A thing a week 2023, week 18

Week three of non-bangers from Blacklist Fantasy Series 1 is here and I want to clarify that it's the paint jobs that are questionable more than the figures. Like last week's rats, this week's wolves are painted simply and have non-differentiated bases because I'm lazy. One more week of these probably before we get on to slightly more interesting topics.

2023 finished mini counter: 102/104

A thing a week 2023, week 17

We continue our mini-theme of non-bangers from Blacklist Fantasy Series 1 with these five giant rats. These guys don't have any freehand and I'm probably going to have a rough time telling them apart on the table because I was too lazy to paint their bases in different colors. I'll have to find a way to survive, somehow.

2023 finished mini counter: 97/104

A thing a week 2023, week 16

Back to minis this week. These are five giant spiders from Blacklist Fantasy Miniatures Series 1. They are painted very simply with very questionable freehand on their backs so I can tell them apart on the table. They also mark a several week hiatus from painting that isn't entirely obvious since I usually work a few weeks in advance for exactly this purpose. They can't all be bangers, folks, but they're the best color: painted.

2023 finished mini counter: 92/104

A thing a week 2023, week 15

This week we have tiles...lots of tiles (not all shown). These are from Dungeons and Lasers kickstarters one and two from Archon Studio. I've been prepping and not painting stuff from these kickstarters for months now though the props are very well represented. I also have lots of tiles that I've built over the years so the main motivation was less to use them on the tabletop and more to reclaim shelf space in my studio. 

These are not particularly well painted. Rather than priming with the airbrush as normal, I used a 1" craft brush and was very sloppy with it. That has resulted in some bubbles in the recesses which I do not like but didn't take any corrective measures around. After that I did a very rough basecoat with the airbrush which took a really long time because there are dozens of these things. After that I picked out some details like grates, the light Celtic knotwork and red star and then the magic started.

Every time I use oil washes I'm amazed at how good the results are. These posed a different challenge since a) they're flat, and b) they're large. I let the wash sit for a day so it'd cure enough that it wouldn't pull out of the deep recesses. I re-used some paper towel that was last seen wrapping Lego builds and burned through a lot more of my thinner than I would have liked but overall the entire process wasn't too difficult. 

No minis this week, maybe next week, so no updated counter.

Kitty-a-thon 2023, week 5 (2023 week 14)

This week we wrap up this theme with a high quality sculpt and paint.

This is a Lion Man from Reaper and he's both big and metal. This fig was PC and part of a campaign run before the current cycle in the heady days of 2019. Prep began as normal though notably he had some really lousy mold lines and I proceeded to start painting with the airbrush. Knowing that the previous leonins had paint jobs that didn't go low enough or high enough, I put extra super special effort into shadowing and highlighting and I think it shows. I didn't quite get to 1 (the lowest shadows) and not enough of 5 (the highest highlights) but I think I got the important parts of the shading on his physique. His mane and other darker fur were mostly done with contrast paints and the metallics were played by Vallejo Metal Color as per usual.

I spent a lot of effort on this fig, particularly on the details and he was done over about a week in something like a dozen hours. I will almost certainly buy and re-paint this fig but this guy is done and will count as my fifth high quality work this year.

2023 finished mini counter: 87/104, 5/10 high quality