Category: Uncategorized

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!

For the first two years, I didn’t get a single spam comment. Now I get them every day, and the total spam outnumbers the total real comments by 3 to 1. I guess everybody blogging has to deal with that.

All of the recent spam comments use a technique of appending full, three-word names at the end; some of them are hilarious, when I bother to read them. I usually just trash it, but every now and then I read the spam comments.

This one is a gem, and I had to save it:

The the next occasion I just read a weblog, Hopefully that this doesnt disappoint me up to this blog. I mean, It was my replacement for read, but I personally thought youd have something fascinating to talk about. All I hear is often a couple of whining about something that you could fix when you werent too busy in search of attention. Sonya Alphonse Lemmie

This was deposited on one of my old Megadungeon Faction posts. I love when these bots are programmed to be critical, as if that is evidence of their authenticity.

It is very enlightening to discover that I am whiner in search of attention. Thanks, Internet!

…was yesterday. I tried to post about it, but Bluehost was acting up on me and I could’t. No real problem, I am pretty sure the world survived.

I wasn’t going to say anything profound or long, just a few words about his impact, primarily with Conan. But there were probably plenty of blogs that did that, so Conan would undoubtedly see the irony in me parroting everybody else’s blog posts while talking about independence.

So instead, I’ll just say thanks.

There is also irony in my talking about increasing my blog posts…and then not doing it. I am behind in most phases of my life, now; time to change that. I will have two things done in the next week: Issue 19 of the Greywater Chronicles and a review of Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Volume 2.

See you then!

Everything and nothing going on, as usual!

Some plotting/writing progress. This should be moving faster, but other factors have been intervening. Still, pretty happy with the ideas the little grey cells are generating at this point. I want to have two solid S&S stories done by the middle of next month; I feel that is a strong likelihood.

On the topic of this here blog, two noteworthy things have been occurring. First, traffic has been way up. This has been driven by my review of Necromancy in Nilztiria, which was linked to from the DMR website and Facebook, and The Best of HFQ #1 review. I wish I was getting attention for my writing and/or comics, but if my reviews lead to bigger and better opportunities, that works, too!

The other big thing on the blog: spam comments have now exceeded real comments. Hmmmm.

Gaming and hobby-related stuff has been at a stand-still. I hope to change that very soon. I will have a post or two up on lead rot, which I have found in a few figures. There is a bit of info out there on how to contain it, and I will document my own battle with it.

I am re-reading Best of HFQ #2 right now, and will have a review up in the next week.

I guess that’s everything that’s happening around here. Hope you are all well!

Bret

…has evidently become bi-monthly!

Got issue 17 up last week, that made me happy. I found five typos, though – that did not make me happy. As much as I whine about that in other people’s projects…no wonder I can’t get an editing job! Playing through issue 18 right now. Lots more violence.

I’ve let the pot of Ral Partha Flesh sit. I’ll check it out after I get the table cleared of the death and debris from issue 18. But I feel pretty good about that, too.

On the writing front, no progress in any stories. I have instead focused on my next Dark City Games adventure. With Uprising! done and hopefully on track for a Christmas release, it would be great to have another adventure ready to come out a couple of months later, to sustain momentum. George is optimistic we can get a monthly income from from the company; that can only happen if we keep up a steady pace of releases. That is the best way to focus my time, as I see it now.

Not to say I am putting aside my other writing. The deadline for submissions to Tales From the Magician’s Skull is March or something, so I still have plenty of time to get a great story together.

Reading a lot. In the middle of The Sowers of the Thunder by Robert E. Howard – maybe you’ve heard of him? I had not read this collection of historical fiction set in the time of the Crusades. It is fantastic; I will have a review in the next week.

My reviews have occasionally gotten attention. I was recently asked to review a few books. They are on their way to me, and I am very much looking forward to reading them. One I had read before 2 or 3 years ago; be interesting if I see it the same as I did then. These are collections of stories. More on that when it happens.

Comments on my posts are up tremendously – but they are mostly spam. I went for 2.5 years without a single spam comment, now I get them every day. Some are pretty funny, and I think about letting a few get through…but nah.

Hope you are all having a wonderful holiday season!

Uprising! is 99.99% done. I have to reword one section regarding the combat map once I get it created in GIMP, after George teaches me how to do it over the phone tomorrow. I may add one or two more paragraphs. That’s it. I feel that this is a strong adventure, though I am taking some chances with it. It’s a bit of a hack fest early, but even then you can sway events, and there are seven or eight potential ways for the adventure to end.

Now that that is 99.99% off my plate, time to work on other writing projects. The Stalingrad game will go into a holding pattern, as I have another idea for a fantasy adventure that is a wide open sandbox, like my adventure Ebon Rebirth. This is in the early planning stages, but I’m getting down some cool ideas now. Fantasy adventures are our bread and butter, and we need to make a strong push at both the end of this year and the start of next year.

But I am definitely going to get some short stories done. The world and main character have been kicking around in my head for a month now. With Uprising! off the plate, this will take center stage…

…next week. Because over the weekend I hope to get the Greywater Chronicles #17 done and off to the virtual presses. This past Wednesday was four weeks since the last issue, and I hate to go longer than that. A necessity here, but I can’t let it slide past the middle of next week.

On the painting front, got another batch sealed today.

Front row are seven pixies from Custom Cast. Got these guys around 1980. That is some epic procrastination! Behind them are four Tom Meier Ral Partha elven archers firing stage right. The back row has a later Ral Partha elven hero, and then an Asgard Miniature Beowulf (I think that’s who it’s supposed to be).

I have another nine goblins actually finished, but now that the stuff to create a good wash is in, I’ll mix it up and may apply it to them before sealing. I usually don’t apply washes, as I could never get a good mix and it just made everything muddy. But I recently found a great recipe from a pro painter, and the last of the stuff for it came in this week. I originally wanted the wash to apply to my Dungeons & Lasers sf terrain that I showed in progress a few weeks ago. That is all done but the wash now. So tonight I’ll mix that up and apply it to terrain and goblins.

The brown-painted Rampage terrain went to the back burner, but it is about 80% done, so maybe late next week get it done and sealed while we still have some warm-enough weather.

Not sure what I’ll paint after that. I have a metric buttload of figures primed, of a huge variety of races. Also have a lot of Dwarven Forge, from KS5 (dungeons) and KS6 (caverns) that would definitely give me some more variety in my Greywater scenarios; so that should probably jump to the front of the queue. Also KS6.66, Hellscape, which will be a Fire Giant’s lair. We saw one of those guys back in GC#3. Those were probably my last Dwarven Forge purchases (for reasons I have gone over before, but I might again; their most recent KS made me realize some more things about their current approach. But it ain’t important).

And I still have to choose something to read in bed tonight!

OK, so-so progress this last week. Hope to have a lot more done next week. If GC #17 gets out and I have some solid outlines of some stories, it will be a win!

Hope you are all well!