The Jay's nest!

This has been my Christmas, Yule, winter festivity of choice card for the last few years. I made it when I was still a craft and art fair stall holder but I printed far more than I could sell. I'm pretty sure my friends and family are getting bored of the same card every year.

This was about as close to realism as I could ever get my sculpting style. One of those pieces that happened spontaneously out of a moment of boredom but I have never been able to receate to the same quality.

LARP is one of those wonderful things that looks far better in memory than it does in person. I adored my first character for Empire LRP, I had definitely chosen to play a version of myself but it was a version that let me tell amazing stories. This image is Lord Percival Goldvein, but it is also a self portrait. The bookshelves and writing desk are based on ones in my home, the white streak in his hair wasn't a cute addition to make the character unique but a family trait I myself have. Having to stop playing Percival was like being asked to make a new self.

In the late months of summer 385YE scions of the cold sun poured from every day regio in the Empire. The eternal force of hatred and destruction sending full armies stright to the heart of the Empire. At that same time the black forge neared completion, and the Ethengraw orcs agreed to join the empire in thanks. By spring 385YE the blue skinned heralds of cold sun were well on their way to being defeated. I never actually met Kirra, depicted here, but I had planned to. I was tiring of playing Percival and had seen that there were new options for kinds of orc entering the game. When Kirra's player posted that she was looking for banner members; I was glad to say I'd join. But not too long later I got cold feet. I wasn't sure about how I'd cope without my usual friends close by. Kirra died her first skirmish as a character (slain by cold sun heralds). We missed each other again at the next event, but Percival was killed early in the event so once again there was one orc of our banner in play. The next event my orc also died, leaving the banner with a reputation of short lives. This image is drawn from a set of photos taken during Firesong Kirra's final moments on the battlefield.