Category: The Elder Scrolls Online

An MMORPG from the granddaddy of video game series. It’s Skyrim with other people.

Toreadorable

You may remember my gamer elegy from over three years ago. The Elder Scrolls Online on Playstation was over for me and a new relationship with it on PC was beginning.

So much for what we think we know.

This encaustic painting is from a screenshot of my toon Toreadorable on Playstation NA. (All of my characters on that server are named after some aspect of the musical Gypsy.) It’s a PvP grab. I’m the staff-wielder with a basket of fish on my back.

Yeah, that sounds weird. All I can say is that, in gaming, your avatar can wear things you would never touch in reality, like a bunch of dead fish strapped to your shoulders.

When my gaming laptop died and I had to leave the PC community, it was as sad as it was three years ago to leave Playstation. But I’m back in a place I thought I wouldn’t see again. That first moment when I opened the game on PS and saw my girl Gazes was strangely poignant. I’d forgotten my toon people would be waiting for me like old friends.

Doomchar Aquarium 3

Here’s the last in the series I began as part of my gaming guild’s art contest. The winners have been declared, and I tied for third place. First place went to someone who created a fabulous, fully functional siege ballista (not to scale, lol). My piece was Elder Scroll-adjacent, at best, and I feel the judging was completely fair. And I really enjoyed creating the Aquariums.

Doomchar Aquarium 1

One of my guilds is running a contest for an ESO-inspired piece of art. This is my first attempt, something that allowed me to practice perspective. Doomchar is a house you can own in-game. I used a greenhouse as my tableau, posed a screenshot picture, and went from there. I figured, let’s do more undersea fish art! It’s as good a reason as any to be inspired.

Farewell to Gazes

6″ x 6″ on wallboard

My beloved main toon on the PS EU server, Gazes-at-Shoes, is retiring. Because of technical issues, I no longer play The Elder Scrolls Online on PlayStation, only on PC. She looks somewhat fierce here, but she was always a sweetheart and a joy to game. My new toon wouldn’t be half as fun if I hadn’t learned it all first with Gazes.

No Bonnie waits to take my toy. The digital world, imbued with just as many tea parties and heroic adventures as Andy’s room, isn’t suited for introducing a plaything to the next generation. My first Barbie doll in the early 1970s would look, except for cosmetic differences, like a Barbie of today. Gaming moves too fast, though, for that. Not only do hardware and programming advance, but human reflexes and multi-tasking abilities become more sophisticated. I like the next shiny as much as anyone. Therefore, my girl is gone, an old file in a junked console. The friends I made through her, real people inhabiting a virtual screen, are left behind, too.

Lol, well, this turned into more of an elegy than I expected! Gazes lives in the cloud, so any time I renew my subscriptions and find a PlayStation with the proper software, I can see her again. It won’t happen, though. I’ve moved on.

Mum over Sunset

This was a completed piece, a screenshot of an Auridon sunset from The Elder Scrolls Online game. It was so unremarkable I never posted it here. Over time, the color faded. (I don’t use archival papers. Maybe I should reconsider!) Now it’s another repurposed piece. Pink from the sunset, barely fading through at certain points, is all that remains of the original.