Review: The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Volume 3

So we are up to the most recent installment of HFQ’s Best Of anthologies. This is the best collection yet. As usual, there are both stories and poems; I am just reviewing the stories here. And, also as usual, I will try to keep spoilers to a minimum, and when I do include them, put them in parentheses (like this).

EDIT: Please see note after the following paragraph!

I’ll open up with my biggest disappointment here: the handling of the interior illustrations. There are a lot of great black and white illos, but they are all pixelated. For me, this ruins them. The black and white art should be crisp, but it is fuzzy and indistinct with tiny squares. Not sure how this happened, but it would have been better to have left them out entirely in my view. The artists deserve better than having their art presented like this. Obviously, it was a mistake, but I wonder how it slipped through without notice in the proofs? Or maybe the error was at a later stage in the printing.

EDIT: Editor Adrian reached out to me after seeing my review. Some of the early pre-production copies had the pixelation issues, which they worked out. All the published copies have crisp artwork, as was intended. When he sent me the review copies of the three volumes, he unwittingly grabbed one of the early, “not-ready-for-prime-time” copies as he described it. He offered to send me a new copy with the correct artwork, but I declined, as it appears I have a collectors’ edition! So please ignore my complaint above. I have left it for the record, but be aware that any copy you order will have the very nice artwork unmarred.

The cover illustration, however is not marred by the production process! It is another great cover by Robert Zoltan. Not quite as good as on the previous volume, which was bloody awesome, but it is still moody and inspiring, with subtle colors.

Continue reading “Review: The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Volume 3”

Renewed for 3 Years

Just a quick note to let both of you who were agonizing over the drama know: I have successfully renewed my web hosting with Bluehost, my original provider, for 3 more years.

I called them up last week to look for other options than the 18.00 a month they wanted to charge, and they were very easy to work with. The guy I spoke to found a coupon in his system for 12.00 a month if I did three years, for the same level of hosting.

It took a week to get enough money into my Paypal account, as there is a lag between transferring to Paypal from a bank account; the other direction is much faster.

Anyway, I hope to be more ambitious the next three years. Thanks for everyone who has been along for the ride!

Oh, yeah, some of my friends wanted to say a few things:

Dungeons and Lasers 2 has Arrived; and Some Other Stuff

Archon shipped the package containing my terrain and other goodies from D&L2 on April 26. It hung out in Poland, at the Fed Ex facility in Raszyn, for over four weeks before moving again. In that time, their third Kickstarter began and ended. I was sure it had been lost, despite the tracking history showing it being scanned a dozen times in Raszyn.

Anyway, it got here today. Some damage to the box, but the contents were fine.

That is a lot of loot for $99. Well, plus $17 shipping.

The SciFi core set, and three rooms of the Alien-inspired Xenogenesis terrain. Same as I got in the first Kickstarter, and now I’ve got all the SF terrain I’ll ever need, as far as ships/stations/facilities go. A whole lotta stretch goals in the form of scatter terrain and furniture and a few creatures in the upper right three boxes.

They had six dragons as part of the campaign, and you could choose one (or get all six for a decent price). I chose the Alien-looking Xenodragon, a unique sculpt. The Chinese dragon on the left was a million-dollar stretch goal. The campaign actually fell a little short of that goal, but Archon included it in everyone’s package anyway. On the right is the Gelatinous Cube Jerry.

All in all, pretty cool stuff from a company that takes its customers seriously. I’ve seen some mixed feedback on their last Kickstarter, mostly about how it seemed a bit unfocused or schizophrenic between terrain and minis, but I liked the direction it took. I say this even as I won’t be able to use the majority of the minis, as they are much larger than my true 25mm medium. Monsters’ll work, though. I really like the variety of townsfolk and the aesthetic, and wish I could get them in 25mm. But I’ll be happy with their sewers and a few buildings.

In other terrain news, I finally finished up some water tiles I got from Dwarven Forge last year.

This doubles what I had before. So keep an eye out for a cool lake build I’ve always wanted to do in the Greywater Chronicles.

Speaking of which – I missed the month of May’s issue. Various reasons for this, but I hope to make it up to all 3 people who follow along regularly. Maybe two issues this month? A special double issue?

This assumes I can scrape together enough to keep the doors open here.

Next week (stop me if you’ve heard this before) I should have the oft-delayed review of The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Vol.3. This is a great book; the delay not quality-of-material-related, but quality-of-blogger related.

That’s it for now; time to go through the 100+ comments awaiting approval from the last week. Hey, I wonder if VIP Hairstyles really does love my blog entries…

Thanks for reading, and I hope you are all well!

Dungeons & Lasers 3rd Edition

A quick heads up for anyone interested: there are six days left in the 3rd Dungeons & Lasers Kickstarter. I have not gotten any of their fantasy, only the sci-fi stuff. You’ve seen this in the Greywater Chronicles; the nilithids’ space station is made from their tiles. Also, my last post showing the Alien-inspired terrain is theirs as well.

For the most part, I really like their stuff. It is tremendously affordable compared to other systems, with good detail in the sculpts. . It is a bit time-consuming and slightly difficult to work with, owing to the clips they use and the tightness of the pegs going into them. There are some visual gaps in the walls that bug me a little more than the seams on Dwarven Forge dungeon tiles do. But overall I am fond of this terrain.

The current Kickstarter is for village-style terrain and villager figures. I like the villagers, but they are too big to scale with my true 25mm dudes. That’s a shame, as I always want more non-combatants and these guys are perfect. Fortunately, they let you swap out the townsfolk for another room.

Not positive what I’ll get at this point, but definitely will get some sewers. I am not sure that doing them in clear is the best way to go, as that will reveal the clips underneath, but I like the design. I didn’t get DF sewers so these will do well. Then maybe I’ll look at the Tudor buildings to make a mansion.

I didn’t get any DF town stuff as it is a bit too boxy for me. This is boxy, too, but not locked into the 4 by 4 inch base the DF stuff is. For $100 it is an incredible value for all you get, including all the terrain bits in the stretch goals – which are as big a draw for this KS as the buildings are.

Anyway, if you’re at all inclined, I don’t see how you’d be disappointed! As I said, I did not get their dungeon stuff (which is still available in this KS), but it is very economical. Check it out:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/archonstudio/dungeons-and-lasers-third-edition

Edit: For some reason that is playing the video rather than linking to the Kickstarter. So here is the url:

Edit-Edit: Keeps posting the stupid video. Just go to kickstarter.com and search for dungeons and lasers third edition. It’ll come up. Some cool stretch goals are imminent like Pepe the Giant.

Swords Among the Xenoformed Corridors

Been a few weeks since my last post. Since time may be running out on my blog, better get to posting!*

I have been reading Best of Heroic Fantasy 3, and been very happy with it, except for one major non-story issue. I’ll have a review…soon!

Been doing various writing jobs that have taken up most of my time, between the research and the standards and formatting. Hope it leads somewhere.

I have finally started painting my Dungeons & Lasers Xeno terrain. This is from the first campaign. In the second campaign, I got the exact same order: starship terrain (seen in the Flayers’ space station) and the Alien-inspired xeno stuff. The xeno stuff will be Mind (Id) Flayer and Beholder terrain. In Greywater, it will show up as terrain that the Nilithids are xenoforming.

I sprayed it all in gloss black primer:

The I tried three different dry-brushes. Top left is metallic brown, under that is metallic green. Top right is no dry-brushing (for contrast), and under that is a pale metallic blue.

I think I got too much dry-brush on the brown and the blue, as they are kinda dulled out. I think the metallic green looks the best, anyway. The gloss will be restored when I hit it with the gloss sealer spray. I’m probably going to do them all with the green.

I really wanted to get the atmospheric luster from the second movie, Aliens, when the marines were down in the transformed tunnels. A kind of wet, bluish look. But I kinda like the subtlety of the lightly dry-brushed green.

There’s other stuff going on, but I’ll leave it for a couple of days from now. Don’t break your seats as you hover on the edge waiting for the next update!

*My renewal for Bluehost is due Mid-June, and the special is up. They want to charge me $18 a month, plus $34 a year for my domain name and ssl certificate, and another $10 a month for various other stuff. I am not sure where they are getting these figures, as as I don’t even see them on their billing page, and I do not have an option to renew at a lesser fee. They want me to call, which I will, but I am thinking of going with another host entirely, as I have not been completely happy with Bluehost. But moving the site has to be a pain in the booty, so…I’ve got some decisions to make. Toss in my shattered dreams of having the site pay for itself, and, well, we’ll see.

Skelos #4 Arrived Today

This is noteworthy, as the Kickstarter that funded the first four issues of the magazine happened in 2016. This issue is a few years late from the original ETA, and six months or so late from the last Kickstarter page Update. Others from the campaign are still awaiting their issues, and some are still awaiting their third issues as well.

It’s easy to be snarky because of the tardiness, but ultimately that serves nothing. I know the publishers had some problems outside of the magazine, and it seems like they got in over their heads on this project, for whatever reason. I am simply glad to have finally received my copy.

I have enjoyed the first three issues. Some solid stories, and a few clunkers. What I really liked was the diversity of genres, from fantasy to sf to horror. This is a Sword & Sorcery blog primarily, but I’ve covered other stuff and I’m a fan of a lot of genres. Skelos supplies a broad range of interests; maybe too many to be successful, maybe not. Anyway, I’m looking forward to eventually reading it.

I say eventually, because I have some other projects I need to read and review. I just started the The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly 3 (the first story is simply awesome), and after that, I will go over the second edition of Dice or Die, which I was kindly sent. I’ve been reading slowly this year, compared to previous years, savoring things and trying to be more critical of my own response to what I review.

So it will probably be May before I get around to reading and doing a review on Skelos 4, since my plate is full with other projects as well. Maybe I’ll talk about the other, earlier issues, then; I think all three of them had been published and sent before I started this blog almost three years ago.

I just wish to say Thank You to Skelos Press for seeing this project through, and I know you’ll eventually complete it for all of your backers.

Recon Report: Swords and Axes, 04/05/2021

A quick post to show what has been going on Under Distant Suns.

First, some reinforcements for the Greywater Chronicles:

You may recognize a few from the various recent lead rot posts. Not all of these are destined for the pages of the comic, but who knows.

Another project that has been taking up some time:

This is a guitar I bought at a pawn shop 20 years ago with the intention of rebuilding it. It’s an old Westone that was not working. It sat virtually untouched that whole time, except when I chipped the paint off of it shortly after buying it. I have an interesting idea on wiring it now, so I have been working toward that. I am putting varnish on the neck and body here, almost done. Satin finish rather than gloss. I made a few mistakes, as you can see on the headstock where varnish pooled when it was turned upside down, but I’ll live with them. This may be a prototype for a line of guitars (with a different body), but it will be a unique creation no matter what. New pickups and pots are on the way.

Related to that, my friend Scott and I finally finished the album project we have been working on the last couple of years. Using new (to us) computer-based recording has proven a tremendous learning curve, but worth the effort in the end. We have broken the recordings into two EPs, which we’ll be putting on Soundcloud later this month. I’ll link here when they’re up.

Tales From the Magician’s Skull wrapped up their open call for stories a few days ago. I had intended to submit one, and indeed I was encouraged a bit by the last issue, knowing I could do better than that. But knowing and doing are two different things, of course, and in the end I wasn’t real happy with the potential story I’d done for the submission. It felt rather obligatory, than a solid story, so I’ve shelved it for the time being. Maybe I just need to start my own magazine, like I talk about in the sidebar to the right.

Saturday would have been my Dad’s 82nd birthday. My sister came down and spent the afternoon with Mom and me. It was very nice.

That’s it for now. New Greywater Chronicles about a week away. Working on an adventure for Dark City Games. More on those later.

I hope you are all well!

Fighting Lead Rot on Painted Miniatures

So the epic self-discovery journey that was my eight (or was it nine?) posts on lead rot focused exclusively on unpainted lead figures. I also have discovered it in a few of my painted figures. I launched another operation on that front; it consisted of three days of activity over a week. Rather than blog about it in real time, I waited until I was (more or less) done and made it into a single blog post.

I used the same chemicals I did before, White Mineral Oil and Pure Gum Turpentine; see the picture for the exact brands, and an Amazon link at the end of the post. I mixed them 50/50 – eyeballed, rather than precisely measured. My plan was to scrub the figures with a toothbrush and the mixture, then let it dry and see the results. Hopefully there would not need to be much touch-up, but I knew that was probably unrealistic.

So let’s meet the four women who broke my heart:

That’s Clara from the Greywater Chronicles on the left; she is a Grenadier figure from the late ’80s. She has lead rot on the base. Beside her is Gretta, newly introduced in Issue 21; as I was playing through the last combat, I noticed her base also had lead rot. She is Ral Partha from ’78 or ’79. Next is a Grenadier thief lady from the mid or late ’90s; her rot is on the sword and sword-hand. This is of course very strange as the industry had moved away from lead then, but it is clearly on the figure. Finally we have another Ral Partha chick from the same time frame as Gretta; in fact, I purchased them both in a box of eight figures, one of which was Laine (I showed her in my other lead rot posts).

Continue reading “Fighting Lead Rot on Painted Miniatures”