a few of the best shots of the figures in the gallery below, but don't forget to head over and check out her page to see front, side, and back shots of everything. Very awesome, and very meticulously created -- one of the figures took over 10 hours to make. %Gallery-41673%
Snowshaman!
This is brilliant -- after Anna jokingly asked for pictures of Snowshaman, she actually got one. Niyahti and her husband built this snowshaman, complete with two totems (though we're not sure which ones they are -- Wrath of Air and Frost Resist maybe?). Sure, it loses a little something in the translation from polygons to frozen water, but remember the medium. Considering it's handmade with snow, that's a pretty good snowshaman. The horns on the head must mean it's a Draenei, right? Though I have no idea what the sticks are coming out of the front.And hey, if you happen to get a nice bit of snowfall this month and feel like you can make a better one, feel free. We'd love to see it.
Sprite Darter tattoo
Here's another tattoo, this one faction-independent. Adikchun on Zul'jin (who is a Forsaken Priest -- maybe Alliance don't get tattoos?) sent me this one after we posted the big Horde tattoo the other day, and while yes, she plays Horde, she says she got the Sprite Darter pre-BC because it was the only pet that only Alliance could get. I'm not quite sure I understand the logic there, but it is a cool tattoo, and she's right: it is a little more subtle and original than all of the Horde insignias. And while it means something special to WoW fans, it works as just a nice piece of art if you don't actually know what a Sprite Darter is.We've added this picture to our brand new gallery of all the tattoos we've collected so far over the years. If you've got a nice WoW-related piece of body art that you'd like to share, feel free to send it in and we'll give it a look. %Gallery-40471%
A table for Horde, please
Emkephalin from Terenas sent us this picture of a wonderful Christmas present created for him by his mother. As the story goes, Emkephalin introduced his mother WoW a few years ago, like so many other players who play with their family. She waited until she'd officially retired before starting the game, which probably was a wise move. In a few short days, she reached the limits of what you can do on a trial account, and immediately went out and picked up her full retail copy. Flash forward to this Christmas season. Among WoW-playing and scuba diving, it turns out Emk's mother also creates tile mosaics. You can imagine his surprise when Emkephalin removed the wrapping paper from the top of this table to see the wonderful Horde pattern created on the right. Emk was obviously pleased enough to drop us a tip, as well as a picture link to see it for ourselves. This is a continuation of how WoW has inspired people for the season. I can't wait to see what next year brings, and am probably going to invest my time between now and then to learn how to make something myself. It certainly would be awesome to enjoy coffee over such a distinctive table.
The Guild: Season 2, episode five
Just in case, like me, you missed last week's Guild episode, you get not one but two episodes of The Guild today. In last week's episode, we found out more about the eye-dentity of Mr. Eyepatch, and now episode five is out today, ready to watch.This week, Zaboo continues trying to become a man, with the usual creepy results, and Tink shows a new side of herself -- Felicia promised us a while ago that we'd see new relationships sprouting up between the characters, and that's exactly what we're getting. Plus, the stuntman, who seemed like he might fit right in with the gang, might not actually be on exactly the same page.And this episode also shows off the show's bigger budget in a pretty exciting way (not to mention that the cinematography is looking really good lately). We almost can't keep up with all of The Guild coming out this year. Is it possible to have too much of a good thing?
DS Daily: Must. Have. It.
As gamers and general obsessing types of folk, we find our love of games doesn't actually stop at just the game. We buy figurines, peripherals bearing the likeness of characters we enjoy, and posters, among other things. What we're asking you today is which of these franchises to do you go beyond just the game with? What characters or games do you own figurines, posters, and soundtracks for?
Sprucing up your commenter icon on WoW Insider
I have to say, it takes a lot for you commenters to hurt me, but I was a little hurt that no one, as far as I've seen, has noticed that you're all Ogres now. Our own Zach Yonzon created some fun little Ogre art, and all of our default commenter icons (if you haven't yet changed yours by clicking on your name after commenting and logging into Blogsmith) are now grinning cartoon Ogres. I thought people would be shocked when we first put the change in about a month ago (we also considered turning everyone into Murlocs and/or Peons), but it doesn't seem like anyone noticed at all.Hopefully you have noticed now that we've pointed it out, and if you'd rather not be an Ogre, I'll remind you that there are plenty of Warcraft icons out there -- we've posted some from LJ before, and now Sarah has posted another set of holiday-related icons to choose from. Of course there are the official icons, and we've even got our own gallery of commenter icons for you to look over, not to mention that you can always take a screenshot in the game and upload a 64x64 crop of that as your own icon.As I said, if you want to change yours, just click on your name after you make a comment, and then you can login on that page with the password you normally use as a "Returning Member" in our comments (and yes we know the system is lame -- if you have issues, usually the best thing to do is to leave a comment as a "New Reader" again, and use a new email address if you haven't ever gotten the email that gets sent to you). Maybe you all just like being Ogres, but if you want to show a little personality with your icon in our comments section, feel free.
It's-a Mario World: Fan Art
This week has been relatively quiet in terms of Mario-related news, but should that deter us from our regularly scheduled plumber fanfare? If you answered "yes," you're wrong. It was a trick question. Today is Friday and we are going to damn well talk about Mario. We don't take this feature lightly. In fact, each Friday the WiiFanboy offices are rife with Mario cosplay and Mush Kingdom decor. We even release various species of turtles and name them after the Koopa Kids to keep us company during the course of the rigid blogging workday.* This blogger is presently sporting his sweet denim overalls, beneath of which are a pair of Goomba boxer briefs that he probably grew out of years ago and a Toad tank top that reads, "I'm the best!!" So! All things considered, let's dive into this thing. Today we're admiring Mario fan art, and our new gallery is comprised of what we feel to be the outstanding work among so many scribbled Mario atrocities on the Internet. We kept this collection mostly limited to hand drawings, digital renders and photographs, which means you won't be seeing any wedding cakes. Now kick back and click through!*No turtles were harmed during the making of this blog. It's-a Mario World is a weekly feature in which the ubiquity of Nintendo's flagship character is celebrated: We'll incessantly ruminate about mustache wax, debate the curious whereabouts of the princess and covet the luminous power stars strewn about the galaxy. Check back here every Friday to find out what strange and wonderful thing has got us tipping our caps.
Blizzard helps host art show at Laguna College of Art and Design
The Laguna College of Art and Design has worked pretty closely with Blizzard in the past -- some of Blizzard's employees are on faculty there, and they've sent artists over to work with students before. They've also put on art shows there, and this week, they're putting on another one. The exhibit will open on October 1st and last through the rest of the month, and they're having a reception event on October 23rd (it's open to the public, and you can bet that there will be more than a few Blizzard artists there to say hi to).Sounds like fun. Here's a slideshow of student art scheduled to be in the show -- none of it looks to be strictly Warcraft-related, but there is a little Blizzard flavor in a few of them (especially this one, I think). It all looks well done -- maybe we'll see some of this stuff exhibited at BlizzCon as well. If you're in the area and you do go see it, make sure to tell us what you think.
