2023 Crafting challenge wrap-up

If you were looking for the 2023 crafting challenge write up, you've come to the right place. Otherwise, well, I'm afraid you're lost. For the second time evar, I hit the magic 365 painted figs a year mark and I have to say that without the big batches of non-bangers, that would have been even more soul-crushing than it otherwise was.

Week 1: Galaad Kitsune Ranger high quality #1, Crippled God Foundry City Guard Elite Captain, D&D is a Woman Curiphaias Dragonborn Sorcerer, Artisan Guild Dragon Guard Lady E high quality #2 and Dragon Guard Lady F high quality #3

Week 2: One Page Rules Saurian Warriors x5, Saurian Veteran, Saurian Gecko Priest

Week 3: Titan Forge Stranger, Bones 4 Adowyn Iconic Hunter, Vae Victis Half-Orc Wizard, Twin Goddess Aileen, Celtic Wizard, Wrath of Kings Shael Han Za'Ken, Printed Obsession Tabaxi Assassin (Asha the Rogue)

Week 4: Blacklist Fantasy Series 1 (heretofor blf1) oozes, mist snakes, spirits, banshees

Week 5: blf1 air elemental, water elemental, fire elemental, earth elemental painted as a magma elemental

Week 6: blf1 trogolodytes painted as magma trogs

Week 7: vintage Leading Edge Games Lawnmower Man figs

Week 8: vintage Ral Partha 11-103 Demihuman Vampires, vintage RAFM Manipulators

Week 9: vintage Ral Partha Maria Mercurial and Kyle Morgan, vintage Laian and Tammis from Mekton

Week 10: vintage Ral Partha Dae-Shiru Commanders and 02-132 Dae-Shiru Regulars

Week 11: Velrock Leonin Tribe

Week 12: Reaper Bones Avatar of Courage, Comet Lord Miniatures Kyros, Lionman Priest, Galaad Leonin Ranger, Printed Obsession Leonidal

Week 13: Titan Forge Cursed Sands Lionness, Reaper Cheetah Girl high quality #4, Wrath of Kings Hu-Ren, Artisan Guild Rakshakin Headhunter - Moduler F (Lady)

Week 14: Reaper Lion Man high quality #5

Week 15: assorted Dungeons and Lasers floor tiles

Week 16: blf1 giant spiders

Week 17: blf1 giant rats

Week 18: blf1 wolves

Week 19: blf1 werewolves

Week 20: Vae Victis Orc Thief high quality #6

Week 21: Hover Truck

Week 22: Bones 5 Gon'Tarr Orc Shaman, Bite the Bullet Gara, the Half Orc, Twin Goddess Guldra - Orc Warlock

Week 23: Vae Victis Elf Bandit high quality #7

Week 24: Crippled God Foundry Romud, Cleric, Galaad Dwarf Female, Glavier from Chainmail Starter Pack, Artisan Guild Human Fighters Guild - D (Lady) Modular

Week 25: Wrath of Ashardalon Board Game (heretofor woabg) grell, Castle Ravenloft Board Game (heretofor carabg) gargoyles, Temple of Elemental Evil Board Game (heretofor toepbg) rock elemental

Week 26: blf1 imps and gargoyles

Week 27: blf1 purple (rainbow) worms

Week 28: Bones 4 Devils (sans Succubus), Nolzur's Griffon

Week 29: Bones 5 Wolf Dragon (no link) large #1

Week 30: blf1 gnolls

Week 31: blf1 goblins and kobolds

Week 32: blf1 orcs (as hobgoblins) and bugbears

Week 33: Bones 4 Hill Giant Huntsman's Dire Lion and Frost Giant Raiders' Giant Wolf (no link), Bones 5 The Thing From the Well (no link) large #2, Nolzur's Adult Remorhaz large #3, blf1 dire bear, Bones 4 Chaos Toad Savage

Week 34: blf1 fire beetles, Bones 4 Giant Rhino Beetle, blf1 constructs

Week 35: The Printing Goes Ever On Southern Archer (part of D&D is a woman), Galaad Female Ranger, Galaad Rogue, Goonmaster Human Rogue 1, Titan Forge Bodyguard, Reaper Bones Lanelle

Week 36: Artisan Guild (fighters guild) Fighter A Male, Fighter D Lady, Brent of Goobertown, Fighter C Lady, Sigfrido Dragonsbane, Morgana the Ascended

Week 37: blf1 dire boars

Week 38: carabg wraiths and skeletons

Week 39: carabg air and water elementals, blf1 ghouls cosplaying as demons

Week 40: carabg blazing skeletons, Bones 5 Grave King (no link)

Week 41: toepbg fire bats, Bones 4 Dire Crab, vintage Ral Partha Gorgon

Week 42: Galaad Princess Knight, Hero Forge Essith and Hinako, 

Week 43: Titan Forge Earth Elementals, toepbg Gold Dwarf Cleric, Legend of Drizzt Board Game (heretofor lodbg) Bruenor Battlehammer, woabg Orc Smashers

Week 44: blf1 cultists, woabg Cultists

Week 45: blf1 bandits, Jaxius (Duncan Shadow Otter Kit)

Week 46: Vae Victis Giant Rats, Oshounaminis Monolith Bots, Crippled God Foundry Giant Scorpion

Week 47: Bones 4 Merowyn Lightstar and Blink Berenwicket, Vae Victis Woman Pirate, Crippled God Foundry Dame Teuta and Lucius the Templar, blf1 dwarf barbarian, dwarf bard, dwarf ranger, dwarf druid, gnome cleric, halfling bard, dwarf fighter, dwarf wizard

Week 48: Bones 4 Shandra Iconic Shaman, Enora Iconic Arcanist, Taroya, Reaper Bones Avatar of Courage, blf1 human wizard and elf monk, woabg Talon Human Ranger, Galaad Knight 05, Tiger Skull Hunter Oathenshard, GloomyKidMinis Muriel Druid of the Plains, and Master Forge Lizardfolk Ranger

Week 49: Bones 4 Willow Greenivy Witch, Jahenna, Talnyth Female Elf Barbarian and Nemesra Dancing Girl, blf1 elf barbarian, female dwarf cleric, female human rogue, male gnome rogue, female halfling fighter, male halfling ranger, female gnome paladin and skeletons, lodbg Regis, RNE Studio Levita, Crippled God Foundy Eye Terror, 

Week 50: 9x vintage Mekton metals

Week 51: woabg duergar guards, carabg Gravestorm Dracolich, Athrogate Dwarven Battlerager and Wulfgar, blf1 female gnome druid (high quality #11) and female elf cleric, bones 4 Hakon, Iconic Skald (high quality #12), Isobael the Bard & Rufus, Arnise Elf Deathseeker, Khuttal Half Orc Ranger from DnD is a Woman, blf1 half orc paladin, female half orc rogue, male half orc ranger, knee- or chest-high walls ("complex structure" #1)

Week 52: blf1 mummies, unholy knights, harpies, zombies, naga.

Bonus Week 53!: bones 4 Mystic Portal, Rivani, Giant Crab Man, bones 5 Grim Reaper, Loot Golem, Runewars Outland Scouts

Final tally:

• 373/104 total figures painted
• 12/10 high quality
• 7/2 large figures/busts
• 1/1 structure

A thing a week 2023, week (gasp!) 53!

This year we get a bonus post! The first Sunday of January was the 1st and today is also a Sunday so we get a 53rd entry in the series. This is good because we have a lot of figs to get through and I'm glad I didn't have to jam them all into the previous post.

This is a Mystic Portal which I got with Bones 4 and you might note that the bronze is the same jobby as the harpies got. Yep. It's mostly otherwise done with drybrushes and washes and should be a fun set piece whenever it is that I might need such a thing. The bottom piece is warped very badly and I wasn't unable to unbend it sufficiently so I guess the lions are just not going to be very convincing while holding it. I also note that whatever transparent plastic they used in the molding was highly hydrophobic despite a lot of scrubbing to prevent exactly that problem. Anything I had to brush on rather than airbrush was a pain but on the upside, it'll count as large #5. 

The fiery guy on the left is a Temple of Elemental Evil board game Fire Elemental and the fiery guy (?) on the right is a Bones 4 Crab Man despite the fact that the morphology would indicate that it's indeed female. Did I need to paint both of them like fire? No, I did not, and neither of them is super convincing at it either way, but I did. The elemental's deep, deep details defied easy drybrushing which is usually how I pull this effect off so the yellows are too prominent and the oranges/dark reds are nearly missing. The Crab Man did this a little better but the yellows are probably not prominent enough even though the dark reds sell pretty well. I'm experimenting with the Army Painter Drybrush Set and I can say that they work pretty well even if I think they were a tad spendy.

This is Rivani from Bones 4. She's an iconic something-or-other from Pathfinder, a game I don't play and somewhat unusually, I played this one by the book keeping her normal color scheme. There are some really soft details on this sculpt which bother me and I didn't push to get a bunch of freehand on here, not like I'd normally do such a thing. I feel like I sold the shine on her hair OK but the yellow tones need a lot more work and shininess from the contrast paint on her paints still sucks. Overall, an OK job.

This guy is very clearly the Grim Reaper (no link) and probably less clearly from Bones 5. This is pretty obviously a speed paint borrowing most of the color scheme from last week's Naga plus slightly more attention to detail and some additional highlight work with the airbrush. I wanted to keep his robes dark so instead of trying to highlight with layers that a) would take a lot of time, and b) I'd invariably overdo,  I hit him with various light drybrushes instead which look good enough at arm's length. Most of the rest of the paint job is pretty simple and I pretty clearly phoned in the hourglass.

This guy is also from Bones 5 and I call him a loot golem for lack of a better name. In my mind my very careful airbrushing would have done a lot more of the work. Also, the primer would have stuck better to the transparent rubbery plastic it's made of. Neither of those are actually true. I tried real hard to sell the gold but all of my shenanigans trying to zenithal with metallics made a real mess. I also would have liked to have done better with the gemstones but I found the fully-assembled model to be hard to navigate (my fault) beyond being inconveniently big. The Golden Yellow Ghost Tint didn't super help and was luckily really hard to apply so I got that goin' for me. He'll count as large #6. 

Last up for this post and this year, we have Runewars Outland Scouts. This is a game that a) I don't play, and b) is currently out of print. I got these and some others at a steep discount and wanted a semi-easy batch to round things out. These had OK sculpts. The details are mostly big and chunky but there are too many of them. The chains in front draw particular ire. One serious drawback is that their eyes aren't sculpted. They seem to be entirely recessed which is why they're so indistinct in the packaging shots. That sucked and I only sort of figured it out and in the way that you learn things spending hours painting tiny figs, I decided that I like neither their pseudo-fantasy armor nor their iffy fantasy swords. I really wanted these to be better but I only got them to OK in the span of about ten hours all told. They're painted and that counts.

2023 finished mini counter: 373/104

A thing a week 2023, week 52

If you were looking for the "end of the year batches to hit an arbitrary goal", then you're in the right place. These are mostly from Blacklist Fantasy Series 1 which is now down to the last thirty or so characters and even though this week's offering won't get us over the finish line, there's a bonus posting next week that will seal the deal.

First up we have mummies which aren't a creature that I use like ever. They're a reasonable sculpt with some really difficult to deal with mold lines and I took the opportunity to do a super low rent paint scheme. Most of the work is the airbrush-provided zenithal which I followed with a couple washes to give them a nice aged tone. A very small drybrush brought out some of the details. I may have spent more effort throwing grit on the bases and painting them than on the figs. No idea what I'll ever do with these guys but they're painted.

Next up we have unholy knights. These might see some game time but again, I don't use a lot of undead in my campaigns. They are similarly low rent paint schemes mostly involving contrast paint and a drybrush for their cloaks, a simple metallic + wash for their armor and maybe three layers and a wash for their bones. I don't like spending a lot of time on figs that a) don't excite me, and/or b) aren't likely to see a lot of game time but they're fantastic for feeling like I'm making good progress on my pile of shamepotential.

These are probably the only interesting batch here. Another creature I don't use like ever are harpies but golems I use frequently including a bunch of flying golems like gargoyles. Well, painting these in a faux bronze seemed like a pretty reasonable thing to do. I went with a heavily patinaed + highly polished wear areas even though this makes zero sense within a dungeon. The patina was a turquoise zenithal provided by the airbush. The metallics were pretty obviously a drybrush, this time with a decades old pot of Reaper Brass which I only really keep around for this kind of operation. Overall I think these are serviceable.

These are pretty clearly zombies and I have almost no use for them. Thusly, I only barely painted them. The fleshtone is a two shade highlight, the pants are the same, the guts and mouths are a basetone and a wash, and the shirts aren't painted over the zenithal at all. After that: magic. Again I note that every time I use an oil wash, they elevate a paint job. I spent more time removing excess oil wash than I did applying the rest of the paints and they were done in maybe five hours total sans all the waiting you have to do between applying and removing an oil wash. Dunno that I'll ever use them but they're painted.

If there's an interesting paint job in this week's offering, and I'm not saying there is, it's this guy. This is a naga, this version of the creature IIRC, a dumb D&D monster that I have no real interest in using. I went with my gut on this one with a colored zenithal, a drybrush, wash, and final drybrush only stopping to barely pick out some of the dumb details on its dumb face and dumb spikes. This thing is trying so hard to look scary that it just looks dumb and I don't know that I'll ever put it on the table with a straight face.

Stay tuned next week when we finish off 2023 with a flurry of posts.

2023 finished mini counter: 359/104

A thing a week 2023, week 51

Lots of figs this week plus a fairly uninteresting bonus at the end.

First up we have three duergar guards from the Wrath of Ashardalon board game. These three  are (obviously) non-bangers. The sculpts/molds aren't super good and my paint job isn't super good. I did go as far as painting their cloaks in different colors so we can tell them apart but that's mostly because I had the right color paints on my palette. Probably they could have used some simple freehand on their shields and maybe someday I'll do so but for now, they're the best color: painted.

This is Gravestorm, Dracolich from the Castle Ravenloft board game and another not great sculpt/mold/paint job combo. I did do an oil wash which helps tremendously but let's not oversell it. I don't use a lot of undead in my campaigns but I have a use for this guy so he got some paint to the tune of a couple hours. Also: painted.

These two dudes are Athrogate Dwarven Battlerager, Wulfgar from the Legend of Drizzt boardgame and are both quite obviously speed paints. For Athrogate, my goal was letting the somewhat questionable sculpt do most of the work so picking out the details were important. I otherwise would not have picked out the trim on his stupid studded leather. Note: studded leather isn't even a real thing (lookin' at you D&D) and yes, I could have done a better job picking out the metallic studs. For Wulfgar, my goal was selling the difference between his hair, his fur getup, and his leather pants. The fur was a set of alternating washes and drybrushings which is my go-to for that. The leather detail was mostly texturing with a brush which didn't really work out. His hair is mostly just tone and color and as per usual, I didn't do enough work on it so I got that goin' for me.

Following our six non-bangers we have an actual "put in some effort' paint job. This is the Female Gnome Druid from Blacklist Fantasy Series 1. The sculpt here is good and the molding like a lot of these, is poor. I did what I could with the mold lines which helps but she's got a dimple at the very end of her nose which sucks and there's a serious mold line going over the deep folds in her left arm. Looking at the glamor shot in more detail, probably the highlights on her coat could have gone higher and more of the details on her gajillion bajangles and whatnot needed work but I'm happy with the differentiation across all the browns both in tone and texture. Ultimately, I think it's a good piece and will count as high quality #11 this year. 

And we have another high quality paint job, specifically Hakon, Iconic Skald from Bones 4 and I mistook him for Harsk until writing this post. The sculpt has a Thorin Oakenshield (from the movies) vibe going on so I painted him thusly. Unlike normal when I over-highlight dark hair, this guy's meant to have some salt going on but I really could have pulled the yellows and reds up a couple steps. In these shots, the leathers are muddy but they look a lot better in person. Probably some weathering/texturing would have done some good. A good outcome, IMO, and will count as high quality #12 this year. 

Here we have blf1 Female Elf Cleric and bones 4 Isobael the Bard & Rufus and Arnise Elf Deathseeker. I'd like to claim these are speed paints but they aren't. Our good cleric is the closest at about four hours mostly picking out details on all the folds in her outfit despite the limited palette. Isobael for whatever reason had serious issues with paint sticking which is weird. As a result, she sat partially painted on my painting table for way too long...until now! Well, recently (painted like four weeks ago). Note that Rufus is part of the pair and the two of them count as one in my bones 4 records so they count as one here. Arnise was painted mostly the same as Wulfgar above with similar results plus or minus a bunch of work on fleshtones. 

Next up we have a mirrored pair of Half-Orc Ranger - Khtutal from DnD is aWoman. I knew I was flying close to the sun painting one in red with the funky sock hats but I thought that desaturating the skin tones and the weird plant things they're wearing would make up for that. I was clearly, terribly wrong. Their pants are low rent, basically Gryph Charger Grey contrast which is rapidly becoming one of my favorites for exactly this purpose and their bows are similarly mostly contrast paint. Unlike a lot of figs I paint, I like these less now that I've painted them but technically they're done. 

These three are from Blacklist Fantasy Series 1, specifically Half Orc Paladin, Female Half Orc Rogue, and Male Half Orc Ranger. These aren't great sculpts. I hate their armor and wish their faces were maybe a little less monster-y and the pally gets special mention because of his dumb fantasy flail. Seriously folks, pick up a lump of metal that size and try swinging it around. That's not sane. I was mostly successful on the pally's shoulderpads in flatting down the contrast base coat and completely unsuccessful on his tabbard. Similar poor effects are clear on the other two cloaks, though their yellow/ochre bits turned out OK. Probably the ranger could have used more texturing on his leather.  

And last but not least, as the year started drawing to a close I was feeling pretty smug about finishing this year's challenge until I got to the "complex structure or other construction" item at the bottom. Well, crap. These made more sense when I a) was building structures more often, and b) used more buildings during play. So rather than building another shelf decoration I settled on these chest high or knee high barriers. These are chunks of foam hit with a texture roller (exception: the exactly one I did drawing rocks with pen by hand) and then painted questionably. They'll actually get used, probably fairly regularly if other scatter bits are any indication and even though they're not super complex, I'm counting them anyway.

2023 finished mini counter: 338/104, 12/10 high quality.

A thing a week 2023, week 50

This week we have something special. These are vintage metal Mekton mechs to go with the vintage Mekton people from Week 9 of this year. I had a really rough time finding references for this stuff since a) Mekton is kind of an obscure game, and b) these are obscure minis for an obscure game. Even lostminis.com only has a partial list. Some guy at CMU has a partial list, too. If you do manage to find good reference, be a pal and drop me a note. 

All of these were painted in a batch and they're all Old Skool (TM) models which involves gluing multiple heavy metal pieces. In fact, I'd already glued them a bunch of times and done some pseudo-painting with enamels (gasp!) way back in the 90s which all needed stripping. Uncle Atom's go to is a product called LA's Totally Awesome which I bought a while ago from the dollar store specifically for stripping paint off minis...which I do almost never. Mostly I've been cleaning my stove and bathrooms with it which I gather is what it's actually for. Short version: it worked and worked great and even broke the bonds between the extra super thick late 90s applied superglue. 

Some of the mold lines were pretty deep so I filed off material as bravely as I could and while they're a lot better, if you look close you can definitely tell where I lost my nerve. Bases were built up once the mechs were glued to the bases and I used the opportunity to use some of the giant box of 3d printer supports that I pretend to keep for exactly this purpose. Priming went exactly how you'd expect with the necessary 24 hour cure time for Vallejo Surface Primer (note that Stynylrez needs no such cure time but it doesn't stick to metal very well). 

These were zenithaled with their base coats played by Daler Rowney inks. For the red, yellow, and green guys, there's also a slight yellow palette shift from the top for fun. Flat details with minor highlights were done next. I did some edge highlighting here too but I ended up redoing it because the oil wash step mostly covered them up. Every time I use an oil wash I'm shocked by a) how messy it is, and b) how good a result you can get with minimal effort. The last step was doing as much highlighting and edge highlighting I could stand and painting sky/earth non-metallic on the big domes and an orange glow for other cockpits.

For anyone wondering, I cribbed this process from Not Just Mecha aka Marco Frisoni and I've not only used it before, I expect I'm going to use it again. Somewhat ironically, I've never actually seen Marco paint a mecha but I'm happy to say that his speed painting method does work on them. The sky/earth NMM on top of the oil wash elevates an otherwise pretty uninteresting paint job. They look heavy and worn and came out way better than I expected. In addition to getting a good result, these also finish out the remainder of my unpainted vintage collection. 

2023 finished mini counter: 322/104

A thing a week 2023, week 49

We're in the home stretch here and it looks like I'm going to hit my arbitrary "fig a day" stretch goal. That means that there's going to be a flood of big posts rounding out the year and hopefully none of the dodgy math that I'm known for.

These three are from Bones 4 who I know as witchy gal, gravestone gal, and barbarian chick (actually Willow Greenivy, Witch, Jahenna, and Talnyth, Female Elf Barbarian). They were done as mostly speed paints mostly because they weren't super complex. Probably Jahenna needed more highlights and again I didn't realize her dress was quite so shiny until reviewing these photos. Talnyth had some pretty bad mold lines and the white bones plastic detail was really, really soft. I did what I could. Probably Ms. Greenivy came out the best and I'm bummed I didn't do more work on the crystal in her staff.  

From blf1 we have elf barbarian and female dwarf cleric and Regis from the Legend of Drizzt boardgame. I didn't super like any of these figs so they were a batch speed paint. They came out OK and I note that the basecoat was shiny again. This time, I think maybe a homemade wash with Daler Rowney ink. The one thing I did do was try really hard to differentiate the different leathers since there was so much of it. Probably the dwarf gal's gold armor needed more work than it got and try as I might, I couldn't get the border of her robe to work.

These two are a moral victory more than anything. On the left we have Levita - Female Arcane Wizard from RN Estudio and Nemesra, Dancing Girl from Bones 4. Levita was one of the first 3d prints hot off my Mars Pro in late December of 2020 and before I realized I was using the wrong layer setting so she's got obvious layer lines like most of the prints in that batch. She started getting paint maybe a couple weeks after and had been sitting on my painting table since then getting the odd brushstroke over the years. Nemesra was in the same boat and both of them have way more paint than they need and end up worse for it. There's something extremely satisfying about completing both of these even though neither is painted well. 

Next up we have an Eye Terror from Crippled God Foundry. Monsters are usually easier than characters and  this guy was more or less the same. I thought I'd need him more quickly than I have (as I type this, he hasn't seen table time yet) so he's speed painted aside from his giant ridiculous eye which I spent good time on. Ultimately he's painted and should see some table time in the next few months. 

These five are clearly skeletons, particularly from blf1. They are questionable sculpts and I did not spend enough time cleaning mold lines (go figure). I could have also painted their hoods in different colors instead of their bases but I clearly didn't. What I did do is hit them with an oil wash. I've typed it before and I've typed it again just now: every time I use an oil wash I'm impressed with how cool they look for so little investment. 

Last up we have a potpourri of blf1 figures. From left to right we have: female human rogue, male gnome rogue, female halfling fighter, male halfling ranger, and female gnome paladin. I can't really call these speed paints because they really weren't weighing in at somewhere between 3 and 5 hours each with the gals getting more work on their faces because they should. Probably their cloaks needed more contrast especially top to bottom but instead I've been experimenting with blacklining. I think it helps and will be experimenting more with it in the future. Stay tuned!

2023 finished mini counter: 313/104 and boy I hope that number's correct.