A thing a week 2022, week 13

After multiple weeks of buildup...we're here. This is the big project I've been talkingtyping about since week 5. I had expected to put a mess of time into this fig, and I did, just not as much time as I expected.

This is Aislinn, Shadow Tracker sculpted by the one and only Julie Guthrie. I love this figure so when I started looking for my ten high quality figs for the year, she was at the top of the list. She hasn't seen a lot of screen time having never portrayed a player character but I put her on the field as often as I can. Wolfkin aren't well represented in the miniature world much like lionfolk but are similarly well represented in my fantasy world. That's left me with problems showing them in game. In fact, I have a series of these figs from Reaper in metal to fill the gap so expect to see more of them in the future.

Prep started as normal with a prime, umbral, and zenithal but this time I followed them with a wash and a drybrush to pop out details. Actual painting started with blocking out the colors from reference (grey wolf) and then putting a lot of effort into her face. Without the typical makeup, I did more with the highlights around her eyes and muzzle and I think it's a good result. After that, the fun began!

Bought in the heady days of 2016, I've had a lot of time to think about how to paint her and I figured this'd be a good time to give detailed fur a shot. This entails painting with individual brush strokes that build up into an interesting texture which honestly sounds a lot more dreary than it actually is. In fact, it's pretty easy and dare I say a relaxing way to paint with a lot of ability to correct mistakes as you go. I also misjudged how much time this would take. It compares favorably to the normal amount of effort putting glazes down with the bonus that I don't have to care about blends being smooth, in fact, it's the opposite of what I want. When I first encountered this technique several years ago, I couldn't imagine spending this kind of effort on a fig. Now I'm looking through my collection looking for similar figs to get the same treatment.

Overall she was complete in something like 15 hours which is way under the 50+ I'd expected. Part of it was opting out of the NMM which I have little confidence in, but part of it was how quickly the fur patterns went. Now that she's painted I'm even happier with this fig and I really hope I get an opportunity to get her some screen time.

2022 finished mini counter: 57/100, 4/10 high quality

A thing a week 2022, week 12

This week have a hodgepodge of stuff but that doesn't mean it sucks!

First up we have the dorf corps comprised of a Reaper Bones Barden Barrelstrap, since rebranded as Dwarf Cleric, Barden and two 3d printed Dwarf Clerics that I cannot find the source file for. Barden's paint job isn't great but then again, neither the sculpt nor the mold are very great either. The one that really steams me is the terrible mold line crossing his face. The two others were a free STL file and as such, they're helping drive my cost per fig down. As a mini-batch they're all more or less in the same color scheme and they were done in a couple days maybe spanning eight hours all told. They aren't great paint jobs, but they are painted.

Next up we have Human Cleric, Broderick, sometimes Broderick Alt Pose, Crusaders Captain from Reaper and unlike Barden, he's metal and doesn't have the difficulties of Bones figs. Like Barden, he was bought about six years ago when I was just getting back into RPGs and wanted to cover as many weapon configurations as I could. Unlike Barden, this guy did see some screen time as a player character. I like this fig despite his stupidly exaggerated fantasy hammer. The fig will hold a higher quality paint job but I didn't particularly do one, though I did put effort into shading and highlighting the armor. I think it's a nice result complete in about eight hours.

Last and most importantly, we have a 3d printed Battlemage from Galaad. I really like this fig. She's got reasonable armor, is not over-endowed, and she's got some fire in her hand even though I clearly didn't do any OSL (I did think about it, tho). This fig is a great example of great design. She's got an open pose; nothing terribly occluded and her armor is just detailed enough to give easy things to focus on while not being so complicate as to be a pain. This is the kind of fig that you can spend a lot of time on and will hold a really high quality paint job. I pushed to a much higher quality than usual though I did not push as far as I could have. Nor is she the "big project" I've kept noting over the last few weeks. I do think this is one of the paint jobs I've done and I'm pretty happy with it. I'm also reminded that I like this paint scheme which is something like "analogous complementary." Done in something like a dozen hours, I suspect she's not the last we've seen of this fig.

2022 finished mini counter: 56/100, 3/10 high quality

A gaggle of goblins, part 2 (2022, week 11)

These two will round out this mini-theme and this time, they are covering for a bigger projects and they should be really sweet when they land. Probably next week? Maybe! You'll have to check later. Like, next week.

I think these woofwolf riders are new for Bones 5 but I have no real way to verify this. I really like these sculpts and wanted to spend extra time on them even though I've got other crap going on. The riders were dumbly painted with last week's goblins. Dumbly because I should have painted the woofs first and had to deal with that after the fact. Not recommended. The mounts are drybrushed and I don't think that these sculpts wanted that. I think they're fine, though, and the whole batch of eight were done in about 10 hours which is about as fast as I can go these days.

2022 finished mini counter: 51/100

A gaggle of goblins, part 1 (2022 week 10)

I saidtyped a few weeks ago that the kobold theme was there to run cover for a bigger project? Well, this isn't it. These are goblins. Six of them! And they're also from Bones 5. Many of them were featured way back in the end of 2019 in a world that was quite a lot different.

Painting on these guys started as usual (primed, umbral'ed, zenithal'ed) and then I did some mixifying with Pro Acryl Transparents (green and black) to get the basecoat. As much as I like blue and black and red and black mixes with those, I was surprised to realize I'd never done green and black until then. Over that we layered paints as normal with an ancient Reaper Pro Paints flesh wash that I'm trying to use up on the cobbles. 

These aren't pro paint jobs in the least but I also didn't do a great job on the mold lines so there's that. I think they're OK, though, and they'll take their place with the other gobbos in my collection.

2022 finished mini counter: 49/100