A thing a week 2023, week 42

This week we finally break from the ongoing saga of speed paints and non-bangers. We get not just one but three characters this week who should see major screen time since they're characters in my current in-person game.

First up we have the hardest of the figs in the batch and literally the third fig off my brand new Saturn 2 MSLA, Princess Knight from Galaad. Despite the fact that my FEP failed about 30 prints in, it printed in excellent detail and very reliably up until that point, including a bunch of stuff that had failed on my old printer. The only real flaw on this print is that her front heel broke off with the support since it was right about the same size as the support. Should I have been more careful? Yes. This particular Princess is a player character so we expect great things even if she fits in not at all with the bruisers that usually populate my table. I had limited time to paint this fig but it didn't stop me from spending around seven torturous hours on her. I suck at blending which I'm sure I've saidtyped here before and this fig is full of that kind of work. I should have done more with her gems and shading/highlighting her crown (among other things) and I'm not certain the yellow heels super work even if it's compositionally reasonable. Despite all that, she'll count as my last high quality piece required for the year. 

Next up we have Essith who I built on Hero Forge and printed. For those who don't know, Hero Forge has a large library of parts and will send you an unsupported STL for a fee. Granted, once you have the STL you can print them out N times but $8 is way more than I spend on single character STLs like ever. That said, I like their canine heads and got to pick a sword an shield that fit the character's key art. I also have rudimentary understanding of skeletal animation and got her into a pose that a) I didn't hate, and b) was intentionally easy to paint. Essith is painted in the color scheme of the player's dog, particularly a Level 2 Dog of Distraction who hangs with us when we play. The fig did most of the work and she was done in a few hours. This fig may show up in the future to make good on my investment.

Last up we have reliable NPC Hinako who is also a Hero Forge build and print. Kitty tank Hinako has been with us in two campaigns now which probably that means she's going to die horribly. I mostly phoned in the freehand on her tail (tiger calico) and shield which is probably pretty obvious and I'm continuing to struggle getting smooth applications of Badger Ghost Tints over metallics. We played online in her previous campaign so there wasn't a need for a fig and for those probably zero people wondering, the symbol on her shield is "Kal" which means "worthy" in Firstborn. Lots of history here. Given my propensity for kitty NPCs, do not be shocked if this fig shows up again.

2023 finished mini counter: 228/104, high quality: 10/10