2021 Crafting challenge wrap-up

This end-of-year post is starting to become a tradition which started because I couldn't find reference photos and explanations when I needed them.  We crested the 100 fig goal pretty early and then took the foot off the painting gas for a bit before barreling straight into a bunch of batch paints to hit and then exceed the magical 365 fig mark. Probably this kind of output isn't in the cards until retirement. Watch this space!

2021 kickoff
Week 1: 4x Reaper Bones Townsfolk, Oman Ruul, Zentis Zadar, Arakus Landarzad, in oils

Week 2: 6x Pike & Shotte Landsknecht missile troops

Week 3: 6x more Landsknecht missile troops + 4x Oldhammer metal figs

Week 4: 5x Ghosts and Shades of the Drowned Nymph + Ankoa, Human Barbarian

Week 5: 16x Test of Honor foot troops

Week 6: 6x Test of Honor mounted Samurai with mounts

Week 7: 3x giant snakes from Wrath of Ashardalon, Crested Felldrake from Chainmail, 4x Legion of Everbright Shredders from Hordes

Week 8: 3x Reaper Bones lizard people, 4x Reaper Bones Spikeshell Warriors

Week 9: Dire Croc, Wyvern, Nolzur's Death and Grey Slaad, 3x Runewars Fleshrippers, Chaos Toad Sorcerer (OSL #1)

Week 10: Snakeman Warrior, 7x Nagendra from Reaper Bones (OSL #2)

Week 11: Lowland Owlbear, Penguin Attack Pack, the missing cart pig

Week 12: 16x 3d printed spiders

Week 13: double sided dungeon tiles (building #1)

Week 14: corner organizer

Week 15: half timbered building (building #2)

Week 16: stone and wood cabin (building #3)

Week 17: 3x Hypnotic Spirits from Legend of Drizzt Boardgame, 2x Hellhounds from Pathfinder Deep Cuts, 3x Hell Hounds from Bones 4

Week 18: 5x Frostgrave Ghost Archipelago Crewmen

Week 19: 5x Frostgrave Ghost Archipelago Crewmen

Week 20: 5x more Ghost Archipelago Crewmen

Week 21: and, yep, 5x more Ghost Archipelago Crewmen (it's a 20 fig box; what did you expect?)

Week 22: Asnofre map

Week 23: 2x Earthdawn Wormskulls, Bones 4 Cooper, Bones 4 Friar, Bones 4 Harrowgate Shrine, 2x 3d printed dwarf female warriors

Week 24: Nolzur's Human Cleric, Nolzur's Aasimar Paladin, Ostarzha, Elf Cleric, Nolzur's Female Human Wizard (high quality #2), 3d printed cat rogue

Week 25: 10x magnetized 8" tiles (building #4)

Week 26: 2x reaper bags and jars, Legend of Drizzt Handmaiden of Llolth, Bones 4 Sealed Sarcophagus, Harrowgate Shrine

Week 27: Date Coconut palms (building #5)

Week 28: 10x Frostgrave Gnolls

Week 29: 3d printed Gnoll by Manuel Boria (high quality #3)

Week 30: 10x 3d printed gnolls, Blacktongue Gnoll Archer, Toghra Gnoll Leader

Week 31: Three Years of Painting (article)

Week 32: Legend of Drizzt Shadow Dragon, Pathfinder Half-Orc Female Barbarians, 3d printed Skivvara -Tabaxi Rogue, 2x Human Female Paladin 3d prints

Week 33: 2x 3d printed Joanna the Cleric, Reaper Brianna of the Blade, Bones 4 Zadim Iconic Slayer, Chainmail Paladin, 2x 3d printed Amazons, 2x Pathfinder Human Monk

Week 34: Nolzur's Female Elf Paladins, High Elf Guardians, Elf Spearmaiden, Elf Paladin, Elf Soldiers, Aviriel

Week 35: Nolzur's Female Elf Rangers, Lindir, Earthdawn Archers, Wood Elf Scout

Week 36: Elf Paladin, 2x Elf Warriors, Shardis, Arael, Fiara

Week 37: Nolzur's Female Elf Ranger, 2x Oldhammer Wood Elf Archers, Reaper Bones Aeris Female Ranger, Reaper Bones Alistrilee

Week 38: Bones 5 5x Elf Rangers, Lanaerel, Dark Elf w/bow

Week 39: 6x Bones 5 Boulderkin, Bones 5 stump elemental

Week 40: WizKids Human Fighter, Minsc, Aasimar Paladin (non-winged) x2, Female Half Elf Monk, Female Half Elf Rogue

Week 41: WizKids Female Half-Orc Barbarians, Female Half-Orc Fighters, Female Human Clerics x2, Wererat, Elf Female Rogue

Week 42: WizKids Human Male Cleric, Half Elf Rogues, Elf Druids, Grey Knights, Female Human Paladins, Half Elf Monk

Week 43: WizKids Moon Elf Sorcerer, 2x Pathfinder Female Oracles, Female Human Wizard, Aasimar Paladin (wing version), 2x Nolzur's Female Aasimar Wizards, Nolzur's Weretiger, Female Aasimar Paladin and Fighter

Week 44: ASOAIF Lannister Halberdiers

Week 45: ASOIAF Lannister Guardsmen

Week 46: ASOIAF The Mountain's Men

Week 47: ASOIAF Builder Crossbowmen

Week 48: ASOIAF Sworn Brothers

Week 49: Warlords Celtic Warriors Command Sprue kitbash

Week 50: 10x Hail Caesar Viking Hirdmen

Week 51: 10x Frostgrave Soldiers

Week 52: 2x Orc Guards, Ral Partha vintage Orc, Half-Ogre Fighter, Ranger Teen, Dire Croc, Sony Jona, Elena - Fighters Guild Beauty

A thing a week 2021, week 52

Those who have been paying attention know that I've been twelve weeks (nineteen if you count the boulderkin filler) into several heavy themes covering a ridiculous number of minis. So for this week, the last entry for 2021, we're takin' it a little easy. What have we got? The stuff that's prepped on my desk plus a couple other choice bits and the remainder of the goals I hadn't finished yet. 

These are a pair of Orc Guards from Vae Victis Miniatures, a set of sculptors that I really like. These have the bonus of being self-supported which, for those of you who haven't worked with a resin printer, means you get the fig you're looking at without you or someone else having to spend a lot of time making them printable. So, that's nice. I love these figures, enough to pay cash money for them, and I'd been looking forward to painting them for a couple months. Given I've been in speed painting mode for a really long time, it was great to take a little bit of time to slow down and get some of the details right. These two were done in around four hours total while putting paint on a bunch of other figs on my table and I'm not unhappy with the results.

This guy is an Ork from my vintage collection, more specifically a Ral Partha 12-011 Orcs and now that I'm looking at the reference photo, it seems I've glued the wrong shield to him. Not 100% sure where his actual shield went or where this shield came from. I spent a bunch of time on his Ork-y skintones and probably not enough time on just about everything else. The metallics in particular and his cloak are awfully flat and I'm not 100% sold on the color scheme. All that said, I like this fig and I'm not unhappy with this paint job.

This guy is a Reaper Half-Ogre Fighter and mine is not metal as he came with Bones 4. I spent extra time with his Ork-y green fleshtones and probably not enough time on shading his bulky armor. History repeats itself, I guess. I did hit it with a coat of Midnight Ghost Tint and popped out the edges with Vallejo Metal Color Dark Aluminum so it's not as lousy as my usual work, just not as well as I'd hoped he'd turn out. Some day, I'm really going to push metallics to prove to myself that it's time worth spending.

This gal is Ranger Teen by Vae Victis Miniatures 3d print and I really like this fig. In addition to being full of character and bought at a steep discount, she's also self-supported which in my opinion is a superpower for a 3d model. She's been sitting on my painting table for almost a year, having been printed right around Christmas last year and at some point the top of her bow snapped off. Against all odds, I found most of it looking for something I dropped earlier this fall and lo and behold that part had also broken. Despite having only most of a bow and having a few issues that I never cleaned up, I think this is a very good result and I'm comfortable counting her as a high quality paint job and done in around eight hours. I could have certainly pushed more but I'm on a mission. The nice thing is that as a 3d print, I can print out an identical one with a whole bow and try again at a later date. We live in the future and it is good.

Bones 4 has featured heavily in these un-hallowed pixels and probably will for a while. At least, until I get the vast majority of these painted, anyway. Way back in week 9, I painted a dire croc which has subsequently seen a lot of screen time and I couldn't shake the feeling that I had two. Well, I found the other one over the summer and he ended up prepped on my desk for several months. I might not have painted him yet except that I'd mixed up a large batch of dark green wash that otherwise didn't have a home. The rest of it was dry brushing highlights and picking out details for the next hour. 

Those who have been paying attention might note that as of this writing I'm still two short for OSL. Here's the first of those two. This is Sony Jona - Sorceress Heroine from Artisan Guild which I printed last year and now almost exactly a year later, is complete. She got some paint over the summer but since then I redid most of it, shifting the colors around significantly and playing up the OSL. I realize I didn't get a good shot of the dark side of her so you can't see it being sold, but I think she came out well enough in around ten hours to count her as a high quality paint job. She's painted as a PC from a previous campaign so I'm giving her away thus the lettering on the base.

This is Elena - Fighters Guild Beauty also from Artisan Guild and another great example of a figure that I shouldn't like. Her armor is dumb, her torch is ahead of her, and she reads more as a model than as a fighter of any kind. In my head canon (not head cannon which belongs on the Awesome though I suppose technically that's a laser) she's on her way to a rave...with a sword...on some really dark path...or something. Despite all of that, I do like this fig and since she had a torch, it was time to do another OSL. For this and the last fig, I did most of a paint job then shot the umbral side with a well-thinned Paynes Grey ink to sell it. All told we're at something like twelve hours and I'm particularly happy with some of the shadow blends though these shots aren't showing some of the details in her eyes and such. I put extra effort into shading the metallic bits and now that I'm looking at the photos, her hair is awfully flat. She's definitely in the top figs I've painted this year so we're ending it on a high note.

That'll wrap up 2021's painting extravaganza. Tune in next year for the next chapter!

2021 finished mini counter:  370/100, 7/5 high quality, 5/5 OSL

A thing a week 2021 (week 51)

And rounding out the last batch of the year we have my remaining 10x Frostgrave Soldiers. I'm fond of the Northstar line of Frostgrave minis and this box is the remainder from the first batch I painted way back at the end of 2018 when I'd first started. I was far enough ahead this year to spend a little more time on these than I might have otherwise done. So, they might be slightly higher quality than my normal batch paints. The photos still suck, tho, so that should be familiar. Some day I'll figure out how my camera works but clearly not this year.

Like most of the other figs I paint, we start with a prime, shadowumbral (yeah, I'm callin' this one), and zenithal. I did some basecoating with the airbrush but less than you might expect and if I'm really honest, it helped more psychologically than artistically. Figs with only basic prep are more daunting than ones with colors on them even if the airbrush work is rough and kind of messy. I don't know why this is but it's proven true time and time again and part of how I get through big batches. Starting a big batch I will often slap an ugly wash on all of the figs to get rid of the "blank white page" aspect of staring at a field of unpainted minis.

I honestly don't know how army painters do it. I'm pretty happy with this being the last batch of the year if I'm honest. While I do like burning through figs, I don't like making such harsh cuts to quality over and over again. It gets worse with figs I like or figs that can take a higher quality paint job which is certainly not all figs. There's also a crushing weight of "holy crap, that's a lot of work" which can be daunting to break down. These guys, though, I'm pretty happy with. Happy, but never satisfied.

2021 finished mini counter: 362/100

A thing a week 2021 (week 50)

We're into the home stretch for 2021 and as mentioned last week, this week we have 10x Viking Hirdmen out of a giant box of 44 of them. These are good figs with some pretty nice sculpts and because they're supposed to be in a unit of 34 of their closest friends, they aren't overly detailed. That means that they're easier to paint so I like to theorize that this implies better quality paint jobs, though, I'm not certain this actually plays out. What I do know is that at this point, I don't expect to be buying any more big box armies.

Like the Celts from last week, they were kind of fiddly to assemble. Also like last week, I didn't think nearly enough about their poses which turned out well but were really hard to paint. I got weapons in front of faces and shields in front of eyes which is generally how you'd do that but made, say, eyeballs a real pain. I especially like the green dood in the first picture with a javelins in his shield hand and a spear in his main hand. He's also shouting. That's the kind of quality you don't get everywhere! I'm sure he'll be killed to death onscreen in my game some day.

I'd intended to glue swords on all the spear doods but I think I only got one on. I also intended to do some freehand on their shields but promptly decided not to which is why they have such plain shields. They did come with decals but, honestly, I can't be bothered to put decals on figs. Also, my basecoat was lumpy. In a batch, I'm not super disappointed but someday I really need to start practicing freehand. Not like a 2022 challenge is right around the corner or anything. Anyway, these ten are done and I think they came out OK.

2021 finished mini counter: 352/100

A thing a week 2021 (week 49)

This is a one week batch of 10 Celtic Warriors Command Sprue that I bought a long time ago. I might have painted them earlier but I am a dummy and didn't look closely enough at the sprue as they didn't come with heads. I stole some heads from my giant box of 44 Viking Hirdmen which we'll see some of next week. These are fiddly figs with really inconvenient poses and some of them had some premiumly ridiculous mold lines. My assembly didn't help any of this ad made their eyes really hard to paint. As an added difficulty, some of the sculpting on their musculature, particularly around their shoulders, was not as correct or distinct as I would have liked. 

I started them in the typical way: prime, shadowed from below, zenithaled from above. Given the amount of skin these doods are showing, I did a simple basecoat with the airbrush with a few other random colors as was convenient within the larger batch. After that it was layers and shades, and highlights and metallics and whatnots. I think they work even if they aren't particularly spectacular and because I'm a dummy I forgot to log how much time they took. I want to say around the 20 hour mark but that's just a guess. They're done, and that's good, and one fewer loose sprue kicking around the workshop.

2021 finished mini counter: 342/100

A Song of Ice and Paint week 5 (2021 week 48)

This week we finish off this enormous batch with Sworn Brothers which, like last week's offering, they're part of the Night Watch which I'm sure means something to Game of Thrones fans.

I like these figs. They have nice, dynamic poses, and not super difficult sculpts to paint though their fur linings are kind of a pain. Many of them have the same wide poses as last week's guys so they're mostly on big 35mm bases, too. The nice thing about bigger bases is there's more space to put random junk on but they don't play as well even though my game requires 2" hexes.

A thing I don't like about these figs is that they're gigantic. The Mountain's Men from week 46 were also big and these guys are nearly as tall. They stick out among my normal 25mm and 28mm figs in a not great way. They've also got a lot of details which took extra time to paint. 

These two sets were 25 figs done in just over 31 hours so slightly less fast than the first batch. This is mainly due to my screwing up of their cloaks and their overall level of details. Like last week, I think these figs can hold a better paint job than the one I did and also like last week, I think they work fine. 

2021 finished mini counter: 332/100

A Song of Ice and Paint week 4 (2021 week 47)

This week we continue the current theme with A Song of Ice and Fire 
Builder Crossbowmen. I have to think these are unaligned units that can be added to any army like salt or pepper or jalapenos. The documentation tells me they're part of the Night Watch which I know nothing about. 

These guys were a mess. Next week's will be too and for the same reason: I messed up with my airbrush. I stuck a grey over some of their cloaks that was a) too dark, and b) too messy. This resulted in a lot of extra work highlighting those cloaks since the Pro Acryl Transparent Black really wants to go over a light color. Cleanup work with a brush, especially across a batch is a tedious thing especially if you're in a hurry.

Another thing of note is that even if these guys aren't particularly tall, most of them have a really wide stance. Good for balance. Bad for basing. I had to crank out the 35mm bases for these and a bunch of the next batch so I'm glad I had a pile of these on hand. Also in basing news, I'd bought a new batch of cut-rate 25mm bases and wasn't careful with them. I usually have to glue a spacer between the base and the magnet to get them to sit right and while these needed a spacer, the ones I normally use are slightly too tall--like half a mm. So many of them wobble, too.

Overall I think these guys work. I mean, they're probably going to be killed by player characters more often than not so they don't get a ton of screen time. I do think they'd hold a better paint job if I weren't on a mission to hit 365 this year. So there's that. 

2021 finished mini counter: 319/100

A Song of Ice and Paint week 3 (2021 week 46)

This is our midpoint in this theme and we have a fun one this week. These beeftastic dudes are The Mountain's Men and again, I have to note that I don't know Game of Thrones lore so I can only imagine that "The Mountain" was some really big dude and I'm too lazy to google it.

These are done like the previous units in this theme starting with airbrush, following with washes, highlights, metallics, and gloss washes on the metallics. In retrospect, many of these guys have so much armor that I really should have airbrushed them with shaded metallics rather than the other way around. That meant that the metallic steps were especially grindy and rather flat. I'd intended to do more highlighting on the metallics but these are the guys that convinced me not to.

The next two weeks were done as a slightly smaller batch which means they'll have their own set of problems (and boy, do they). These first three weeks span 38 figs and were done in 39.5 hours which puts us at right around 1 hour per fig which is right around where I wanted them to land. Note that this is the painting only not including scraping of mold lines, building and mounting on bases, or priming. Next week we'll get some different dudes and, well, it hasn't gone as well.

2021 finished mini counter: 307/100

A Song of Ice and Paint, week 2 (2021 week 45)

Like last week, we have Lannisters from A Song of Ice and Fire again. These are Lannister Guardsmen known far and wide for I guess their plumey helmets and big shields. As many soldiers as I have in my collection, I really need to have my PCs fight more wars. Apparently.

These first three offerings (next week included) were done as a huge batch and I really wanted to see how much I could do with my new and fancy (and cheap) airbrush.What I wanted: a simple basecoat that I could stick a wash over and do a minimal amount of highlights on hopefully speeding up the process. This kind of worked. I experimented with washes. The blue, green, and flesh washes are Army Painter Quickshades which I quite like. They blue-grey guys are washed in Vallejo Dark Grey Wash which can make things look dirty if you don't get your highlights right. The blue wash is Daler Rowney Blue Ink mixed with matte medium and flow improver. This worked really well so I expect it to show up more in future work.

The metallics are Vallejo Metal Color mainly Steel, Dark Aluminum, and Gold washed with Nuln Oil Gloss which is my go-to for most things. Vallejo Metal Colors are absolutely worth investing in if you have the means and use metallic paints for these kinds of projects. Even though I didn't do any shading/highlighting on these guys, these paints readily mix with any of your highly pigmented acrylics and mix especially well with Badger Ghost Tints which I like a lot.

2021 finished mini counter: 295/100

A Song of Ice and Paint, week 1 (2021 week 44)

This week we're starting a new theme and like the last couple, this one is also a big batch paint. This time we're looking at A Song of Fire and Ice miniatures like those featured in Week 41 of 2020. These come in packs of 12 or 13 depending on if they have a specific captain fig or not. I rather like these figs. They're made of nice hard plastic, have an appropriate amount of details, and aren't covered in straps. So for the next five weeks we embark on Yet Another Batch Paint(TM). I do wish they were slightly smaller in scale to match other figs in my collection.

These guys are Lannister Halberdiers and if I knew anything about Game of Thrones, I'd know what that means beyond, you know, having halberds. You'll note their color scheme isn't what you might expect: uniform. That's because I don't use them for wargames. I use them for RPGs where it's way more important to be able to tell them apart than it is for them to look good in a unit. That said, when you do line them up as a unit, they do still look pretty good. I can only guess why that is. 

It's also interesting to note that even though they're not a great paint job, they still look OK. I think this is  two parts owing to their design which is sparse and well separated and one part due to color choices on my part which is high contrast and shiny. I did the trim and standards and heraldry in an off white to make them stand out rather than the yellow ochre I might have preferred. This helps hide some of the lousy blends and fairly serious lack of contrast. Also of note is that the upper parts of them are mostly metal which hides my lack of shading. Overall, I think these guys work and were completed in roughly over an hour per figure.

2021 finished mini counter: 282/100

Wizkids-a-rama, week 4 (week 43)

This week will round out the rest of my Nolzur's and Pathfinder normal sized figs. I've got some dragons that'll show up here at some point but for now, I can rest easier that I never have to paint another normal sized figure from these lines unless I'm a dumb and buy more. I really hope I have good reason to when I inevitably do. Also note that I'm still fiddling with my photography settings and they're still not good.

We saw Minsc in the first week of this theme. This would be his blister-mate, Moon Elf Sorcerer who I assume is someone else from Baldur's Gate. In fact, I bought them for this fig since she was holding a fireball and I really wanted to do more OSL. Clearly, I didn't do any OSL on this fig but I did spend a lot of time picking out details on her outfit even if I punted and painted her cloak black. I think this works and I like the color scheme.

These two are Pathfinder Human Female Oracles and like our Moon Elf friend, I bought them to practice OSL and then failed to follow through with that. What do you want? It's a speed painting theme! The gal with the scythe is awful. I mean, steel breastplate, bare legs, scythe and open toed sandals is all kind of fantasy hot mess. I have no idea what they were thinking. The other gal I like despite all her bejangles and other gear and I spent way too long on her. I think these work OK too.

The gal is the other half of Female Human Wizard featured in week 24 next to a repeat of Aasimar Paladin featured in the same week. She's got a definite unlimited power thing going on which I failed to do any OSL with. I don't think her Harry Potter scarf things hit. He's got super cheap & easy black wings and armor in a suitably edgelord way played by Pro Acryl Transparent Black and nothing else. These are cheap and easy paint jobs that look good for the effort expended. I.e., not much.

These two don't look OK and I had a heck of a time painting them. They're Nolzur's Female Aasimar Wizards and they look way nicer in the renders than these figs turned out in actuality. There's way too much negative space on these and the spell effect on the ground made her legs almost impossible to paint. Seriously, folks, don't make figs like these, at least not if we can't paint them in subassemblies. Those spell effects are "hey, look at me green" on purpose to draw attention to the less well done parts of those paint jobs which is generally "the rest of it." You can tell which one's wings I spent actual time on.

This guy is a Nolzur's Weretiger and he arrived with the wererat a couple weeks ago. I like that he doesn't have a million details but I really think there was a better paint scheme in there. Probably his cloak should have been grey to pop out his orangey fur and probably his armor wanted to be a less orangey brown. The freehanded stripes don't particularly work but he's fine at arm's length. I learned on this fig that tiger patterning is harder in paint than in illustration.

We saw the non-winged versions of Nolzur's Female Aasimar Paladin and Fighter in week 1 of this theme and as I recall, I rather liked those figs. I rather liked these, too, and despite being a speed paint, I put more effort into them even if it doesn't really show. The paladin gave me a great opportunity to paint a nice face so that's where the bulk of the time went despite the fact that it didn't shoot well. I especially like how her wings turned out and I think I learned that I like painting wings. I think these came out well and they'll round out the last of the theme.

So there we go, 41 figs in four weeks (three calendar weeks in actuality) for a grand total of 48 painting hours. That's right around 70 minutes a fig which is right around where I wanted to land. In truth, the same time spent on generally better/easier-to-paint figs would have probably yielded a better result, but this is what I had so this is what I did. I'm not unhappy with this effort, but in retrospect, I shouldn't have bought most of these figs.

2021 finished mini counter: 269/100

Wizkids-a-rama, week 3 (week 42)

Week three of this theme and it's going...ok. On the whole, these aren't good figs and they are not easy to paint. I'm helped by the addition of a Redgrass wet palette. I own numerous wet palettes, many of which I made so you might be wondering why I not just bought one, but bought one of the spendiest of them available. My wet palettes all suffer from serious mold problems and nothing I've done has curbed this. The Redgrass claims to be mold-resistant so I'm putting it to the test. More on that later!

First up we have one half of Nolzur's Human Male Cleric, the other half of which is currently playing one of my player characters and featured way back in week 24. This fig is the epitome of Nolzur-ness. It has far too many details none of which make any damned sense. Across those too many details are a set of mold lines that resist mitigation. Beyond that, there's also hard to reach negative space and since these figs are primed in white, you can't just not paint it without looking really terrible. This guy was a mess and the only good thing I can say is that I don't have to paint him anymore. Oh, and I replaced the dumb thing on the end of his mace with a bead which looks much better even if it's on crooked.

These two are Pathfinder Female Half Elf Rangers. one of them looks like a preppy necromancer with a crossbow and the other looks like she belongs on Hoth. They contrast strangely in their completely different level of detail. One was extremely hard to paint, the other not so much. I think they work, but only just but I'm not entirely unhappy with this paint job. The photography, on the other hand, leaves much to be desired.

Next up we have Nolzur's Elf Male Druids and I don't like these figs. The renders look nice, but then again, they always look nice and I have no idea what that spell effect is on his hand, nor did I paint it particularly well. In this case I was helped by the detail on them and picking out the patterns in ochre helped hide some of the other sins. They're kind of big compared to the other figs in the line. Not sure what's up with that but it'd be really nice if it was consistent across the line.

These are Pathfinder Female Knights/Grey Maidens and they may win the trophy for "most straps." I'd hoped that all the armor would make it easy to hide mistakes with metallic paints but that turned out to not be the case. The sword gal had all kinds of badness on her cloak. It looks like it came out of the mold bad and they chose to send it down the line instead of pulling it for quality. I probably could have done more with that if I'd realized it was this bad (note: white primed figs make these kinds of issues really hard to see). I kind of like these figs and put extra time into them but kind of lost it after trying to put buckles on all the damned straps. They landed OK.

Next up we have Pathfinder Female Human Paladins who I mistook for Seelah and painted in her color scheme. Maybe that's what they intended. I can only guess, but I do have an official Seelah in one of the Bones kickstarters so I have to imagine there are licensing issues afoot. These might be good sculpts, I like the poses in particular, but they're let down by some properly messed up molding. Or priming. The priming is generally heavy on these which might be the problem. At any rate, the details ended up really soft in exactly the places they didn't want to be. I think the fleshtones turned out well but these have lousy negative space and I spent not nearly enough time blending their cloaks. If only I had the oils out. Next time, Seelah, next time. 

Last up we have the other half of Nolzur's Female Half Elf Monk which sounds an awful lot like I cut the fig in half but indeed, these come in packs of two. I bought this pack because of this gal's fireball and despite wanting to do a lot more pronounced OSL, I only did some. Normally when you do these you paint the dark half of the figure in, er, darkness, but I forgot to do that. So instead, I subdued the lighting effect from her fireball--yeah, that's it. I totally didn't half ass this at all. It's still OSL so it still counts! I also didn't realize how glossy the paint ended up until I shot it.

2021 finished mini counter: 259/100, OSL 3/5

Wizkids-a-rama, week 2 (week 41)

For this theme I'm trying to settle into a rhythm focusing on brush painting and slapping around paint as quick-like as I can but I can't say I've been successful thusfar. These are (supposedly) pre-primed so I don't have to worry about that. I spend some time shaving off mold lines and getting them on a magnetized base but we dispense with the zenithal and anti-zenithal this time around. Instead we're going with a shaded basecoat mainly comprised of Pro Acryl Transparents and following up with whatever paints will finish the job. Like last week, these aren't good paint jobs but they are fast and I'm trying to keep up two per day (around 1.5 hours per fig or so) to burn through them as quickly as I dare. Also note that I'm experimenting with my photography rig and I haven't quite dialed it in yet so these shots are lousy as usual.

First up we have Nolzur's Female Half-Orc Barbarians and Nolzur's Female Half-Orc Fighters. Despite being from Nolzur's, I think these aren't terrible. The barbarians in particular, I think are fairly good sculpts. Notably, these are from a later wave and I'd like to think they're learning. Some day in the unforseeable future, I might lift my embargo of Nolzur's figs. I could have put more effort into the barbarians' fur and I don't think that the bronze-whatever on their armor particularly works. I was experimenting with different recipes and I don't think any of them particularly landed. These turned out OK, and I wouldn't be embarrassed to put them on my table.

These are a pair of packs of Nolzur's Female Human Cleric because I am a dummy and have a miniature buying problem. I'm doing much better this year, tho. I do not like these figs. Their armor is kind of dumb. I don't like their crowns or bendy weapons or dumb spell effects, and because of all of this, I generally didn't spend much time on them. It's also interesting seeing them side by side just how much the same figs can vary in this line. Every mini poses some interesting unique problems, even if it's another crack at painting the same figure. For that, I'm glad, but these don't look good and I'm not particularly sad about it.

Last up we have the wererat as seen in Nolzur's Wererat and Weretiger (the tiger part of the duo will be seen later) and the other half of Nolzur's Elf Female Rogue, and the blister mate of last week's rogue. The wererat's pose is janky but he doesn't have too terribly many details and the details he does have are pretty soft. The only rough part are his eyes which are pretty danged indistinct. This gal's gluing gaps and other difficulties are way worse than last week's. Despite that I put in more time into this fig than it could really support. For my efforts, these two look bad, but they're painted and that counts for something, right? 

2021 finished mini counter: 249/100