The Jedi Gambit: Your Weapon is Your Life!

What’s this?? I’ve come back from the dead?? I’m not completely lost playing SW:TOR?!

Well not exactly. I HAVE been playing a huge amount of SW:TOR, but it’s about bloody time I got off my Jedi-robed duff and got you fine folks another issue of the Jedi Gambit. *cough* albeit long overdue!

Now, for those of you who may have forgotten, in our last issue of The Jedi Gambit: Kylun Dross, had been captured by the Chiss Imperial Agent, Fallsa. Our Jedi hero, was thrown into a gladiatorial ring on Nal Hutta operated by Nem’ro the Hutt. Once Kylun had defeated two rather nasty k’lor’slugs, he had made an attempt to leap up to the balcony where Nem’ro and Fallsa were sitting, however his lightsaber had shorted out unexpectedly.

So with that quick recap, here is the latest installment of The Jedi Gambit:

Stay tuned! I’m back on track and I have already started work on the next issue and should have that up in a few days!
Be sure to tell your friends, tweet about the Jedi Gambit with the hash-tag #JediGambit, follow my Twitter(@RackhamGreg) or leave a comment below!

The Jedi Gambit 2nd Portrait Contest: Winning Portraits!

The winners have been selected and their portraits are now done and available now for all to see. I must say each one was great fun and it was especially nice to see what classes the three winners chose.

So without further adieu, here are the portraits:

Zoralaran : Mirialan Smuggler

A quick wit and quick blaster keeps this Mirialan Smuggler on her toes and eager for that next credit job. Mirialan’s seem to be a top pick for Smugglers (at least as far as these portraits are concerned) – I may have to look into the reasons! Maybe it’s because they’re so cool looking or perhaps they’re culture of personal perfection?

Human Sith Inquisitor

I had an absolute blast (no pun intended) creating this artwork. The challenge of the lightning and the pure electric glow it had on the Inquisitor was a great artistic challenge. Here’s hoping I pulled it off!

And lastly, for my fellow Corellian League member, I give you:

Tarvon : Human Trooper

This was a fun portrait to work on. Tarvon’s look is great in-game and I had a blast rendering him here in this artwork. His medical droid was also a nice touch and added that extra element.

Once again, a BIG ol’ CONGRATS to our three winners! They’re now the proud owners of their very own SW:TOR portraits. Eager to get a SW:TOR portrait done for yourself? Then stay tuned and check back often for the next Jedi Gambit Portrait Contest!!

Also, stay tuned later this week for the continued adventures of Kylun Dross in Issue Two of the Jedi Gambit!

Custom Portraits and The Mandalorian Girl

Well the 2nd Jedi Gambit Portrait contest is now officially closed and two winners have been selected and contacted via Twitter Direct message.

They are:

@JoeaFranklin

and

@dunfalach

They have a week to respond back to me and get started on creating their SWTOR character custom portraits. If either or both of them don’t get back to me within a week’s time, I’ll be selecting a new winner from the previous entries.

Also a big congratulations to my fellow Corellian Leaguer: Tarvon – who was selected as the guild-mate winner!

Always an exciting time to get these character descriptions and start planning how that character would look. Stay tuned for future updates!!

And what would the custom portrait look like you might ask? Well first, you can check out the previous winners or you can see some latest artwork I created for fellow SWTOR blogger: Mandalorian Girl!

For those of you who may not be aware of this great fan fiction site, Mandalorian Girl has written an exhaustive collection of fan fiction of her Old Republic character: Na’sha along with her jedi companion: Aiden. I highly recommend taking some time to read her blog: http://mandaloriangirl.wordpress.com/
Her stories are amazingly well written, the characters are highly evolved and personable, and the quality of her storytelling is unmatched.

Here’s the custom portrait I did for Mandalorian Girl: I had to make the exception of “one character only” because Aiden is SUCH a big part of the stories that I couldn’t have Na’sha without Aiden close by.

The Galactic Maverick: Premiere Issue!

As you probably already know, I’ve been a proud member of the Corellian League in SWTOR, now since launch hailing on the Sanctum of the Exalted server.

As you might not already know, the guild is chock full of talented and brilliant people who each contribute to make the guild a truly amazing community. Recently during the Christmas holidays, a bunch of those brilliant and talented people got together and devoted their time to start on what will become a quarterly publication of SWTOR articles, RP discussions, as well as simply gorgeous game concept art and material.

The result of their efforts is now viewable in an excellent “teaser issue” of what we call the Galactic Maverick!
And they’ve given me permission to make it available here on The Jedi Gambit!

To view the Galactic Maverick in an online viewer: http://data.axmag.com/data/201112/U35504_F66673/index.html

Click here to download the Galactic Maverick in PDF format.

If you like what you see, be sure to leave a comment as I will be sure to forward them on to the rest of the team. ENJOY!!

The 2nd Jedi Gambit Portrait Contest!

Now that Star Wars: The Old Republic is released and we’ve been madly playing the game and (I’m hoping) having a blast playing through all the new content! Bioware has done a great job at launching the game and the fans have responded with a million subscribers! A huge thanks to the Bioware team as they have creating a truly amazing game and there’s no doubt they have stepped up to the plate to support all of us as new players.

So in honour of the new release and to celebrate the close of 2011, I am proud to present my second Jedi Gambit Portrait Contest!

What Can You Win?

Two randomnly selected winners will win one (1) of the following:

• one (1) custom 8″x10″ portrait drawn by Greg “Rackham” Moran of your in-game SW:TOR character. (Like the portrait above of the Jedi Kylun Dross)

OR

• one (1) custom 8″x10″ portrait drawn by Greg “Rackham” Moran of yourself dressed up as one of SW:TOR’s classes.(Just like the portrait of me above as a Smuggler).

How to Enter

To enter, simply tweet the following on your Twitter account:

The #JediGambit is hosting the 2nd #SWTOR portrait contest. Count me in! Contest rules at: http://jedigambit.wordpress.com

Contest Rules

A necessary evil I know, but please read the following contest rules:

• The contest will be hosted on December 30, 2011 and will accept Twitter entries up until January 5, 2012 at 12pm.
• The entrant must tweet the above twitter message exactly (shortened URLs are ok) in order to be accepted.
• A winner will be chosen at random and contacted via Twitter as a direct message. (edit note: if the selected winners are not following me on Twitter, then I will contact them with a tweet @mention) The winner’s twitter handle will be announced in a post on The Jedi Gambit blog so if you are concerned with privacy issues, please keep this in mind when entering this contest.
• The selected winners will have one (1) week to respond back to me (@RackhamGreg, grmoran(AT)hotmail.com), otherwise a new winner will be selected at random.
• The winners will be awarded one (1) portrait in the manner described above and will have the option of a digital or printed copy (or both). If a printed copy is requested, I will require a mailing address.
• Any personal information provided will be protected. The only information that will be announced publicly will be the winner’s Twitter account announced in a post on The Jedi Gambit blog.
• The winning portraits will be posted on The Jedi Gambit blog once complete.
• I reserve the right to choose a new winner if one of the selected entrants requests a portrait of a game character other than SWTOR OR if one of the winners requests a portrait of more than one person and is unwilling to adhere to the contest rules.
• This contest is meant to generate excitement for the expanded universe of Star Wars: The Old Republic. If I feel this contest is treated poorly by the entrants or there are too many complaints, I will not continue to host these contests.

A Note to members of the Corellian League: I will be selecting an additional (1) winner exclusively from its members who enter on the Corellian League forums. If you are a fellow Corellian, be sure to check the forums contest section for the announcement!

Now with that out of the way, good luck everyone!

* Edit Jan 1, 2012: Updated the rules slightly as I don’t require the person to follow my Twitter account – which is required for a Direct Mention. If the selected winner(s) does not follow me on Twitter, then I will attempt to contact them with a @mention. Be sure to check this blog for the announced winners in case you don’t check Twitter frequently!

I won a Flushie!!

Now that the holidays are settling down and I’m dreading the return to regular life and having to go back to work, I took some time to stroll through the various blogs I check regularly. After visiting my old friend Syp’s blog: Bio Break, I noticed he awarded me a Flushie!

Now what’s a Flushie you say?? Well it’s the distinct award given out by Syp at the end of each year. Syp has been blogging about games for years now, I got to know him years ago when he had his Warhammer Online blog and I’ve been reading his stuff ever since!

Syp, I am honoured to receive this award and I’ll truly think of it every time I shout “I need a bio break brb” in-game.

Also a congrats to all the other Flushie winners, both old and new!

Happy Sithmas – err Holidays!!

Normally at Christmas time I get inspired to whip up a wonderful comic or holiday greeting, but as you can imagine, I’ve been playing SWTOR since it JUST launched a few days ago.
I did however find time to create some greetings for my fellow SWTOR bloggers and friends, so be sure to check out TORwars.com for a Christmas greeting for all!

So since I’ve been busy swinging lightsabers and firing blasters all this week, I will treat you to a quick Christmas poem followed by a Christmas comic I did a couple of years ago for another gaming blog I was part of:

Happy Holidays to Everyone!!

Twas the Night Before Christmas and all through the house.
Not a creature was stirring not even a mouse.
The players were clung to their monitors with glee,
Cause SWTOR just launch and they’re happy to see
All the Bounty Hunters, Jedi, Smugglers, and Sith,
Imperial Agents, Wookies, Jawas, and Biths.

The Doctors had launched a new Star Wars game you say?
Published by Bioware and also EA?
Early access was a success, the servers so lively and quick,
No other MMO had ever launched so slick.
To the top of the charts, to the top of them all!
Now blast away, blast away, blast away all!

Happy Christmas to all!

click to view a larger version

The Jedi Gambit: Let’s get ready to ruuummmbllleee!!!

Twas the Night Before SW:TOR-mas!

On the eve of the first early access day, I am just brimming with excitement and anticipation for what will ultimately be a memorable and long lasting adventure in the Old Republic! We have all waited a very long time to see the fruits of Bioware and EA’s long years of hard work, dedication, and devotion to the Star Wars franchise. I know I’m not the only one that wants to give our thanks to the Bioware team for putting up with the SW:TOR community’s crazed, manic flurry of excitement over this past year. It hasn’t been an easy road by any stretch, but I have no doubt their hard work will be all worth it.

In honour of the first of several early access days for SW:TOR, I have whipped up another two pages of the Jedi Gambit storyline! To be perfectly honest, I really wanted to get these pages done in time for SW:TOR’s launch – both to celebrate the game’s launch, but also to get it done in time so I can spend at least the first few weeks diving right into SW:TOR and playing my Jedi Knight, Kylun.

So for those of you interested to see what has become of Kylun Dross, you need not look any further than these two page links below:

Here’s a big thanks to the Bioware team and to a smooth and bug-free game launch! See you all in game!

The Jedi Gambit: Bantha Poodoo

The latest installment of issue 2 is now up and ready to read!

I haven’t been posted these up as quickly as I’ve liked, as Bioware’s been gracious to have all these wonderful Beta testing weekends! But hey, who’s complaining?

Anyways, in this latest comic, Kylun finds himself in some serious poodoo!

Stay tuned Jedi Gambit fans for I’m already knee deep in the next installment! I won’t keep you hanging for long.

The Jedi Gambit: Luminous being are we…

Now that the SW:TOR Beta Weekend testing is over, there are sure to be several folks itching to fill their Star Wars fix. I don’t have a remedy for that, my friends, but I do hope the announcement of Issue Two can ease some of the suffering!

Without further adieu, I can finally reveal 2 pages to start off the next installment of the Jedi Gambit and the continuation of the storyline featuring our jedi hero, Kylun Dross. Enjoy!

ISSUE TWO

Let me know what you think! Do you know what will happen next? Feel free to leave a comment or tweet me at @RackhamGreg!

Want to get tweets when the next issues of The Jedi Gambit is announced? Then follow me on twitter!