Painting, I love painting miniatures (and occasionally going to the game shop and playing with them) but since mom passed I've had so much apathy for sitting down and putting brush to figure. It's been four years now and my output of finished figures has been negligible with various responsibilities. Still, it felt good to sit down with my kids for the past two weeks and paint again. We've been working nightly after I get home from work (or playing Mahjong when we have a fourth wind) and it's helping me get more positive.

Wow, going through I've been a real lump (hobby-wise, working way too much overtime until recently) and haven't had a good sit down, play a game, and take photos of it as we play in two years.

I need to get out and play more as well as paint more.

Finishing a painting project is something I love. Undead Romans for Dragon Rampant finally unboxed, assembled, painted, and added to thanks to some generous online people in the wargaming hobby. My mother bought these for my birthday and since her passing I was hard pressed to even look at them.

Course I also hate that I've gotten lazy in that my computer blew up and I haven't been assed out to replace it leaving me to take lousy unedited pics with my phone.

Ah heck, I finished all those undead Roman figures with bows, swords, pilums, ballistas, whatevers. I reached out to the wargame community and managed to buy a set of cavalry for the range from a person in the Netherlands. The range was originally Russian and discontinued in 2003 so they are getting harder and harder to find. Got them painted up a little while back and decided to take crappy phone camera pics of them just cause.

I really need to get an actual computer again and quit relying on my phone to do everything. The days when I'd try (unsuccessfully) to use a light box and edit the pictures... I kind of miss it.

@Auspice

I know I'm kind of begging it with the 'him' thing as if a female would have never even considered playing one of the old Avalon Hill wargames and maybe lacks the basic brain power?
As a kid I found the people playing the games to be a bit biased in that only adult men with an encyclopedic knowledge of the historical period were fit to play these mighty games. Which is partially why the hex n' counter hobby is so stagnant. The 'grognards' seemed pretty content to alienate everyone and treat them as if they lacked basic brain power to play their games.
I think some of these players with that mindset likely haunt the BGG forums and are probably still as vocal as they were then. I'm bitter towards them because they were such arrogant creeps towards me when I was younger and interested in these games. I occasionally get someone to sit down with me to play these dusty games I'm picking up on Ebay but overall I think they really damaged the potential player pool with their arrogance decades ago so there was never any new blood.

Sorry, personal rant over.

I've been messing with my own undead Bloodborne/Dark Souls inspired beastie for Dragon Rampant.

Nearing completion but someone said with the basing that now there's too much green so I guess I'm going back to the shroud with more browns and tans to offset it. Lots of hot glue and Dollar Tree Halloween decorations. Just glad that I finally had a sickness induced fever dream that inspired me to make use of them.

Well, there was the first prototype but the big skulls were too goofy and the Dollar Tree Gravelord Nito needed work so obviously my fever dream told me how to correct it.

@Thenomain This, a million time this. The first cry asking why must they always lose needs to be headed off at the pass. You lose because you're the villain and liking to win just once just isn't in the cards. It takes a little bit of a roleplaying masochist to accept this and that they are providing a great story of losing. That pesky ego and desire to win usually gets in the way, though.

@Autumn My goodness, you should have at least tagged that with spoilers! Thanks for ruining it for me.

I don't know shouldn't everyone know the end of most of Shakespeare's plays?

Puck holds up the severed head of Yorick and Othello screams out, "All hail the king of England, Julius Casar!"

It's Shakespeare, everyone dies by the end.

@kdraygo Can't we just get BEYOND Thunderdome?

Photobuquet's hostage situation made me angry. I finally got over myself and just started an imgur profile and up loaded some pics of my latest painting. I kind of stalled awfter doing a Mantic dwarven army and Mantic elven army for Dragon Rampant. I kind of tail spinned in my painting enthusiasm and worked on the Elven Flying Cavalry forever and finally have them ready to be sealed.
Firstly I repainted a Halloween prop from Dollar General to act as a greater warbeast for my skeletal Romans.

Then there was this Happy Meal toy a vendor left after a convention over the summer. He left this pile of poor, unloved toys so I took this home (1996 Hercules Happy Meal toy research found) and gave him a repaint to use as a rock golem great warbeast.

Then there's the Reaper Skeletal Behemoth that was purchased for me as I can't have TOO MANY greater warbeasts.

Then there's the flying elite Eleven warrior maidens on pegasi. They need to be sealed and then mounted on their flying bases but ouch, I stalled forever on getting them finished. More pictures of them once I get them on their stands.

I'm working on 15th century fantasy knights, pikemen, archers, etc. now. Trying hard to hash out a purple and yellow scheme for them but not quite getting that purple right. Feels good to be painting again, and feels REALLY good to knock out so many figures in short order as I started in on Sunday.

And just because I'm uploading again, the last painting spell was in August when I was in medium sized dragon mode. Elven leader on venom dragon.

And my leader figure for the undead Romans. Totally inspired by that old Dungeons and Dragons module CM2 Death's Ride... Only the dragon was blue on the cover.

Sounds like they are operating like it's.... 1995? Maybe as late as 1998? Been reading a lot on the 'new workplace' and how people are not going to fight tooth and nail for employment with limited scope and no promises of anything resembling employer loyalty to said prospects. I work in the old school corporate hive mind where the idea of telecommuting and people working in their pajamas is a cardinal sin or some such. Course I see the fresh new executives showing up at the office once every other week and go to drop in offices wherever they feel like it. So there is some updating going on but it's only for the sons (and one or two daughters) of the executives getting hip to their kids requests for a more open and adaptable workplace.
That said, Auspice, I don't blame you at all for politely declining this rare opportunity to bust your ass for an amazing opportunity to be treated as a disposable asset. I think they are going to find very few willing to jump through their hoops for this chance at being employed for a whopping three months. The employment landscape is changing and in some ways, very much for the better.

I've been messing with my own undead Bloodborne/Dark Souls inspired beastie for Dragon Rampant.

Nearing completion but someone said with the basing that now there's too much green so I guess I'm going back to the shroud with more browns and tans to offset it. Lots of hot glue and Dollar Tree Halloween decorations. Just glad that I finally had a sickness induced fever dream that inspired me to make use of them.

Well, there was the first prototype but the big skulls were too goofy and the Dollar Tree Gravelord Nito needed work so obviously my fever dream told me how to correct it.

Jason and the Argonauts played multiple times over the PBS station. The climatic fight with the Children of the Hydra pretty much cemented my love of fantasy. I started reading all the collected books of mythology I could get my hands on. Somewhere in there I remember reading Richard Avery's 3rd Expendables book- the War Games of Zelos. My sister in law's brother approached me somewhere in there and like every good dealer told me there was a game where YOU could fight animated skeletons like in the Argonauts film.

To be honest, he put me through Tomb of Horrors and killed me a dozen times but I was still completely sold on this game and saved up to buy my own Basic Set of Dungeons and Dragons. It was a hard sell on my neighborhood friends and mostly unsuccessful. It wasn't until 6th grade that a few of us managed to find each other and start playing on weekends.

MU*s came about after my high school group had finished college and started scattering to the four winds with jobs, marriages, just getting the hell out of Texas, etc. Needed those stories to still be told after all. Still, looking back, I don't think I ever quite grasped the dynamics of MUSH, MUX, etc. despite being staff and all that.

@tiredewok Blank Reg down? I'm truly saddened by that one.

I guess I'm in. I usually don't get too invigorated by it these days but what the heck.

As long as Spice Mareen apps were routinely rejected we'd be in business. Don't need Brother Custodious Supreme Ligotiator of the Porcelain Brown Terrors and his squad of Deathwatch marines stealing the show. Even worse one of those Soul Drinker cleansed Chaos Marines making an appearance to show off his taint.
Still, having read Fifteen Hours it still didn't feel very Warhammer-(y) as a day in the life of a guardsman. I liked the Gaunt's Ghost stories but that was the first bit of 40K fluff I'd read in a long time and it did feel like these are the battles that are not important enough to merit a Space Marine detachment.

I'll throw my hat in that they managed to really prove themselves in building a true structure that they could have so many characters and managed to keep a coherent narrative. No questions as to what a character's motivations were and exposition was just about right to keep things flowing. Fight choreography was up to the usual standards, maybe even better than usual, with the teamwork aspect giving me the warm fuzzies a lot. There was not a character appearance that didn't just hit my comic fan button all over the place. Opinions from the kids had Hulk stealing the show possibly Dr. Strange.
It's a long movie but it did not feel long at all. Just one of those moments where pacing, scene changes, action pieces, all kind of fall together into a really good film.

Do you like purple? I like purple... Well, maybe not a ton but people I love do love purple so I purpled the hell out of purple and made a purple (complimentary color yellow) army of knights in partial plate with a steam tank led by a knight on a purple and yellow dragon. Actually I figured the dragonrider showed up and the army formed under her leadership and adopted their colors to match her.

I also did some stuff like... I mean at the gaming con last year someone just LEFT this poor unloved Happy Meal toy from Hercules so I took him home and gave him so love and attention.

And yeah, even Dollar Tree Halloween decorations get on the battlefield after I take them home and give them a lick of the brush.

Guess I just felt the need to say I've been crafty and productive.

I guess I'm still the ten year old at heart because I like to read and digest my RPG's lying on the couch or in bed. My last purchase was Blades in the Dark and I bought the digital copy, started to print it and put it in sheet protectors but that book became way too unwieldy in a binder. Turned around and bought the limited edition book since they had a handful leftover from the kickstarter and have happily immersed myself in Duskvol at bedtime for quite awhile now.
Hmmm, did the same thing with Dungeon World and Owl Hoot Trail as well. I try to get on the digital train but I just don't quite digest digital rulebooks the same if that makes any sense. Sounds dumb but I feel I read them differently.

Does it have Clarissa in it? Or Caroline Rhea? I love Clarissa but dislike Melissa Joan Hart kind of if that makes any sense.

Finished the Punisher, ready for season two of it if only because I think they'll make a better villain. I'm really thinking that Marvel Netflix shows are more defined by the quality of their villains than the heroes.