Elffest 2021, week2 (week 35)

As mentioned last week, this week we have the blue team's archers and it seems like all of these figures were challenging in some way.  As per usual, they are primed, anti-zenithaled, and zenithaled. I'd intended to do glazes over a value sketch but that didn't really work out as we shall see. These six weigh in at around fourteen hours total which feels heavy for the intent but heavily weighted toward the last one.

First up we have one half of Nolzur's Female Elf Rangers. The more of these Nolzur's figs I paint, the less I like them and I suspect that I may at some point burn through the rest of them to get them out of the way. Look, I like that I can get a wide diversity of figs for a relatively competitive price, but even with a lot of work, these can't support great paint jobs. I guessed at what was going on for most of this fig which is why she's got so much armor. I have no idea what the intent of some of her details were. I am not fond of this figure and I'm glad I don't have to paint her again. Hopefully her blister-mate will go better.

This is Lindir, Elf Archer from Reaper Bones and I liked this fig more prior to painting it than after. His face is kind of messed up and my paint job did not help this. A lot of the details were soft and if I'd been more into this fig, I'd have popped out the details on his boots like the ones on his jerkin. I think this color scheme works and overall and he looks OK at a distance but it doesn't hold up to scrutiny. 

These three are the fun ones. These three are vintage Earthdawn figs from Heartbreaker, ones I bought a long time ago and I wish I'd bought more of. I'm sure I've typed this before, but Earthdawn is one of my favorite RPGs. These three are fairly exaggerated even for early 90s sculpts but that doesn't keep me from loving them. I did what I could with the skintones but their arms and hands are pretty nuts. I struggled to highlight the volumes reasonably partially because I was going fast, and partially because I was being lazy. I do like how these turned out all things considered, but I wouldn't be surprised if I decided to revisit them at a later date.

This is a Wood Elf Scout from the Chainmail Ravilla Box set, and a gift from a pal. She's been sitting on my workbench for many months like most of the Elves in this theme. The non-metallics are mostly Pro Acryl Transparents lightened by light fleshtones and off whites. The metallics are Vallejo Metal Color and highlit with Golden High Flow Acrylics and washed (not very well) with Badger Ghost Tint Midnight Blue (not in that order). I like this fig and spent a lot of time on her and despite the bad shots over here, I think she turned out pretty well. I'm going to count her as a high quality fig for this year. Ultimately, I'm happy but not satisfied and will count this as one of my high quality figs for the year.

2021 finished mini counter: 201/100, 4/5 high quality

Elffest 2021, week 1 (week 34)

This week we kick off a new theme: Elves. This breaks up a month of one and two-off paint jobs some of which were creeping up in the number of hours spent. I have a lot of figs in this batch and my observation is that I generally speed up overall from doing big batches because I have to focus only on the details that really matter to finish in a sane amount of time. This is the first batch of the blue team: the melee line and we've got the usual going on. More specifically, anti-zenithal with Payne's Grey and zenithal with a white or off white after priming. Metallics are washed with Badger Minitaire Ghost Tint Inidgo and highlit with Golden High Flow Acrylics. 

These two are Nolzur's Female Elf Paladins and like many Nolzur's figures, they are questionable sculpts with bad molds. The gal with the greatsword's skirt's negative space is super hard to paint. The gal with the mace's cloak is extra bad and the one I have is posed such that the shield is directly in front of her face. Good luck with painting eyes! Despite that, I rather like these figs and really wish they were done in, I dunno, nice plastics instead of the typical rubbery Nolzur's junk. I punted on the wood on the shield and the rocky bases they're standing on. 

These two are High Elf Female Guardians by Stanislav Kuznetsov and despite my terrible printing and painting, I really like these figs. The swords weren't properly supported so they're both leaning down and some of the supports have made things difficult. I printed them kind of small and I think they'd benefit from being slightly better and not being part of a batch. Since this is a 3d print, I can make that happen so sometime in the unforseeable future, I expect these to make a return. 

This is a 3d print Elf Spearmaiden also by Stanislav. I like this fig but like many of my other early prints, she's way, way too small. She was printed last October which feels forever away and sat partially painted on my desk from before I conceived of themes at all. One thing I really don't like about this fig is her spear. Like most things in resin, it's brittle and has broken off like a billion times already. It will probably continue to break until I get pissed enough to replace it for a more durable one. This paint job isn't all I wanted it to be and I'm sure I'll re-print her at a sturdier size at some point in the near future.

Also from Stanislav is this Elf Paladin. I did not do a good job with this one mostly because I failed to get the magnet in a good spot and he wobbled around badly while I was painting him. He's mostly metallics and there are a lot of bejangles and doodads hanging off of him. He's also printed fairly small and I suspect that a future print and paint (non-batch) would yield a better result.

These two are male and female Elf Soldiers by Velrock available for free on Thingiverse. Velrock does good work and should you be so inclined, I'd recommend visiting their store on MyMiniFactory. These are great figs and despite my bumbling with their paint job, I still think they look good. Like the other prints in this batch, I probably printed them too small and painted them too fast to get as good a result as they probably warranted. We may see these show up again at a future date.

This last gal is Aviriel Tellerion, Female Elf and an old Reaper Bones figure. This is a questionable sculpt and a terrible mold and like many Bones figs, despite heavy cleaning and good priming, paint did not want to stick to her. I started liking this fig a lot and ended up really not being a fan. Her hair is nuts and there are a lot of awful negative spaces on her. Despite the time spent, I ended up not liking this paint job and might revisit later. For now, she's the best color: painted.

All told this batch of nine was around nineteen hours but at least some of that was burning paint on other figs in the batch so it's a little high. Even reducing colors I ended up spending more time than I expected. It'll be interesting to see if this batch speeds up on a per-figure basis. Next week: blue team archers!

2021 finished mini counter: 195/100

A thing a week 2021, week 33

This week we continue our not-theme of "stuff on my painting desk." I've got some longer projects bubbling in the background that get effort over time but we'll get to those in due time. For now, this is what we've got.

This is Joanna the Cleric by Twin Goddess Miniatures. This is a multi-sculpt figure and of which these are my two favorite, though honestly, I could have done without the high heels. These were a one day paints. A single day for me is between 3 and 5 hours, so still pretty substantial, and since I've got a pile of stuff I want to get through, this is a thing I want to do more of. Since so much of their getup was metal, I did some shadows with Badger Ghost Tints and highlights with Golden High Flow Acrylics as per usual. This is a fairly cheap and easy way to punch up an otherwise fairly dull model. Despite the time spent on them, their faces aren't spectacular but overall, I'm not unhappy with this result weighing in at about six hours all told for the both of them.

I shouldn't like Brianna of the Blade (and yes, I did get the metal version). She's got dumb fantasy armor which I'm just about allergic to. She was sculpted in 1998 by Sandra Garrity, a sculptor whose work I like quite a lot, and I could not resist the 90s era hair. This is a good sculpt, fashion choices notwithstanding, let down by a lousy mold. I did a lot of sculpting with paint and I notice now that I didn't properly give her hair the Pantene Shine(TM) and that's a bummer. She was done over many months done in what I'd guess is three hours and I'm not unhappy with this result. Minus the hair.

Zadim, Iconic Slayer came with Bones 4. I understand he's from Pathfinder, a game I don't play and if I had looked up the concept art, I might have painted him differently. Like many of the others of this week's offering, he's been sitting on my painting table for a while, since the end of last year if I recall correctly, and I didn't particularly like all of his fancy...fancyness. He was done in around three hours which is where a lot of my not-tryhard jobs are landing these days. 

This is the Paladin out of the Chainmail Starter Set. She's metal (and heavy) and the mold defects were pretty awful. Yes, I said defects instead of lines because these were way worse than lines would have been and, naturally, there's one going right over the left side of her face. Her armor is the typical fantasy trope crap but she was a fun paint nonetheless. I did minimal shading/highlighting on the armor--just the stuff that would pop out, but I think it all works. She sat partially painted for months on my table before finishing for this week's offering so I wouldn't hazard a guess as to how long it took.

These are 3d prints of Amazon Warriors by Artisan's Guild whose work I quite like. The STL is available for free. I printed these too small at roughly 25mm scale at a time when I thought I wanted that. Their eyes in particular were exceptionally difficult because of this. On the other hand, I got to do a lot of work with fleshtones which I'm actively trying to improve. These mostly show that with some improvement but ultimately I think I need a lot more work. The two of these gals were done in around eight hours total and I'm not unhappy with them.

The last two are figs that I don't like. The sculpts are soft and the molds, like most of the official Pathfinder and D&D lines, are crap. These were purchased for a PC in my last intended-to-be-in-person game from last year so they hadn't gotten painted. Well, they're on my bench partially painted and I finished them off in a few hours in early August. The fleshtones probably needed to go to a higher highlight. These aren't good paint jobs but they a) don't particularly have to be, and the figs themselves won't hold a good paint job but they're done and I'm happy with that.

2021 finished mini counter: 186/100

A thing a week 2021, week 32

This week, big surprise, we have minis. While not a theme, we're into "crap I have on my painting table," now newly rearranged. It probably goes without saying that they're primed, shadowed, and zenithaled with the airbrush as per usual. While not a speed print, they weren't full ballsack efforts but as characters, I put more than a speed paint's worth of effort per fig but they also gathered paint at the end of a session where I had the right colors available on my palette.

This is a Shadow Dragon from the Legend of Drizzt board game. It's been on my painting desk since early last year. It's a pretty good sculpt suffering from an awfully lousy mold and I didn't do anywhere near enough work cleaning up mold lines. Where I hadn't done enough with them, I did a couple layers of gloss varnish which kind of hid them. After several old layers of paint, I did a bunch of the expected work including a few light drybrushes on the wings. I left the eyes pupil-less since I think they looked good that way. This is probably around five hours of effort most of it was painting over the existing crap I'd put down last year. I didn't push the contrast as far as I could have but I've got way more dragons to paint so stay tuned!

These two are Pathfinder Battles Deep Cuts Half-Orc Female Barbarian, a SKU name that defies all ledgers to contain its girth. These were bought last year with one of them (the non-chain cloak gal) intended as a PC in my last campaign...that we never actually played in person. As a result, they never got painted...until NOW! These sculpts aren't terrible (though, they're not good), but the molds are awful. They're full of mold lines that real hard to deal with. There's a lot of sculpting with paint going on here and despite the six-ish hours spent (mainly on their fleshtones and faces) they're only OK. That saidtyped, I learned a lot painting these and I feel like this is time well spent.

This kitty assassin is a 3D print of Skivvara - Tabaxi Rogue from Twin Goddess Miniatures whose work I'm quite fond of. I like this figure despite her non-armor and the complexity of the rim of the base which is both difficult to paint and unwarranted. I put about seven hours into this fig which is about three hours more than I wanted to but it was fun despite the fact that I don't think it's a good paint job. It's hard painting black and like Obeng from last year, I rather failed to get anything resembling proper shading on her not limited to not bringing the shadows down as far as they should have been. I'm also noticing that I missed painting her belt buckle which I'll fix shortly. At the end, I just wanted to be done so the gold coins and chest and all that was a rush job. Luckily, being a 3d print, I've got more of her and mayhap I'll do a Black Cat Challenge(TM) every year. Seems like a good idea.

These two are 3D prints of Human Female Paladin by The Lion's Tower on (you guessed it), MyMiniFactory.com. This is a free STL which I think I printed at something around 28mm. Normally I like smaller figs--they're cheaper to print and easier to paint most of the time. In this case, their faces were so small they were a real struggle to paint. That didn't keep me from spending a lot of time on them. I intended them as a one day paint but because I had so much fun painting their faces, I got a face on a completely different fig. Instead, these took two (which is fine) and because the metallics were so much of these figs, I did some work with Badger Ghost Tints and Golden High Flow Iridescent Silver which are both glossy and which are both very transparent. Also of note, Badger Ghost Tints and normal metallics wet blend surprisingly well which is fun! These two gals took about six hours all told and I think the results, particularly their faces, are good.

2021 finished mini counter: 177/100

Three years of painting (2021 week 31)

I've been painting minis For Realz(TM) for just over three years now, and in a recent perusal of Paint All the Minis facebook group, I came upon someone who's starting their painting journey. That got me thinking (in a drunken stupor, naturally) that it'd be fun to document my journey at a less-than-weekly cadence. This would be that post.

Three years ago with my giant Army Painter starter kit (the older version of this one) and a set of really awful synthetic brushes, I painted my first minis. These three Reaper Bones orc spearmen are the first three followed by the three orc archers. IIRC, they're rattle can primed with a very rough dry brush value sketch followed by a more-than-heavy glaze. I've documented the process here but I stole it from Vince Venturella as a cheap-and-easy way to paint at a reasonable quality level in a reasonable amount of time. I poured time into the speardoods to the tune of about 24 hours which today seems extremely long but the results were good enough that I haven't stopped yet. Note that these guys were rebased last year when I rebased the vast majority of my painted figs. Yeah, it was that kind of year.

Also note that these six guys don't have painted eyes--the last group that I didn't paint eyes on. In one of his videos, Vince gave the guidance "always paint eyes." His reasoning was that if you do it all the time, you'll get used to it and get better at it. He's not wrong. Now, after around 600 figures most of which have painted eyes, I not only don't fear it anymore--I actually look forward to it most of the time. For anyone struggling with super fine detailed work, it does get better and despite the hype to the contrary, it is a place where specialized tools can help. Specifically, a nice sharp brush of a stiffness you can work with and paints/additives that will a) flow off the brush appropriately, and b) won't dry on the tip will really make things easier. 

I remember 2019 as "the year before covid" which I suppose a lot of us do, also as "the year of youtube" where I made a video every week for not quite half the year. I did have figs completed right around that time (Regault Battle Pods, if you're curious) but I don't feel like those guys are particularly comparable. Instead, here are five Reaper Bones 4 bog skellingtons painted in August of 2019. These are not well painted. They were a speed paint after a half year of not painting very much. IIRC these beasties were done in about eight hours for the five of them which at the time was about as fast as I could go and one of the first times that I started to seriously appreciate the power of batch painting. Finished mini counter: ~157

Last year was a mess for just about everyone--some moreso than others. This week in 2020 was a week of characters and IIRC, at that point I wasn't pushing a bow wave of posts. These are some of those characters minus one which I gave away (the whole batch can be found here). This was right around where I realized that covid wasn't ending anytime soon and was starting to settle into working from home. I was also experimenting with James Wappel's shaded basecoat and pushing both speed and quality. The speed hadn't arrived yet, but the quality was markedly improved. Looking at these figs up close now, I'm only able to see the flaws and the places I'd put maybe a half hour more in and get a lot more out. Finished mini counter: ~259

This year I wanted to drive hard on the progress I'd made in 2020 and started the year off strong with some fairly high quality figs. I hit the year's count goal in March (under promise, over deliver, yo) which is way before I thought I would. I've yet to finish all of my goals, but we're well on our way. Last week we saw this year's early July offering in all of his glory. He started as a batch paint but ended up being a solo paint trying to get a lot of stuff more right than usual. He weighs in at around 10 hours and I think the result is good. I mean, I was going to keep pouring in hours until I was either happy with the result or super tired of working on him so I suppose that was a given. I hope I'm still painting this time next year to see how far I've come and I also hope I have the wherewithal to do these kinds of hobby journey posts semi-regularly moving forward. Finished mini counter: ~591

I recognize that my painting volume and drive to improve is not typical. Most folks in the hobby aren't going to paint 100 figs in a year and aren't probably as committed to learning as I usually am. That said, if you're at least as interested at getting better in this hobby, keep going and keep learning.