Happy New Year!

It has been brought to my attention that perhaps I have taken this whole Landroval socialite thing a bit too far.  My critics might have a point.  I haven't swung a sword in anger in... months?   I am a bit better at dancing though so I have not been totally unproductive.  I suppose that only reinforces my critics' point however.

My New Year's resolution is to balance my dancing lessons with more orc smooshings.  I will begin right after the Julfest is over.  I needs my snowballs ;-)

I have strived to make myself a bit more fashionable since I have been on Landroval.  Not too much.  I am no spring dandy but I did pick up a few items that help me look sophisticated and refined while cleaning tables, rousing snow beasts and making snowmen in Frostbluff.

I brought my sister along this year.  She doesn't get out much and instead prefers keeping up with my house. In case you haven't seen her yet (and you wouldn't unless you visited my home or ran into her last week in Frostbluff) here is a picture of my sister Cynnamin.

If you try to flirt with her you will have me to answer to.  Just keep that in mind.

Cynnamin does a pretty good job of keeping house.  This year she used some hobbit Jule wall decorations and I really like them.  The season is about over but I am not sure I want to take them down just yet.  Here is a picture of my greeting hall.

 ... and my office.

Now that I have become a famous Landroval actor I was invited to help out with the theatre in Frostbluff.  In just a few days I managed to play every role several times earning myself heaps of new titles.  I stacked them on my title heap back home.

Speaking of acting.  I was called in at the last minute to star in a BBB moving picture.  My role was to have my head cut off so I am quite interested in seeing what else happens in this picture.  No doubt ladies will weep everywhere when that picture is released.

While attending the festivites in Frostbluff I ran into my accolyte Brorlion Badaxe and his companion Framrolf.  They were busy bashing each other with snowballs so I didn't hang around long.  My snowball throwing is legendary and I thought it better to let the boys play alone.

To wrap up the year I created a short picture montage of my life this past year.  All in all it was a good year.

Next year, more orc smooshing and less dance lessons.  Too bad as the lovely Bethyn Swan was just teaching me some new instruments  and I was thinking of starting my own band.  Well, maybe I can just busk a little here and there.  No harm in that.  I can still make my presence felt in Rohan while doing a little jig and strumming a theorbo.  Or squeezing sweet sounds out of a bagpipe - even better!

Happy New Year all and I hope this year is as good to you as this last one was too me.  See you in Rohan, (or maybe at the next concert outside the Pony)

-Andu

Happy Julfest!

Just wanted to get a quick Happy Julfest in to all my adoring fans before the holiday festivites start.

I have been busy celebrating and running errands in Frostbluff and of course collecting mountains of those snowballs Andu is so famous for.  Nothing is quite so satisfying as putting a wet slushy snowball right in someone's kisser when they don't suspect it.

When I heard about the renovations to Bree I suggested to my short accolyte Brorlion Badaxe, who was visiting Bree on a training mission, that he should take some pictures of Bree before it changes so that we can all remember it year later.  I took his rather sloppy collection of pictures and mixed them up with some pictures taken after the renovations for the comparisons.

I want to once again wish everyone a happy holiday season of orc smooshing, minecracking, asteroid busting or anything else that makes them happy. 

Catch you all on the flip side of the New Year!

God Jul og Godt Nytt Aar!

Artistic Distractions

Its hard to get anything done when I have so many creative thoughts running through my head. 

I owe this bit of inspiration to Moragaeth Elendir.  She was telling me about a favorite song of hers and ten minutes later I was creating the raw footage that would become this moving picture.  I am not usually drawn to create music videos but this one just wouldn't let go.

 Of course this little bit prevented me from working on several other projects I have in development as well as kept me far away from Rohan.  Oh well, plenty of time I guess.

I am very exited today because one of my favorite artists will be in concert today- Achazia.  Sadly she resides on Laurelin so I won't be attending personally but I have a distant cousin that has promised me to tell me everything about it and draw lots of pictures as well.

I continue to train my young protege, Brorlion Badaxe, in the art of becoming a Champion.  I sent him on a little tour of Bree yesterday to sketch what he saw.  Very soon, the town will be getting a major upgrade and I know someday I will be happy to look back and remember when Bree was a sleepy little backwater town.

My siren of inspiration calls and I have to follow.  Someday I might get back to orc smooshing.  Until then, smoosh all you can in my stead.

As the short people say, Baruk Khazad!

Rohan Souvenirs

The most important thing that has happened to me in weeks and I forgot to mention it in my post yesterday. 

Seems every little village in Rohan wants to give away a banner if you help them in the least little bit. On the other hand, some banners are VERY hard to come by.

This one for example.

 

 

I can't begin to tell you what I had to do to get one of these.  You wouldn't believe me if I did.  Let's just say I used all my Awesome Champ persuassion both fair and foul and did a few deeds that would probably get me locked up in jail in some countries.

Not dead, Busy.

No my loyal fans, I am not dead; my corpse does not fertilize the flowers of Rohan.  I have found myself too busy to contribute much to the Rohan campaign lately though.

Recently a  young dwarf with ambitions of being a great champion came to seek me out in Bree.  He had run out of things to do in Ered Luin and came to Bree to see a famous champion.  Once that introduction was made he came to see me, naturally, to seek out my pearls of Champ wisdom.  Brorlion Badaxe is  young and brash and shows great promise. Perhaps someday he will be as famous as me and have his own blog.  Here he is packed and ready to leave his home in Thorins Hall with his good friend Framrolf.  Brorlion is the dwarf with the fancy hat not the guy with the funny haircut.

Recently I was also commisioned to create a  moving picture for the Bounders of the Shire.  I decided to draw a cartoon human announcer and overlay her image onto a familiar scene in Hobbiton.  Yes, I really am that creative.  A nasty little hobbit was griefing me but I think overall the moving picture came out okay.  It is the Bounders after all.  Not a real force to be reckoned with.

My recent illness seems to be passing slowly allowing me to press ahead with some other moving picture projects.  I have no plans to release anything soon but I am making good progress on an admitted, avant garde, production.


And that is about it. See you on the plains of Rohan ;-)

Rohan slowdown

To be honest, the shine on the Rohan campaign is starting to lose a bit of its luster.  Overall I am still happy with the project but I find myself participating less than usual this week. 

Mostly this is because of the strange illness that so many people in Middle Earth seem to be experiencing.  I myself am not seeing things as clearly or as far away as I would like and I have found myself blacking out occasionally and feeling an irrisistable urge to moonwalk.  My friend, the Tanking LM, aka, Mora Death gets these strange urgings many times a day; sometimes several times an hour.  It is funny the first time or two but after a few weeks it is starting to get old.

Many of my friends are experiencing similar blackouts and worse.  Several have been experiencing severe visual abnormalities and the feeling of 'rubber banding' back and forth.  If they sit still everything is okay but as soon as they move it all goes bad.  Heaven forbid they decide to tackle a warband. Then it becomes a series of blackouts and rubber banding that makes the whole Rohan campaign a major drag.

My symptons are not so bad as many of my friends but they are slowly impacting my enthusiasm for the campaign.  I have felt like taking a break for a bit and letting the LOTRO Gods work it all out.  I am sure it will resolve itself at some point but at THIS point the fun factor is slowly slipping.

Obviously working on my own moving sketches under these conditions is out of the question and that project is currently stalled.

At times like these I am often tempted to visit an alternate reality sometimes referred to as the EVE universe.  Middle Earth is my true home but on occasion the temptation to release my inner capitalist gets the best of me and I want to go out and mine asteroids.

The EVE universe is very very different from Middle Earth and I think that is what draws me.  EVE is probably the coldest and most ruthless place I know but after learning my boundaries the hard way I find I can comfortably craft to my heart's content.  Building stuff in EVE is awesome as virtually everything a person can touch or operate is in fact created by people just like myself.  It is a huge and complex world of crafting and I like that.

I have not totally abandoned Middle Earth this week.  I have continued to follow the path set forth by the Lady Galadriel and I have hunted down many warbands.  Last night I took out some dude named Bugud with a small group.  It was actually the first real challenge I have had in a few weeks which was a nice change.  During the fight one of my friends blacked out and started moonwalking.  While mocking him, a second companion started doing the same thing.  I travelled to EVE before the same could happen to me...

Hang in there my friends and if any of you get that strange urge to crush space rocks into valuable commondities I can hook you up.

Laters Taters.

It's Here!!

The new BBB video starring moi is here.  Well not exactly starring moi but moi played a crucial role.  Well, not exactly crucial but there were moments where moi's inputs were highly valued.  Well not exactly highly valued but important.  I am not sure if 'important' is the right word but we will leave it at that.

Maybe now BBB will leave me alone and I can get back to work on my own video projects.

So, I was on a bit of a vacation this week.  I figured with the release of the new video I needed to lay low as to avoid the crush of my adoring fans.  Every time something like this is released I get mobbed for interviews, autographs, etc. and I really had other things I needed to attend to.  When I got back I decided to visit The Lady Galadriel.  For some reason she was walking a bit crooked and seemed a  little tired but a Champ never asks about such things and she had business that needed my skills so I kept the conversation to the business at hand.

First order of business was to take a tatooed lady on a tour of Galadriel's city and then a boat tour down the Anduin.  The boat tour turned into a bit of a circus with the tatooed lady, an elf, a guy from Rohan, myself, and a friend of mine known to some as The Tanking Lore Master.  Others know her as Mora's Dead for her frequent trips to the stone circles.  More properly she is referred to as Moragaeth Elandir.  We wound up disembarking near the Argonoth. 

I think our Rohan horses we aquired last week were glad to be off the boats.

We found some evidence of another odd group of travelers having passed through recently.  Judging by a mess of blood and guts we found I would say that group is a bit smaller than it started out as.  If I had been there their story would have been different but alas our travels never intersected and I can only be responsible for so much. That group split up and I suspect they will be fine now.

What with my recent fame and vacation and running errands for the Lady Galadriel I haven't had much time for exploring the rest of Rohan. 

I have noticed a lot of odd things in Rohan.  For instance, this arrow seemed unwilling to lay on the ground like a proper arrow should after flight.

Ah well. I am sure things will return to something more normal soon-ish.

And with that I think it is time for me to go smoosh some orcs.

Keep the dirty side down.

-Andu

P.S.

I just thought I would pass along this link to the Stat Checker .  Here you can compare your or someone you know's stats with other people on the server.  It is still in development but the results are already proving very interesting.