Knight-o-rama week 6 (2025, week 24)

We continue our theme with another four archers. I'd intended to do some of these guys in melee but as mentioned last week, I ran out of melee arms and didn't really want to kitbash these. 

Lots of these guys got a wash of my old Army Painter washes which I like but which made them go a little more satin-y than I'd like. This generally goes unnoticed until I get the close-ups which annoys me. I feel like I did a better-than-average job of removing mold lines on these guys but lots of them had them splitting their face as in the guy on the right. Also notable that some of these heads were really squinty and I only forced eyes onto some of them. They read OK on the table FWIW. 

2025 finished mini counter: 96, 2025 goal figs remaining: 49

Knight-o-rama week 5 (2025, week 23)

This week we pass the midpoint of our heavy-metal theme. At the time of this posting, they've been done a short while but as folks probably know already, I keep a backlog of stuff that hasn't shown up yet. That keeps posting smooth for things like BricksCascade which happened last month and/or when I have time-intensive pieces that would benefit from a longer-than-a-week effort. 

These dudes begin the round of archers that were in the box. I don't think I realized there were quite so many archers when I bought them but possibly that's because I stole a bunch of melee arms for earlier kitbashing expecting that there would be extras (hint: there weren't). One of the dudes coming up looks rather silly as a result but these guys are fine. 

2025 finish mini counter: 92, 2025 goal figs remaining: 53

Knight-o-rama week 4 (2025, week 22)

As promised last week, more knights this week. 

Here we have the remainder of the bill hook dudes and rather than the usual four, we have five this week! I probably would have done more melee dudes but apparently I'd stolen some of their parts for other figs and I was far too lazy to kitbash these any more than I did. Pretty happy with the yellow padded shading and I note again that the Reikland Fleshshade I slopped on the leather to move the tone dried glossy again.

The flocking is a little frizzier than I'd like and less glued down than I'd like. It looks OK, tho. 

2025 finished mini counter: 87, 2025 goal figs remaining: 57

Knight-o-rama week 3 (2025, week 21)

More knights this week...and next week...and probably the week after that. I like making progress but I've been pretty open about not liking big batches.

These would be the spear dudes and one sole bill hook dude. Not 100% sure why I've only got three spear dudes but I've only got those three so the bill hook dude fills out the rank. These are at least partially painted like their historical intent, at least the color choices. It looks like the wash on the red and the green ended up more satin-y than I intended. Note for future reference.

2025 finished mini counter: 82, 2025 goal figs remaining: 62

Knight-o-rama week 2 (2025, week 20)

Buckle in, folks because we're on this ride until it ends...sometime several months from now. Also note that last week and this week I've again changed my photography setup and things are still a little washed out. 

These are some (most?) of the brigandine guys, one of my favorite and under-represented medieval armors. I also like that they're equipped with polearms (halberds on the right, billhooks on the left if you like). I think a couple of these guys were metallically zenithaled like last week's offerings but some of them weren't because I wasn't sure which was the best approach (spoiler: more work with the airbrush is usually better). I took the effort to pick out the rivets on two of these guys which is pretty clear close-up but doesn't read as easily on the table. I'd intended to do so on all of them but forgot.

2025 finished mini counter: 78, 2025 goal figs remaining: 66

Knight-o-rama, week 1 (2025 week 19)

This week we have two awesome things: four more figs on goal and a brand new theme! I was originally going to call it a mini-theme but we're going to be here for quite a while. These are from Perry Miniatures, particularly War of the Roses Infantry (1455-1487). I purchased these in the heady days of 2018 as an early birthday present and aside from the two that I painted way back in week 43 of 2020, the entire box of 40 (!) of these guys had remained unpainted...until today!--well, until last week when these guys were actually painted.

These are the heavily armored guys who I mostly painted with an airbrush since they were mostly metallic. They're metallically zenithaled top to bottom which made everything go a lot faster. I didn't have any appropriate fancy bases left and (obviously) didn't take the time to build and paint new ones. After a bunch of large miniatures (or, bigatures if you prefer) these were a welcome return to form. These four were done in maybe five hours total outside of assembly and I'm pretty happy with the results.

2025 finished mini counter: 74, 2025 specific figs remaining: 70

A thing a week 2025, week 18

For reasons entirely under my control, I failed to post this on the proper day. Luckily, through the power of the Internet, I've back-dated it to Star Wars Day so no one will be the wiser! This week we have three biggies and one not-quite-so-biggie but all four are part of the hallowed group of "figs I want to finish painting this year," so I got that goin' for me. 

First up we have a Young Fire Drake from Reaper. He was done mostly as a speed paint trying out some new formulas as I'm continuing in my quest of using my airbrush more. The base airbrush ink coat went on glossy (as usual; that was part of what I was hoping to fix) and I made a real mess with a seemingly congealed bottle of Reaper Anti-Shine Additive. I really have no clue how to use this stuff. It has never gone on without leaving a weird blotchy finish. I ended up painting over it with successive thinned down coats of Speed Paint and then doing a very minimal amount of detail work and this guy was done. He might have took a couple hours and only because of the anti-shine debacle. This isn't a good paint job but he's done and that counts.

Next up is Ziba, Female Efreeti from bones 4. Scale doesn't show super well in these shots but she's a good six inches or so tall which is bigger than my normal setup finds reasonable. I also note that the studio model features the same bronze-y metallics and yellow eyes that I landed on but I super should have done the fiery hair now that I'm looking at it. Ziba was also a speed paint, mostly trying really hard not to mess up the work I'd already done and wearing gloves while doing so which isn't something I normally do. More work could have certainly been done across the board but I'm not unhappy with the result (aside from her skintone shininess--done again with the airbrush) and she was complete in like four hours which sounds like a lot but I really struggled with her size. Probably the best part is the blue metallics which were a mix of Vallejo Metallic Aluminum plus painfully glossy Golden High Flow Phthalo Blue.

This is Ashana, Female Genie also from bones 4. She's maybe a skosh bigger than Ziba but I had a cunning plan this time. I wanted to do a weird sparkle pony color shift across multiple primaries and I figured the airbrush was the right way to do this. I started with the magenta from a mostly downward angle and followed that up with the strong yellow from the bottom which gave a nice reddish shift at the lateral. I then hit the same downward with a saturated pink from Pro Acryl which does go very smoothly through the airbrush when thinned properly. The last step with the airbrush was a cyan ink from the top around the hair. This time I wanted the over-spray since I figured that as a sparkle pony creature of light and smoke, that her hair would be luminous enough to blend some. What followed was another painful couple hours of blending her hair, applying metallics, an painting the base. Note the nice blue metallics on her sword again--super happy with that. This isn't 100% what I envisioned but I'm really happy with the result.

Last up we have the biggie-est of this week's offerings again from bones 4. This is a Thunderfoot Behemoth and I had a cunning plan again! I wanted to put a fun lizard-y pattern on him with some false eye spots on his crest. The patterning was a fairly saturated set of contrast paints followed by a couple applications of the camo green wash made from a variety of Pro Acryl paints and Army Painter Speed Paint Medium which is rapidly becoming one of my favorite additives. A bunch of detail work later including going over the larger scales in the patterns and we're done. He landed somewhere around six hours over several days which seems like a lot but it was another challenging gloved operation which I don't super like. According to my records, this leaves two guys bigger than this remaining in the bones 4 figs I'm tackling. Notably, the two I've opted to not paint this year are even bigger! Good times.

 

A thing a week 2025, week 17

Three more giant or giant-adjacent figs toward our 2025 goal this week which is going to be the end of our mini-giant-and-giant-adjacent non-theme. So let's get to it.

First up we have an Ettin from bones 4. He's not as big as the other giants we've seen but without a frame of reference it'd be hard to pick that out. This guy's got a lot of character from his "hey, look over there head" to his improvised anvil-hammer. Also, because he's not quite as large, he wasn't quite as tedious to paint which is a nice bonus for me. There was definitely a bunch more that I could have done with this guy not limited to picking out the leather straps better, doing something with the bulby things on his bracelet, putting any color on the shield, etc. etc. but when I got here at the end of the batch, I was super done. Occasionally I take a look at these shots and think that I should come back some day and punch them up when I don't feel the weight of several hundred unpainted minis and this guy is one of them.

These two are Frost Giant Heroine and Frost Giant Ranger and more or less why I was so done when I got to the Ettin. I like that these two have so much character. I dislike that they have quite so many tiny details. The edge highlighting I did on these has really paid off by making them look cleaner than they actually are and just like last week, the stitching is really doing some heavy lifting here. The ranger is in a harder plastic, possibly the predecessor of bones black which made it really hard to un-warp the spear and made the antlers on the stag kind of brittle despite having glued it twice. More work was probably warranted across both, especially since I like them, but again there aren't many giants in my world much less sentient ones. Will they ever see screen time? Unlikely but hard to say for sure. At any rate, they're painted and I'm happy for that.

2025 finished mini counter: 66, 2025 specific figs remaining: 78

A thing a week 2025, week 16

Some good news this week and some bad news this week. The good news: three more against the goal and three abnormally expensive ones to boot. The bad news: I found an accounting error that put my goal count two short. This happens from time to time.

First up we have Hill Giant Lowland Warrior and Hill Giant Lowland Chief both from bones 4. The chief has been kicking around my painting desk since the middle of last year before I got serious about hitting a fig a day. I find big figs intimidating because I generally like getting most of the details right. Big figs have big blends and glazing is a really expensive operation on big blends. I also find that metallics don't look quite right at a large scale not that either of these guys has a lot. The warrior was part of this year's prep trying to get primer on my remaining goal-specified bones 4 figs. I failed, but hey, the last two still-unprimed figs are difficult in my defense. I can't claim these two are speed paints in any way and I do notice that the warrior's back is suspiciously shiny due to the contrast paint undercoat but I do know that both of these guys are painted.

This chonky dude is a Hill Giant Hunter from bones 4 and he came with a Dire Lion which we saw way back in Week 33 of 2023. Of these three, I like this guy the best and probably spent the most time on him. Across all these guys I put extra time into the color grades in their fleshtones which really helps separate each volume even on these bigatures. The stitching in the sculpt was super easy to paint and really helps sell the scale of the dude which I really like. I probably should have brought the blue on his details to a higher value and I almost certainly could have done more with the leather straps. Overall I think this is a good effort but mostly, since there aren't really giants in my game, I'm just glad he's done.

2025 finished mini counter: 63, 2025 specific figs remaining: 80-3+2 = 81

A thing a week 2025, week 15

Four more right up the gut this week which should be the plan for the next several weeks. It feels nice to make consistent progress in the chosen goal even though I'm not putting up big numbers this year.

First up we have Shael Han Celestial Tricksters from Wrath of Kings flanking our pal Kogo, Male Kitsune from Reaper Bones. I have dupes of all of these guys so you should expect to see them again and in fact, we've already seen Kogo way back in week 27 of 2020 which seems like an age ago. I have no idea what's going on with the dude on the left's back though I do like his desaturated color scheme which really shows off his orangey fur. I think this Kogo also looks sharp in the black, green and red though I wish I'd picked out his armor texture a little better. Also of note, his eyes aren't quite as crazy in person. Both of the tricksters had some really lousy mold issues that I mostly covered up but the guy on the right really suffered from them over details. Like Damaris from last week, he's also got a thing for buckles which I find very sus.

And rounding out this week is a great sculpt let down by a lousy mold that I nonetheless put a bunch of time into. If she looks familiar, it's because we saw her recently in week 52 of last year. Kassandra of the Blade is a good sculpt let down by soft bones white plastic. I don't recall if I have a metal version of her but if I don't, I should. I spent a lot of time on this version because, well, I wanted to, despite mold line issues. I had a plan this time (primary color scheme) and did a lot of extra work cleaning up details that I might have otherwise ignored. I think this one came out well and I'm happy to put her with the other high quality figs I've done so far this year as #8. Between the two, I think this one's cloak isn't as nice but her face is much better. I also like that her scarf is so much better delineated though I really have to do the magenta/aqua/orange combo again. 

2025 finished mini counter: 60, high quality 8/12, 2025 specific figs remaining: 80

A thing a week 2025, week 14

Mostly on target this week with a fun bonus, so no time to lose!

First up we have Nazeera Bloodraven and Damaris Duskwarden from Reaper. Nazeera is in the typical soft bones white plastic while Damaris is in a weird pseudo-bones black light colored but stiff plastic that we saw in some of the Bones 4 figs. Neither of these molds is particularly good and Damaris had way too many mold lines going over way too many buckles. I'm not 100% sure about her "angry vampire hunting pilgrim" energy and I didn't start painting her with any kind of plan otherwise her vest would be a better non-leather color. I'm not sure I sold any of her leather bits but I was kind of in a hurry to finish. Also, why so many stinkin' buckles? On the other hand, I think Nazeera is a vampire which I thought about not at all when I set up this shot. I did some shading on her armor with Ghost Tints but I don't think it came out all that well. I was feelin' the red eyes, tho.

Next up we have Vonsalay Half Orc Wizard, Amalya Tabaxi Monk, and Callie Female Rogue. The outter gals are in bones white soft plastic while Amalya is a print from DnD is a Woman who we've seen before way back in week 10 of last year. It's probably also obvious that I forgot to take a back shot of these gals but I am far too lazy to go back and re-shoot (I did get two versions of their fronts, tho). Both Callie and Vonsalay have very soft molds with very lousy mold lines so I did what I could and ultimately landed somewhere workable. I desatured Vonsalay's dress on purpose so we wouldn't get any Christmas Ork action so I'm happy about that. I also didn't plan her paint job so the cloak is a questionable color choice. For Amalya I finally got my dark point but her normal fur-tone was darker than I probably wanted. I started with a different scheme in mind so the theme throughout this week's entries is "I should have planned better." So I got that goin' fro me. 

2025 finished mini counter: 56, 2025 specific figs remaining: 84

A thing a week 2025, week 13

More right-down-the-plate work this week, plus a short rant. 

First up we have Elven Blacksmith and Sarah, the Seeress. If Sarah looks familiar, it's because she showed up way back in week 51 of 2022 which seems a lot further in the rear-view than it actually is. Mold lines on both were pretty awful and I did not enough work to deal with them sanely. None of the details on either is as good as it could have been (speed paint) though I take some pride in noting that this version of Sarah done in less than half the time turned out much better. I guess several hundred figs of practice does add up. The blue on her dress got a little chalky in the higher tones but I think I got the volumes correctly. The orb on her staff looks particularly good in this shot but in stark reversal, it doesn't look as good in person. The blacksmith is kind of a mess. The right side of her face was a mess of mold issues and I did what I could to give it any definition. Also, there wasn't any indication of a shirt in the sculpt but I was dumb to not paint one on--wouldn't even be the first time. She looks dumb without it especially with her armored leg plates. Which blacksmiths commonly wear. Or something. Anyway.

Here we have Finari, Female Paladin and Isabeau Laroche, Paladin both in bones white. I noted yesterday that practically-armored gals are under-represented in the hobby and I stick to that assertion. This week we have an excellent example. Finari is in ridonkulous boobplate fantasy armor and I bought the fig nonetheless. While not as bad as a lot of the examples you can find, it's not great, Bob. I give a pass for figs to not have helmets on so you can see/paint the face in expressive ways FWIW. Isabeau is far more realistically dressed though I had to paint out the boob window because I had to, that's why, and you can still tell she's a gal without it. Finari's hair is going to be a mess in actual combat as opposed to on a Hollywood set. Isabeau's cleverly tied it all up where it won't be a problem in either case. Neither of them is in heels (I have some standards FFS) and they're clearly both martial characters but Finari is clearly in the armored gal pinup vein while Isabeau isn't. Hollywood and video games on the whole have so warped our understanding of how things should look that we expect the former when the latter is actually way better and not less cool on the table. Last rant: those are clearly two handed swords. As in most sculpts, there's stuff to like about both and they're easy to tell apart on the table even though I painted them in mostly the same scheme. I missed another opportunity to put some heraldry on Isabeau's shield just like last week because: speed paint.

Last up we have Innkeeper Sophie from bones 4. I assume she's a mascot for Reaper or something since she shows up in every bones kickstarter and apparently as ReaperCon semi-exclusives. I haven't found any lore online but there are many Sophies in my collection now, though this is the first one I painted. She's got some weird mold issues around her face which I painted around and I am very thankful I painted her wings as a subassembly because it made everything much saner. The texture of her wings and the highlights I did got washed out in the last minute wash I stuck on there. Lots of this paint job is phoned in and probably a half hour more of refinement would have been good. Maybe in the future when I don't have a several hundred long backlog. 

2025 finished mini counter: 51, 2025 specific figs remaining: 88

A thing a week 2025, week 12

Back to the grind this week with four offerings right down the middle of the plate. These and next week's are basically what passes as speed paints as I get these days.

First up we have Hagar, Dwarf Fighter and Durok, Dwarf Ranger from Reaper both in bones white. I've spent a lot of pixels on decrying the difficulties with bones white material and these guys have all of that in spades. The molds are soft and really don't flatter the molds at all. Looking closely at these shots, I'm thinking that Hagar's torso covering shouldn't be a breastplate. I also note that Durok's cloak looks like it's shiny but it's actually just patchy. Not sure if that's better but they'll look fine in my small squad of Dwarves. They were done in something like four hours for the two of them.

Next up we have Erick, Paladin Initiate and Alandin, Elf Paladin, the former as normal bones white, the latter from Bones 4. Erick is pretty much what he looks like and, yes, I missed an opportunity to do some freehand on his shield--speed paint here. Alandin would have been painted much earlier but I glued the wrong arm in the wrong place and then convinced myself I was missing a piece only to realize my mistake not super long ago. I painted Alandin as a gal because I thought it fit the sculpt better but I don't think that was the sculptor's intent. I like cheesecake-y fantasy pinups as much as the next guy on the Internet but I feel that normal practical armor non-boobplate martial gals are sorely under-represented in the hobby. We'll get a nice contrast next week so tune in then!

2025 finished mini counter: 46, 2025 specific figs remaining: 93

A thing a week 2025, week 11

Two offerings today, both from the year's goal list and both larger than they might appear.  

First up we have Chaos Toad Brawler from Bones 4. He's a big fella, and despite my best efforts, I did a lousy job with his mold lines. Quite a few of these guys have gotten screen time and probably this guy would have as well if he'd been painted. I was going to do some demon dots but decided against given the excellent texturing...that I pretty much failed to pick out. I like the red and did an OK job with the highlights but it doesn't super sell in these shots. The dark carapace, teeth, and spikes don't sell in either these shots or in person, so I got that goin' for me. The black eyes are just as creepy as I intended

This guy is obviously a Zombie Shark and he's also from Bones 4 and also a thing of nightmare. This guy had some weird mold issues which mostly show as noise which is nice but he's really lazily painted. Most of him is a speedpaint base with a drybrush over the top. He's not countershaded which isn't correct and his guts are painted mostly with palette sludge which I guess tracks. The black teeth don't super sell (was going for a megalodon fossil tooth regardless of its incorrectness) but the slop of washes and on the oozy bits and guts and whatnot do which are also not correct. What I did do that kind of works is the base. It's stacked cork (probably obvious) with a bunch of grit and what not on it. I didn't have any sellable underwater vegetation so I spent extra time grunging it up. I had an intent to do a bunch of caustics on both the shark and the base but I didn't do any of that. I like being done and this guys is just that and I'd like to forget all about it since it still creeps me out.

2025 finished mini counter: 42, 2025 specific figs remaining: 97

A thing a week 2025, week 10

After perhaps too many weeks making limited progress toward this year's goals, we're about to plow straight into them starting this week. First up we have two questionable sculpts and two very questionable molds. The guy on the left is an Anhurian Cavalry and the guy on the right I found as Onyx Chevalier, Overlords Solo but was listed as Overlord Cavalry in the Bones 4 Fan Favorites catalog. The sculpts are made much worse by the quality of the molds and the bones white plastic. I did what I could with the mold lines and warped features but could not get the lean out of the overlord dude. The results are OK and the Anhurian guy can go with the other questionable sculpts/molds of Anhurian crossbow and Arnhurian spear dudes I painted very early on. 

This guy is clearly a mammoth and from Bones 4 and until I went and looked up the link at reapermini.com, I was puzzled by why he's so small. Turns out, he's a Pygmy Mammoth! This is about the pinnacle of lazy painting consisting of a zenithal, a contrast paint base coat, a minimal drybrush for highlights, and a handful of details picked out. The tusks were probably the most expensive part since the paint I was using was too thin on my wet palette requiring far too many coats. The result is OK for a speed paint but better than I might have hoped.

2025 finished mini counter: 40, 2025 specific figs remaining: 99

A thing a week 2025, week 9

Like I promised last week, we also aren't making any progress toward our greater yearly goals this week though there are some high quality works herein. I'm still dialing in my photography setup some but it's overall, way easier than it was this time last year.

First up we have a generic old-skool space marine. I don't know what set he comes from or if the color scheme is a proper chapter and TBH, I don't super care, either, since I don't play any of James Workshop's jamesgames. I'd mentioned offhand to a pal who also paints that I'd never painted a space marine, probably because he was showing off an army of them. The next time we met, he handed me this guy. He's mostly painted with the airbrush and he came to me primed very heavily so his details are pretty soft. The highlighting is pretty subtle in normal light and especially these close-ups, but they looked so strong when painting him. The yellow was a choice since a) it's hard, and b) I don't paint in yellow very often. I don't regret that choice, but it was significantly harder than a red or a green or something and now I've painted a space marine.

Next up we have a copy of one of my all-time favorite sculpts, one that's shown up here a couple times already, even. This Cat Captain from Vae Victics was one of the last prints on my old Mars Pro and if you missed it last time, she's a self-supported sculpt which is still a super power on my newer Saturn 2. I'd intended to paint this one in the color of one of my favorite Internet cats, Yoshi from Eevie and Yoshi, particularly as a cream point or something like that; I'm not a cat expert, but ended up just doing the cream part for reasons. I got the shadows, I think, but am missing the highlights in a bad way, especially on the yellow details. I like the scheme, otherwise, tho. The double base is because I wasn't confident in my ability to drill a magnet into the original base despite having done it twice already. Our favorite kitty officer will undoubtedly show up again in the future, likely with fewer layer lines.

Another very old print, this is Valera, Angel of Rock from Twin Goddess. I was super excited to paint Valera when I first purchased the STL. As one of the second batch off my old Mars Pro like the Black Witch Tabaxi from last week, she kicked around for far too long. I had a heck of a time gluing her together mostly because she's in the super brittle old resin, and because her wings are so heavy so astute viewers can see the mess where they connect. She also broke off of her perch at one point so there's a discontinuity that I painted over on her left foot. She's got awful layer lines and yet, I still super love this fig and have spent dozens of hours on her over the years. She'll count as my sixth high quality work for 2025 and, Fate willing, she'll show up again here in the future with fewer layer lines.

Last up this week we have another high quality work and a sculpt I super like. This very leggy gal is Ragna, Blade of the North from Drunken Dwarf. She embodies two of the things I look for in sculpts: she has a lot of character and a nice open pose. She's short of the last one as she has a surfeit of details that don't make a lot of sense, but two out of three ain't bad. I spent somewhere around eight hours on her and I think it shows. I wanted texture on her cloak which is maybe a little less sharp than I'd like, and I wanted to take the highlights on her face and hair higher than normal both of which I got. Other than a handful of lousy support scars, her print is pretty good, too. I did extra work shadowing and highlighting the various metallics on her and keeping the color in her skin tones. She's probably the most complete work I've produced so far.

2025 finished mini counter: 37, 7/12 high quality

A thing a week 2025, week 8

This week we're still clearing out the stuff left on my painting table which we can also look forward to next week, too. I don't expect to drain the entire queue mostly because some of the ones remaining a tryhard efforts and we're not there yet. 

First up we have Black Witch Tabaxi from Printed Obsession and an old print that has been kicking around my painting table for far, far too long. At time of painting, like 40 months and the oldest one I had printed but not painted. I liked the preview on the MyMiniFactory page a lot more than the printed fig once I had it in my hand. She's got all kinds of ruffles, bows, and bejangles that looked less like "hardened war mage" than "circus trickster" so my enthusiasm to finish dwindled. In the intervening 40 months she got paint occasionally until earlier this year when I started picking out more of the details and cleaning up a frankly very poor basecoat. I don't know that I'll paint her again, but overall I think this is as good a result as I was going to get. Sadly we don't see her eyes in the forward facing shot so we don't see all of her character but she'll suffice as the black cat challenge for this year.

Next up we have Zerynthia Noble Mage from Miniatures Blueprint, another sculpt that I liked a lot better in preview than in hand. I didn't handle the print cleanup as well as I should have and ended up with some very soft details on her back and the top of her elaborate staff broke off and I just plain couldn't salvage it. I might have printed her shorter than normal to fit with my collection and if so, know that I'm totally disabused of such muckery now. I went back and forth with the yellow details three times until I landed on that scheme which sells better on the painting table than in these shots. Her skin tones are patchy but otherwise OK and I did an OK job on her face which also doesn't hold up in these close-ups. I don't think we'll see her again here but who knows.

This is Siln Tanadu Moon Elf Cleric from HackNSlashMinis and another sculpt I liked more in preview than in hand. I suppose three's a trend. I like all the character, especially in her expression, but I really dislike all the bejangles and negative space. I made this worse by gluing her shield arm on before priming but TBH, I was never going to paint her in assemblies. I also did a bad job in the print cleanup phase so a lot of her details aren't as sharp as they should be. Her face would benefit from another couple hours of cleanup as well as the lack of depth in her armor and shield, but overall as a speed paint, I think this is an OK result.

Last up w have Kathrina Bright on Foot from Titan Forge, another high character sculpt that sat on my desk for far too long. The very obvious, very large banner screamed out for freehand and that's more than a little intimidating. I knew I wanted to do a White Rose from The Black Company, one of my favorite fantasy series. The banner and her arm are a separate piece and the glue kept failing on me. If you look close you can see how badly it's glued on, even. Her armor is mostly Army Painter Speed Paint metallics with a few highlights. Since she's mostly armor, that seemed like a good choice and I did some work to add depth through judicious highlighting with Vallejo Metal Colors and shadowing with Badger Ghost Tints. I don't think it's 100% where I want it, but I'm happier with the results. The freehand itself took maybe a few hours made worse by mostly using palette sludge that was way past its best-by date. Her face probably needed more work than it got. At this point I'm not looking to do another big freehand on a banner, but if that changes, I know what to do.

2025 finished mini counter: 34

A thing a week 2025, week 7

Another week, another zero finished figs toward my goal. It's almost like I didn't plan this out enough or something. 

This would be Angeline - Female Paladin from RN Estudio, one of my favorite sculptors. She has a very nicely sculpted face which is why I bought the STL though I'm not a huge fan of all the bejangles on her armor. This one was printed two and a half years ago on my old printer and kicked around on my painting desk for way too long. I pretty frequently get daunted by very busy minis which is dumb because they tend to be high floor efforts. As usual, the 5s and 4s are missing in her skirt and despite my best efforts, the metallics are patchy partially due to the low-res layer lines in this print. I did not realize that the highlight on her hair is facing that much forward and the leaf highlights are pretty washed out. Not my best work TBH, but she's the best color: painted.

This is Daerel the Blademaster from RM Printable and one of the first prints I got off of my old Mars Pro with the extremely brittle resin. Her sword has broken off far too many times and the layer lines are really visible. She's been kicking around my painting table for more than three years and despite my best efforts, I think she turned out pretty OK. Because of the thick layer lines, the metallics are way patchier than I'd like and I did nowhere near enough work on highlighting...anything. Her face and hair are high points which save the effort. Probably there needed to be more purple to really sell it and no, I did not paint a boob window despite being clearly what the sculptor wanted. Not sure if I printed her shorter than normal since her details were pretty torturous, but I'd be willing to give her another shot in the future. That's probably the best thing about 3d printing.

These two are Sypheena from Twin Goddess and another sculpt that I really like. They were printed not super long ago on my Saturn 2 so I'm making really good progress on all the prints I did last year (one to go!) but that isn't helping this year's goals, sadly. These are a speed paint and I wanted to get the lows where they should be (the 5s and 4s) and the tones where I wanted them but that meant that the smaller details and some of the highlights are missing. In particular, their boots are barely painted at all and the green gloves needed more 1s-3s. The yellow came through nice and bright which was also a goal and I put some extra work into their hair which shows. Probably the sides of their noses are too dark but otherwise I think their faces are pretty good. Not bad for around 5 hours of work for the both of them. They'll should show up sometime in the future sporting a higher quality paint job if we are so lucky.

2025 finished mini counter: 29

A thing a week 2025, week 6

First up today we have Highland Heroine from Reaper and she's sadly in Bones white plastic. Hypothetical long-time readers may recognize this fig since she's already been featured here way back in Week 3 of 2020 which seems like a lifetime ago. Also, wow do my old shots suck and notably from an era where I didn't paint bases. I like this sculpt a lot, evidenced by the fact that I bought the fig multiple times. In fact, I have a nice metal one waiting in the wings so we should expect to see her again. For this iteration I did what I could with the mold lines (i.e., not enough) and did a lot of painting in detail particularly on her leg wraps which were very soft and indistinct. I could not get the bend out of her sword which also features prominently in the last version. Probably the highlights on her cloak and pants could have come up some but otherwise I'm pretty happy with this result. Maybe later in the year I'll do a side by side or something.

This would be Sakari Anyu from Cast n Play, a sculpt I like a lot. I don't know if I printed her smaller than normal but I really had a rough time with all of the tiny details. Ultimately this was a speed paint which is probably obvious from the phoned in hair. The fur textures probably needed more work and you might be able to pick out the weak sauce NMM I did on her spear which I guess was supposed to be stone or something. The symbols on her coat need to pop out more but they were a real pain as were all the wrappings on her spear and hair. A good result for the like three hours I spent over the several years she spent partially prepped on my desk. 

Next up we have Akna Amak also from Cast n Play. I like this sculpt a lot less but I'm pretty sure I bought them both on sale at the same time. She's a less good speed paint as well and it shows. All of her details were soft and as a result I spent a lot less time on her face and smoothing out my lousy blends. That particular recipe for blue was really hard to work with and probably I'ma experiment with other combinations in the future. For both Akna and Sakari, I really should have darkened down the shadows more but otherwise I think this is squarely OK despite her obviously phoned in axe.

Lastly for this week we have Ranger Teen from Vae Victis and she's also a two-timer in these unhallowed pixels from back in the final week of 2021. This one does in fact have a complete bow (for now; they're awfully fragile) and I put extra effort into this iteration to the tune of six or seven hours. The darks are definitely darker but the blue really needs a better 5->4->3 transition and what I intended as the highest highlights ended up looking more like a 3 or a 2 than a 1 which sucks. I did a better job with the fur lining last time but I'd gotten to the point that I just wanted to be done. It happens. FWIW, she reads better on the table than in these close ups. 

2025 finished mini counter: 25, 5/12 high quality

A thing a week 2025, week 5

This week we continue the non-theme of "stuff on my painting table that don't move my goal needle at all." That said, I can barely remember a time when I had so clean a desk. So I got that goin' for me. 

First up we have Denthir the Orc Cleric from Twin Goddess Miniatures. I like the sculpt (minus the fantasy polearm) but didn't spend nearly enough time with these two. While not always a dead giveaway that I've phoned a paint job in, it's usually true that if you see a white or greytone "clearly this came out of a zenithal" scheme anywhere on a model, it's because I was in a hurry. So it is thus. I've been busy hacking away at something putting most of my other efforts on hold or on life support so when it came time to finishing these two off, I was in a hurry. I also kind of boxed myself in with the color scheme which I thought through not nearly well enough. So don't be surprised if the mace guy shows up here at some point in the future wearing better paints.

Here we have Orc Rogue B from Titan Forge mirrored, obviously. This is a really good sculpt and I had a lot of fun painting them. They took roughly as long as our pals Denethir above but the sculpt did most of the work if I'm honest. They have that excellent mix of appropriately-raised and spaced detail that meant I could spend most of the time on the stuff that matters: their faces and highlights. The majority of the basecoat is contrast paint and I thought I'd done a better job of knocking out the shine but these close-ups have a way of revealing all of my painting sins. These could definitely sport a higher level effort so we should only be so lucky as to their future return to these un-hallowed pixels.

2025 finished mini counter: 21

A thing a week 2025, week 4

You might be wondering when we're going to start making progress on this year's actual goals rather than working through the stuff on my painting desk. Well, you're in luck! Today we have the second fig from the target categories and many up on the horizon. 

First up, however, we have more moon hunters. These spearwolves are Moon Guard A & B from The Moon Enclave Pt 1 and they're really cool. Anyone following that link and wondering why I didn't print the other guys, it's because long spears pointing up pose storage issues with my current setup. Not that these guys don't but at least the lids on the bins I use aren't as likely to break their spears. Not that they need any help with that since the battle posed guy's spear has already broken off. Twice. And yes, that annoys me.

These guys are painted pretty much exactly like the last guys with the addition of more details like the light fur on their armor and their armor. If you notice some patchiness on their feet and other bits, it's because I was super un-careful when removing excess baking soda after gluing things badly. 

Next up we have Dijoro, Female Kitsune from Reaper Bones and she's been featured here before way back in week 27, 2020. I really like this sculpt, particularly her tricksy nature and really wish I had purchased all my copies in metal rather than in soft white bones plastic. It's worth hitting up that link to Reaper's site and looking at the fine paint job the sculptor did featured there, a level that I will very likely never hit. It's a good reminder that I need to be a little more daring in my painting. Probably the next version I paint (like I said, I have multiple copies) will probably be in a different color scheme as a grey or timber wolf or something so they don't all look the same. When? Someday.

This energetic gal is Robyn, the Foxfolk Ranger from Bite the Bullet, a sculptor featured here before. This is a lot of what I like to see out of sculptors. She's dynamic, mostly accessible for painting, and has a lot of character. I was kind of in a hurry when painting her so I didn't crank through all the details at as high a quality as I might have, but she'll definitely hold a higher quality effort. I didn't do a great job of affixing her to the tree branch she's leaping from and I really should have gone back and fixed that. She will very likely show up here again, though probably also in a different color scheme.

Last up we have Fox Folk Rogue, also from Bite the Bullet and she's why I was kind of rushed on Robyn. Despite having a lot of hard to paint areas, I pushed pretty hard on her details, particularly on her voluminous fur and big bushy tail though she does read a lot better on the table than she does in these close ups. There's more that I could have and probably should have done so don't be surprised if she shows up again in the unforseeable future.

2025 finished mini counter: 17, high quality 4/12

A thing a week 2025, week 3

This week we have some wonderful wolfy warriors who are both underrated and underrepresented in the fantasy melange. So imagine my surprise when these guys showed up in one of the many subs I've been gifted from MyMiniFactory. All four of these are from Dragon Trappers Lodge and we shouldn't be surprised if a bunch more of them show up here in the inforseeable future.

These are markswolves and axewolves from The Moon Enclave Pt 1, particularly bow variants A and E and tomahawk variants C and D. The paint scheme I chose is both easy and challenging at the same time. I liked the mental image of a group of black wolves loping through the forest on a secret mission so black was an easy choice. It meant that I wouldn't spend a lot of time picking out individual details in their voluminous fur but that selling it at all would be a challenge. I did some basic drybrushing up from a Speed Paint basecoat which seems to work OK though they could use more highlights.

Because their fur didn't take all that much time, I could spend more on the other details--and they have a lot. It probably doesn't show in these high res photos but most of their details are very small. I meticulously pulled out whatever I could and hit the metallics with a Nuln Oil wash at the end. Their eyes are particularly difficult so none of the usual heroics on these four. The bases came out particularly well this time around and as usual were mostly painted with palette sludge.

2025 finished mini counter: 12