Hey everyone! I haven't seen very many topics like this on the GoF so I figured I'd give it a shot for those who might be interested. I generally prefer to shoot landscape and wildlife shots, with the occasional astrophotography when given the opportunity (for those who don't know about the pictures I've shared from my trip last year, you can find them here) Let me know if this is something that you guys would want to see more of!

I'm gonna start off with posting some pictures of my visit to the Ice Castle setup in a park in my city.
Funny enough, the exit was much nicer looking then the entrance, so I'll just use that one to start with.


Once inside the main entrance it opened up with a few branching paths to explore. This path had a small water fountain that led around to an ice slide (surprisingly enough I picked up quite a bit of speed on it)


I next went into some ice caves that had a really cool look with the light peeking through all the icicles.



The other standout part for me was some of the ice sculptures that were set up.

Happy starday LeventeII! Hope you have an amazing day!

So for those who have been participating in the countdown topic might have noticed or were a part in an idea that Sneak came up with where we each take turns continuing the story with around 10 words or so. As of late the rate of posting towards the story has decreased a fair bit as well, which resulted in previous posts getting buried and hard to track, especially if a new person wanted to jump in. Ducky has mentioned creating a new topic for this story a couple of times so Leventell and I both agreed that it's time for the move.

Thankfully I had the idea to post the whole story if it ever finished so I've been keeping track of everything so moving it wasn't a problem. I was unsure whether to keep it in the party section or into the fanfiction section but since it's still more or less involves short posts I decided on leaving it here. Once it's done I can always post it in the fanfiction section.

Now for the story itself:
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Littlefoot's eyes suddenly opened. He heard a scream that sounded like someone near him had seen something highly surprising. The longneck, though still half asleep, quickly scrambled to his feet and saw young female flyer, standing four little-foots away and attentively looking at him. For a brief moment, Littlefoot and this mysterious flyer stood motionless then the flyer finally carefully asked:

"Are you by any means friends with Petrie? I'd like to get his hand print. So, if you are... Can you please ?"

"At this hour?" Littlefoot said, confused by the flyers odd request. "And since when did Petrie become famous so someone asks for his hand prints?" Littlefoot thought.

“Yes, the sooner the better" the flyer responded, interrupting Littlefoot's puzzled thoughts quickly. The longneck wanted to be helpful to everyone but his instincts cautioned otherwise. What if this flyer was some kind of spy of some vile adult flier or even sharptooth who wants to...

"What am I even thinking about??? I definitelly didn't sleep well..." Littlefoot thought. He decided to push out those thoughts and agree to help. "Alright just let me quickly have my morning drink, and we will go to Petrie's nest” the longneck said as he turned towards the direction of the cliff on which Petrie's nest lied.

   The boy deeply wondered what the flyer's true intentions were. Maybe if he talked to her more yes, maybe then he would understand her a little better!

I guess I should start off simple, the longneck thought with some hesitation as he slowly moved to take his morning drink from a nearby pond. "Why are you so interested in Petrie's hand print?" Littlefoot said as he raised his head back up from the water to see the female flyer looking at him impatiently.
 
She answered to the longneck "I can tell you that later. Let's get going already!"

This strange girl doesn't get any chance to seek out anything if she doesn't tell why Petrie interests her! He then asked with a sharp voice. "You're not going to meet with Petrie until I know the truth!"
Littlefoot was surprised by such his own strong harsh speech, but he couldn't help but feel like there was something strange within the flyer.

The girl, shocked by the sudden outburst, stared blankly at Littlefoot and answered in a confused, even hurt voice. "If you won't help then I'll just find him on my own!" and before Littlefoot could spoke his word, she quickly lifted in the air and flied beyond the wall of trees towards the Roaring Falls, which oddly wasn't anywhere near Petrie's nest.

Littlefoot stunned a bit, still looking at the direction where mysterious morning guest disappeared. And suddenly guilt started to swell up as Littlefoot's thoughts caught up with the situation.

"I I hurted her... Well done, smart longneck!" he thought. "I should try to make things alright again! I'll go find her!" He  moved towards the Roaring Falls with his eyes fixated on her last position.



   The young female flyer landed on a small hill near the cliffside to take a quick rest. Despite the recent argument, she kind of understood Littlefoot's sentiment. But even then, she couldn't help being upset at the longneck's prying. She knew her request might have been odd but the longneck's response was so unexpected to be heard from that boy... She was told that Littlefoot is very easy to approach and always willing to help. Was there something wrong with how she approached him? Now she was back to hills near Meeting Place, but with nothing in her beak and hands she had to wonder on how to proceed. Would she risk finding Petrie on her own?


 She scanned the horizon trying to see something interesting for her. Bright circle was dawning above the valley which meant Petrie would more than likely be awake by now but the chance of finding him on her own was still very slim. Only information she has is that his family nest was gone since the days of Rising Water and she had no real idea where to look for its new location. The flyer sighed as she took to the skies once again. She would find him by herself, since she loved to fly the skies and look at residents from distant above, but there was a chance that the nest could be in some cave or hidden very well, and she has a very little time because of agreement between her and others. Still, she decided that it was better to at least look around instead of standing around and getting nothing done. The girl quickly took off and headed towards the location of Petrie's old nest. Maybe she could ask someone who lives there for information. This is only way she can see now.



   By the time Littlefoot reached the Thundering Falls the Bright Circle had already rose above the valley walls, casting its rays upon the green, bright meadows. However, Littlefoot was too focused on finding the strange flyer to notice the unusual absence of his friends. He's seen none of them all morning.

She could be anywhere at this point. Maybe I should go check Petrie myself. There is a chance that he might know what's going on. the longneck thought as he turned to look at the flyer's nest's direction. He'd have to find a way to explain all this. He didn't even get her name or whether she'd even lived in the Valley until now. The whole situation was so strange that Littlefoot started to worry as he approached the winding path up to Petrie's nest. No matter how he looked at the issue, the girl's behavior seemed at odds with her simple request. Littlefoot quickened his pace to get an answer to the whole thing as fast as possible. In the case the odd flyer hadn't found Petrie by herself, the boy at least deserved to be able to speak with Petrie.

Maybe he knows who she is. And with those thoughts, Littlefoot took the last few remaining steps to Petrie's nest and prepared for the potentially awkward meeting with his old friend.



   Petrie's wing covered the bright light as he refused to wake up. The morning had come far too early for the young flyer and it seemed to become more strenuous than he expected. He wrapped his other arm around his eyes in an attempt to shut out his thoughts of what was about to happen next. Today was supposed to be the day he and his siblings start practicing for the Great Day of the Flyers again. Even though everyone sang 'Flip, Flap and Fly' during Petrie's previous flying test, he still failed it. And the worst part of having to go through that ordeal again was the fact that he still wasn't flying in formation properly. The flyer rolled over, frustrated by his inability to escape his thoughts which had already lingered within the back of his mind for weeks. Petrie's concentration was soon broken however by the sound of steps. He listened more carefully.

"Petrie! Petrie!"

To the flyer's surprise, the voice didn't sound familiar in the least. He quickly swooped down to investigate who was calling out to him. A tall but slightly hunched flyer stood near the top of the trail, seemingly waiting for Petrie to come investigate why he is here. Petrie abruptly halted at the sight of this figure and fearful did not know how he should react. He paused for a moment to try and decide what, if anything, he should say to the stranger.

"Umm...who you?" the young flyer finally managed to squeak out.

" Who I am? Don't you remember that!? " the tall flyer spoke with a small grin on his face...

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I believe I was the last person to post to the story so it's someone else's turn.

We can't skip your first starday on the GoF now can we? Even if it's a little late.

Happy belated starday Littlefoot505!

Edit: we have locked this topic out of respect for Shane. Please read this topic for more information.

I'm not sure how often I'll be posting in this topic but I figured I'll make it now since my next drawing I'm working on is not LBT related.

I'll start with one some of you may have seen already.



It's a Battlecruiser from Starcraft that I first revealed on August 8th for Sovereign's birthday.

I wanted to see how I would fair drawing a really complex object with a lot of detail. There are a few points in which I left an area blank compared to the concept art that I was basing this off of (like the narrow part leading up to the front) as well as a few artistic liberties.

If you look closely at the picture there are some geometrical errors but the amount that's going on in the picture helps distract from them, at least in my opinion.

It was really fun to work on with it being so different from any LBT art that I've done.

Now that I've started to draw pictures that aren't card related, I figured that I should make a separate topic. The first one is for the Fanart Prompt Challenge: Draw a background character.



It was a really close call between the spinosaurus and the one dinosaur in LBT14 that gets the treestar crown (I love it's confused expression). I really like the design of the spinosaurus in LBT12 over the more traditional sharpteeth in the series so I ultimately went with this choice. Drawing the head took the longest amount of time as it kept looking wrong. Now that I have the drawing on my computer and able to compare it to the original picture, the head is still a little skinny. I tried to work on my shading as well. Overall I am pleased with how it turned out.

Feel free to share any feedback with this drawing or any others in the future.

For all those who are still interested in Music/Rythym games, Rock Band 3 is finally coming (around october-ish i think). Quite a few changes, first off:

-New Instrument Keyboard: Surprised? I certainly was. The keyboard will span 2 octaves (which will be used for another part of the game). Also those who already have a keyboard can buy a adapter that plugs into the MIDI out so you can play your real keyboard for the game.

-Harmonies added: Not so much of a surprise seeing how RB: Beatles and RB: Green Day had them. Including keyboard that brings the total player count up to 7.

-Filter System for choosing songs, this includes song length, genre, what decade it was from. Also includes a rating system where you can rate you song after you play them. Songs rated low will appear less frequently when choosing random (or theres a random setlist). Songs rated high will of coarse be more frequent. Setlists you create will now be able to be saved so you don't have to keep making it.

-And the big one, Pro Mode. Pro mode jacks up the difficulty by bringing you closer to playing the real instrument. Pro mode can be played on all 4 difficulty levels.

Keyboard: Heres where the 2 octaves come into play, instead of playing just 5 different keys (green, red, yellow, blue, and orange), you now have a full 2 octaves to play, and the notes coming down on the track are the actual real notes in the song.

Drums: There are now cymbal notes for yellow, blue, and green. These notes will have to be hit with the cymbal, or cymbals on an electric drum kit.

Guitar/Bass: This is where things get crazy, theres 2 options of controllers here, one is a controller with 6 strings where you strum, and 17 buttons on the fret board per string (same amount of frets on a real guitar, totaling 102 buttons). The 2nd option is a real guitar made by fender that can play on rock band 3 (you can actually plug it into an amp and play). The track will display 6 strings and the notes that scroll down will be the fret number for that string. So basically, playing Pro mode guitar on expert will be like playing the actual guitar tab for that song.

This must be Harmonix's response to all the people who complain about how people should play real instruments, now you can while playing Rock Band. And dont worry, you can still use all your old controllers to play the classic mode.

At last, if you want to see all this in action check out their e3 presentation
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Has anyone heard of the game at all? I've been since before the last E3 and can't wait until it comes out this summer! For those who don't know anything about the game, heres a quick video talking about multiplayer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Rm1y18LmTk&feature=related

Honestly, this game looks like its going to be great. First of all, It's going to have the best FPS controls on the Wii, due to the fact the everything is customizable (including the dead zone, an invisible box on the screen that when your crosshair moves out of, your character starts to turn). Secondly, it looks like its going to have very promising multiplayer, including online. Lastly, the game will incorporate WiiSpeak, so there will at least be some communication among your friends when playing online. So what do you guys think?  Who's going to buy it?

I dunno if any one hear has heard of this game at all. First off, though it may look like a racing game, its actually a puzzle game. You conrtol a ship that rides on a track, while hitting colored squares that are on the track. Make 3 or more of the same color touch to form any type of shape to make them dissappear and earn points. So where does the music come into all of this? Well the track your riding "is" the song. The layout of the track is determined by what song you choose to play. During faster sections of the song, the track will be going downwards and squares will be coming faster, slower sections would be uphill so your ship will slow down. Also, the colors that are worth more points (red, yellow) will occur more frequently during fast sections, lower point colors, like blue and purple, will be more common in slower sections. The tack will also do a wave type motion to the beat of the song. Now, the best part about this game, is that you can choose ANY SONG that you have, the game will read it and create the track based of of your song. Heres a video of a couple of songs to show you what its like.


http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=JROWtJgdHkY

If you still don't believe that you can play any song, heres a video of me playing one, this should remove any doubts.
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-4402544515716224979
Make sure you turn your volume up a bit for my video as its kinda quite.

Have any of you guys heard about it? Looks like it might be pretty fun. This video pretty much explains everything.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2mPdXJsLcc