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 2024, week 23

This week we have the last of the cycle of Rocky figs from Bones 4. They've all been painted in more or less the same way and curious readers can read it over in the previous two entries should you be so inclined. 

First up we have Scheming Rocky in purple, a color I like a lot but really struggle with. I should have come up higher in value on all of his scales and particularly on his face which reads a lot better in person though I did get the lowest lows in the right range. It's entirely probable that my paint table's lighting set up is too bright since I have this issue pretty often. This is made worse by the barely-sufficient lighting on my gaming table, not that these guys are particularly gaming pieces. I went magenta for his webbing but like I said last week, I should have pushed more in the yellow direction into reds. 

Last up we have Sneaky Rocky in teal. He's probably the best of the bunch despite missing some of the highlights on his left flank. His contrast is the best both in volumetric value and color temperature and he probably has the best eyes of the bunch. I put extra effort into getting his gaze focused in front of him despite the fact that the light reflection dots don't line up correctly. Eyes on these guys have been challenging even though they're really big since they bulge out so far. Usually I'm dealing with a barely curved recess if there's even an eye sculpted. 

For sure there's more work I could have done across all five but I learned a lot and I'm content to add them to my display box. Maybe someday in the unforseeable future I'll do more on them but for now I'm calling them done.

2024 finished mini counter: 128/208, 11/12 high quality