A new site look and some area design

As you have most likely already guessed, I got bored of the same-old-same-old black'n'white theme and decided to shake it up a bit. I sort of like the parchment color (sorry, "ochre", duh!)...it's just more interesting. :)

So today was more eventful than usual; for the past week or so, I've been waking up around 9, eating breakfast, building, eating lunch, building, running, showering, building, eating dinner, and going to bed late. I know, I know, you're envious--it's been awesome. Today, however, I woke up late and *gasp* went out for brunch with my folks. We ran some errands and I decided to pick up Gothic 3, a game that I've been wanting to check out for some time but couldn't run on my laptop. Now, with my new laptop, I can run anything, so I'll install it and report back with impressions if I have time (gotta finish chapter 1 of Moonshadows first!).

After getting home and taking care of some emails and such, I got down to work and made the last exterior area (it was a breeze), as well as the first two interior areas that I've ever made. I'm pretty happy with both of them so far, and thanks to some help from fellow Ossian team member Shadovar and community member Berliad, I was able to quickly acquaint myself with this new kind of area design. It's definitely not as fun as building exteriors...I may look into that recent hak that was released on the Vault to give exteriors a cave roof and "faking it." :) I'll have to play around with it and see if it's really worth it...

Finally, I watched the end of Casino Royale, the new James Bond film. I can't say I'm crazy about it--I mean, it was fine on its own merit, but from the perspective of one of the (relatively, of course) few people who read the original book by Ian Flemming, it's not at all a remake. I personally liked the story told in the book better...still, the film did seem to have its moments, inaccurate as it was.

So, I'm unsure of what to do next. I obviously have this secret project going on which, of course, I have to continue taking care of. But for my own project(s), I have a gut feeling that I need a short break from the Forgotten Realms. The amount of research and planning and brainstorming I've been doing in the past few days, paired with the actual building I've done, has left me with a bit of a headache. I may do some work on The Lynncairen Saga tomorrow, for a change...then again, I might not. :) I hopped over to Adam Miller's Dark Waters homepage and read the short premises of his planned campaign--the short blurbs (particularly the first one, about the door in the mountain), the quotes, and the pictures always inspire me. Anyhow, I think I'm going to head off to bed--tomorrow will be a day full of writing.