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