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