Aelussa's Creative Space

Stuff and things and other randomness

New PC

MiscAelussaComment

It's like nerd Christmas in September

I haven't been as frequent with updates here this week as I'd planned, because I've been busy building and setting up my new PC.

My old PC had a Core i7-860, and it didn't have any modern connection features like USB 3 or SATA 3 (which was holding my SSD's performance back). My old motherboard was also on its way out; on-board audio and ethernet had gone out a while ago (and the only PCI ethernet adapter I had was a 100 mbit adapter, which made transferring files to my NAS slow), it recently started having issues keeping my CMOS settings intact (replacing the CMOS battery didn't help), and it was starting to have trouble recognizing two of my RAM slots. So yeah, it was definitely time for an upgrade. I've had that old PC for like 6 years, which is by far the longest I've ever gone before upgrading a CPU, so it had a good run.

Here's the parts list for my new PC:

  • Case: Fractal Design Define R5 Titanium (with window) +two extra fans
  • Motherboard: Gigabyte Z170X-UD5
  • CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K
  • CPU Cooler: Scythe Kotetsu SCKTT-1000 (with Arctic MX2 thermal paste)
  • Power Supply: Corsair RM650i
  • RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 4x8GB (32GB total) DDR4 2666

Parts salvaged from my old PC:

  • EVGA GeForce GTX 780
  • Corsair Force GT 480GB SSD
  • Crucial M550 960GB SSD
  • Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 1TB hard drive
  • Pioneer Blu-ray RW drive

I have to say, I really, really like the Define R5 case. It's a bit on the large side, but it looks really nice, it seems sturdy and well-built, it's super easy to work in, and it's very quiet. In fact, I'm pretty sure if I had one of the current generation video cards that turned its fans off under low load, this PC would be completely silent, because I think that's the only thing in this case making any sound at all, and it's not making much. That Scythe Kotetsu CPU cooler isn't messing around, either; at idle, my CPU's temperature is 25C, and while playing games, I haven't yet seen it reach 40C, all while remaining nearly silent.

Here's a gallery of photos of my new PC, inside and out. I've included a photo of the inside of my old PC so you can see what a rat's nest of wires it was in there, to compare it against the really nice cable routing features in the Define R5. Being able to run the cables behind the motherboard really makes a big difference.

Now that I have it all set up and have most of my software reinstalled, I should be able to get back to creating things again, so hopefully I'll be updating this site more frequently.

Inkling amiibo drawing

ArtworkAelussaComment

I just finished a piece of artwork I've been working on for a few days: the Inkling from Splatoon, using the Inkling amiibo as a reference. You can find the finished piece in the Finished Artwork page, and a breakdown of the process of creating it, from the initial sketch, the line art, coloring and shading, to the finished piece, in the Work-In-Progress page.

This was the first time I've sat down to draw something in a really long time, and while it took me a bit to get my bearings, I have to say it felt really good, and I'm looking forward to drawing more.

The line art in particular was a learning process. I've never been very confident in my line art, and it showed in my first attempt. I decided I was going to teach myself to be more confident, so scrapped my first attempt and forced myself to start drawing quick, flowing lines. At first, I had to undo and re-draw every line a bunch of times until I got them right, but by the time I was done, I was doing that a lot less. Most of the lines in the legs and shoes, in particlar, were done in one or two tries. I feel like I've grown a lot as an artist just over the course of making this one drawing.

It's funny, because I've been away from creating art for so long that I was certain that my skills had atrophied, and it was going to be a long slog to get back up to the level of the work I was doing 10-15 years ago when I was at the top of my game and doing this stuff every day. I think that fear was a big part of what kept me away from it for so long. In a lot of ways, though, this picture is an improvement over some of what I was doing back then; certainly I've never done line art this clean. That feels pretty amazing. Not that I don't still have room to improve, because I absolutely do, but now I'm looking forward to working towards that instead of dreading it.

Is this thing on? *tap* *tap* *feedback tone*

MiscAelussaComment

*ahem*

Welcome to my little corner of the web.

For anyone who somehow found their way to this page and has no idea who I am, hi! I'm Aelussa. That night elf you see in pictures around the site is also Aelussa: my namesake, my main WoW character, and a focal point of most of my online identity for the last decade or so. That fact should probably be more embarrassing to me than it is. (Don't tell her I said that. She has daggers, and they're stabby.) Oh, you can also call me Chris. Real names are a thing people do on the internet these days, I guess.

My blue, pointy-eared alter ego

I'm trying to be an artist and a game creator, and I created this website as part of an effort to motivate myself to get off my butt, stop slothing around, make more things, and finish the projects I start on. The idea being that maybe if I have a place to show off the stuff I make, I'll be more likely to keep making it. Will it work? Who knows! There's only one way to find out.

You can navigate the site via the menu bar at the top. It's a bit content bare at the moment and not all of the pages have things on them yet. I'm working on it. In the immediate short term, most of the things I put up are probably going to be sketches, drawings, and Mario Maker levels. (Please star my levels if you like them.) Longer term, I have some bigger game projects I'm working on that I'll talk more about when I have something I'm ready to show. I might also use this blog for writing and discussing topics I'm interested in when inspiration strikes. If you're on Tumblr, I'll probably be re-posting everything from this blog there (because this platform makes it easy to do that, so why not?) and I'm also going to try to be more active on Twitter than I have been.

Okay, now that the introductions are out of the way, time to get to work. I just hope you're not reading this a year from now and this post is still the only thing on this site.