Category Archives: art

Also known as “Thalassian Ear-Warmers”

althalor scarf 3It’s a bit nippy at the garrison in Frostfire Ridge.  How’s a young blood elf supposed to keep his ears warm?  Althalor has hit upon the answer, and the answer, my friends, is socks.

Seriously though, has anyone ever thought about the logistical problems caused by elf ears?  Stuffing them in a helmet has got to be awfully uncomfortable, but otherwise they are at the mercy of both the elements and the enemy.

Clearly socks are the answer.  Ratchets, my up’n’coming goblin hunter, is already planning to bring a whole crate of them to Silvermoon and market them as Thalassian Ear-Warmers.  Stay tuned.

Sometimes I Draw Dumb Pictures

althalor smugfaceAlthalor only wishes that he could be this smugface in real life.  In reality he’d rather not deal with most people.  All he really wanted was to stay home and hide with lynx cubs and dragonhawk hatchlings.  Unfortunately extenuating circumstances made that prospect rather unlikely.  Thanks Arthas.

Actually probably what happened is that he was giving his squirrel Nuts an “I told you so” look during a pet battle, at which point Nuts turned around and lobbed an acorn at his head.  (This has actually happened in game.)

Anyways, yes.  A smugface.  Heh.

The Fabled Owl-Stork Dropped These Off

In celebration of the new Moonkin Hatchling pet I have created these two avatars, free for all to use!

It is surprisingly difficult to take something that is already insanely cute and make it even cuter, but these will have to do!

You are free to use these on Twitter, Gravatar, forums, LiveJournal or wherever else. I would appreciate a comment linking to me if you LJ these, but otherwise just credit me if you are asked and it will all be good!

You can also modify these in any way you wish, so feel free to personalize.

Happy Tuesday/Merry (Early) Christmas! <3

World of WarCute Avatars: Now on Sale!

Interested in having your very own customized World of WarCute avatar? (aka, a cute-ification of your character? Or pretty much anything else, for that matter?)

You know, somethin’ like this:

Well, here’s the deal. For those not in the know, I recently moved out of state due to a long and convoluted series of events that was mostly out of my hands. I had to (reluctantly) give up my job, and I have had no luck finding a new one thus far.

Aaaaand I’m super broke.

SO!

I am now offering World of WarCute avatars for $6 USD a piece, which is cheaper than their previous price of $10. You may ask why I’m lowering the price– well, I’m hoping that potentially being able to lure in more customers this way (or get orders for multiple avatars) will ultimately be more profitable. Who knows though, I’m not a finance major. (Actually I majored in filmmaking. Hence why I’m broke. Woo!)

If (and notice the italics) you are feeling kind then you are welcome to toss in a tip with your $6 order. But I’m not gonna be like those Trade Chat people who say “tips optional” and then demand a tip. I promise.

HOW TO ORDER!:

Short answer: you’ll e-mail PikestaffArt [at] gmail with screenshots and instructions on how your want your character to appear, background, any pets you want included, etc. Then when I finish your avatar, I inform you, you toss me the money via PayPal, and the avatar is yours!

Long answer: Detailed instructions are located on this page— definitely worth a read through!

To All: Thank you as always for being readers here. It never ceases to amaze me that for some reason people like to listen to me ramble about crap. It further amazes me that I still had readers after hiatus’ing rather abruptly a while back. Thank you all for your continued support! <3

Top Five Characters I Should Have Kept Playing, But Didn’t

Hello! I’m all settled into my new place, albeit jobless (though if worse comes to worse there’s always K-Mart… u_u ) so I’m back to pester you all! Exciting, no?

Let’s get down to business. 4.0 is coming out today. Don’t come to me for any guides or anything, at least for a bit. I’m no good at explaining things if I haven’t actually sat down and done said things (I’m a “learning by doing” person, 100%), and since I never got into the Beta and I’m not really a PTR kinda girl I have no idea how the new gameplay is going to be. Nor am I overly concerned. I’ll figure it out as it comes. *shrug*

So instead, have a list of awesome characters I started but then abandoned.

Tanfarr the Level 27 Draenei Paladin
I had a great RP for Tanfarr. The idea was that he was a very devout and just Paladin who was horrible at speaking Common. Thus, everything he attempted to say would come out very very wrong. (“The hand of the light touches you in a very special way!”) The joke is that poor Tanfarr would never dream of saying this stuff in his native tongue but has no idea how racy it all is.

So I was really excited about this character and paladin’ing was actually pretty fun for a while. Then I just, I dunno, got bored. I guess I got tired about only having like two attacks. It’s been about a year and a half since I logged into him, I think (not counting the time I stripped him of his BoAs to send them to other characters). Sorry ol’ buddy. I keep him around just in case.

Skybinder: aka Goggles Bear: Level 29 Feral Druid
Hey remember when I quit WoW? Yeah, I was actually gone for a good few months. Then I decided to come back, but for a while, I still didn’t want anything to do with my 80s or endgame and I didn’t want to be tempted by them, either. So I activated a second account and spent a really fun month and a half playing from scratch as a feral druid engineer. I had no BoA items and no help from any level 80s and it was honestly a really good time. I successfully tanked a couple instances (my first attempt at doing so) but then a bad SFK run turned me off of it for a while and I opted to kitty my way through dozens of Arathi Basins instead. Good times. Really good times.

So what happened? Well, long story short I finally decided to reactivate my original account. Then I wanted to save money by not having two accounts running at once, so Skybinder has been stuck on an inactive account since then.

Goggles Bear lives on, though; recently rerolled as a tauren druid who I’m excited about. Engineer, of course.

I drew it :3

Any Death Knight I’ve Ever Rolled
I dunno about you guys but I really do think the DK starter quests are a tour de force. It’s always an experience when I go through them, and I always come out of them really excited about my Death Knight. The first time I did it I remember I’d see other DKs running around afterward and feel an odd kinship with them… they know what I’ve been through. Props to Blizzard for making an emotional connection like that.

Of course then you’re kicked out into Hellfire Peninsula (a zone that I hate) with no idea how to play your class.

No Death Knight I’ve ever played has gotten beyond level 58. I try. And I fail. I always get really close to 59, but it just never happens.

RIP, Pike’s Death Knights.

Any Mage I’ve Ever Rolled
I have this really bad habit of rolling mages, getting them up to the mid-10s or early-20s, and then getting distracted.

I don’t know what it is. I like mages. I just… I dunno.

The highest level mage I have is… huh, can’t check at the moment. I wanna say level 27. I turned her into one of my bank alts some time during Burning Crusade. Oh well.

McDuff, the Level 13/14(?) Undead Mage
He falls into the above “Any Mage I’ve Ever Rolled” category as well, but I wanna give him his own section. I had a really fun backstory for this guy. Geeky sciency farmkid who goes to Lordaeron to study geeky sciencey things and gets undead-ified by the Scourge. Bad timing and all that. Of course, that doesn’t faze our hero, who just wants to blow things up.

I had a lot of fun thinking about this backstory and playing this character but I guess he was never just very high on my priorities list. Too bad, because last year I spent days farming Brewfest tokens for him so he could have a purple hat. Hey, you gotta have a geeky hat for a geeky character. True facts.

I have tons of others I could ramble about but I’d rather not crit you with the text. What are some characters that you were excited about that you wound up abandoning?

Ten Things I Have Learned Since Returning to WoW

1.) People (especially healers/tanks) who queue for something just long enough to a.) ding or b.) get one more badge, and then drop group, are not earning any Pike Respect Points

2.) Nor are people who go “Pack plz Pack plz Pack plz Pack plz” when I need to Viper. EVERYONE OVERGEARS HALLS OF REFLECTION NOW, YOU WILL SURVIVE WITHOUT ASPECT OF THE PACK, PLEASE RELAX.

3.) HOLY HONOR, BATMAN WINTERGRASP

4.) Feral druid PvP taught me how to mouse-turn. It only took, what, three years to beat the keyboard turning out of me?

5.) Nothing against Sparkle Ponies or those who have them, honestly, but every time I see one I remember that I’m broke IRL. >_< 6.) Since when were moonkins tearing up Recount? What sort of madhouse world have I returned to? ( <3 ) 7.) Attumen still hates me 8.) I miss the Mechanar 9.) Warlock-kiting the slimes in Maraudon is surprisingly fun 10.) ...melee is surprisingly fun, also. Especially when you are a goggles-wearing bear! >:3

P.S. I’ve thought about it, and I’m back, suckas. Can’t guarantee I’ll be writing about hunter stuff. Oh well. I miss the community <3

221B Westfall Street

“Ah, are these the villain’s tracks?”

“Indeed they are, Mr. Holmes.”

“Hoofprints? This rules out most races except draenei and tauren, but it’s most unlikely that a tauren would travel this far. Besides, here and here we see traces of moth dust found only in Azuremyst Isle. Now we can further deduce from his tracks that this villain moved around a lot, although it wasn’t to back up, rather, it was to get closer. This indicates that he is a melee class–”

“Or an uninformed hunter?”

“Unlikely, Watson. I see no animal prints or feathers.”

“A… fantastically uninformed hunter?”

“Very doubtful. As you can see, the surrounding ground is charred by holy fire…”

“A paladin?”

“Quite.”

“Brilliant, Murloc Holmes!”

“Elementary.”

WoW-Related Things I Have Drawn Lately

Stylish Water Elemental

Moonkin in a Lab Coat Doing Alchemy

Most of the comments I have received for the moonkin involve the fact that he is not fat. To which I say, he’s one o’ them super slim geeky types! /nod (Personally I think his left hand bugs me more than anything but hey, I sketched it out in five minutes, so I didn’t have time to go back and fix things! =P )