A thing a week 2025, week 32

...and this week we're back on track. These two were purchased in the heady days of the spring of 2019 as  the Wrath of Kings: House Goritsi - Specialist Box #1 from CMON and a game that I notably don't play. We've seen the Whitemane Duelists from way back in 2020 week 37 as my first really high quality attempt and my first real NMM attempt. These are from an expansion pack that I got on steep discount as the game was being sunset and at a time when I was desperately trying to find canine anthropomorphs for my in-person game. The good: they're painted. The bad: they're really, really big, like 65mm so they tower over most of the character figs in my collection. I also don't know what's up with their gear which seems to be a mishmash of cyberpunk and artist fantasy hallucinations.

While not a speed paint, I also didn't go out of my way to really pick out the details though their size lent themselves to a fairly clean result. Due to their size, they ended up taking something like five or six hours each which is way more than I like to spend on a non-player character, non-high quality effort. They are on the 2025 goal list and despite my misgivings, I like the way they turned out.

2025 finished mini counter: 119, 2025 goal figs remaining: 31 

A thing a week 2025, week 31

This week we take a short break from our 2025 goals because, well, I had a need to paint something else this week.

First up we have a Duck-Billed Platypotamus from CobraMode. Did I technically need this guy? No, but he's been kicking around my prep table for far, far too long and since I'm at a point of cleaning the danged thing, I took the opportunity to paint him. My fantasy world is populated with silly double creatures like the ones out of Avatar so I got excited when I stumbled upon this guy. He's pretty simply painted in about  mostly with the airbrush. A wash on his bill and tail and a bunch of the normal brush-on details finished him off in about thirty minutes. 

These two are Weasel Witch Hunter Flamberge1 from Goon Master. It's super hard to get anthro figures for weasels which sucks because in my fantasy world, weasels are very common and well-loved by my players. The actual need for this week was we're having a special guest star playing the guy with the hat. The guy without the hat was printed at the same time earlier this year so I took the opportunity to paint him too. This is a great sculpt painted fairly quickly and I did not realize how glossy they'd come out until I was shooting. The base coat was provided by a mix of Pro Acryl Transparents and Speed Paint 2.0 and I've been trying to keep the low values in addition to the saturation for these kinds of characters. I think I got that but somewhere lost the really high values, especially on the reds. Still happy with the results here but certainly more work could have been done. They were completed in about four hours all told.

2025 finished mini counter: 117

 

A thing a week 2025, week 30

Another special one today but not quite as special as last week's offering. This is Gauth from Reaper Miniatures Bones 4 and he marks the last of the Bones 4 figs that I'm painting with a couple caveats that we needn't dwell on. 

I had serious gap issues on this guy like the guy last week and mostly for the same reason: large bones white plastic molds warp terribly. I also had a differenter fun problem with this guy that I didn't have last week: he was super front heavy since he didn't really come with a base. In retrospect, it looks like his legs (which were individual pieces for reasons) are warped forward which a) puts his face really near ground level, and b) made him tip over prior to basing such that he snapped in half and needed to be re-filled. 

The paint job itself isn't super interesting consisting of a prime/zenithal/basic basecoat with the airbrush followed by some minimal washing. Several rounds of fairly heavy drybrushing popped out most of the texture on him and minimal amounts of brush painting filled in the details. Like last week it's a high drama, low effort piece of work (my favorite!) and I think he came out pretty OK. 

The basing is also a high drama, low effort operation. It's obviously stacked layers of cork with some minimal washing and drybrushing. You don't see all the effort I spent layering joint compound so it would look less like cork and probably didn't even notice all the random rocks I threw down to break up the edges some. You probably did notice the half teaspoon of gold glitter I glued down. Many sins are hidden by that glitter and I'm stoked to have another reason to use it since the last time in like 2019. It's the basing equivalent of working in a pop color. 

2025 finished mini counter: 114, 2025 goal figs remaining: 33 

A thing a week 2025, week 29 (+Seven Years of Painting)

Today we have a special one and just because I can, we're going to jam some extra special commentary in here too.

This is the Blacktooth Terror from Reaper Miniatures Bones 4 and sadly, I don't think it's been released to the public yet. It's one of the nicer sculpts in Bones 4 and I'd kind of like to have another one. This is my favorite kind of painting: high drama, low effort. He's mostly painted with the airbrush which established most of the skintones and the nice fade from orange to tan. The dark brown of his stripes and on his craggly back is an undiliuted Cygor Brown Constrast Paint which pretty much always shows up as black when shooting on a white background. I did minimal drybrushing to pop out the highlights and a bunch of work on the details on his scaryface. I specifically under-highlit the base to keep the focus on the dino but the last wash made that a lot less distinct in addition to adding the shininess which wasn't intended.

In addition to being a striking addition to my painted collection, he's also my 2,000th painted figure at least as far as I've counted correctly. Notably this neglects a handful of vintage Star Fleet Battles metal ships that have almost nothing done to them but does include a dozen or so battlemechs painted with enamels in the 90s. I recognize that I paint an unusual amount but over the years I've gone the full spectrum from hate painting to kind of liking it to obsessing about it on a regular basis. 

So in those seven years, what have I learned? If you're a regular reader here you'll notice some themes, probably.

First up, contrast is king. Provided that you have a good handle on the details of a fig and have a relative level of competence in prepping, nothing will make a fig stand out more than contrast. I really started focusing on this in year like 3 and trying to do more with it has really improved my results. Normally we discuss value contrast which is the lightness or darkness of an element (usually 1 being the lowest lows and 5 being the highest highs) but we should also consider texture, tone, and temperature as well. In addition to the normal color theory composition thought I put into a paint scheme, I'm now also varying the temperature (warm vs. cool, see: beloved Cat Captain's epaulets and shirt vs. her coat, boots, and pants) in adjacent elements as often as I can in addition to popping out or adding texture when I can with hashes, slashes, dots, and other painted-on detail (see: Ragna's cloak). Tone is something I stumbled upon mostly accidentally when trying to work out how best to do red/green color combos without characters looking like Christmas pageant extras (see: Highland Heroine's desaturated cloak vs. her red elements). These things have leveled up my work mostly for minimal cost in planning.

Next up, I now super value pre-painting prep. I've mentioned it before but I hate dealing with mold lines when painting and I've started to really dislike large gaps that make figs look less like proper representations in a miniature world and more like the toys they actually are. It's one of the few places I care about immersion in my gaming as if that were a reasonable thing. This big dino had a shitton of gaps which I filled with and old and way past its good-by date Perfect Plastic Putty. Large molded pieces tend to have big gaps, particularly anything that assembles in bones white plastic and for reasons I don't understand, this guy had the big craggly back piece as separate. It's hidden OK in the sculpt but it was also part of why I painted it in such a dark color. We'll see some figs in the near future that I wasn't quite so careful in filling and they look less cool than they might have. I'll also add to this that undercoating with a zenithal or nadir shading with the airbrush is pretty much second nature for me so I get that part almost for free.

Basing is the other big pickup that elevated my painting. I started deliberately building, painting and flocking bases several years ago and went back and re-based just about everything I'd painted in 2021 IIRC. Occasionally I'll get into a "just slap paint around" mood and painting bases is a great way to channel that energy. The try hard ones are the fun freehand sci-fi jobs (see: Cuddy Grey's) or painted bark rockery (see: Ork Gal). I haven't done a big batch of fun bases in a while which is a good indication that I should do so and not just because it means I can be lazy later. Added bonus: I should do more freehand.

Last but not least: don't buy more than you need. I started hate painting because a) I got super tired of playing with nondistinct white Bones plastic and b) because I had bought so freakin' many figs. By the time that Bones 4 fulfilled in mid 2019 I was well on my way to a four figure collection. At the time of this typing (about a week prior to posting), I've got around 640 figs left in my pile of shamepotential and print something like 75 figs every year which means that at my current average (~285 for the math-inclined) it'll be another two years before I get close to the end (assuming I don't kickstart or buy any more, obv). As I typed before: I paint an unusual amount and it's damned good thing that I mostly enjoy it. 

 

 

 

 

A thing a week 2025, week 28

We finished up an in-person campaign recently so we needed new player character figs. I took the opportunity to clear more of my painting desk so we have only one shot on goal this week. 

First up: our shot on goal. This is an Angel of Shadows from Reaper and mine is in the soft white bones plastic. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to do OSL on this one since she's carrying a lantern but being mostly a speed paint it mostly didn't come through in these shots. It's better in person FWIW. She's the only one this week toward my 2025 goals and I probably could have adjusted this shot a bit. 

This is Desyra Littlebow by Tabletop Terrain and a sculpt that I kickstarted at the end of 2022. I liked the sculpting of her face and her pose but was sold on some pretty nice renders that masked some of the sculpting sins. In particular, I hate her shoes. No one should be running through a forest with a bow in platforms. There also seem to be some proportion issues and I really wish she had some sculpted tone on her arms rather than looking all the world like wet noodles. I still spent a crazy amount of time on her and despite my misgivings, will count her as high quality number nine on the year done in about a dozen hours over the last few months. 

Next up we have Tabaxi Bandit from Vae Victis. The player (naturally) wanted a weapon that wasn't in the modular set that the STL came with so I kitbashed a fancy spear on him from a completely different kit. I kept the saturation on his hood and short cape but kind of lost the highlighting which I'm not super happy about. Not sure how it went so glossy in these shots, either. The highlighting on his sleeves looks better and I really should have used a lower value off white on the stitching. I was originally going to go with black claws which IMO would have been better. He was done in a few hours. 

This is Landsknecht Girl also from Vae Victis painted (obviously) in Ironlily colors. Occasionally I run into a sculpt that does a lot of the work for me and this one is one of those. The details are nicely separated and nothing is particularly fine, indistinct, or close together. The highlighting here is pretty minimal though I did edge just about everything I could. Overall it sells the piece as higher effort than it actually was. I maintained deep separation between all of the major elements and took the extra step to highlight her breastplate since she only had the one piece of metallic armor showing. She was done in something like six hours and is probably one of the more complete pieces I've done. And if you think the black lininig is heavy in these shots--it isn't and sells well on the table. She'll count as high quality number ten on the year.    

2025 finished mini counter: 112, high quality 10/12, 2025 goal figs remaining: 35    

Knight-o-rama week 9 (2025, week 27)

And we're across the finish line (and the crowd goes wild...probably). These five are the last of the archers and have almost OK highlighting. Overall most of this batch was speedpainted (obviously) to the tune of maybe a couple of hours per fig which as I'm typing this, doesn't seem particularly fast. Then again, my normal characters weigh in at like 6-8 hours so that's a significant speedup. It'll also be great if my counts line up which they didn't so it looks like this one's off by one but I trust my spreadsheet more than my maths in these unhallowed pixels and I can't be bothered to go back and figure out where my error was.

While these aren't my best work, I like that they're done and they've been added to my pantheon of baddies that will likely get table time over the years. Next up, some crazy.

2025 finished mini counter: 108,  2025 goal figs remaining: 36

Knight-o-rama week 8 (2025, week 26)

We're on the straightaway and hurtling toward the finish line this week to continue our lousy racing analogy from last week. These dudes firing are my favorite archers from the set and I kind of wish there were more arms like these. I could have kitbashed them if I'd wanted to, but I didn't. By this point in the painting process my wet palette was quite ripe with a lot of mostly cured puddles (piles?) of paint that I kept trying to re-activate. The green and white I like are patchy to begin with but re-activating dead paint really makes them awful in these close ups. Luckily, they fare better on the table.

2025 finished mini counter: 104, 2025 goal figs remaining: 41

Knight-o-rama week 7 (2025, week 25)

Rounding the corner and onto the straightaway, we have more archers today, and yet again another casualty of the "for sure there are extra melee arms in this box!" gambit. I mean, lookit that guy on the right. He's totally conflicted! Why the visored sallet for an archer? The body and legs are one piece and I thought that guy looked a little weird with armor on top and not on the bottom regardless, but this combo is just plain weird. 

2025 finished mini counter: 100!, 2025 goal figs remaining: 45

Knight-o-rama week 6 (2025, week 24)

We continue our theme with another four archers. I'd intended to do some of these guys in melee but as mentioned last week, I ran out of melee arms and didn't really want to kitbash these. 

Lots of these guys got a wash of my old Army Painter washes which I like but which made them go a little more satin-y than I'd like. This generally goes unnoticed until I get the close-ups which annoys me. I feel like I did a better-than-average job of removing mold lines on these guys but lots of them had them splitting their face as in the guy on the right. Also notable that some of these heads were really squinty and I only forced eyes onto some of them. They read OK on the table FWIW. 

2025 finished mini counter: 96, 2025 goal figs remaining: 49

Knight-o-rama week 5 (2025, week 23)

This week we pass the midpoint of our heavy-metal theme. At the time of this posting, they've been done a short while but as folks probably know already, I keep a backlog of stuff that hasn't shown up yet. That keeps posting smooth for things like BricksCascade which happened last month and/or when I have time-intensive pieces that would benefit from a longer-than-a-week effort. 

These dudes begin the round of archers that were in the box. I don't think I realized there were quite so many archers when I bought them but possibly that's because I stole a bunch of melee arms for earlier kitbashing expecting that there would be extras (hint: there weren't). One of the dudes coming up looks rather silly as a result but these guys are fine. 

2025 finish mini counter: 92, 2025 goal figs remaining: 53

Knight-o-rama week 4 (2025, week 22)

As promised last week, more knights this week. 

Here we have the remainder of the bill hook dudes and rather than the usual four, we have five this week! I probably would have done more melee dudes but apparently I'd stolen some of their parts for other figs and I was far too lazy to kitbash these any more than I did. Pretty happy with the yellow padded shading and I note again that the Reikland Fleshshade I slopped on the leather to move the tone dried glossy again.

The flocking is a little frizzier than I'd like and less glued down than I'd like. It looks OK, tho. 

2025 finished mini counter: 87, 2025 goal figs remaining: 57

Knight-o-rama week 3 (2025, week 21)

More knights this week...and next week...and probably the week after that. I like making progress but I've been pretty open about not liking big batches.

These would be the spear dudes and one sole bill hook dude. Not 100% sure why I've only got three spear dudes but I've only got those three so the bill hook dude fills out the rank. These are at least partially painted like their historical intent, at least the color choices. It looks like the wash on the red and the green ended up more satin-y than I intended. Note for future reference.

2025 finished mini counter: 82, 2025 goal figs remaining: 62

Knight-o-rama week 2 (2025, week 20)

Buckle in, folks because we're on this ride until it ends...sometime several months from now. Also note that last week and this week I've again changed my photography setup and things are still a little washed out. 

These are some (most?) of the brigandine guys, one of my favorite and under-represented medieval armors. I also like that they're equipped with polearms (halberds on the right, billhooks on the left if you like). I think a couple of these guys were metallically zenithaled like last week's offerings but some of them weren't because I wasn't sure which was the best approach (spoiler: more work with the airbrush is usually better). I took the effort to pick out the rivets on two of these guys which is pretty clear close-up but doesn't read as easily on the table. I'd intended to do so on all of them but forgot.

2025 finished mini counter: 78, 2025 goal figs remaining: 66

Knight-o-rama, week 1 (2025 week 19)

This week we have two awesome things: four more figs on goal and a brand new theme! I was originally going to call it a mini-theme but we're going to be here for quite a while. These are from Perry Miniatures, particularly War of the Roses Infantry (1455-1487). I purchased these in the heady days of 2018 as an early birthday present and aside from the two that I painted way back in week 43 of 2020, the entire box of 40 (!) of these guys had remained unpainted...until today!--well, until last week when these guys were actually painted.

These are the heavily armored guys who I mostly painted with an airbrush since they were mostly metallic. They're metallically zenithaled top to bottom which made everything go a lot faster. I didn't have any appropriate fancy bases left and (obviously) didn't take the time to build and paint new ones. After a bunch of large miniatures (or, bigatures if you prefer) these were a welcome return to form. These four were done in maybe five hours total outside of assembly and I'm pretty happy with the results.

2025 finished mini counter: 74, 2025 specific figs remaining: 70

A thing a week 2025, week 18

For reasons entirely under my control, I failed to post this on the proper day. Luckily, through the power of the Internet, I've back-dated it to Star Wars Day so no one will be the wiser! This week we have three biggies and one not-quite-so-biggie but all four are part of the hallowed group of "figs I want to finish painting this year," so I got that goin' for me. 

First up we have a Young Fire Drake from Reaper. He was done mostly as a speed paint trying out some new formulas as I'm continuing in my quest of using my airbrush more. The base airbrush ink coat went on glossy (as usual; that was part of what I was hoping to fix) and I made a real mess with a seemingly congealed bottle of Reaper Anti-Shine Additive. I really have no clue how to use this stuff. It has never gone on without leaving a weird blotchy finish. I ended up painting over it with successive thinned down coats of Speed Paint and then doing a very minimal amount of detail work and this guy was done. He might have took a couple hours and only because of the anti-shine debacle. This isn't a good paint job but he's done and that counts.

Next up is Ziba, Female Efreeti from bones 4. Scale doesn't show super well in these shots but she's a good six inches or so tall which is bigger than my normal setup finds reasonable. I also note that the studio model features the same bronze-y metallics and yellow eyes that I landed on but I super should have done the fiery hair now that I'm looking at it. Ziba was also a speed paint, mostly trying really hard not to mess up the work I'd already done and wearing gloves while doing so which isn't something I normally do. More work could have certainly been done across the board but I'm not unhappy with the result (aside from her skintone shininess--done again with the airbrush) and she was complete in like four hours which sounds like a lot but I really struggled with her size. Probably the best part is the blue metallics which were a mix of Vallejo Metallic Aluminum plus painfully glossy Golden High Flow Phthalo Blue.

This is Ashana, Female Genie also from bones 4. She's maybe a skosh bigger than Ziba but I had a cunning plan this time. I wanted to do a weird sparkle pony color shift across multiple primaries and I figured the airbrush was the right way to do this. I started with the magenta from a mostly downward angle and followed that up with the strong yellow from the bottom which gave a nice reddish shift at the lateral. I then hit the same downward with a saturated pink from Pro Acryl which does go very smoothly through the airbrush when thinned properly. The last step with the airbrush was a cyan ink from the top around the hair. This time I wanted the over-spray since I figured that as a sparkle pony creature of light and smoke, that her hair would be luminous enough to blend some. What followed was another painful couple hours of blending her hair, applying metallics, an painting the base. Note the nice blue metallics on her sword again--super happy with that. This isn't 100% what I envisioned but I'm really happy with the result.

Last up we have the biggie-est of this week's offerings again from bones 4. This is a Thunderfoot Behemoth and I had a cunning plan again! I wanted to put a fun lizard-y pattern on him with some false eye spots on his crest. The patterning was a fairly saturated set of contrast paints followed by a couple applications of the camo green wash made from a variety of Pro Acryl paints and Army Painter Speed Paint Medium which is rapidly becoming one of my favorite additives. A bunch of detail work later including going over the larger scales in the patterns and we're done. He landed somewhere around six hours over several days which seems like a lot but it was another challenging gloved operation which I don't super like. According to my records, this leaves two guys bigger than this remaining in the bones 4 figs I'm tackling. Notably, the two I've opted to not paint this year are even bigger! Good times.

 

A thing a week 2025, week 17

Three more giant or giant-adjacent figs toward our 2025 goal this week which is going to be the end of our mini-giant-and-giant-adjacent non-theme. So let's get to it.

First up we have an Ettin from bones 4. He's not as big as the other giants we've seen but without a frame of reference it'd be hard to pick that out. This guy's got a lot of character from his "hey, look over there head" to his improvised anvil-hammer. Also, because he's not quite as large, he wasn't quite as tedious to paint which is a nice bonus for me. There was definitely a bunch more that I could have done with this guy not limited to picking out the leather straps better, doing something with the bulby things on his bracelet, putting any color on the shield, etc. etc. but when I got here at the end of the batch, I was super done. Occasionally I take a look at these shots and think that I should come back some day and punch them up when I don't feel the weight of several hundred unpainted minis and this guy is one of them.

These two are Frost Giant Heroine and Frost Giant Ranger and more or less why I was so done when I got to the Ettin. I like that these two have so much character. I dislike that they have quite so many tiny details. The edge highlighting I did on these has really paid off by making them look cleaner than they actually are and just like last week, the stitching is really doing some heavy lifting here. The ranger is in a harder plastic, possibly the predecessor of bones black which made it really hard to un-warp the spear and made the antlers on the stag kind of brittle despite having glued it twice. More work was probably warranted across both, especially since I like them, but again there aren't many giants in my world much less sentient ones. Will they ever see screen time? Unlikely but hard to say for sure. At any rate, they're painted and I'm happy for that.

2025 finished mini counter: 66, 2025 specific figs remaining: 78

A thing a week 2025, week 16

Some good news this week and some bad news this week. The good news: three more against the goal and three abnormally expensive ones to boot. The bad news: I found an accounting error that put my goal count two short. This happens from time to time.

First up we have Hill Giant Lowland Warrior and Hill Giant Lowland Chief both from bones 4. The chief has been kicking around my painting desk since the middle of last year before I got serious about hitting a fig a day. I find big figs intimidating because I generally like getting most of the details right. Big figs have big blends and glazing is a really expensive operation on big blends. I also find that metallics don't look quite right at a large scale not that either of these guys has a lot. The warrior was part of this year's prep trying to get primer on my remaining goal-specified bones 4 figs. I failed, but hey, the last two still-unprimed figs are difficult in my defense. I can't claim these two are speed paints in any way and I do notice that the warrior's back is suspiciously shiny due to the contrast paint undercoat but I do know that both of these guys are painted.

This chonky dude is a Hill Giant Hunter from bones 4 and he came with a Dire Lion which we saw way back in Week 33 of 2023. Of these three, I like this guy the best and probably spent the most time on him. Across all these guys I put extra time into the color grades in their fleshtones which really helps separate each volume even on these bigatures. The stitching in the sculpt was super easy to paint and really helps sell the scale of the dude which I really like. I probably should have brought the blue on his details to a higher value and I almost certainly could have done more with the leather straps. Overall I think this is a good effort but mostly, since there aren't really giants in my game, I'm just glad he's done.

2025 finished mini counter: 63, 2025 specific figs remaining: 80-3+2 = 81

A thing a week 2025, week 15

Four more right up the gut this week which should be the plan for the next several weeks. It feels nice to make consistent progress in the chosen goal even though I'm not putting up big numbers this year.

First up we have Shael Han Celestial Tricksters from Wrath of Kings flanking our pal Kogo, Male Kitsune from Reaper Bones. I have dupes of all of these guys so you should expect to see them again and in fact, we've already seen Kogo way back in week 27 of 2020 which seems like an age ago. I have no idea what's going on with the dude on the left's back though I do like his desaturated color scheme which really shows off his orangey fur. I think this Kogo also looks sharp in the black, green and red though I wish I'd picked out his armor texture a little better. Also of note, his eyes aren't quite as crazy in person. Both of the tricksters had some really lousy mold issues that I mostly covered up but the guy on the right really suffered from them over details. Like Damaris from last week, he's also got a thing for buckles which I find very sus.

And rounding out this week is a great sculpt let down by a lousy mold that I nonetheless put a bunch of time into. If she looks familiar, it's because we saw her recently in week 52 of last year. Kassandra of the Blade is a good sculpt let down by soft bones white plastic. I don't recall if I have a metal version of her but if I don't, I should. I spent a lot of time on this version because, well, I wanted to, despite mold line issues. I had a plan this time (primary color scheme) and did a lot of extra work cleaning up details that I might have otherwise ignored. I think this one came out well and I'm happy to put her with the other high quality figs I've done so far this year as #8. Between the two, I think this one's cloak isn't as nice but her face is much better. I also like that her scarf is so much better delineated though I really have to do the magenta/aqua/orange combo again. 

2025 finished mini counter: 60, high quality 8/12, 2025 specific figs remaining: 80

A thing a week 2025, week 14

Mostly on target this week with a fun bonus, so no time to lose!

First up we have Nazeera Bloodraven and Damaris Duskwarden from Reaper. Nazeera is in the typical soft bones white plastic while Damaris is in a weird pseudo-bones black light colored but stiff plastic that we saw in some of the Bones 4 figs. Neither of these molds is particularly good and Damaris had way too many mold lines going over way too many buckles. I'm not 100% sure about her "angry vampire hunting pilgrim" energy and I didn't start painting her with any kind of plan otherwise her vest would be a better non-leather color. I'm not sure I sold any of her leather bits but I was kind of in a hurry to finish. Also, why so many stinkin' buckles? On the other hand, I think Nazeera is a vampire which I thought about not at all when I set up this shot. I did some shading on her armor with Ghost Tints but I don't think it came out all that well. I was feelin' the red eyes, tho.

Next up we have Vonsalay Half Orc Wizard, Amalya Tabaxi Monk, and Callie Female Rogue. The outter gals are in bones white soft plastic while Amalya is a print from DnD is a Woman who we've seen before way back in week 10 of last year. It's probably also obvious that I forgot to take a back shot of these gals but I am far too lazy to go back and re-shoot (I did get two versions of their fronts, tho). Both Callie and Vonsalay have very soft molds with very lousy mold lines so I did what I could and ultimately landed somewhere workable. I desatured Vonsalay's dress on purpose so we wouldn't get any Christmas Ork action so I'm happy about that. I also didn't plan her paint job so the cloak is a questionable color choice. For Amalya I finally got my dark point but her normal fur-tone was darker than I probably wanted. I started with a different scheme in mind so the theme throughout this week's entries is "I should have planned better." So I got that goin' fro me. 

2025 finished mini counter: 56, 2025 specific figs remaining: 84

A thing a week 2025, week 13

More right-down-the-plate work this week, plus a short rant. 

First up we have Elven Blacksmith and Sarah, the Seeress. If Sarah looks familiar, it's because she showed up way back in week 51 of 2022 which seems a lot further in the rear-view than it actually is. Mold lines on both were pretty awful and I did not enough work to deal with them sanely. None of the details on either is as good as it could have been (speed paint) though I take some pride in noting that this version of Sarah done in less than half the time turned out much better. I guess several hundred figs of practice does add up. The blue on her dress got a little chalky in the higher tones but I think I got the volumes correctly. The orb on her staff looks particularly good in this shot but in stark reversal, it doesn't look as good in person. The blacksmith is kind of a mess. The right side of her face was a mess of mold issues and I did what I could to give it any definition. Also, there wasn't any indication of a shirt in the sculpt but I was dumb to not paint one on--wouldn't even be the first time. She looks dumb without it especially with her armored leg plates. Which blacksmiths commonly wear. Or something. Anyway.

Here we have Finari, Female Paladin and Isabeau Laroche, Paladin both in bones white. I noted yesterday that practically-armored gals are under-represented in the hobby and I stick to that assertion. This week we have an excellent example. Finari is in ridonkulous boobplate fantasy armor and I bought the fig nonetheless. While not as bad as a lot of the examples you can find, it's not great, Bob. I give a pass for figs to not have helmets on so you can see/paint the face in expressive ways FWIW. Isabeau is far more realistically dressed though I had to paint out the boob window because I had to, that's why, and you can still tell she's a gal without it. Finari's hair is going to be a mess in actual combat as opposed to on a Hollywood set. Isabeau's cleverly tied it all up where it won't be a problem in either case. Neither of them is in heels (I have some standards FFS) and they're clearly both martial characters but Finari is clearly in the armored gal pinup vein while Isabeau isn't. Hollywood and video games on the whole have so warped our understanding of how things should look that we expect the former when the latter is actually way better and not less cool on the table. Last rant: those are clearly two handed swords. As in most sculpts, there's stuff to like about both and they're easy to tell apart on the table even though I painted them in mostly the same scheme. I missed another opportunity to put some heraldry on Isabeau's shield just like last week because: speed paint.

Last up we have Innkeeper Sophie from bones 4. I assume she's a mascot for Reaper or something since she shows up in every bones kickstarter and apparently as ReaperCon semi-exclusives. I haven't found any lore online but there are many Sophies in my collection now, though this is the first one I painted. She's got some weird mold issues around her face which I painted around and I am very thankful I painted her wings as a subassembly because it made everything much saner. The texture of her wings and the highlights I did got washed out in the last minute wash I stuck on there. Lots of this paint job is phoned in and probably a half hour more of refinement would have been good. Maybe in the future when I don't have a several hundred long backlog. 

2025 finished mini counter: 51, 2025 specific figs remaining: 88