Feathers joins your party!

[Feathers]

Hello, and It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance! And I apologize for the dorky title. I'm a little more nervous than I thought I'd be. It's been a while since I've joined a new forum, and the butterflies wont go away.

Okay, deep breath. One, two...

Right! Well, I'll just charge through the anxiety, then!
Feathers, at your service! And like most people here, I've arrived because I have a passion for the literary arts. Well, that and because a good friend of mine invited me. As the last forum I frequented began to lose its luster, I found few other outlets for creativity, so when Weiss introduced me to FOG, naturally I was excited at the prospect of a forum where quality was valued. Which only grew as I explored, and read through the active roleplaying threads.

Through what experiences I've had, I've noticed that inspiration will often bounce back and forth between writers passionate about their work, so I'm amazed to see a whole community of people who are genuinely invested in their creations. It's almost a little intimidating, actually. And while I begin to question my own abilities, I also can't wait to see where I fit in a place like this. As I'm quite the perfectionist, when I work on something, I strive to make it the best I can. I don't feel satisfied unless I can look back on something I completed and think, "I worked as hard as I could; this is the level of my ability, now". And throughout my few years of writing in this venue, I've been constantly pushing myself to improve with every post.

The great thing about this creative medium is that when there's improvement, the subjects that I'm writing about will follow suit. So they will in turn be more real, and more nuanced, than what I worked on before. And since reading in itself is fun, I can look back on my progress in an enjoyable way. There are few things better than seeing your hard work realized in a fully believable character, or a beautifully crafted world.

Uhm, that developed a rather serious tone to it, didn't it? Okay! On to other things.

Next to writing, I suppose one of my other hobbies are graphic design. My avatar and the signature below are both my own works (I hope the animated part doesn't bother anyone). Another thing that drew me towards FOG was the freedom granted for signature and avatar dimensions. The last forum I came from was very restrictive concerning this, and sometimes it was difficult to restrain myself so I didn't go beyond the file size limit. 700x200 for signatures, and 150x200 for avatars is just amazing. +3 Feathers influence for Administrator. Thank you!

Among more mundane things, I love to read (of course) and my favorite authors are: George R.R. Martin, Jacqueline Carey, Robert Jordan (R.I.P.), Brandon Sanderson, and Scott Lynch. I also go snowboarding occasionally, although I'm really bad at it and I fall a lot and hurt myself, and I can also play guitar. Video games are a big hobby of mine as well, although I mostly play RPGs (thread title was kind-of a hint at that) or games that are fun with friends, and I'm super, super excited for Dragon Age: Origins, and one day I absolutely will work at BioWare.

Since I'm trying to keep this as short as I can, I'll end it here. Thank you so much if you've actually read this far!

[Weiss]

Since I want to be the first to greet you, I'm not reading the intro just yet.

WELCOME TO THE FORUMS, FEATHERS!

Glad to have you on board, kiddo.

[Kalon Ordona II]

Whoa. Yup, you're definitely a friend of Weiss's. xD
I can't speak for anyone else, but I read the whole thing. Any friend of Weiss's is a friend of mine.

Welcome to the FOG, Feathers! I love your avatar!

There's lots to see and to do around here, so please make yourself at home.
I'm definitely looking forward to role-playing with you sometime!

[Feathers]

Thank you so much, Kalon!

I didn't expect anyone to reply this quickly (aside from Weiss), so that's a nice surprise. And I'd love to role-play with you sometime! As you put it, a friend of Weiss is a friend of mine. And as for the avatar, I'm really glad you like it. I worked rather hard to design both it, and the signature. Of course, the real credit goes to the amazing artist who drew the character featured in it.

[Edon]

I read it all and I have got to say, you have nothing to be worried about. I can tell already that you must be a very capable and passionate writer. So you should fit in just fine, if anything the rest of us should be a bit intimidated!

Either way, welcome to our lil' hole in the wall. =D

[Feathers]

Well thank you for the vote of confidence, Edon!

You all certainly seem like a friendly bunch so far, and I'm already beginning to feel at home. I already moved FOG to the top of my bookmarks, so I'm anticipating frequent visits here. I think a lot of my anxiety came from thinking too much, but if everyone here is like you and Kalon, it appears I had nothing at all to worry about.

[Fate Flyer]

Hello, Feathers! (I absolutely love your name and your avatar and signature. ^_^ Those are some of the most amazing I've seen!)

I must say, you are quite adorable. :3 It's so cool too that you are a friend of Weiss! He's a good guy.

Let me also say that you've absolutely nothing to fear or worry about. Simply judging by your introduction, your writing is very well done and worth much confidence. Being a perfectionist too helps, I'm sure. :]

There are few things better than seeing your hard work realized in a fully believable character, or a beautifully crafted world.

That is so very true, and it makes all the hard work and effort to keep improving worth it.

Ahh, so you created your own avatar and signature! Wow, well lovely work! Graphic Design sounds like a fun major. Both Axiom (the other Administrator) and I are also in art-related fields. He's Web Graphic Design, while I'm Video Game Art and Design. I've never truly learned how to animate though (besides 3D animation in 3D Studio Max), so I'm not familiar with how to edit motion into an avatar or signature, so you have much of my envy there! Your designing skills alone for those are simply beautiful and amazing. I'm sure you will go far in the designing world! (Oh, and I'm glad that our limitations allow you a lot more freedom! ^^)

That would be so amazing if you worked at BioWare someday!! They're located in Canada though, it appears (unless that's where you live lol). I had dreams of working at a big gaming company myself, so I frequently would visit http://www.gamedevmap.com/ to look at each location and see what companies are there. Now, however, I really am not loving my major and have no passion for 3D modeling/texturing/animating/etc, and I would hate to do it for a career, so I'm not really sure what to do with myself. I graduate this coming spring though, so I'm just going to get my degree and see where I go from there. (I originally thought my major was all 2D art-related, since no one ever told me a thing about it being 3D when I applied, but evidently they just wanted my money lol. I later began to realize the ugly truth.)

Well, anyway, welcome! It's so great to have you here.

[Ragter the junior greeter]

You seem like a pretty cool gal. Hope you enjoy your zetta awesome time here at the FOG.

Bippity Boppity Boo, Ragter left the Perfectly Pretty Party.

[Inerio]

I'm excited for Dragon Age too!

I love your setup, I'm jealous of your graphic design abilities. I also lol'ed at the title. That's probably because I'm playing an RPG right now.

Welcome to FOG Feathers.

[Kathryn Lacey]

Welcome to FoG, Feathers.

Everyone else has already said that you have no need to worry, so I won't elaborate any more on that point. I'll just add my reassurance to the pile.

I think you're a really great graphic designer judging by your set-up. They're really amazing, and very detailed. One thing you'll have to keep in mind with the signature is that the forum itself will cut off a portion of it if it's too wide, so just be careful with that. I know part of the end of your signature was missing, so I decided to copy the image location and paste it in another tab to see the rest.

The animation in it is subtle enough that it's not going to bother me. By subtle, I mean it's not IN-YO'-FACE! I like it. ^^_^^

I hope to see you around the boards more. =3

[Feathers]

Thank you all for the kind replies!

Fate Foretold: If Axiom is the web designer for FOG, please send him my compliments. I've loved everything here so far down to the font! And the banner really gets me in the mood to do something creative. I think it's just the perfect setting for a mental world transition, if that makes any sense. Although, that could just show how much The Nightmare Before Christmas influenced me as a child. x3

And I think its so cool that you're in Video Game Art and Design! I played around a bit in Milkshape 3D, thinking I could learn as I went along, as I did with Photoshop, but it was so much more complicated than I anticipated. After seeing first hand how complex something like that can be, I have total respect for people who are accomplished in using those sorts of modelling programs. Along with creativity, it seems like there is so much technical skill required to make anything worthwhile.

And thank you for showing me the gamedevmap website; I had no idea something like that existed. I knew BioWare was in Canada, although the exact location was fuzzy, so it's nice so see it pinpointed. But they could be half way across the world and I'd still relocate just to work there. Haha~.

Ragter: I'm not really sure what "zetta" means, but I appreciate the welcome all the same!

Inerio: I'm glad that the title made someone laugh. I feel less like a dork, now. And Dragon Age can't come out soon enough! I've been trying to force myself to forget about it for a while, so that I don't have to suffer the aching wait, and yet I keep visiting the game forums daily to check if any new information has come out. >w< It's horrible! I suppose the books will have to keep me satisfied until November...

Kathryn: I'm really thankful for your post, because you've clarified something for me that I've been worried about for a while; the animation in my signature, I mean. This is really the first time I've used animation in a widely public way, so I'm glad that it doesn't seem too exaggerated or anything.

And I suppose I'm not very good at polishing my work, if the flaws were noticeable. Its just that my Photoshop projects often end up totally convoluted with extra or invisible layers and other details, that I can't immediately catch everything that's wrong with it after its been completed. I think it appears as it should be, now. Although I can't help but think that somehow someone else is seeing something totally different than I am. >_>;

C'est la vie.

But in any case, thank you for the welcome! I look forward to getting more acquainted with you and everyone else here at FOG!

[Guest]

Hey, Feathers. Welcome to FOG! Thank you for the compliments on the site. I can't take credit for it all though. Fate and I have worked together on the majority of it Judging by your signature, you definitely have a tremendous amount of talent. I hope you reach your goal of working at BioWare someday! They also have a studio in Austin, TX - BioWare Jobs. Anyway, I hope you enjoy your stay here

[Ragter the junior greeter]

Feathers, I enjoyed the title too..not playing any RPGs at the moment though because my DS won't turn on at all and the computer I'm using right now is pure garbage when it comes to playing any PC games.

As for your signature and avatar, I have to agree with everyone else..fantastically well done, I could never do it even if I tried, probably. Oh, and zetta? It means 1000000000000000000000.

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