A thing a week 2026, week 22

As promised, this week we have the hench gals, the other not quite half of Reaper's Henchmen and Hirelings Bones Black Deluxe Boxed Set. Notably, I paid a lot less with the Bones 5 kickstarter. Like the henchdudes, I like these sculpts a lot and really didn't spend enough time with them. These gals (obviously) share a color scheme as a time saving feature and I tried to let the sculpts do as much work as possible with a little bit of OSL to keep things interesting. Notably, I pre-assembled the porter gal and her wheelbarrow which turned out to be a big mistake. Don't worry; I haven't learned and we'll see the same mistake in a couple weeks. No idea why the torch gal insists on blinding herself with the torch in front or why she has no shoes. Quite a few of the Bones 5 sculpts are barefoot which I find very suspicious.

These two are Tara the Silent on the left and Daschelle, Female Rogue on the right. More Golden So Flat Ultramarine this time around and I spent a little extra effort in blending, helped by the fact that these figs are so much smaller. Tara's abs are painted in because she looked wrong without them. Her hair looks better in person since the highlights are just out of frame. I had a heck of a time figuring out what was going on with Daschelle's hands though I think I got it in the end. There's a really nasty mold line going down the rope which I tried my best to paint over. I think it mostly sells. I think these are pretty good results all told. No clue why the hue is off on the top shot. 

2026 finished mini counter: 130

A thing a week 2026, week 21

This week we get some of my favorite fantasy races: catfolk and foxfolk. They were painted as a batch which is probably obvious since they're all in the same color scheme. These first dudes are Bones 5's Catfolk. Left to right: Catfolk Mage, Catfolk Rogue, Catfolk Warrior, Catfolk Paladin, and Catfolk Ranger. NGL, the yarn ball hearldry got me good. These guys probably could have used one or two extra highlights on their fur. It's really hard to paint black fur in general and these guys are only OK. Either way, I'm always happy to add more kitty people to my collection. 

Notably not from Bones 5, we have left to right: Tabaxi Dancer by Velrock, Kogo, Male Kitsune, and Dijoro, Female Kitsune. If Kogo and Dijoro look familiar, they should! They've showed up here a couple times before. In other news, wow has my photography improved. Despite the results, I spent a lot of time on these three, the dancer because she's mostly fur, the other two because they're a comparison to previous works. Like the other catfolk in this post, they're only OK. More highlights would have helped. The sad part is that the dancer got that but it was so patchy that I hit her with a coat of Nuln Oil which darkened everything down too much. She's got an orange twin that will show up at some point in the future. 

2026 finished mini counter: 123

A thing a week 2026, week 20

This week in addition to the normal junk, we're gonna go over a little color theory. Boring stuff first: these are the Dragonfolk add-on for Bones 5 split into Dragonfolk Wizard and Cleric, Dragonfolk Bard and Thief, Dragonfolk Fighter and Ranger and I'll leave figuring out which is which as an exercise for the reader. No back shot for the first three because I'm a doof and forgot to shoot it. You can probably guess what's going on by context. Anyway...

These guys had some really lousy mold lines which I handled very poorly. They also had a lot of really nice contrasting texture that I didn't want to lose so I started exactly the same way as you might expect: dry brush over speed paint base coat. I put some extra effort around some of the highlights and rather than doing a lot of tedious blending, I left most of the color jumps a little stark which lends a bit of a cartoony effect which I kind of like. Overall these are pretty good sculpts for the most part though I don't particularly like the fighter. It wasn't clear whether he was scale in which case he's weirdly proportioned or armor in which case the details are confusing. Clearly I went scale.

Color theory time! These guys are split complementary with the first choice being their scale color played by Akhelian Green Contrast Paint which is probably one of my favorites. When I realized that purple was one of the other potential splits which put yellow as the complement, well, I couldn't say no. Yellow and purple are a pretty good complementary scheme by themselves and while I'd intended to push the yellow more into an orange to be more technically correct, I still think these guys came out well. Everything could have used another level of highlight but I kept the nice darks from the contrast paint which was a goal. Done in about ten hours all told, I think these are a good result.

2026 finished mini counter:  115

A thing a week 2026, week 19

These guys are more or less only grouped together because they were painted in the same pseudo-batch. The blending here is a little sus mostly because I couldn't be bothered to do more. The ultramarine here is Golden So Flat and for whatever reason, I've always had a rough time blending it. That sucks because it's a really nice shade. Left to right we have: Brother Hammond, Traveling Monk, Grundor Hoardtaker, Barbarian, and Baran Blacktree, Veteran Warrior. Baran's shield really wanted some heraldry but I clearly couldn't be bothered. Probably his armor needed another metallic coat and additional shading. Grundor's base red played by Flesh Tearer's Red Contrast Paint is still surprisingly glossy which still surprises me every time. Brother Hammond's nice dark brown basecoat got kind of lost and I either needed to go higher on the highlights or bring the darks back down. 

These three mage-y dudes are left to right: Erebus Nalas, Evil Sorcerer, Young Mage, and Luwin Phost, Wizard. I am super bad to use whatever colors are on my palette at time of painting which is why these guys are all the same color as Baran's cloak. Also, I generally think that wizened mages should look like Gandalf which is a really hard thing to break away from. Nalas's OSL doesn't really cover up the weakness of the fire effect or the patchiness of the color fades. Young Mage came out really well to the point that I have him as a high quality fig (#1 for the year) but forgot to do a turnaround shot. Probably the lights could have gone higher regardless, and the orb on the end of his staff is pretty weak. Luwin's OSL looks a little subtle in these shots but they sell pretty well on the table.

Overall, a pretty OK offering for the week, IMO.  

2026 finished mini counter: 109, high quality: 1/10 

A thing a week 2026, week 18

And now for something completely different. With the mechs complete, I'm moving on to the next big phase: Bones 5 and I don't have a fancy theme for it. 

These eight dudes are the Henchmen option from Bones 5 and slightly more than half of the Henchmen and Hirelings pack on the Reaper store (the gals will arrive later). These guys were done mostly as a batch with a little bit of extra OSL effort on the lantern bearer, torch guy, and fire thrower. They didn't take super long at about twelve hours all told but I certainly could have doubled that easily as the sculpts can certainly take higher quality paint jobs. The read a little better in person than in these closeups, I think because my lighting washed out some of the detail. 

It felt a little weird going back to characters after so...many...mechs which are mostly a paint-by-numbers kind of process. Still, these were a good step back to more "normal" painting.  

2026 finished mini counter: 103