A thing a week 2023, week 39

More non-bangers this week. I might not-so-secretly be pushing to 365+ this year though a) this is in danger, and b) I doubt I'll match 2022's performance (378 if you're counting). 

First up we have an air elemental and water elemental from the Castle Ravenloft board game. You might wonder, why are these different sizes? For that, I have no useful answer. You might also wonder why they're painted in the same scheme. That, I can answer! I messed up and didn't realize my mistake until they were painted. I can't be bothered to strip the air elemental so it'll stay the color it is. Wash + a couple layers of drybrush. No drama here.

These devil-y dudes are actually Blacklist Fantasy Series 1 ghouls. I don't use undead in general but I do use demons and quite a lot in my current in-person game. So they got all red-ified. The details aren't super good and I didn't spend a lot of time with their muscleatures but they were done in a couple hours all told which is what I was going for. Also note the return of Geek Gaming Scenics basing materials. 

2023 finished mini counter: 215/104

A thing a week 2023, week 38

This week we have offerings from the Castle Ravenloft boardgame and like last week, these are speed paints. 

First up we have wraiths. They're cast in a transparent material which I stuck a semi-transparent wash over followed by a drybrush. I've done this maneuver a few times here but I am far too lazy to look up links to stick here in much the same way that I forgot to take back-shots and I'm far too lazy to do that now. Nothing to see here; just some speed paints.

These are (quite obviously) skeletons and from the same set. These are also not great paint jobs but took slightly longer since they have actual details. I rushed through the weathering on their equipment and more or less stuck the rust spots on the same places on all three. Whoops. The basing material is back to Geek Gaming Scenics Base Ready series which I'm starting to really like. Probably I'll buy more in the future (budget permitting) since they take an otherwise pretty poor paint job and elevate the fig to "OK".

2023 finished mini counter: 208/102

A thing a week 2023, week 37

No theme this week, just a handful of figs and not very good paint jobs to boot. These are dire boars from Blacklist Fantasy Series 1 and like a lot of the figs I've painted from this set so far, these are speed paints. I found these figs difficult because the sculpts didn't super differentiate between tusks and fur. These are a pretty basic contrast paint + minor drybrush + details. 

2023 finished mini counter: 202/102

A thing a week 2023, week 36

This week we have another mini-theme of Artisan Guild Fighters Guild (plus one). All of these are 3d prints and they're all mostly OK which for my old printer, is pretty amazing (note: it's been broken a while). I printed these in the fall of last year and have only now (well, several weeks ago) gotten around to painting them.

From left to right we have Fighter A Male, Fighter D Lady, Brent of Goobertown, Fighter C Lady. As much armor as these folks have, I don't know why I didn't airbrush them in armor colors. I mean, I did one just like that last year and from the same set. Overall, they've probably got a few too many details but I forgive that because they also have nice dynamic poses and expressive faces. Fighter A has a Obi Wan thing going on which I like. Lady D's mascara is probably a little too heavy. I recall having a really hard time with it. Lady C had a punk rock thing going on so I painted her hair a fun color. To save time, it's the same color as her cloak and whatever she's got at her waist. Brent, if you didn't know, is a youtuber and he shows up a lot in the 3d printing world. His tuft is because I failed to glue the rock down properly and needed to hide gap after missing it with the texture paste. None of these are great paint jobs, each clocking in at around the four hour mark but they're good figs and I'll probably print/paint them again. 

This is Sigfrido Dragonsbane Fighters Guild Hero. He's a pretty complex sculpt and I didn't decide to take him to this level until I was most of the way through painting. Seemed right, you know? I was pretty sure I took the highlights on his cloak higher than it looks in these photos and I didn't realize that the shadows were quite so shiny. I spent a bunch of extra time highlighting and shadowing his armor but none of that is showing up here, sadly. The edge highlighting does, however, and that's good because it took a lot of time. He'll count as a high quality fig for the year.

Last up we have Morgana the Ascended Fighters Guild Hero and she will also count as a high quality fig. I spent a lot of time on her face and not enough time on the fire effect on her hammer of burninating, her hair, and her cloak as is evidenced in the turnaround. It all reads a lot better in person and in retrospect, I I had known I was going to paint her to this level, I would have painted her in sub-assemblies. Lord willin' and the creek don't rise, her winged version will be making a special guest appearance to a printer near me in the future.

2023 finished mini counter: 197/104, high quality: 9/10