Skyrim Fenris Follower from DA2

Fenris forest

Hey fellow Dragon Age fans!  As a fun little side project, I’ve made a separate Fenris Follower mod for Skyrim.  He uses the same voice actor, Gideon Emery, who voiced “MaleSoldier” in Skyrim, as well as Fenris in Dragon Age II.  As far as lore goes, in Skyrim he’s a Bosmer, former slave of a Dunmer Great House.  He has all the same special enhanced features as AnnaNPCs (the ones not requiring SKSE).

Fenris has a full follower framework, completely separate from the vanilla system, like my Anna NPCs, including riding, sandboxing, set home, meet at inn, and more.  His chat is somewhat limited due to availability of vanilla voice files, and some new lines are included that are not voiced.  I recommend using Fuz Roh D’oh if you don’t already; it’s just a really handy tool for showing unvoiced lines for longer than a second.

Fenris (15)

Raising the Bar(d)

Recently I replayed some of my earliest character voicing, which I do from time to time to compare the quality to that of present day.  Now, with the voiceover training, and experiences I’ve had through making audiobooks, the difference is very noticeable.

I began voice acting roughly 3 years ago, when I joined the computer gaming community, playing Skyrim, specifically Interesting NPCs. I found it marvelously enjoying, and I was quite proud of my work, even becoming a popular sought-after voice for several mods.  Then I created Anna NPCs.  Like I said, I was proud of the voice acting… at the time.  But compared to what I can do now, I’ll be honest… it kinda sucks.  I wish I could redo all those roles.  But unfortunately that would take waaaaayyyy too much time.

It’s been quite an interesting journey, and I’ve had a vast amount of improvement, particularly in this past year after taking a workshop last November with John St Jon.  To quote the lovable Sam Gamgee, “There’s an eye opener, and no mistake!”  That was when I decided to get seriously involved in voiceover, launching my “second career” in January this year.  I entered into training with Such-A-Voice, joined ACX (audiobook production), made myself business cards, a new website, created a company name and brand Castle Audio Productionsand jumped in on the social media scene.  I even took a gulp and began experimenting with the dreaded M-word… Marketing!

Tikriddsfdsf

The latest step in my journey has been learning how to improve my audio files.  So far I’ve been doing just the basic minimal processing requirements for mods and audiobooks, mainly because that “technical stuff” baffles the bejezzus out of me, and I’d rather just do what’s necessary than risk over-processing when I don’t understand the rest.  The fact that many online videos and tutorials all have different opinions about how files should be edited, and “it’s an art, you’ll have to experiment to find what’s right for you” really just add to my confusion.  It seemed to me that Compress, EQ, Normalize, and Limiter all do very similar things, so why do I need to do all of them?  Fortunately, I have an ex-audio engineer nearby (my dear husband), who took some time to educate me.  I didn’t realize EQ has be tailored to a person’s individual voice!  That makes it even more daunting.

I can’t wait to get my professional demos done, which will be soon!  They’ll have scripts, coaching, and editing all specific to my voice.  The Bar(d) has been raised.  My performance, and my mastering, are of much better quality now.  Keep on soaring 8^)  Happy Halloween!

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Dovahkiin Wine Labels

Freedom White

Few know that the Greybeards dabble in the fermentation of spirits, and not just the spirit of Dragons.  They also have a distillery hidden in the bowels of High Hrothgar.  Where they obtain the grapes for their wine is uncertain, but we can only assume that Ivarstead cannot be their only supplier of goods and supplies.  The Riesling above awakens the drinker to glory and freedom of the skies, and seeing the world as only a Dovah can.

For the Dragonborn the cellarmaster brewed a special red wine, one that speaks of courage, power, and celebration of life.  How fitting that “Zin” in Dragon means “Honor” for a Zinfindel.

Zinfindel

And lastly, brewed by one of High Hrothgar’s young (and a bit lusty) apprentices, comes the Passion Port, guaranteed to bring out the beast in every Dovahkiin.  Enjoy this dark dessert after a savory course of barbequed bandit.

Passion Port

These are my actual labels for my first batches of wine.  Who knew a game could be so inpirational?