A thing a week 2021, week 24 (new campaign characters)

I started a new campaign in the every-other-Saturday slot not terribly long ago. The last one in that slot ran for just over a year and started the first weekend of lockdown. We thought we'd be playing in Roll20 temporarily but little did any of us know that it'd be more than a year until we could go back to playing in person. Well, that time is now (well, yesterday). Among other goals for this campaign, I want to play fully painted so here we go.

First up we have Akoroi, Ork skald played here by Nolzur's Human Cleric. This is not a great sculpt and like many of the Nolzur's figs, it's not a great mold either. I got most of the awful mold lines off but not all of them and more importantly, it was super clear that the person who sculpted this figure wasn't a painter since lots of the fig are hard to reach. This started as a wash->drybrush->glazes operation but quickly sidetracked to normal wet blending and layering. As a player character, I expect this fig to get a lot of screen time so figured it was worth the effort. I could have put more effort into the metallics but I'm not unhappy with this result in about three-ish hours of effort and if you're wondering why he's fleshtoned instead of green-y, it's because this is how he looks in his online key art.

Next up we have Muchasi, Athari shaman played here by Nolzur's Aasimar Paladin. Another player character and one fairly well distinguished by vibrant plumage, this fig also embodies the Nolzur-ness issues. An additional grievance was the wings which were molded in clear plastic that did not want to stick to paint. The saturated colors were played mostly by Pro Acryl and lightened by Daler Rowney inks. That's proving to be a pretty dang good combination since both are highly pigmented and both are thin. Everything else on the character is suitably subdued and done in another four-ish hours of effort.

This is Vheela, Elven scholar and another player character played by Reaper Bones Ostarzha, Elf Cleric. Like a lot of Reaper Bones figs, this is a good sculpt let down by not stellar molding. I did what I could to clean the mold lines but didn't get all of them, the worst of which were on her hair and chin. This is about a three and a half hours of effort about half of which went into her face. The sculpt has really big eyes which is great! I love painting eyes and this gave me an opportunity to put a colored iris, pupil, and well placed reflection point. The leather bits were adequately handled by Pro Acryl Transparent Brown and while I could have cleaned them up some, I didn't feel the need. 

Kyeh of the Waves is a waterbender and yeah, I made my own world and borrow all kinds of stuff. She's played by Nolzur's Female Human Wizard and the first of two NPCs we'll look at today. She was painted over three days in about eight hours, a lot of which was on her face. Nolzur's figs tend to be more realistically proportioned than heroic and such they have very, very small faces. The flowy bits are a mix of Pro Acryl blue and green  (or just blue) highlit with Pro Acryl Turquoise (iirc). The brown bits were mostly Pro Acryl brown and that's it and I thought they looked good enough to leave like that. The waterbendy piece is a layered wash/drybrush with Pro Acryl blue and my ancient pot of Reaper Pro Linen that is almost out. I think she turned out good enough to count her as my second high quality fig of this year.

Last up we have Rokoru the Blade, bestest kitty NPC in this campaign. So far. He's played by a 3D printed cat rogue which are again really hard to find after the fact and featured way back in week 50 of last year. Poor Obeng fig never got to see play in person but I suspect that Rokoru will. This fig is pretty small and I tried to match the key art I've been using for online play. There are freehand stripes on his shoulders which pretty much don't show and despite spending a lot of time on the shading on his clothing, I don't think it shows super well. He's not a bad paint job squeaking in right around four hours all told.

2021 finished mini counter: 140/100, 2/5 high quality