Alright, I've been pondering to set up a journal like this for quite a while now, so here it is. I am the author of Rage of the Shadow Warriors, a series of fanfiction stories in Beyond the Saga that are centered on Mandalorians in the NJO-era. You can find links to it in my sig or my profile.

The list is at the top, you can view the backstory below it.

I also have set this whole thing up as a Gallery on the Fanon wiki: [link]

UPDATED 03/14/08:

two Ronan Barec drawings by ~commander-13 (see below for more)

Covers:

Honor Guard (photomanip'd artworks)
Runner (photomanip'd stills)
Pariah (photomanip'd game render)
When Few Stood Against Many (collage, photomanip)

Wallpapers:

Rage of the Shadow Warriors - Teaser Wallpaper V1 (featuring Gladus Tite)
Rage of the Shadow Warriors - Teaser Wallpaper V2

Character Art (links on character names direct to full bios)

Ronan Barec
- Ronan - profile artwork (photomanip)
- Holocam snapshot of Ronan (photomanip)
- Ronan in his former armor (coloring of a lineart of Boba Fett by Ryan Benjamin)
- Ronan in his special forces time (pencils by ~commander-13, colors to come)
- Ronan, the special forces sniper (pencils by ~commander-13, colors to come)

Gladus Tite
- Gladus in his full suit of Mandalorian armor (pencils by *Kuk-Man, inks and colors)
- Gladus versus two Yuuzhan Vong (pencils and inks by *itmon, colors by me)
- Gladus, reflecting on the war (pencils, inks and colors by ~Daennika)
- Gladus's face, closeup (photomanip, same as Pariah cover)
- Shady holocam surveillance still (photomanip)
- A beardless Gladus contacting one of his clients on the holo (photomanip'd game screenie)
- Gladus, holding a Twi'lek Peace Brigader by the neck (scene from WFSAM, photomanip'd game render)

Altair Jiriad
- Altair - flattened to the ground by an explosion (photomanip'd SG: Atlantis still)
- Altair and his son Skira (coloring of a lineart by Tom Hodges)

Ayden Stone
- Ayden Stone - colored (lines by *Kuk-Man, inks and colors by me)
- Ayden Stone (lines by ~ragelion, colors by me)

Macos Fenix (click link to see two images)
- Macos in a tapcaf (requested piece by Mercy)

Salem Rios
- Salem Rios, GAI lieutenant (requested piece by ~AsokYeesrim)

Berdan Ngajio Angantire
- Berdan, fixing himself up after injured from a detonation gone wrong (requested piece by ~KhairulHisham)

Misc. (not all by me)
- EE-23 marksman carbine (Ronan's rifle, background and artworks by *Kuk-Man)
- P-7 'Offshoot' special (Ronan's sidearm, artwork by ~CucumberBoy)
- ShenCresh Ops - special forces unit insignia (logo design by me)
- Crest of Clan Barec (logo design by Kuk-Man)
- Dubrillion: After the Battle (illustration of a scene from Honor Guard, by ~CucumberBoy)

Unfinished:

- Kharritokh of Clan Bakh'tor, requested sketch by ~Delta2094
- Firespray concept, uncolored (by ~CucumberBoy)

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Since I'm also an arty person, it's only natural that I make the covers for my stories. But it goes even further than that. In addition to photomanipulations I make to illustrate my OCs (often based on real actors that represent my conception of them), I'm diving even a little deeper and into technical things. Since I'm not an allrounder, I can't do all of that myself (gee, I can't even draw properly^^), and am really indebted to great artists such as Kuk-Man, CucumberBoy and itmon for providing me with creative help. Especially my buddy Kuk-Man has done so much for me, I don't even know where to start to pay him back.

All started with a simple request to draw one of my OCs from my first fic in his full suit of Mandalorian armor. Kuk came back to me with a rough draft which he worked into a better sketch that fitted the character perfectly, the Mandalorian Slug-gunner Ayden Stone, but he did even more. He was inspired by my request and drew a whole handful of concepts for Mandalorian with different specialties, and one of them also fitted for one of my characters, namely the Mandalorian Swordmaster (see his gallery). You can find all of his concepts in his awesome DevArt gallery on page 2. Then, we worked together on some details and he finalized the artworks. I was so thrilled by the Swordmaster, that I kinda „forgot“ about my original request. I inked and colored that blade-loving Mando and ta-da!, we had Gladus Tite, one of my main OCs.
Currently, Kuk and I are working on a big art project on my major OC, Ronan Barec. I can't post any progress on that, yet, unless Kuk is okay with it. Only one bit I that is already finished: Ronan's main weapon, the EE-23 weapons system. Kuk was very creative on that, and came up with a whole technical backstory and a lot of other stuff, I'm really indebted for this incredible work. I also worked on one of his concept on Ronan's insignia, and he designed Ronan's clan symbol.

So much for Kuk. Like I said, I also did some photomanips of other characters, but you can see that in the list below. I also approached other artists, such as ~CucumberBoy who allowed me to use a blaster concept of his and then drew a modified Firespray fighter (like Slave I) for me, which I haven't finalized yet, either. Another artist who I approached is *itmon. He has a very unique style with trademark shady and dark ink linearts, and as it happens, my current icon here on TFN is based off a coloring of one of itmon's Boba Fetts. Anyhow, a few months back I requested a scene of Gladus Tite from him, and he came up with an incredibly awesome rendering: [link]
Then, of course, there was the revival of the Star Wars Artists' Guild, which allowed me to place some requests... namely, Berdan Ngajio Angantire, a character that has yet to appear, Macos Fenix and Salem Rios, done by the great artists ~KhairulHisham, Mercy and ~AsokYeesrim.
Update as of Febuary 08: Recently, one of the greatest SW fan artists out there, none else than ~ragelion, returned to doing SW art again. I sent him a PM, welcoming him back, and gave a tongue-in-cheek joke that if he wanted to draw a Mando and needed inspiration, he knew whom to ask. Well, totally suprisingly, he said he was up to it, and I gave him a list of current EU Mando characters. He picked Ram Zerimar, he had seen him in my gallery, and shortly, he came back with a kickass fanart of that Mandalorian sniper. And then, what blew me away, he said he was working on Ayden Stone - and I didn't even request him that, he just gave it to me as a kinda gift. Surely, Kuk's drawing of him was a great basis to go on! Really, ragelion's awesome! That's his result, and of course, I immediately started doing the colors.

And although my stories are probably not even quality enough to „deserve“ so much media, I really love detailing out my stuff, aside from the fun it is to effect photoshop sk1lls. I'm too much of a perfectionist....

Now, if anyone of you great artists here happens to be interested in contributing to my humble fanfiction, even in inking something or just sketching something out (I can do the post work like inking and coloring myself, as you can see), I'd more than appreciate it!

But, most importantly, enjoy!

And, as a post note, I recommend checking out the brilliant Mando fanfiction Have Blaster, Will Travel, by Quiet_Mandalorian on TFN. It's way better than my stuff, and is what inspired me to start writing Mandies...

Supporters, friends, and artists you just must have seen

Partially to make space after my damn long last Bioshock review journal entry, partially just because I want to get word out about something.

The Star Wars Artist Guild's back, a guild of very talented fan artists creating some of the most original SW art you can find, mostly centered on RPG. It's also big on requests, so if you want a PC or OC of your's illustrated, be sure to give it a go.

But most importantly, check it out to widen your horizons on SW fan artwork, there's really brilliant stuff over there.

A few cool DevArt artists reside there as well:



There are more, but they have different usernames and I can't seem to find 'em right now...

EDIT: Crap. Thanks to CucumberBoy for fixing my spelling on "Black"... it escapes me how I was able to write "Read" instead... now leave me alone, my head's currently busy banging against the table.^^

This is possibly the most amazing game I've ever played.

Please beware of spoilers in this kinda "review".

It has an unreached atmosphere and a so compelling, awesomely-done story nearly any other game out there could take a leaf out of. The stunning graphics and grandiose 5.1 Dolby Digital sound and soundtrack is only a nice side effect (I'm playing on full details on a second rate PC, and I still can't believe it looks that good with a totally smooth framerate).

It has one of the most jaw-dropping scenes in game history, the one where you reach Ryan's office and you are revealed the truth about Atlas and frankly, yourself, the player. Ryan's "sacrifice" gave me troubles closing my mouth again after minutes, and the revelation was so unbelievably great that I reloaded the last savegame to "watch" it again, to take it in completely. That scene alone makes Bioshock a must-play.

However, there isn't only praise lost for Bioshock. The beforementioned scene takes place at about 3/4 of the game, and they should've ended it there. While the randomly swapping plasmids and protecting Little Sisters is a very great idea, the final fight itself, and both endings, were kinda underwhelming. Especially the fight against Fontaine was sucker, it's the average FPS boss enemy fast-food, as we've seen it in hundreds of games before. I would've hoped for a more original concept for confronting that guy. I've seen both endings, and for me, they aren't really giving the story a satisfying, concluding frame. It's too centered on the Little Sisters, I think, because there's so much more fascinating about Rapture than just them, and by the audio tapes alone, you're far from getting the whole picture. While especially the "not offering the whole picture" is probably one of the main design ideas behind Bioshock, as it makes the player turn on his brain for once and animates him to become proactive in building the story (something nearly no game has done before, and for which I'm more than thankful for because this hopefully makes "post-Bioshock" games regard proper storytelling more highly), I think the game is giving the player a little bit too much freedom in that direction. Even when you do manage to find and listen to all audio tapes in the game (I tried, but I think I only found about 90%), it still doesn't give you enough to know what is and was going on in Rapture. You get the general idea, but you can only imagine the details, and each player will have another impression of Rapture's past. But as I said before, exactly that was probably intended by the creators of the game, and (hopefully) not only because they want to use it as a cliffhanger to make more people buy a sequel. I think highly enough of the people behind Bioshock that they aren't looking only for profit, and really want get their game's story get into the minds of the players. But still, I feel a bit betrayed by the game, as it raises so many questions and doesn't offer a satisfying amount of answers to them, let alone and ending that only raises more questions. Yes, it is true that this adds a lot to the mystery of Rapture, but it's a little bit too much mystery in my opinion.

Another thing that I'd like to criticize is that all too often, Bioshock comes down to being like every other plain shooter out there. Yes, there are a lot of great, creepy shocker moments (with excellently applied scripted sequences), and there really are millions of ways to deal with a threat, but the farther you're into the game, the less different ways to deal with said threats you use. Once you've got enough plasmids, tonics and ammo, and found your personal best way to deal with splicers and Big Daddys, you won't experiment to find other solutions any more, like you had in the first few hours of the game. I, for my part, have become a sorta "close-combatist", applying the "zapp 'em, then whack 'em" tactic on splicers most of the time. With my tonics spent on giving the wrench as much impact as possible, and other tonics spent on lightning and freeze fields around me, I just stun a splicer with an electro-bolt, move up to him and take him out with two or three wrench-bashes. I only have to change that tactic when it comes to Houdini splicers and these Thuggish splicers that are kinda immune to electro-bolts because they use 'em themselves, and of course for Big Daddys. But since there are only so few enemy types, I find good tactics for them very soon as well, and it starts to get boring. You don't want to experiment any longer, because you don't wanna waste time, and since the enemies are becoming harder, too, you don't wanna die all too often.

Further on, some objectives are very annoying, because you have to return to places you've already been and pick up items that weren't pick-up-able before, what is kinda illogical. But that's really a tiny glitch.

Also, Bioshock uses another often-seen technique: once you reach an objective (like pulling a lever or turning a wheel), you can bet on hordes of splicers coming to assault you. So before you active a golden object, you mine the area with trap bolts and proximity mines, and the splicers won't even get as close as to shoot at you. That way I dealt with Cohen, and that way I dealt with a horde of splicers that was supposed to attack me at the Core, but I never saw one of them, I just heard the electro emissions and explosions they triggered off. But I'm glad Bioshock gives you a chance to "lay the battlefield", because that you nearly never see in such a game, and thus I can forgive that little flaw, especially because it makes you feel fuzzy and warm because you're superior over your virtual enemies (and the AI ain't that bad, you gotta admit).

Now, this might look as though I can only see negative things about this game, but it's just a habit of mine that I feel easier to elaborate in cons rather than in pros. *whistling*

I've had numerous amazing moments in Bioshock, ranging from shocking, to creepy, to intimidating, to disgusting, to baffling, to awesome, to fuzzy and warm, to smirk-rendering... sometimes, there are just coincidences that make it that much fun. Once, I managed to down an Elite Rosie Big Daddy without firing or getting hit by a single shot. The first thing I do when I come into a new area is "EMP"ing and hacking security cams, so that no bots are sent after me. Now, once I met a Rosie and a Little Sister in a level, and badly wanting the Adam, I had to face that Big Daddy. They were just near a corpse, the LS harvesting, so they wouldn't move anytime soon. So I planted some proximity mines in the vicinity, and a few trap bolts, too, retreated a couple of meters and tripped the Big Daddy off with an electro bolt. He was going mad as all BDs do, and giving me a barrage from his rivet gun, but since I was behind a pillar, he had to move to hit me. Now, he didn't walk into a mine or a trap-bolt, unfortunately, but somewhere else. By total coincidence, they had been a couple of meters away from a security cam I had hacked hours ago, and I never took that one into consideration for my tactics. But by chance, that Rosie walked straight into the sight of that cam, and seconds later bots came flying onto him, all guns blazing. Before they arrived, he did manage to fire at me again, but the shots were easy to dodge behind that pillar. Since he managed to destroy bot after but, I sent a swarm of bees on him, which normally doesn't take out an Elite, and would just serve as a destraction. But within a few seconds, at least twenty before the alarm ran out, that Rosie was lying on the ground, thanks to the bots. And I already feared that he'd kill me, because he came nowhere near my planned traps, and I had my shotgun with electro ammo already at the ready, but he was down before I could even fire at him. This might not sound as great as it had been, but it was just awesome that it happened totally by luck, and was even more satisfying than any tactic that you see work out. If I just had taken that cam into consideration before, I could've spared the ammo I spent on trap bolts and mines. But then again, had I not placed them there, the Big Daddy might never have run into that cam....

I will definitely be playing Bioshock a second time, and despite I know of some of the scripted events now, I already know that the experience will be totally different. I will also try more experimenting, because it may be me that I played it like a "straight shooter" sometimes. And yes, I said I've seen both endings, and I did. I played rescuing all Little Sisters, so I only saw the "good" end, but since I didn't wanna replay that silly boss fight again, I just watched the second end cinematic from the Bioshock videos folder... Perhaps I just couldn't get myself to kill one of these poor creatures...

Despite the negative mood that might swing in my "review", this game is worth it more than any game I've played in the last few years. It is the atmosphere, the story, the amazing work the creators have put into this game, that blows you away.

Thus, Bioshock gets 9 out of 10 teddybear-gifts from me, despite all its little flaws. You might wonder why no "10/10", but I didn't even give HL2 or KotOR more than 8/10.

To everyone who's only played the demo, yet, would you kindly get the full game, it's more than worth the money. And btw, hopes for a sequel are quite high, hehehe...

Alright, I said I'd be doing a banner for the TheForce.Net Fan Art forums, with artwork from Deviants here that do some amazing SW art.

Well, I lied. I made two banners.

Et voilà, here's the result:

Numbero Uno et Numbero Duo

I due time, you will see them on the forums, every now and then, since the banners there will be rotating every week or month. Here the banner submission thread where I posted them.

Now, here's to credit all the artists featured in the banners:



You guys kick ass!!!

EDIT:

Whoohoo, it's up and running!

[link]

Yeah, well, just to replace my old huge entry.

Be sure to check out the Art contest over at TFN: [link]