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I finished one of my favorite figures from the original Bones Kickstarter: Trista, the White Wolf. Patrick Keith is one of my favorite sculptors and he did a great job with her - especially with her realistic proportions and armor. I wasn't digging the original sword, so I swapped it out using the weapon sprue from Bones 3. I bunch of thanks to all of the forum members who gave great encouragement and suggestions in my WIP thread.

Hi everyone, here is DSM8113, Siamese Cat Wizard with Staff sculpted by David Summers for the Dark Sword Miniatures, Critter Kingdoms - Anthropomorphic Animals line. It's a two-piece model. I painted the arm holding the staff before gluing to the body. Again, this was a fun model to paint. The cabochon on its dress where large enough that I was able to paint them in like opals.

Well - We Did It! Not what we had planned but the direction we were gently prodded towards. We opened escrow on a parcel of Vacant Land today. Our plan has been to find an alredy developed parcel of land with an old and creepy mobile home on it and scrape the property down to the utility connections then install a brand new Modular/factory built home. Just have not been able to find a suitable parcel ready to be scraped, so we will be doing all of the development work. In other happy news, I checked out the Game Store that I spotted. The Hydra's Lair, in Carson City, Nv.. Nice Place, good vibe, and they carry a nice selection of Bones as their main line of miniatures. House Rules posted on the door into the business look a lot like the rules for the Reaper Forums, with the addition of requirements for personal hygiene that would be irrelevant for the internet, but allow the management to maintain a wholesome and family friendly environment. They have a very busy calendar for in store games and tournaments. I don't know how I'm going to be able to handle having a game store ess than an hour from my residence. Plus having the Carson City branch of the Nevada State Railroad Museum about 5 minutes farther down the road [which has regular steam locomotive operations all summer long]. GEM

Forgot to mention that my package had come in, but the Lady is finally home :

This past weekend I attended a Masterclass by Miniature Monthly. We painted the bust "Mary Fixit and G.R.I.T.T." which consists of 2 characters. Elizabeth Beckley taught traditional painting on the Mary figure, the little fox girl. Contrast is an area where I struggle and I was glad that was a big focus of the 1st day's class. By following along I noticed a big difference in contrast during the first few color transitions on the face: While we weren't able to completely finish the figure I believe I'll be able to take what I've learned and complete her over the next couple of weeks: The 2nd day was Aaron Lovejoy teaching airbrush techniques on GRITT. I've always had a difficult relationship with my airbrush and was really glad Aaron was able to very clearly give direction and advice. Now I feel more confident with my airbrushing, but I know I still need to practice. This was at about the halfway point of GRITT: Putting both pieces together looks really great. I've still got a lot of work to do on both of them, but I feel better prepared to do it. The first thing I'm going to do is repaint the yellow leather on Mary. I'm not satisfied with how it looks as I just couldn't get the paint to work for me. Going to try out some different colors I've found work well when doing yellow. Hopefully I can still get good contrast.

Usually this. Mostly this. I also spend time on crossword puzzles. And on YouTube, I divert myself with woodturning videos (Nick Zametti amuses me) and, although I couldn't care less about watching Pool, I am somehow FASCINATED by Snooker.

I'm not on any prescribed medications. I take vitamin D, calcium carbonate, and fish oil. Over the past couple years, we've gone to a doctor each time we've saved up enough. We have the diagnosis for the physical stuff, but not the mental stuff. Bah. Text is awful for this kinda stuff. Like... It's serious but I don't want y'all thinking too hard on it. There's nothing I can do about it. It's just hard to convey that in-between status without vocal intonation.

Long day is close to being over.... And now for something amusing:

That stuff was the closest Megan came to breaking her vow of No Alcohol while carrying Brigid. She wanted a whiskey, neat, to burn the taste away. There was also some nasty looking chalky drink at some point - but I guess that didn't make her want to set her tongue on fire. The Auld Grump

My desk at work has a few new friends: Vanellope and Alita at left are new. ...I guess this has gotten to the point that I have an answer to the recent GTKY thread question about collecting.

Try adding methylated B12 to your list. No joke, my roommate's girlfriend had an issue similar to that which kept eluding a diagnosis. She was told she had a B12 deficiency and to take B12 supplements, which she did, but it wasn't helping. It wasn't until she had a specific test done years later that they figured out why. Her body couldn't process the B12 found in most supplements, which is a wholly synthetic form of B12 called cyanocobalamin that your body breaks down into stuff it can use. It would still show on her blood tests as being B12 in her system at the proper levels, but her body just couldn't metabolize it into methylcobalamin, the natural form of B12 that your body can actually use. So her doctor told her to switch to B12 supplements labeled as "methylated B12" or "methyl B12," which is just the market name for supplements of actual methylcobalamin. When she did, a lot of that issue resolved itself. Worst case scenario is that you spend $10 on a bottle of B12 and you either throw them away or you choke them down anyways because you spent good money on them and you're not letting them go to waste, dangit!

We've had good luck with the Merax gaming chairs, those start at $100 or so. I think mine was $150? I've had mine for over 2 years and it's helped my back a lot - I have to sit up straight and it supports me. The only sign of wear has been on the armrest; my cuddly cat thinks she's a parrot (I've been calling her a purret) and hops up on it multiple times a day. Not gonna lie, I was initially swayed from other brands at the time because they had a black and yellow chair, so I could have a Hufflepuff chair!

Thanks, y'all. We're hoping by 2020 or 2021 we'll have the money and insurance to figure everything that's going on, but until then I just keep having to take it slow. I don't plan on giving up art, I just need to readjust my mental learning schedule. But I hate slooooooooow.

Made an order on Saturday with Sculpture Supply Canada. They don't have a proper shopping cart set up so it says they'll send me an email to confirm shipping and payment instructions. 4 days no email. I know @WhiteWulfe said to just call them. Yesterday I couldn't remember everything in my order. My memory is terrible lately. Today I figured out what it was I wanted to order except one thing. It was nagging me what am I forgetting. Finally say, "bleep it. I'll order the rest." Open their website to get the phone number and the place I book marked is the one thing I couldn't remember on my list.

I usual play "has anyone poster to the Reaper forums recently? How about now?"

I hope you will be alright. Try not to stress too much ( said the stressful Wolf) I hope you can get a good diagnosis. And hopefully it will not be something serious. *** Sends good vibes***

Based on the number of metallic half dragons about, there's clearly another category: furry ~~~~~~~~~~~ Had my baby appoint today and had to drink the glucose drink for the diabetes test. I swear, I've had nastier drinks, but not by much. And then I wasn't allowed to eat anything for a while to get the godawful taste out of my mouth. Medical tests are just torture. On the plus side, i noted that I've only gained 10 lbs since I became pregnant. Which is nice, given that I feel like I've been pigging out hardcore lately.

All I'm imagining right now is a bunch of halflings getting together and becoming a draconic Voltron.

That's the trouble, I used to be good at this stuff It's a long and sad story though, one that I'm not going to burden you fine people with. I focus on mini painting nowadays, but I still draw goofy pawns for my friends Pathfinder game. These are for this weeks game, bonus points if anyone can actually identify these Huge sized critters Good grief, they look terrible Unfortunately, I have no musical or poetic talents so I cant really contribute anything on those topics

Same here. And I straight up tell players that they cannot rely on a dragon's color to know anything about it. Most dragons in my world breath fire, regardless of their color, and their alignments are more a factor of their personality than anything else. Depending on the environment the dragon lives in, I may give them abilities to match. All of them have 12 syllable names, and expect to be addressed by their full name. My dragons also can't shape change, though the elder ones have learned a trick to use avatars. Dragons are sapient. That means, like any /other/ sapient critter, they can learn. Now... some dragons have rep to deal with (red dragons, particularly), so a 'good' Red might not want it bandied about that he's taken over a city because the last ruler was a big ol' *censored* who was doing things to his people even the dragon had trouble with. A blue might (this is actually a thing in my Golarion head-canon) take a hind-seat to a non-dragon ruler and observe, rather than actively taking over, because, dangit, this is new and weird and she's never even /heard/ of this kind of thing (it's .. well, it's what happens when my players do something, nothing quite works out as the module-writers planned it). I'm still trying to figure out how to handle metallic dragons; either they're interfering goody-two-claws, or they're aloof holier-than-thou sages or .. there's no middle ground, and that drives me bonkers. SAPIENT! Capable of learning! Choice! Screwing up! Ugh.

Glass straws (and metal) are a broccoli to clean. My mom has severe limitations to her range of motion and how much she can lift. Light weight plastics cups are a must for her, she just can’t lift one made of glass. It’s too heavy. Straws make drinking much easier for her in public, but cleaning a reusable one is impossible. She can barely manage to wash her own cup and the tiny 1 egg frying pan she uses.

I've been playing computer games since 1975. I have yet to find a phone game that I find enjoyable. I play PC games, console games, etc. The only game I have on my phone is Solitaire. I play Vegas rules, persistent scoring (you buy the deck for $52 and get $5/card for each card that goes into the top 4 suit piles). I was a professional musician in the 80s and 90s. I quit for several years, then picked it up one day and decided to build up my skills again. It took a long time, but it was easier than learning the first time. After playing some rock, metal, and blues for a few years, I started learning to play classical music and got my chops up to the point where I was when I recorded the clip I posted earlier. That was probably the high water mark of my guitar playing (though my high water mark for bass was when we were working on the west coast and I was in music school). So I look at it this way: If you were good at something in the past, it means you have that ability and it's just a matter of discipline to get back and surpass your previous skill level. Since I took up painting minis (and now traditional art), my music skills have rusted significantly. But if I were to focus my efforts on those skills, I could have them into decent shape relatively quickly. I feel you could do the same, and shouldn't let the current state of your skills (as compared to your previous high water mark) get you down.

I have several. Here are some screenshots: Really Bad Chess This one is ironically titled. I think it is a pretty good app. It is Chess. But not standard Chess. It is the answer to: what happens if each side starts with a different army of chess pieces? Like they were real armies, composed differently, with a random mix of available troop types... In the game shown black had, three Knights, three Bishop, three Rooks, and three Queens (But I won anyhow.) ColorBump3D This one is a classic time waster, don’t take your eye off the screen game. I play it; but I don’t recommend it. Way to many ads, they are always noisy video ads, usually to other game titles from the same lazy programmers. It is basically unplayable except in Airplane Mode (which kills the umbilical to the Advert server). But I do enjoy the action of it. You control a Bowling Ball [?] rolling down an endless ally filled with a variety of geometric objects. These get knocked over like toppling dominos, but you have to avoid hitting the contrasting color. (In the screenshot I have to avoid green items.) Other flaws, it is a power hog, it’s levels are repetitive, there are only 100 obstacle configurations ignoring color swap outs, there is no pause, no easy way to get a screenshot... ...at some point I will ditch it. Chessagon I am blowing my own horn a bit here. That chessknight is my artwork. I also designed several of the different chess set options in this app. I am one of the creators of this one, (and pretty much playtester in Chief...sorta my unpaid internship job). It is chess, on a hexagon shaped board, composed of triangles. The pieces seen below are one of the sets I designed. This is what a game in progress looks like. I am the White pieces the AI is the Black Forces. Unlike Square Chess, this has flanks to worry about, more spaces to move to, more pawns... ...many years ago my brother and I had this crazed idea to make Chess more complicated. This was the result (so maybe not a game for everybody) and we believe we’ve succeeded with that whole complicatedness thing. Thanks mostly to my Nephew the phone can play against you (but you can play other people as well). The AI is beatable, but don’t let it get ahead in material.

I do think we need to have a discussion with @buglips*the*goblin about his, because it's starting to seep through my ethernet cable. That's been my problem with most of these proposed straw bans here. I generally don't use straws, and wouldn't be personally impacted much by any bans, but some of these proposals are problematic for other reasons.

My wife got diagnosed with borderline gestational diabetes in that test. So she had to do it a few times and then measure her blood sugar daily for weeks. She was able to control it easily with diet but it was a huge pain for her (literally as well as figuratively with poking fingers for blood 3-4 times a day). She's one of those anomalies that doesn't put on weight when she's pregnant. The baby gained weight but my wife lost it. She's still breast feeding and I tease her that she's like a milk cow. All bone and umm, well you know. She was never overweight but she's on the edge of being underweight now. It was the same with all 3 kids. She's eating more but it's all going into milk production. Once she's done with that she'll gain back 5-10 pounds. My dad took care of his parents and a lot of aunts and uncles in situations like that. I supported him (mostly by doing the things he normally would have so he could help them) with it and then had to do it for him when he got bad. It's not an easy thing to deal with constantly. When you have some time to recover it's bearable but I've seen what happens to people when they don't get that. Remember to take care of yourself too.

Don't have a smart phone so me and the voices in my head just discuss things in my spare moments.

For years I have had this thing with certain word pairs (East West :: Mustard Mayo and others) where I think one but the other one pops out when I speak. But what you are describing sounds more serious. Since we want you to be healthy, happy, and creating. That’s gonna happen. We are going to think on it. ::hugs:: ::good vibes:: ...and so forth. Maybe don’t over do that Calcium Carbonate

Have a hug- it's a bit late, but still totally valid. Seriously, what's wrong with some people? Most people don't know about all the rubbish from the fishing industry and how much damage it causes so when they see something familiar like a straw causing suffering it's easy for them to get behind a campaign like that. Personally, I've been using paper straws for years. One of my old cats liked eating straws, so the paper ones were a far safer option We've done this a couple of times with adult cats (soooo much easier with a kitten) and the best advice I can give is take it slow, make sure they have a safe room to retreat to and positive reinforcement with a treat that they adore can work wonders. Oh, you ignored the other cat? Have a treat! Sniffed the other cat without being aggressive? Have another treat! Although sometimes they sort it out themselves. When we took in our little bengal/ragdoll mix she was terrified, aggressive and refusing to eat food. Her owner had just passed away and as far as the poor wee thing was concerned, we were the enemy. We kept her in the spare room and would try unsuccessfully to interact with her. One day she got out of the room just before I left for work and I couldn't catch her however hard I tried. "Fine", I said "Be like that!" I left, hoping that the little livewire wouldn't be too hard on my sweet little Diabetic calico or my 17 year old tabby. I shouldn't have worried- when I returned the little minx was happily snuggled with them both on the sofa. My old boy had this classic look of "Who the heck is this?" on his face It still took her ages to trust us, but at least she had feline buddies from that day on.

my favorite dragon encounter is still the red dragon priest of Iomedae, especially since it was a Chellax prince who talked the party into defeating the evil red dragon who was taking territory from one of his duchies. It turned out the dragon was releasing serfs and freeing slaves, and giving them the lands that had been stolen from them. Oh boy howdy was that an apology session once the party sorted things out. you think it would be a clue when they said they were from the prince and the peasants ran TO the dragon for protection. Of course, later in that campaign they nearly got eaten by another red dragon because they didn't suspect... In the worlds I run, dragons are like any other sentient race. The culture may have a leaning but the individual still has the right to make their own decisions in life. Though from experience, the evil metallic dragon is much harder to pull off convincingly, although I have seen gold dragons played as lawful evil because order trumped good.

Enter freely, go safely, and leave a little of the happiness you bring. - Dracula (Literally - son of the dragon....) One of my own favorite encounters with a dragon was when one started giving a lesson on the nature of economics to the party. 'Wealth, true wealth, is organic. It feeds, grows, and multiplies. It creates lines of communication, it promotes travel and enterprise. These coins that I bed on were the least part of my wealth, and what I commanded was the least part of the wealth of this city. These coins are static, cold, and dead....' The Auld Grump

These two were made out of hot glue and given a quick paintjob by my sister and me. I like how they look and I made 4x medium and 8x small ones the same way. Will post them too when painted If you like these! :D Next to a reaper bones orc: Before the paintjob:

I should be happy, but I feel nothing. Annual performance review yesterday. Got the highest mark I could get, which equates to a 5% raise and a bonus of 5% of my annual salary. Great, right? Yay. ***tosses green and white confetti *** I anticipate that the money will come and be absorbed, with little to no notice of the change. Maybe once it actually hits the bank account I will have some emotion to the increase. Or maybe it’s just one of those weeks.

Congratulations!!

Because we didn't used to have a word for purple. Just like we didn't used to have a word for orange. Orange was red, purple was blue. I think they're cute and huggable. No, I haven't had a character die because I wanted to hug or pet something... but it's been close

Enjoy torturing yourself

yes,I write haiku on occasion. they are one use poems, and I can't think of any of them I have preserved. I started writing them to use as prophecies for D&D games. but I have written them for the haiku drinking game, as love poetry, and as odes to natural wonders. and as facebook statuses

CanadaPost is silly... Two packages ship the same day from the same address... With the same delivery method. One got here last week, the other is.... Hopefully in town tomorrow, as it hasn't seen a scan for a few days, and that's as the "it's in Ontario" scan. That particular order doesn't really have anything critical in it... Well, if you ignore my desire to outright thief hubby's Knarthax growing stronger every day... And to let him just have the one that's eventually to arrive..

Most people don't know about all the rubbish from the fishing industry and how much damage it causes so when they see something familiar like a straw causing suffering it's easy for them to get behind a campaign like that. Personally, I've been using paper straws for years. One of my old cats liked eating straws, so the paper ones were a far safer option I have some glass (tempered!) straws. But the fact is, we don't /use/ straws! Not even very much when we go out and eat, for whatever reason. Using glass or steel or reusable plastic straws might be a decent solution, but then I have to wonder about cleaning them. That is not efficient (I have a cleaning toy, it's like a bottlebrush, only small), and it's not likely to be, given my experiences with dishwashing machines only being able to do so much with pressurized hot water (might be different if stuff isn't baked on or let to dry, admittedly). So, how's a diner, or a restaurant going to manage? Go to no straws by default, give a reusable one if asked? Or just stick with disposable straws, and, I'unno, shred them? You can't recycle materials with food traces on them, so ... How would that even WORK? People confuse me, some times.

This order was delivered today. Any tips on how to organize by color are greatly appreciated. On a related note: I may need to take tomorrow off work. *cough, cough*

Same here. And I straight up tell players that they cannot rely on a dragon's color to know anything about it. Most dragons in my world breath fire, regardless of their color, and their alignments are more a factor of their personality than anything else. Depending on the environment the dragon lives in, I may give them abilities to match. All of them have 12 syllable names, and expect to be addressed by their full name. My dragons also can't shape change, though the elder ones have learned a trick to use avatars.

I packed my first box today(still needs taped up though)! Naturally, it's all minis. Of course not /all/ the minis I own but a fair amount of ones still in the blister packs and some in bags. I also printed some to-do lists and various other things to help that I'm going to put in a binder once I get one. And labels, printed lots of labels. Stopped about halfway through the second batch because the printer ate the paper and jammed and I really don't feel like going through the effort of getting it un-jammed. Currently, I am reading through info about cats. Specifically how to introduce cats. Our cat has been in a one cat household for about 10 years so I'm not sure how well she'll adjust to this. I'm sure it'll be fine but I'm just worried about a lot of things that I probably don't need to be worrying about.

Good point - the same thing happens in my job. It is much easier for me to help those who want to help themselves than it is people who yell at me.

Doctors are not the easiest to work with. I have been lucky with mine knowing there stuff and knowing when to stop and send me to someone else. but at the same time it is you who has to realize that something doesn't line up or is having an interaction. I have had that experience first hand with the left hand not realizing what the right hand was doing (Quite literally in my case for about 24 hours... weird experience, not to be repeated) It is best to listen to the doctors and then make the decision based on what they tell you about benefits and interactions, just make sure you ask. I have noticed that people who ask the doctors and nurses what they are doing and express interest get better descriptions and reasons for what is going on then people who just yell fix it!

Seconded. I would be in much worse situation with my Colitis had I not pursued it with my doctors, which allowed me to get a handle on it early, before it did too much damage. It's hard, though, when the experts (the doctors) are telling you there is nothing wrong or "that's normal for X". The thing to remember is that YOU'RE the expert when it comes to your own body and no one else can ever be more of an expert about it than you can.

No games on my phone. If I have moments to kill I browse the news. If I anticipate more time I usually take a Kindle with me.

If you have PaintRack, sort your collection by color and use that as a start. Rearrange as necessary to make it pleasing to the eye.

The chair that was in my hotel room at LVO was a nice chair. It was a business chair but it was comfortable & had a nice feel to it. Search on Staples website for pics bit it was similar to this one: Staples Bentura Bonded Leather Managers Chair, Black Item: 24328572 Model: 53234

If I express my true opinion, based on nearly7 decades of close observtion and experience of the human race, North American Version, I will be booted so far into Beekeepers that it will take a week for the internet signal to reach me. Suffice it to say that the Millenial Generation has a highly inflated opinion of themselves individually and collectively, [for the most part as there are exceptions and those exceptions will Rule The World in another 4 decades {if not sooner}] based mostly on a complete lack of experience with the Real World and too much time on the Internet listening to each other. Add in their total disregard for the ~actual~ experience of those of us old enough to have a working knowledge of how the world actually functions and what local exceptions to "the rules" can and do apply and you will begin to see the scope of the problem you are dealing with. If they are going to engage in profanity and ban you for your simple observation then they are Posers. Because your observation should have been met with a response of "Why do you say that?". GEM

Since alternate 'roses are red' poems are being busted out; Roses are reddish, Dimeter Quatrains should rhyme, This is a haiku