One of Those Updates Where I Lump Stuff Together

In addition to contemplating the death rates in The Ever Expanding Dungeon, I've been working on a couple of other projects, one of which I've mentioned before, and one I haven't (at least not on here).

The first is the Great Northern War project. The Kievski battalion is coming along, albeit slowly.

I haven't been happy with the last few painting session results.

Part of it is my brush - I switched brushes between the last batch and the start of the Kievski unit. The feel is dramatically different than the Army Painter brushes I had been using (which I was trying out to see if they were any better than my usual brush choices).

The bummer is that I have used this brush (well, not this specific brush, but this brand, model and size) before, for my USMC and Japanese infantry last year, so I like them, but it's taking more time than I thought to get used to them again.

The frustration is hindering my enjoyment and I'm tempted to order another set of the Army Painter brushes (they fell apart after the 4th regiment was finished).

The second project is taking a lot of my spare time, and hence the (relative) silence here.

When I was contemplating what I wanted to do in 2013, generally speaking, not hobby focused, I realized that I really wanted to make a dead-tree zine.

This has been something I have wanted to do since I first encountered zines in the mid-90s with titles like Dumpster Diver, Dishwasher and the very well known, incredibly long-running Cometbus.

A feeble attempt was made in 1996, which I had dubbed Bored, but it never saw the light of day because I was bored and the content reflected that, i.e. not very interesting reading for others.

I continued to collect zines and even incorporated them into projects when I was in grad school for my MSLS. The idea of publishing one never died, but I could never figure out just what the focus would be.

Until I stumbled upon the RPG zine renaissance last year and became totally inspired.

So yes, I'll be putting yet another game-related zine out there, hopefully by the end of May.

It will likely have a "punk rock" or "lo-fi" asthetic, cut and paste with scissors and glue, hand bound with dental floss and illustrated crudely, as that's what I like and feel expresses what i want to express, but hopefully the content will appeal to people even if they don't like the way it looks.

As I plan to give it away for free (at least a limited number of copies),  I'm not worried about the effect on sales.

Oh, and Saturday night, I finished painting up the MDF for my new wargaming setup. They might need a second coat, but frankly, I'm too anxious to push some plastic or lead across them to do that!