The Craft of War: Blind

So this is my new favorite machinima. It's a World of Warcraft creation by an independent artist going by the name of percula. Watch it... it's really amazingly done, with very catchy music.

What's machinima? Well, click that link above to read up about it on wikipedia. But it's basically the hijacking of computer game animation to create an original work of art. In this case, the animation artist uses models and art from World of Warcraft, but creates his own animations from WoW's animation infrastructure. A really popular example of machinima is the South Park episode, "Make Love, Not Warcraft," in which the boys become addicted to World of Warcraft, and half the episode consists of them running around talking with each other in-game in the form of their WoW characters.

If you'd like some backstory on "The Craft of War: Blind," here's a quick overview. The main character is a blood elf, and she's part of the Horde, one of the two primary political factions in the Warcraft universe. The city she's in is Stormwind, the capital of the humans, and a member of the other political faction: the Alliance. The Horde and the Alliance aren't exactly in open war, but there is constant skirmishing going on between the two sides all over the planet.

The main character has infiltrated Stormwind, and seems to have a target in mind: the woman with the staff. Her name is Lady Katrana Prestor, part of Stormwind's nobility. Except that she's actually an evil black dragon named Onyxia, disguised as a human with the intent of undermining the Alliance from within. There's a very long and involved quest chain in World of Warcraft that leads you to unveil her true identity, and eventually track her back to her lair and slay her.

This particular machinima takes place before her unveiling, while she's still firmly entrenched in Stormwind's political elite. Both Horde and Alliance have very strong reasons to kill Onyxia, because of her very nasty manipulation of the two powers in the war-torn world of Azeroth.

I have to say my favorite part of this machinima is when Lady Prestor raises her finger to her lips and says, "shhhhh." Too awesome. When you see it in context, you'll understand. Keep in mind the name of the piece, "Blind"... it's thematic in quite a few ways.

Anyways, this is a superb example of both animation and storytelling, and I'm really looking forward to more work from this artist! Go, percula!


The Craft of War: BLIND from percula on Vimeo.