Mama Knows Best!

Happy Belated Mother's Day!

So what's really weird is that I started planning this last year around this time. The scout's mom pack was so well received I figured - after having watched a few scenes from Disney's Tangled and falling desperately in love with Donna Murphy - that this parody would be fun to write and perform. Of course I could think of none other better suited to the task of playing Scout than my super talented co-worker on EBF2 and all around great guy Raikujo. Then life, femscout, and femgineer happened. Leaving me with one month to write and record the song before Mother's Day 2012. The best laid plans, as they say... At any rate, this was a blast and I hope to do at least on more parody relatively soon.

Coming Far: Looking Back and Forward

Sometime in the middle of March, I was approached by indie game developer Dave Gilbert of Wadjet Eye Games (the same people who brought you Gemini Rue) to do fill a little role in his newest game - Resonance.

A paying little role.

 

... Geeeeeeeehhh...!

It's been almost two months since it happened and I STILL can't get over it. My first PAID role. And it's in a GAME. I couldn't be more happy with the way this year started for me. Resonance is a beautifully crafted point-and-click adventure featuring a fully voiced cast of four playable characters and and a story that looks juicier than prime rib fresh off the bone. And achievements!

I play the mother of one of the four playable characters, Anna. There isn't much dialogue, so watch out for me and don't blink your ears. There are many more details to give beyond that. From what I've been able to see of the development it should be great fun.

I'm super grateful to Dave Gilbert, Devon Mack, and Kimlinh Tran for opening this door for me. And of course the same gratitude goes to all of you who support me, aid me, wish me well, and enjoy the work I do. A year ago this was a distant dream. I never believed it could be here at my feet in so short a time. Most especially my thanks goes to:

ChemicalAlia (Shaylyn Hamm)

MaxofS2D

Minifett

Raikujo

IanSuffix

MrDude20652

SourceMachinimaMaker(Dr.Hooves)

The fellows at Kritzkast (Agro, Tempest, Ruskeydoo, & Chronos)

and the love of my life, my fiance Shane (psychoshinobi17) for being relentless in their support. These special people chose to give me that little extra kick here or there that made pushed all my work into the next level. You're all phenomenal and no amount of blogging can attest to this.

In other news, promo icons! Neat, huh?

So what else... shoot. What else, what else...

There's a tumblr now. Which basically means no one will ever read this thing anymore. Aaand...

Oh! Mother's day is coming. I'd look out for something if I was you guys. I swear, I'm gonna be the next Kath Soucie if this keeps up: playing everyone's mom. ... and I'm GREAT with that! ^_^

Hurprr Frrr!

I should have been drunk.

I wasn't.

Present and future; tense...?

Things are starting to cool down on the home front as far as my ill family member is concerned, but it's still a steaming semi-molten mess.

Toasty...

As I keep saying, I don't want to get into details, but some people have expressed genuine concern and this touches me greatly. So I'll just update on the basics:

1.) Said family member is doing well and is stable, but I am still in charge of their affairs that can't be handled from the confines of a hospital room (bills, business calls, their share of the rent, paper mail, etc.). As such I'm traveling an extra 2 hours after work, so time's super tight. Not to mention I loose all this sweet wi-fi access at work once my high up gets back from vay-cay.

2.) At present, I'm staring at 3 active projects:

ChemicalAlia's Female Engineer

Untitled project for IceLordCryo

Portal: Alive & Kicking

Other projects such as MaxofS2D's Earthbound Fortress 2 and SourceMachinimaMaker(Dr.Hooves) Portal map are on going as well. I've also got my hand in an audition for a paid-- HOLY PRETZELS, PAID?!?!-- role that I probably wont get.

All of these will be completed in due time, but I will try to stay as close to the order as when they were accepted as possible.

3.) I don't go above and beyond to record during/immediately after the time I'm sorting this family member's affairs out with them. In short, I'm not looking to burnout, so no worries there. Those who know me on Steam, I'll see you again one day... one day...

And here's news for ya:  

OVER 1000 PEOPLE have downloaded my Femscout Soundpack!

GEE-HEE-HEE!

Neat, huh? I kinda want to do something special in honor of that, but I can barely get the stuff I have to do done. I have all these crazy stupid fillers in mind and another fun contest, but it's tough with all this Murphy's Law in my face. 

That's more writing than I'm used to these days, so we'll do lunch about all this some time. Maybe grab some gelato.

Tootles.

Busy as an Engiebee!

I don't like to get into personal matters... wait, didn't I already write something like this? In theory I could go back and read the old posts. But many things are better left in theory. Like the Big Crunch theory where the universe is predicted to revert to its former state of milk chocolate and rice puffs.

...What was I talking about?

Oh. Right. Illness. Someone's been hit pretty hard with the bad luck stick in my family. Lots of things are falling back on me to organize now so I'm going to be even more scarce than I typically am. Stuff is still being worked on, most notably Femgineer (but everyone else who's waiting on my Glados contribution and some other tiny projects are getting wrapped up).

I'm a bit ashamed it's taken me this long, but I'll do my best to make things run smoothly.

Not like the Big Crunch. Those aren't smooth at all.

DustyOldRoses's Female Scout Soundpack

It took well over a year but it's finished. My rendition of a female Team Fortress 2 Scout based on AyesDyef's model.

Only lip synced to AyesDyef's model!

There. Released. Now I sleep.

Wait-- Femgineer. FFU-!!

EARLY release! GET IT?!

Pic by MaxofS2D

If Valve has taught me anything it's that you can take as long as you want to make something so long as you eventually make it and make it well. In retrospect this was a terrible lesson, and no amount of hats will ever rehabilitate me to function properly in society ever again.

So here you go:

DUSTYOLDROSES'S FEMALE SCOUT SOUNDPACK

NO LIP SYNC OR RELEASE VIDEO YET! The FULL release will be on my channel. This is just an early bird special for you blog and Twitter lurkers. Still works! Just no lip sync yet.
This link will be gone once the full release is made on my YouTube channel, so be sure to go back there to pick up the fully lip synced version and to check out my sassy release video!

To all my supporters, critics, friends and family - thank you doesn't even do my heart justice. I won't get all Lifetime special on anyone, but for now I'll just humbly express my gratitude. For your patience and faith me and my work, I thank you. As often as I was discouraged, you were all just as often rooting for me. Making it impossible for me to give up on such a massive, trying project. You cheeky bastards.

Thank you, enjoy, and take care, 
DustyOldRoses