December - 2017

Workout Recap - Week of December 24, 2017

I was feeling rather sore in my legs this week, particularly in my calves, so I only did four workouts. I didn't think that I'd been pushing myself excessively hard lately on the fitness front, but I suppose there were enough other things going on for me that it all kind of piled together into one big blob of fatigue. Sunday Type: Pass/Fail Shoulder-width Handstand Push Ups - 2 sets of 9 (pass) T&A Pull Ups - 2 sets of 7, each side (pass) Close Squats - 2 sets of 20 (pass) B

The Results of Painting Skeleton Swordsman

So, a little bit of a different presentation for the post this time, since there are only so many ways that I can talk about painting a skeleton miniature in more or less the same way, just using some different colors. Rather than going through all of the steps, I'll just summarize the differences from the last one that I did and show a gallery of finished pictures. For the sake of experimenting, I tried to shift the bone colors to a darker range in order to make it look old

The Process of Painting Skeleton Spearman

I was fortunate enough to get a bonus stocking of gifts with my order from Reaper in December, which came with a few skeletons (among other free miniatures, but the skeletons in particular are simple enough that I don't have any discomfort about using them as practice pieces). Seeing as a skeleton was also the first thing that I painted with the Learn to Paint Kits, I thought it'd be interesting to try doing another one as a comparison piece to judge both how I've improved a

Hollow Knight

Rating: B+ Playing Time: 38 hours Well, I’ve been mentioning playing this off and on for a while now, so it’s high time that I finally finished it, right? Hollow Knight was one of the hot indie titles from this year, sporting a combination of Metroid and Dark Souls gameplay with a distinctive art style and a story about a kingdom of bugs. It all came together quite nicely, all told, though it wasn’t without some poor design decisions and a major case of overstaying its welc

Workout Recap - Week of December 17, 2017

Truth be told, I'm coming up blank on ideas for the preamble to this week's recap. Well, I guess that I can wax philosophical for a moment on the reason behind why I've stuck with my fitness routine. I'm not sure if it's an aspect of my competitiveness or something else entirely, but I've always tried to hold myself to a high standard in most of my pursuits. That's not to say that I always expect perfection from myself, but I do expect to constantly learn and grow better.

The Process of Painting Dark Elf Warrior

After making a couple of gift miniatures for some friends, I got the Masterwork Miniature Painting with Jen Haley and Anne Foerster digital download from CMON. I found that to be very useful to watch, for several reasons. Obviously, with how little experience I have with the hobby, any exposure to how good painters get their results is useful. Seeing them painting in real time was helpful, if only to see exactly how they get the paint from their palettes onto their models.

Being a Green Mother

Rating: B+ Length: 301 pages, standard paperback page size/font Up next for this series is the book focused on Nature. This was originally the end of the series, before its success lead to Anthony writing another three books, and it shows, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's dive right in. I'd joked a few times in the previous reviews that everything of importance that happens in this series revolves around the Kaftan family, and that gets taken to its logical conclusion

Workout Recap - Week of December 10, 2017

'Twas quite the busy week for me, hence the lack of other posts. I should have some more time for the blog in the immediate future, though, so business ought to pick up. In the mean time, here's a week of mostly-quickie workouts. Sunday Type: Pass/Fail Shoulder-width Handstand Push Ups - 2 sets of 8 (pass) Uneven Pull Ups - 2 sets of 10, each side (pass) Pistol Squats, Both Hands Behind Me - 2 sets of 4, each side (pass) Bonus: 4 sets of 3 Superman push ups, 10 chin ups My

Workout Recap - Week of December 3, 2017

Only four workouts for me this week. I would've done five, but I had some lingering soreness in my left arm after my Wednesday workout, and so I thought it best to take an extra day off to heal rather than pushing things too hard. Sunday Type: Pass/Fail Shoulder-width Handstand Push Ups - 2 sets of 8 (pass) Uneven Pull Ups - 2 sets of 10, each side (pass) Pistol Squats, Both Hands Behind Me - 2 sets of 4, each side (pass) Bonus: 4 sets of 3 Superman push ups, 10 breath 1-arm

Wielding a Red Sword

Rating: B Length: 281 pages, standard paperback page size/font I'm a bit late with this review because I've been wrapped up in taking care of some personal matters since finishing reading the book, but let's go. In an interesting break from the trend that this series had been showing, this one was actually shorter than the previous entry. In fact, it's the shortest book of the series so far. It also happens to have been the best book of the series so far, too. While I'm n