When does the painting end?

     I don't consider myself to be a "good" painter.  My miniatures come out looking alright, and I'm not embarrassed to put them on the table, but I tend to think of them as "OK".  I like to think though that my skills have improved incrementally over that past 35 years or so that I've been painting, and I like to think that they continue to improve.  All of this leads me to my habit of retouching and adjusting my miniatures over time.  I find that as I learn a new technique, or get better at an old one that I tend to go back to miniatures that I'm fond of and try to improve them.  Eyes are something that have always vexed me, so generally I would avoid them, which goes against the whole "faces and bases" mantra of what makes a good miniature.  I've been practicing on eyes though and just updated the barbarian in the center and the dwarf to the right with new sets of peepers.  The dwarf was finished years ago, and the barbarian much more recently, yet both found themselves in the improvement line.  I had used the Doomreaver to the left in an Iron Kingdoms game for quite some time but was never quite happy with his Fellblade, so I repainted that last week as well.  The improvements have been incremental, but I find myself now much happier with each of these.
     So, do most people find that they adopt a "done is done" attitude toward their miniatures, or do you find yourselves going back for regular touch-ups on your minis to make incremental improvements?

An Opportunity to Support Purple Sorcerer Games

Purple Sorcerer Games provides some awesome free RPG tools.  Now is your chance to help support them and help them to keep up the good work.  Plus, any donation will get you a PDF copy of their adventure Perils of the Sunken City.  Donations of $25 or more will get you even more of their PDFs.  I absolutely love their Android/iOS app The Crawler's Companion, and while it's got a lot of stuff in it specifically for Dungeon Crawl Classics, I think it makes a great dice roller for any game.

Weird Adventure Wednesday

This week's weird Adventure Idea:

On a summer day you meet a shifty bandit at a disreputable inn.  The bandit discloses to you that 3 weeks travel to the west, across The Seething Moors of the Howling Moon stands The Shameful Church of Amputation.  It is rumored that hidden there is The Dislocated Emerald Pickaxe of Death.  But beware, for the bandit warns you that The Melting Surgeon of Blight prowls that site!

Appendix N: Three Hearts and Three Lions $1.99 in the Kindle Store

Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions is for sale for $1.99 in the Kindle Store.  There is a lot of old school goodness in this book, and it's clear how much of an influence it had on some aspects of early Dungeons & Dragons.  I don't want to spoil anything, but you can really see the origins of the Paladin class here, and the troll has a very D&D feel to it.  I remember needing to get this through inter-library loan in order to read it back when it was out of print.  I'm really glad to see more old titles getting new life as e-books.  At under 200 pages, it makes for a quick and worthwhile summer read, plus it's a pretty good deal for just $1.99 if you have a Kindle.

Miniatures Monday

This week for Miniatures Monday, we make a return to Reaper Miniatures.  This one is 03397: Raging Barbarian and was sculpted by Bobby Jackson.  Overall I don't think the results are bad, but my decision to go with a bronze color for his shoulder armor makes the overall effect of the miniature a bit brown.  Also, I think that his eyes need to be redone as I painted them before the final flesh wash, and they seem a bit dark.  I'm happy with his teeth since they turned out to be fairly noticeable. I have another copy of this miniature that I was planning to do a bit of modding on.  We'll see how that one turns out.

More Conan the Barbarian (1982) Trivia

Last night while I was straightening out my games shelf, I had the first episode of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys running on Netflix.  At 11 minutes and 01 second in (33 minutes and 22 seconds left), this shot appeared as the exterior of a tavern where Iolaus is arguing with a villager who came to seek the help of Hercules.

A tavern exterior in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys

There was something very familiar about that exterior, and I paused the show and stared at the screen for a few moments.  Then it hit me.  I loaded up Conan the Barbarian (1982) to confirm, and sure enough it was the exterior of the witch's hut!

The Witch's Hut in Conan the Barbarian

I think it's kind of cool that they slipped something like that in there, since Hercules:  The Legendary Journeys really was more sword & sorcery than Greek mythology.  Less interesting then Conan's father's sword, but still neat.