A thing a week 2023, week 9

This week we continue our pseudo-theme looking through the remaining unpainted figures in my vintage collection.

These are Maria Mercurial and Kyle Morgan from Shadowrun and also by Ral Partha. Shadowrun is a game I have a lot of nostalgia for even though I've only actually played it a handful of times. These are fantastic sculpts and are on opposite ends of the complexity spectrum. Because most of both of these figs was done with contrast paints and because Maria is far less complex, she got a bunch of extra time which I think shows. Kyle's sculpt has a mess of detail in a very Daniel Craig-like way. About the only thing I don't like is their sculpted eyes but I can look past that (pun intended). Ultimately these figs can hold a higher quality paint job and I might repaint them at a much later date. Harder with vintage figs than 3d prints but I'm not above painting right over the existing paint job. Either way I think they look good and I'm happy with the four-ish hour investment in them.

Last up we have Laian and Tammis from Mekton, an ancient game that I actually played a long time ago. These are at best OK sculpts and the cleanup was really bad. You can kind of see how off the mold was on Laian's helmet. For this paint job I wanted two things: sculpt some with paint to make the most of out of these sculpts, and to experiment with teal and orange as a color scheme; a new one for me. Laian has pink hair and pink tights since I mostly paint fantasy figs and don't get to paint that kind of thing often. The former kind of sells, the second not so much. Overall they were done in around five hours and much like their sculpts, I think they're OK.

2023 finished mini counter: 67/100

A thing a week 2023, week 8

Continuing my trip through the remainder of my vintage collection, we start with Ral Partha 11-103 Demihuman Vampires. I bought these sometime in the aughts because at that point I had very limited non-human figures and I didn't look close enough to see that their fangs are indeed, very prominent. I  speed painted them in the same color scheme and in retrospect I should have painted the Elf's cloak red to match the others but I painted him first and really wasn't thinking. The Kender's getup doesn't really work for me but then again, Kender don't really work for me either. These aren't good paint jobs but they're done and that counts for something. 

Next up we have vintage RAFM Manipulators. These are good sculpts let down by bad molds and a questionable paint job. They're supposed to be vampires which I guess works but I think they look more like lawyers or politicians which I guess are not mutually exclusive. I had intended to paint hosiery on the gal but got lazy and didn't do any of that and ended up painting both their suits in the same color scheme for, I dunno, consistency or something. I did not realize they were quite so shiny before looking at these pictures. All things considered, I think they turned out well given the maybe four hours combined they took. 

2023 finished mini counter 61/104

A thing a week 2023, week 7

This week we dip way back into my vintage collection. These are Lawnmower Man figures from Leading Edge Games, specifically sets #44104 Character Pack and #44103 Friends Pack and I don't have proper references for them, sadly. These are early Bob Ridolfi figures and if I'm honest, while the sculpts are only OK, the molds are pretty awful and I spent not nearly enough time cleaning them up. These were a speed paint as I don't super expect any of these to get particularly much screen time. Done over a few days mostly with contrast paints they maybe took six hours all told for the eight of them. No awards are given for this effort but they're the best color: painted.

2023 finished mini counter: 56/104

A thing a week 2023, week 6

Last week I mentioned that I was practicing my magma effects so this week we're continuing that thought. These are troglodytes from Blacklist Fantasy Series 1 but since I don't need any more trogs and I do need more magma beasts...well, it's an obvious solution. I thought these guys would hold this paint job better than they actually do and I expected to do a bunch of the work as drybrush which I did but ultimately I don't think they sell super well. The darks aren't dark enough and many of them are missing the orange tones which looks wrong. That said, I am too lazy to repaint them so they're fine. Also, note that their bases are color-coded so we can tell them apart at the table and that the shooting is just as bad as ever. 

2023 finished mini counter: 48/104