Bubbawheat

(Just to help set the example)

On the second day of PuG-mas, my true love game to me:
Two faceplanted Blasters,
and A tank who didn't take [Taunt]

Each post, you add a day. After the 12th day, you pick a new CoX-related theme for the next 12 days. Copy/paste all the previous days for that theme in your post.

On the first day of PuG-mas, my true love gave to me:
A tank who didn't take [Taunt]

Don't worry, Monday will be back on track. Just wanted to shake things up a bit. Will try something different in another 7-8 weeks or so.

Left to right, top to bottom:

approaching portal / still approaching
looking back at her world / still looking back
going into the portal / the portal
close up on the portal / enter the new world, meet Cole

I hope it's ok that I took a few liberties with the lines. But here's what I did with North Star. Thanks a ton, I'm really happy with the way this turned out.

Final results. I spent more hours on this than I care to admit, but I'm extremely pleased with the results.

More edits, I feel kind of bad, but I couldn't really get a feel for the stars so I got rid of them all. Sorry, they look good in the sketch stage!

Day 3, a couple more hours for the bow, the glove/boot straps, and the belt. I think I'm happiest with the work from this day. I think it all turned out better than I was expecting it to. Also tried some minor highlights on the face, not sure if I like how that turned out though. BTW, all the images link to dA for the larger versions.



Also, here's Cerulean Archer, for reference.

Wow, I don't think mine will end up looking near that good, but hopefully you'll like that one too.

Day 2, didn't get as much done as I'd hoped, but there was a lot of line cleanup to do, and I'm slow and meticulous.

Thanks, I appreciate that, I am actually planning on trying shadows and highlights in this Cerulean Archer piece and had considered going back to that Burnt Matchstick piece to move it past flats. Hope mine turn out somewhere near as good as that.

Reviving this thread with my newest project thanks to Lady Cyrsei. Cerulean Archer this time.

Original:


Colored preview:


Colored day 1

For a change of pace this week, I'd like to have everyone that can form a PuG, run your favorite AE arc, and share your results here. List which arc you ran, how easy/hard it was to recruit, and how the teammates liked it in the end.

And try to make it as much of a true PuG as possible, avoid just bringing your friends and SG-mates, unless they typically avoid AE content. Go out and show people it's not just for farming!

Here's a preview:

Yes, if you use an escort to a location, I've had problems with them even betraying at all. And for allies, they only speak their rescue and betrayal dialog and nothing else.

Love North Star, adding some color/doing some cleanup to it. Is it ok to post here when I'm done?

Most of my characters are female, and I've also played every AT at least once. My male characters are 2 brutes and a controller. Actually, now that I think about it, I don't think I've made a female brute. Female and Brute don't really go together in my head.

For those saying that it is too hard to find good arcs, I added a link to one of the only decent quality list of good arcs sorted by level range done by PoliceWoman: Here. It will vary here and there based on people's tastes, but every one of the arcs listed is as good if not better than pre-Going Rogue in-game arcs.

Played on default difficulty - bosses off I believe - with a level 5 demon/thermal Mastermind, no deaths. Really enjoyed this arc all the way through. Twitter notes below.

#CoHMA Playing The Blue Devils # 468738 by @ Flame Kitten aka Coulomb 2 from this week's Arc Club arc.
#CoHMA Contact is Susan Davies from ELITE, appropriate since this is a level 1-5 arc.
#CoHMA M1 "Initiation": Susan informs me of a minor gang along the lines of the Hellions and the Skulls trying to edge out some territory.
#CoHMA M1: The gang's called The Blue Devils, and they're hitting a jewelry store. Simple enough.
#CoHMA M1: Popup refers to the criminals as "gangers" who the heck uses the word "gangers" in a sentence? Is that local slang anywhere?
#CoHMA M1: The "blue" in The Blue Devils refers to their hair. And fought an initiate pre-dyejob who has a map to one of their hangouts.
#CoHMA M1: Looks like the shop owner was killed for some "street cred" by one of the initiates.
#CoHMA M1: I noticed the Choppers also didn't have blue hair, I wonder if that's significant, an oversight, or just for no reason.

#CoHMA M2 "Crime Stinks": Off to the water treatment plant they're using as a base of operations.
#CoHMA M2: This also has a morality subplot using my storytelling pet peeve: the mediport blocker. So I can injure and/or kill them.
#CoHMA M2: By the way, excellent map choices so far. Interesting, yet not widely used in the MA.
#CoHMA M2: Also nice to have unmarked, unnamed minion boss details for some added dialog and animations.
#CoHMA M2: Didn't go Vigilante for this mission, took out the bosses - they're planning a raid on Crey weapons... right now, I think.

#CoHMA M3 "New Toys": They managed to get the weapons, and I'm to check the receiving dock for more info.
#CoHMA M3: Though minor logic confusion - if they're strong enough to take the Crey weapons already, why do they even need them?
#CoHMA M3: Rescued a scientist who warned me that they've got a demon summoner with them. What luck, I can do that too.
#CoHMA M3: There's also several Blue Devils using the tech they nabbed. Awful lot of unique costumes in this arc. Which is a good thing.
#CoHMA M3: Interesting, I see an Assault bot ahead.

#CoHMA M4 "Takedown!": I get the backstory of Hibold and Azul, the leaders of the Blue Devils.
#CoHMA M4: And I take down Hibold. I remember that I am actually playing a villain and do the vigilante objectives which are interesting.

#CoHMA M5 "Give the Devil His Due": And I'm off to the graveyard to take out Azul, which my contact went Vigilante for me to get the info.
#CoHMA M5: I've gone inside a mausoleum (awesome map I had never previously seen) to take down the leader...
#CoHMA ... and his pocket demon. And from the sounds of it, I can do the (Vigilante) objectives to keep that demon for myself afterwards.
#CoHMA M5: Defeated Santanica and the demon he summoned. My pocket demon was better, though smaller, than his.
#CoHMA M5: Unfortunately, this arc feels like it suffers from objective overload, partly due to half of them presented as choices/optional.
#CoHMA M5: I really like how this works. I have the option to hide the demon's source of power, or destroy it on the altar.

For those of you that do find and play actual story arcs in the AE, thank you. But for the many that either don't, or have stopped. What is the biggest reason that keeps you away from the AE building? Can't find the good arc from all the farms and junk? No chances for purples/Incarnate shards outside of Dev Choice arcs? Not really aware of AE at all?

And a second question, what's something that *would* bring you into the AE building to try out an arc?

[tl;dr mini-rant below, feel free to ignore]
The MA/AE community feels like a dying breed. Authors find it hard to get plays on new arcs. Five star arcs get downrated to four stars where they pretty much never get played again. It feels like the devs have abandoned it, handing out only 2-3 Dev Choice awards in a year, Hall of Fame is practically impossible to reach, the search engine for finding an arc is terrible, and the ratings system and sorting system just plain doesn't work the way its intended.

And the only time the AE gets any real attention is for the exploits. I'm sure everyone knows the term "monkey farm", but how many people know the term "Teen Phalanx Forever"? Even doing something to highlight the best arcs of the year has largely been ignored, when the year before it was a rousing success. Even the third Aeon Challenge, the last dev-supported event only created a single new Dev Choice arc, when the last two challenges created three. And those challenges have been the *only* source for new Dev Choice arcs recently. Where's the incentive?

Edit: Those who want to find good arcs to play, sorted by level range and theme: Go Here