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