A thing a week 2026, week 35

This week we have especially fun stuff and not just because the end of the Bones 5 effort is within sight. As a function of getting a lot of the work out earlier in this effort (notably the big guys and batches and whatnot), I ended up with a lot of really nice figs at the end. I took a bunch of those to a higher than normal quality and these are those!

First up we have Huntress and a sculpt I really like. There's a lot of very soft detail on her, particularly the symbols on her armor and cloak that I didn't want to mess up. I did pick them out with a brush but probably too subtly. They're sold by the later step washes. I recall pushing the green of her cloak up higher into yellows but that doesn't really show here. It's also a lot less glossy in person than it is in these shots which is a pretty good indication that I need to stop using Contrast Paints. The anime white hair was an early choice mostly because I like it and don't think I'd ever painted it prior. The tan pants were an unfortunate choice. In retrospect I should have picked something higher contrast with her fleshtones.

Next up we have Sister Ailene, Female Cleric and she's in the same blue as a bunch of the Bones 5 figs. My only wish is that she didn't have boobplate because boobplate is dumb. I had two real goals here. First, I wanted the linens to not be boring white and to differentiate it with other white elements, notably the border on her tabard. Second, I didn't want to metallic over the entire shield and I wanted real contrast around the details on it. I got both and I'm happy with the rest of it. Probably the highlights on her cloak could have gone higher and up close the blending is a little sus. I put extra effort into lining her armor and darkening down the lows of her gloves both of which work well. 

 

This is Jana Frostwind, Barbarian and since I grew up in the 80s and 90s, I like this fig way more than I should. I put a lot of time into her fleshtones and I think it shows. If anything, the muscleature on her sword arm is too stark. We get more blue metallics, this time tinted way down and apparently I forgot to tint the golds into more orange. Her boots had really awful mold lines over the lacing which I painted over but you can totally tell that it's there. Her hair and fur "armor" were successive highlights and washes ending with a highlight. She took somewhere around eight hours which is on the high side these days and I'm super happy she didn't have more details.

 

Next up we have Tianalise, Bog Witch and when I look at the fig, all I can see is the Everquest Elf Gal which is why I chose the colors I did. A lot of the details on this fig are shallow and soft so I spent a lot of effort keeping and accentuating the shadows to keep the lows and pushed pretty high into the highlights. Alternating washes and highlights did most of the work on her wrap and staff. The crystal at the end sells better in person than it does in these closeups. Probably her abs needed another round but ultimately, I really like this result.

 

 

Last up we have Athanelle, Elf Wizard and she also had a lot of very shallow detail that I didn't want to lose. Speed Paint did most of the basecoat with successive washes and highlights preserving those details. An awful lot of brush blending did everything else. I put a couple rounds of Badger Ghost Tint on the gold thing at the top of her staff which only looks OK. The thing I'm happiest about with this fig is the richness of the blue and magenta on her cloak. I managed to keep the deep saturation of the Golden So Flat Ultramarine which is usually a struggle. The rest of it is the scheme which worked out way better than I'd expected.

2026 finished mini counter:  199, 6/12 high quality