H.C.Staff

Twitter user @sfried0, from Florida, gave me my first commission since 2009. I offered him the same rate of $2/hour that I charged back in the day. His request was to draw his original character, the Aria-esque heroine Mayumi, in an art gallery demonstrating her Relm/Harold-like ability to bring her pictures to life. I committed 25 hours to not only draw the picture, but to describe my process.

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A brief history of my NIS America art contest submissions.

NIS America Winter Art Contest (2006)
Game: “Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories”
Submission: “Wizards of Winter”

Result: Consolation Prize
Prize: Prinny and Ledgem stuffed toys.

Embarrassment: Low. Stuffed toys are socially acceptable.

Ar tonelico 2 Art Contest (2009)
Game: “Ar tonelico 2: Melody of Metafalica”
Submission: “Melody of Metafalica”

Result: Winner
Prize: Jacqli dakimakura.

Embarrassment: High. But at least it wasn’t Cocona.

Firefly Diary Art Contest (2014)
Game: “Hotaru no Nikki (The Firefly Diary)”
Submission: “Search for Tomorrow”

Full image
Result: Who knows?
Prize: Hopefully, a limited edition version of the game with my entry printed on a canvas.
Embarrassment: None (whether I win or lose).

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So the Theros expansion block of Magic the Gathering was about Heliod, the sun god, recruiting the planeswalker Elspeth Tirel to be his champion. Xenagos, a planeswalker who had found a way to achieve godhood, was sowing chaos across the universe as a new god of destruction. Heliod’s godly power and Elspeth’s planeswalker power were enough to defeat the planeswalker god, and Theros was saved.

And then Heliod killed Elspeth. The official statement was that he was afraid that Elspeth might want to become a god too. Heliod is such a jackass, it shouldn’t surprise you to learn that the official statement is a total lie. Heliod’s true reason is much more detestable.

It’s been said that God hates Cleveland.

That’s totally not true. Any city with Bill Watterson and Mike Polk cannot be hated by the Judeo-Christian God, or any other gods.

Now as for Cleveland sports…

well, some gods hate Cleveland sports.

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Today would be the perfect day for Diamond Faerie and her mother Frost Titan to debut on Lotus Cobra is Evil. But unfortunately, I was unable to come up with a satisfactory joke.

Instead, today we commemorate the demise of the Ship creature type, which now exists only in the joke set Unhinged.

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When Jace was younger, he would sometimes dress in a non-traditional manner for fun. But now that he’s the Living Guildpact, a government official tasked with keeping the peace between the diverse guilds of Ravnica, he’s a lot more concerned about his image…

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Color Pie is the term used to describe the limitations of the five colors of magic, both for game balance and flavor reasons. If every aspect of magic is baked into a pie, each color gets only a slice of that pie.

A color can’t do everything well. For example, Green, the color of plants, can easily erode an unnatural artifact, but has problems killing creatures outside of head-to-head combat. On the other side, Black, the color of death, can effortlessly snuff out the life force of most living things, but struggles to deal with artifacts.

A balance has to be struck between using more colors to cover up their individual limitations, and using less colors to make it more likely to have the right lands for your spells.

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