2021/07/25

Gnollathon week 3 (2021 week 30)

This week we round out the 2021 Gnollathon with twelve, that's right, twelve figures. They're painted more or less the same way as last week's gnolls. This includes the typical prime-anti-zenithal-zenithal maneuver followed by an acrylic basecoat, oil wash, and minimal oil details. Bases were mostly Vallejo texture paste. I'm really liking this technique by way of Marco Frisoni.

These three are 3d printed Gnoll Chieftains, a part of the Gnoll Marauders set by Cult Minis which you can purchase on MyMiniFactory should you be so inclined. I scaled them down to be roughly in scale of other 28mm figures. Because I had to support them myself, this wasn't particularly more difficult than it might have been. These are modular which I like! They're also stupidly complicated, which I don't like, and they have lots of areas where I couldn't easily get a brush. They were also a pain to pull the oil wash off of given that they have so many negative spaces. Honestly, I could do with fewer pieces, details, and bejangles and whatnot. I like these guys, but not as part of a speed paint where they really don't fit. The normal gnolls were slightly less complicated and I'm sure we'll see more gnolls from this set here at some point.

These two are mirrored Gnoll FREE by Evgenii Tkachenko and as you might have guessed, it's a free model available on MyMiniFactory. I have mixed feelings about these. They're free which is nice, and they're OK to paint being fairly open but are a little derpy and I generally don't care for their shorts. Dunno, They work, I guess, but despite being gnolls, I'm not overly fond of them. I think they came out OK despite their derpitude. Possibly there's a better paint job in the far-flung future. Maybe a better basing job would help. 

These four are also 3d printed and are mirrored gnoll warrior male and gnoll archer by Velrock whose library is well worth checking out. They are free on Thingiverse and I like them a lot. Like the chieftains, I scaled them to around 28mm and since I had to support them myself, this wasn't a big deal. These are fun. They have just enough detail to be interesting but not enough to be a pain. I could have done without the bejangles hanging from their belts some of which didn't print super well. I may very well print and paint more of these, particularly the archers, which I never seem to have enough of. Have I mentioned that I like gnolls?

This is a gnoll barbarian print by XSpyroid, also free and available on Thingiverse. There's stuff to like about this fig and a lot to not like. I like the pose and the face. I don't much like the thickness of the straps which are crazy, and the pseudo-armor which makes almost no sense. The pose is fairly open which is nice but I'm pretty sure I'm going to snap off the spear at some point. I think this guy came out well but ultimately I don't particularly like this fig.

These are Blacktongue, Gnoll Archer, and Toghra, Gnoll Leader from Reaper Bones. They're good sculpts even if their molds aren't fantastic. These fit well with the other Bones gnolls I have which usually play the part of bruisers or bosses. Put multiple of them on the board to scare the fertilizer out of the PCs. Note: they usually win anyway--they're resourceful like that. Like all of the Bones gnolls, I like these guys a lot and wish I had more. They're nice, open, figures which are fairly easy to paint with good detail.

This will wrap up the 2021 Gnollathon to the tune of about nine hours for these twelve figures. I think this is a good result for the time spent (~8 hours all told) and feel that they'll make a good addition to my growing gnoll army.

2021 finished mini counter: 171/100

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