For a few years now I have been following some 3D artists who use Blender to render World of Warcraft scenes – and I have wanted to do exactly that. I love the idea of making a scene with all of my characters, or just creating little scenes for friends. Or just on a whim. The problem is it involves using a handful of programs that I know NOTHING about – the biggest one being Blender. I’ve been meaning to try to learn it for a long while, but I never made time. That’s the biggest downside to having so many interest and hobbies, finding / making time.
I am working out a schedule where I can dedicate two days (evenings) a week to this, and hopefully I’ll make a little progress. I’ve downloaded the programs required and started with the YouTube video above, and joined a discord owned by the same person. I know it won’t be a quick learn, but I feel like this is a natural progression from my digital art that I’ve been working on. OK maybe that’s a bit of a stretch, but at least I’m hoping it will be interesting.
There is a website called DataForAzeroth.com that I am addicted to. It takes statistics from your account and pits you against others on your server, ranking you. It’s silly and fun, and for people like me who absolutely love statistics, it is a neat way to find motivation and inspiration when it comes to finding ‘stuff’ to do. Especially at the end of an expansion, like we’re facing right now.
You can see I lead the ranks on Winterhoof for alts at level 60 (I have 21 of them, soon to be 22 I hope). I’m also pretty far ahead on pets, but I know there’s still a lot I haven’t done. What surprised me was the high score on recipes (for Winterhoof at least, we’re joined with Kilrogg, and they have far more). This motivated me to work on my blacksmith and collect some recipes that she was lacking. Now that crafting has their own ranks per expansion, it’s much more difficult to level, and much more expensive. Finding Outlands materials cost me around 50k. Next? Northrend. It takes a lot of materials to level through that one, so I’ll be a while.
I like having these little goals and blips of things to do. That’s what keeps me playing (psst, Blizzard, add player housing, that’ll keep me playing too) when we’re at the tail end of things to do. Of course I’m also working on making gold in between all of these things, but they sort of go hand in hand. Are you a statistic buff in your game of choice? Let me know in comments, and as always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!
I wasn’t really sure what to expect from Season 4, I rarely ever check out the PTR to test things out unless they’re gold making related, and we’ve been so focused on the auction house merge (9.2.7) that most of the changes were a pleasant surprise. The first thing I did was queue for LFR – they’re fated, so we did Castle Nathria. At the start, they were also under tuned, and VERY simple. We were clearing the LFR versions within 5 minutes of entering (this has since been fixed). My paladin (who was healing) managed to pick up a handful of 265 gear, and completed the requirements for vault. Then I took those pieces over to ZM, placed them in the giant machine, and turned them into set gear. I had no idea I could even do this.
Next it was time to take down the world boss, who apparently has a higher chance at dropping loot now – just not for my characters. I’ve completed it on almost all 12 of my alts and the loot has so far evaded me. On the plus side it was nice anima, something I can always use more of.
Blizzard also recently mentioned they’ll be changing how /follow works in the future and into Dragonflight. This is another step in preventing / slowing boosting. Right now, if two people use a weak aura one can send a /follow command and the second account will follow. I use something similar when I multibox. Blizzard will be disabling this feature so that you have to manually type follow or hit your macro or whatever other means that has a physical input from the follower rather than the person being followed. This is both good and bad. Bad because it does harm visually impaired gamers who use the follow API as it was intended, especially in raids. Good, because it does target boosters. The thing is, I think Blizzard is taking the easy way out, again. Instead of targeting boosters directly, they’ve found yet another ‘easier’ solution that makes it LOOK like they’re targeting the right people. You can read all about it in this thread, and why it’s an important accessibility issue.
I started streaming after a 3 year hiatus back in June, playing World of Warcraft and doing gold making. The problem is I have incredible anxiety and it’s easy to talk myself out of streaming when at the end of the day I’m exhausted and I just have nothing left to give an audience.
I want to stream. I enjoy it. I think it could help with my anxiety issues – but taking the plunge and sticking with a schedule is something that I just have such a difficult time with. I recently set up an AirPlay server on my PC so that I can stream my Procreate art to OBS and perhaps do some art streams in the future too. I keep meaning to get some sort of system set up to stream my spinning, or my sock knitting machine, but end up doubting myself and just end up doing nothing instead. It’s frustrating. I’m frustrated.
I had written out this enormous post about navigating depression and anxiety but deleted it because what is the point. People don’t like to hear about that stuff, and I don’t like to promote it. Blah blah blah words and stuff the end.
Three years ago I bought a kiwi2 spinning wheel from someone who was looking to get rid of theirs. I paid $100+ shipping, and it was probably one of my better fiber hobby purchases. The kiwi2 is a double treadle wheel, so you need two feet to peddle it. After some time, I was having physical issues with this part of it. Some days my feet were in so much pain I just couldn’t bring myself to use the wheel. I started looking into pricing out an e-spinner, and did a bunch of research into the different models available out there. I had a few requirements, but nothing unreasonable. I wanted my e-spinner to be quiet, have a battery, be able to handle lace to worsted weight yarn, and have an OK sized bobbin. Companies like Ashford (who make my kiwi wheel) also have e-spinners, but what I eventually settled on is the Starling, by Daedalus. They’re pretty expensive as far as e-spinners go, but having owned mine for a few weeks now I have to say, it is an absolutely incredible machine. I have nothing but good to say about it. Right now the waiting list is a year, but mine arrived in 6 months (I ordered it in December, and finally received it in July). Still worth it.
I have an entire bin filled with different fibers just waiting to be spun. I bought alpaca fleece (so.much.alpaca), and I have some merino/nylon, and just bits and bobs from subscription crates like Paradise Fibers. The act of spinning (to me at least) is incredibly therapeutic, and I really love knowing that I worked the yarn from fiber to something useable in a project. It takes practice. You have to draft the fiber out into the thickness you’re looking for, and then feed it into the wheel once you’ve applied spin to it. On the e-spinner, applying spin to a strand of fiber is incredibly easy because you manually set the control / speed. On my wheel, I’d have to peddle my feet at the same time as drafting and at the same time as applying that spin. Now I just have to pay attention to my hand movements. It really becomes like second nature, especially if you have nicely prepared fiber.
Lots of people ask if this is cheaper than buying yarn, and honestly – not really. BUT it does take time to spin the yarn and then knit with the yarn, so it’s almost like you’re getting two hobbies for the cost of one. You can also source out some lovely wool for a great price if you’re friends with some Sheppard’s. I prefer to buy natural coloured fleece, roving, and combed top. I do also have a drum carder so I can prepare the fiber myself.
The goal is to get good enough / consistent enough to be able to use my yarn on my circular sock knitting machine (that ancient hand crank machine I have from 1895 that I absolutely adore). It will only take fingering weight yarn, and I’m not quite there yet. I think with a bit more practice on my e-spinner that this will absolutely be an obtainable goal. Then the whole world better watch out, I’ll be cranking socks for everyone. It’s been a while since I wrote about the sock machine, so maybe that one will be next. I’d also love to start streaming as I crank socks, but I need to figure out some sort of camera set up for that one.
stargrace 
