A thing a week 2022, week 18

And now for something completely different. Almost a year ago, week 22's offering was the Asnofre city map. Just over two years ago, 2020's week 6 was the same kind of map for Cedarwood ending that campaign. This week's offering is the Asnofre Playset intended to be used in the finale, likely over two or three sessions. Apparently I like ending campaigns with big battles. Notably both campaigns were single-city affairs with lots of factions and intrigue so maybe those things go together.

We had intended to do a normal session last night but a couple folks were unavailable so we playtested instead and it's a dang good thing we did! Some of the rules didn't work super well and I had drawn the zones too small. The picture shows the hand-drawn zone boundaries I did after the fact and I reworked both the rules and the units. The map itself is printer paper mounted on medium weight chipboard. The units are also printer paper mounted to adhesive magnets. I wanted something weightier than chipboard for the unit tokens but I don't think their stickiness is particularly helpful.

A thing a week 2022, week 17

Continuing the not-theme of the last few weeks, we start out with a 3d printed Tabaxi Bandit from Vae Victis Miniatures. I like this sculpt and I had grand plans to paint it as one of my favorite kitty NPCs (I kid--all my kitty NPCs are my favorite) with a dagger in his left hand to match the art and an empty right hand. That all fell apart when I printed him and the print failed! His left arm was pretty hopelessly pancaked so I painted a different, much less dynamic fig which you can see way back in week 24 of last year. He's sat on my workbench in a sad state until recently when I was doing some prep work and bodged a completely different arm on him. On top of looking dumb, that knife is decidedly not menacing and his left hand is gloved! You'd think he'd get better mileage out of just clawing things. Homemade washes are doing the majority of the work on this fig and ultimately, he's painted and that's what matters.

This is Seelah, Iconic Paladin from Reaper Bones not to be confused with the Seelah-lookalikes from Week 42 of last year. This is a good sculpt let down terribly by the Bones bendy white plastic. I did not spend enough time dealing with mold lines and I drilled a hole in her cloak which I mostly patched. Given that most of her gear is metal, I did the smart thing this time: I zenithaled and umbraled in metallics with the airbrush. That meant that the rest of her was a lot easier. Done in around three hours, I think this is a good result despite the fact that I really should have re-based her. 

Rathan Kranzhel is another Reaper Bones figure and now that I've painted it, I kind of don't like the fig. Also being of Bones plastic, his sword is extremely bent and the mold lines were a real pain in the butt. I hate that his shield is up in front of his face which, while a more proper way to use a shield, made his face really hard to paint. I also didn't realize just how shiny his tabard? skirt? was until I was reviewing the pictures. Pro-tip: when buying Golden Hi-Flow Acrylics, check to see how glossy they are. This isn't my best work (clearly) and I don't think that anything is particularly good about this paint job beyond the fact that he's painted (in about four hours). 

Last up we have Elf Ranger Duelist, Aletheia from Bones 4. She's been prepped up on my workbench for quite a long time and if I'm honest, this isn't the kind of fig I like. The sculpt is really complex with a lot of bejangles and other doodads all over her getup. Like I saidtyped at some point, things that sit on my workbench long enough get whatever paints I can use productively as I wrap up. I had the thought at one point of working on her as one of the high quality figs but quickly talked myself out of it--too detailed. Ultimately I got paint on her when I could and eventually (recently) decided to carry her over the finish line. Her face in particular got a lot of time and while I couldn't really tell you how much time I spent on this fig, I'd guesstimate it's around the five or six hour mark. 

2022 finished mini counter: 76/100

A thing a week 2022, week 16

This week we have other random "things I have on my workbench" offering. First up, this snakey gal is a Female Nagendra Warrior from Reaper Bones 5 and unlike the link there, mine is in Bones plastic. Astute readers of these unhallowed pixels will doubtlessly remember Week 10 of last year where seven (!) similar figs were featured in the Lounge of Lizards theme. I painted her in the same colors and did not enough work shading her armor despite my plans on doing a heck of a lot more. I got a lot of mileage out of my homemade green wash and she was done in maybe three hours.

This guy is a Reaper Bones Wererat Berserker bought quite a long time ago. There are a lot of weasel-y characters in my game and there aren't a lot of weasel-y choices in the miniature world. This guy had both a bad mold and a questionable sculpt. I did hat I could with him but ultimately I don't think it worked out super well. He was a couple hours of work and, well, he's painted. They can't all be winners, kids. 

This is a Reaper Anubis Guard and not only is this a metal fig, it also got a lot of camera time in a campaign run a long time ago. It's not a great fig and I didn't do enough work dealing with mold lines. ...And then, there's the yellow metallics. They're mostly from an ancient pot of Reaper paint washed with a Golden Yellow Badger Minitaire Ghost Tint and it looks like crap. The turquoise metallics are Vallejo Metal Colors (Dark Aluminum IIRC) washed with Plasma Fluid. The color scheme works well, but the paint job is pretty questionable. Overall, he was done in a few hours and I think it works at arm's length. 

Last up we have a pair of 3d printed Drow Paladins by Velrock Art whose work I really like. I think these are a free object found who knows where. At the very least, I can't find a link on his MyMiniFactory listing. If I'm really honest, this isn't some of his best work. They're OK but the negative space in the fig is hard to work around and their armor is pretty basic without particularly good forms. I didn't spend enough time on their cloaks (obviously) but they were done in a bout four hours all told which works for me. 

2022 finished mini counter: 72/100

A thing a week 2022, week 15

This week we have our first biggie and three other ones because why not? This is quite obviously a Chimera, in this case, a Reaper Bones offering. It's a creature I use fairly regularly and I needed one for a boss encounter so this was the right time. I had grand plans going into the project, particularly around color scheme and as usual that all fell apart as soon as I started painting. If my color theory is good (and it's not) this scheme should work better than it actually did. I think my shadows aren't low enough to make it go but ultimately, for my around eight hour investment, I'm pretty happy with the result. This is my first of two biggies needed for this year's hobby goals. 

These three are dragon hatchlings that I bought years ago. They're not good molds and they were kind of a pain to prep so when I got into the painting, I decided to go fast. They were painted pretty simply mostly with washes and drybrush and they look OK on the table. Overall we're at something like two hours over a couple days between other work. The nice thing about having an over-crowded workbench is that whenever I have a color on the palette that could be used somewhere else, I have many excuses to put paint on other figures.

2022 finished mini counter: 67/100, 1/2 large

A thing a week 2022, week 14

After a really big project I usually wind down on easier projects. This has been true in my Lego builds, too, interestingly. So following Aislinn last week, I have a bunch of truly lazyeasy painting on offer this week.

These three are treants of some sort from Bones 5 kickstarter. I zenithaled/umbraled in color rather than Payne's Grey and warm white. This worked out OK but lacking a proper light brown, they super desaturated mixing in the airbrush cup. After that it was mostly washes and drybrushing. I added some Army Painter Green Tone Quickshade to add some visual interest. I certainly could have gone further but I didn't. Also, if you haven't used these quickshades, they're IMO the best paints that Army Painter makes. 

Here are a bunch of random golems also from the Bones 5 kickstarter, and yeah, I'm fully aware that the thing on the left is actually a suit of armor. Non-animated. Somewhere last year I noted that I should have painted something metallic with the airbrush rather than shading it down with Badger Ghost Tints so I did so on this one. It's a good result for the like five minutes I spent on it. Similarly, the stone golem is mostly airbrushed with stone colors (going for Egyptian granite) and the drybrushed and washed. Because he's so big, I spent a little time shading some stuff down so the details popped out more. I think it's a good result for maybe 20 minutes of work. The last guy I lavished with 30 minutes. He was cast in a transparent plastic so I colored in each pane with Ghost Tints (both sides) and then caught the edges with Vallejo Metallic Dark Aluminium which is rapidly becoming my go-to for these kinds of things. Also a good result in not very much time which has made for some fairly satisfying painting.

2022 finished mini counter: 63/100

A thing a week 2022, week 13

After multiple weeks of buildup...we're here. This is the big project I've been talkingtyping about since week 5. I had expected to put a mess of time into this fig, and I did, just not as much time as I expected.

This is Aislinn, Shadow Tracker sculpted by the one and only Julie Guthrie. I love this figure so when I started looking for my ten high quality figs for the year, she was at the top of the list. She hasn't seen a lot of screen time having never portrayed a player character but I put her on the field as often as I can. Wolfkin aren't well represented in the miniature world much like lionfolk but are similarly well represented in my fantasy world. That's left me with problems showing them in game. In fact, I have a series of these figs from Reaper in metal to fill the gap so expect to see more of them in the future.

Prep started as normal with a prime, umbral, and zenithal but this time I followed them with a wash and a drybrush to pop out details. Actual painting started with blocking out the colors from reference (grey wolf) and then putting a lot of effort into her face. Without the typical makeup, I did more with the highlights around her eyes and muzzle and I think it's a good result. After that, the fun began!

Bought in the heady days of 2016, I've had a lot of time to think about how to paint her and I figured this'd be a good time to give detailed fur a shot. This entails painting with individual brush strokes that build up into an interesting texture which honestly sounds a lot more dreary than it actually is. In fact, it's pretty easy and dare I say a relaxing way to paint with a lot of ability to correct mistakes as you go. I also misjudged how much time this would take. It compares favorably to the normal amount of effort putting glazes down with the bonus that I don't have to care about blends being smooth, in fact, it's the opposite of what I want. When I first encountered this technique several years ago, I couldn't imagine spending this kind of effort on a fig. Now I'm looking through my collection looking for similar figs to get the same treatment.

Overall she was complete in something like 15 hours which is way under the 50+ I'd expected. Part of it was opting out of the NMM which I have little confidence in, but part of it was how quickly the fur patterns went. Now that she's painted I'm even happier with this fig and I really hope I get an opportunity to get her some screen time.

2022 finished mini counter: 57/100, 4/10 high quality

A thing a week 2022, week 12

This week have a hodgepodge of stuff but that doesn't mean it sucks!

First up we have the dorf corps comprised of a Reaper Bones Barden Barrelstrap, since rebranded as Dwarf Cleric, Barden and two 3d printed Dwarf Clerics that I cannot find the source file for. Barden's paint job isn't great but then again, neither the sculpt nor the mold are very great either. The one that really steams me is the terrible mold line crossing his face. The two others were a free STL file and as such, they're helping drive my cost per fig down. As a mini-batch they're all more or less in the same color scheme and they were done in a couple days maybe spanning eight hours all told. They aren't great paint jobs, but they are painted.

Next up we have Human Cleric, Broderick, sometimes Broderick Alt Pose, Crusaders Captain from Reaper and unlike Barden, he's metal and doesn't have the difficulties of Bones figs. Like Barden, he was bought about six years ago when I was just getting back into RPGs and wanted to cover as many weapon configurations as I could. Unlike Barden, this guy did see some screen time as a player character. I like this fig despite his stupidly exaggerated fantasy hammer. The fig will hold a higher quality paint job but I didn't particularly do one, though I did put effort into shading and highlighting the armor. I think it's a nice result complete in about eight hours.

Last and most importantly, we have a 3d printed Battlemage from Galaad. I really like this fig. She's got reasonable armor, is not over-endowed, and she's got some fire in her hand even though I clearly didn't do any OSL (I did think about it, tho). This fig is a great example of great design. She's got an open pose; nothing terribly occluded and her armor is just detailed enough to give easy things to focus on while not being so complicate as to be a pain. This is the kind of fig that you can spend a lot of time on and will hold a really high quality paint job. I pushed to a much higher quality than usual though I did not push as far as I could have. Nor is she the "big project" I've kept noting over the last few weeks. I do think this is one of the paint jobs I've done and I'm pretty happy with it. I'm also reminded that I like this paint scheme which is something like "analogous complementary." Done in something like a dozen hours, I suspect she's not the last we've seen of this fig.

2022 finished mini counter: 56/100, 3/10 high quality

A gaggle of goblins, part 2 (2022, week 11)

These two will round out this mini-theme and this time, they are covering for a bigger projects and they should be really sweet when they land. Probably next week? Maybe! You'll have to check later. Like, next week.

I think these woofwolf riders are new for Bones 5 but I have no real way to verify this. I really like these sculpts and wanted to spend extra time on them even though I've got other crap going on. The riders were dumbly painted with last week's goblins. Dumbly because I should have painted the woofs first and had to deal with that after the fact. Not recommended. The mounts are drybrushed and I don't think that these sculpts wanted that. I think they're fine, though, and the whole batch of eight were done in about 10 hours which is about as fast as I can go these days.

2022 finished mini counter: 51/100

A gaggle of goblins, part 1 (2022 week 10)

I saidtyped a few weeks ago that the kobold theme was there to run cover for a bigger project? Well, this isn't it. These are goblins. Six of them! And they're also from Bones 5. Many of them were featured way back in the end of 2019 in a world that was quite a lot different.

Painting on these guys started as usual (primed, umbral'ed, zenithal'ed) and then I did some mixifying with Pro Acryl Transparents (green and black) to get the basecoat. As much as I like blue and black and red and black mixes with those, I was surprised to realize I'd never done green and black until then. Over that we layered paints as normal with an ancient Reaper Pro Paints flesh wash that I'm trying to use up on the cobbles. 

These aren't pro paint jobs in the least but I also didn't do a great job on the mold lines so there's that. I think they're OK, though, and they'll take their place with the other gobbos in my collection.

2022 finished mini counter: 49/100

A thing a week 2022, week 9

This is Sir Rictus the Undying from Reaper Bones 5 and no, I don't have a link for him but I understand he's sculpted by the legendary Bob Ridolfi. He's not a super complex paint job and you can tell that I super shortchanged the cloak but hopefully it's not the first thing you notice because a) the cloak is on the back, and b) all the weathering. I didn't put bronze on him specifically to weather it (actually Vallejo Metal Color Gold) but I'm glad I did because it gave me an opportunity to weather the metallics in two ways. After the basic paint job I grunged him up real good and I think it helped the fig overall. More to the point, I didn't really sweat a lot of the details and in a couple hours all told, I think this is an acceptable outcome.

These four critters are Bones 5 Barrow Rats and like Sir Rictus I did not spend a lot of time on them. I wasn't super sure about painting their boils because it's kind of gross but that's what was on the sculpt so that's what got painted. I use rats fairly often in play so these will likely get a lot of screen. In fact, I probably need like 10x more which I'm pretty sure I can 3d print and have already sourced STLs for. So don't be surprised when you see a batch of them. These guys were done in a couple hours all told which is right around what I expected. 

This is Reaper Bones Danar, Human Assassin and speaking of screen time, he got a lot of it as a player character in the first campaign since I moved to the Pacific Northwest in 2016. That campaign ran for a year and a half (or so) and he was present at every session. I recognize that both of these things are unusual so I'm glad that I finally got this guy painted. This isn't a great paint job and if I'm honest, it's not a great fig. The mold lines were a mess and the sculpt didn't give me a lot to work with. For those not in the know, Bones figs are made out of a soft plastic which really defy the sane handling of mold lines. It's also why his sword is bendy. Overall, I'm not entirely unhappy with the four-ish hour paint job and finally getting his due.

These two are Aechelon with various equipment (Thunderclap not present) and are 3d sculpts from The Dragon Trapper's Lodge. In addition to being somewhat modular and coming with a fantastic flying steed, lionfolk are not well represented in the miniature world and they feature prominently in my worlds. I printed these guys out quite a lot smaller than I realized back when I cared about such things, so their details were a little painful to get right as you can see from their inconsistent eyes. I did what I could, though, and while I should have pushed the contrast on their metallic bits, I didn't and it shows. Some day I could see reprinting and re-painting these guys as a serious NMM challenge. 

2022 finished mini counter: 43/100

A danger of kobolds, week 4 (2022 week 8)

Rounding out our theme we have team shield. Yes, there's an axe guy in here. He has a shield. Team shield. I rather liked these guys and like to think they're the clever kobolds and less likely to be killed to death by any wandering band of murder-hobos in the area. I don't know that this is actually true but it's not a particularly high bar because: kobolds.

At this point I've more or less exhausted the interesting thing I can say about this batch so I'll finish with this. I'm glad I had the opportunity to re-paint the danger I did so very long ago and I really like the new figs added to the group in Bones 5. They were done in roundabouts 25 hours total, so just over 1 hour each and I think they came out well.

2022 finished mini counter: 35/100

A danger of kobolds, week 3 (2022 week 7)

Two down, two to go. This week we have team axe. We'll ignore the fact that there's at least one axe in next week's offering and at least one of these has a club rather than an axe, but hey, they're kobolds. They're not really sticklers for details, ya know?

2022 finished mini counter: 29/100

A danger of kobolds, week 2 (2022 week 6)

Last week we had team spear and this week, these five are team ranged. Yes, I'm counting the caster dood as ranged for this purpose. 

The first time I painted the mage-y kobold, it was many hundreds of figs before when I painted this one and I really wasn't interested in any way to paint any writing freehand. I was sad about this, tho, so this time around I polled my pals on discord for something I could write on his scroll a) clearly, and b) easily. I thought "DIE!" was good, but "RUN!" seemed better so that's what I went with. I didn't particularly think all that hard about how to put the letters on and in retrospect they should have been sketchier because kobolds. I think they work and I really, really need to do more freehand so it's less scary. 

2022 finished mini counter: 23/100

A danger of kobolds, week 1 (2022, week 5)

This week we're starting a theme albeit a small one (pun intended) but first, a small history lesson. Way back in November of 2019 I painted a danger of kobolds and boy are those pictures shoddy. Therein I typed these things about the 11 from Bones 4: "If I had it to do again (and I might) I'd possibly spend more time to get a better result." Well, the time has come.

These six are Bones 5 kobolds and most of them were present in the Bones 4 danger, too. And yes, for those wondering, "danger of kobolds" is the official term. Allegedly. This batch has a couple new guys and those figs are at least as fun as the original ones. Bonus: the new molds are really clean. Sadly, this stands in contrast with the older sculpts whose molds aren't nearly as nice and I didn't put enough time into fixing their mold lines. The typical prep was applied with a base coat and zenithal of light turquoise. That was an ancient pot of Reaper paint that clogged terribly in my airbrush. After that we got a homemade contrast paint (yes, you can make those) and highlight by hand with a mix of Daler Rowney inks. 

I put more time into these guys than I probably would have otherwise because I remembered how I felt when I wrote the quote above: disappointed. While these aren't as high as I can crank them, I don't think most of them will take a much higher quality paint job without a lot more prep. These guys start a four week batch that are running cover for some bigger projects.

2022 finished mini counter: 18/100

A thing a week 2022, week 4

So last week we had two spendy kinds of figs so naturally this week we have three at the other end of the spectrum. Hey, they aren't all winners, ok? 

I had an encounter involving a flame bear, one of the mostly solitary burning bears roaming the wastes outside the city my Saturday campaign is running in. I was pretty sure I had no bears and didn't particularly want to fire up the 3d printer to print one out so the day before I was set to run the encounter I double checked my D&D board games. Lo and behold, there were three cave bears in the Wrath of Ashardalon. Luckily, I know my way around a speed paint.

I super speedy primed and prepped them with the intent to wash and drybrush. Probably the highlights on the grizzly-cave-bear could have gone higher, similarly with the polar-cave-bear. The flame-cave-bear sells better in person than in pictures but probably needed more dark red and black on his back.

2022 finished mini counter: 12/100

A thing a week 2022 (week 3)

This week we have a tale of contrast. In particular, I have mirrored 3d prints of Fishergirl 02 from Galaad Miniatures which I did mostly in the same color schemes but with a couple varying techniques. 

Basic prep goes in exactly the way you'd normally expect: prime, umbral from below with Payne's Grey and zenithaled from above with white, in this particular case a Daler-Rowney white ink plus Vallejo Game Air Dead White, and no those aren't affiliate links. Most of both figs were based with Pro Acryl Transparents (also not an affiliate link) which is starting to be my go-to for such maneuvers. Also, I don't have the transparent white but I'm super going to get some. 

The pants are basically the same as Aline's boots from last week since I liked how those turned out. There may be hope for the Black Cat Challenge(TM) yet. I also mixed up the fleshtones this time around. I'm doing a tanned flesh + Magenta base like Kujo rather than my midtone red-brown and am highlighting with a pinkier light fleshtone rather than the sunnier, yellower Vallejo one I've been using and I've gotta say, I kind of like it. Their shirts aren't particularly interesting either but you can probably tell, but that's where the similarities end.

The magenta gal is done more or less the way I'd normally paint. The green gal is the special one and will count as a high quality fig. The brown leather boots and hat are scuffed and scratched and worn in multiple stages with glazes between a la Vince. Supposedly if you're careful with your hashes, scratches, and dots, you can get away without having proper blends. Can confirm. While time consuming, this seems to me to be a way more fun way to up the quality in a way that isn't completely mind-numbing. Note that a proper flowing paint and sharp brush are required for this neither of which I used which results to some of the patchiness. Note that this requires quite a lot of brush control since you're getting just barely on the fig with your nicely flowing paint.

The other hopefully obvious thing is that the green gal's metals are in NMM while the magenta one is using more traditional Vallejo Metal Colors. I am not good with NMM though I'm on my way to getting better. The sword kind of sells but the buckles and hook on her hat do not. Their prints are sadly not pristine and it shows up prominently on the bottom of the sword so only the upward facing NMM looks even remotely reasonable. I also would have liked slightly bigger volumes to work with since the edges of the blade and the handle are miniscule. Overall, I think the blade is functional and outside the cylindrical parts of the hilt, none of the brass really sells.

So which is better? One was certainly easier with the green gal taking probably 50% more time but not coincidentally, I learned way more. Is the difference in quality worth it? That's much harder to say. Overall we're somewhere like 20 hours total for the two and I didn't bring either as high as I think I'm capable of, though I did spend a lot of time on their faces and I'm particularly fond of the magenta gal's beauty spot which was a happy accident. Last year these both might have counted a high quality but I'm only counting the green gal as such. The attempt at NMM, feeble as it is, puts her over the top.

2022 finished mini counter: 9/100, 2/10 high quality

A thing a week 2022 (week 2)

The nice thing about the end of the year is overeating. A close second is having the time to do a bunch of hobbying. This is Aline the Bold from Artistan Guild and like Elena from last week, I shouldn't like this fig either but I can't help myself. Any fighter gal rockin' a biker attitude is good in my book even if it's unfortunate that her armor doesn't cover her vitals. Also: two swords, and yes I'm aware that the sword that's out isn't touching the ground. She didn't glue properly, OK?

Some of the basecoat was done with the airbrush and ended up being pretty messy. I'm not good with my airbrush but I am getting better and we should see more of that kind of thing later this year. Going into this paint job I had three goals. First, crank out a high quality piece. Second, do a better job with her face which sucked because part of it is obscured. Third, I knew her boots would be black and I really wanted them to not suck.

I don't think the majority of the blends are particularly good despite spending a lot of time on them. I also ended my paint job a few hours early. I was near the end of my session and getting really tired with the corresponding increase in mistakes. Then I dumped part of my brush cleaner all over my wet palette. I figured the universe was trying to tell me something. It's not subtle sometimes. The end result is that there are a bunch of details I didn't clean up like the patchyness of her shirt and some of the crap around the goddamn spikes on her armor. I also didn't do much shading/highlighting on the metallics. I could have filled the 3d printing ridges if I really wanted to, but I didn't.

Overall, I'm happy with this work but know that there's at least a few productive hours I could have put in to make her better. All told we're over fifteen hours or so over several days and these shots should be better than the average garbage here. For anyone taking photographs with anything more complicated than their phone: camera's are stupidly hard to use if you're not trained in this stuff (I'm not) so take the time to figure out how to make them go.

2022 finished mini counter: 7/100, high quality 1/10

A thing a week 2022 (week 1)

New year, new challenge so here we go. Also, I've typed a lot about it, but I really am trying to take better pictures believe it or not. This week's offerings aren't particularly good but next week's should be better.

These two are more of my vintage throwback D&D figures, specifically Ral Partha 11-004 Rangers With Longsword and Bow. If you're picking up a Robin Hood and Maid Marian vibe there, I suspect that's not on accident, though the late 80s markings on their base mean that they predate Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves from 1991. They're 25mm and it's worth noting that eyes and other small details are usually pretty awful on such small figs. One nice thing about these, especially being metal, is that a lot of the details are popped way out which made it a lot easier. They were done in maybe 10 hours total and I think they came out pretty well.

These three are from Bones 4 and have been prepped on my desk for at least a  year. They are Townsfolk 1 bar maid, Townsfolk 2 angry woman, and Townsfolk 3 milk maid. Other than finishing these gals, I had two goals: practice fleshtones especially faces, and practice highlighting light colored linens. I'll let you decide how good a job I did but as practice, I'm not unhappy with the results. Probably my blends could be better, as usual, and there are details that aren't as crisp as I'd like, as usual, but there were some learnings involved in the twelve or so hours I spent on them. The biggest one was reinforcing the idea that I shouldn't be in a hurry. It's obvious when you saytype it out but it's definitely true and I'm hoping that this will propel me to higher levels of quality this year. Also, I really wish the milk maid's face wasn't quite so blurry since I spent a lot of time on her.

This guy (I'm assuming it's a guy, anyway) is a Reaper Bones Giant Weasel from Bones 5. He is not a complicated paint job but complicated is not a requirement! He's a series of washes and drybrushing and then some picking out of details. In my research, I learned that a) weasels have really beady black eyes which I have faithfully reproduced here, and b) weasels are freakin' adorable. Seriously. Do an image search. 

2022 finished mini counter: 6/100

2022 Crafting challenge

It's weird to think that I've been doing this for three years. So much so that I can barely imagine not doing it again this year. Tho, after so many giant batches, I can see it from here. For the last two years I've pushed volume in building, painting, writing, etc. so this year I'd like to slow down and focus more on quality. Unlike the previous challenges, I'm lifting the "must be done" qualifier since I expect that some of these efforts to be time intensive and to span multiple weeks. In particular, I have at least one gargantuan project with a strict deadline that I'd really like to finish.

Valid things:

• A WIP representing not less than two hours of effort. That fits in a typical evening so no excuses. 
• NaNoWriMo, SHIPtember, high quality paint jobs are good candidates
• Note: two hour requirement is waived for finished pieces
• Gaming terrain, prop, scatter (etc.)
• One or more painted minis
• An illustration or sketch in digital or traditional media which I still don't do nearly enough of
• An article or other piece of writing of, I dunno, 1000 words or more
• A Lego build
• A video
• A tool for hobbying or something
• Other?  Much of what I do defies easy categorization

Goals:

• One Hundred painted miniatures of at least tabletop quality
• Ten high quality pieces preferably featuring OSL, NMM, or both
• Two busts or larger figs
• One complex structure, preferably a building

The last two years have been dominated by COVID-19 and I've had a lot more time to devote to these efforts. I have to think that this won't continue long into 2022 but I thought that last year, too. Check back in 364 days to see how I did!

2021 in Review

ThisLast year didn't go the way that I might have planned which is becoming a trend, it seems. I didn't expect to be working from home for another year among other things, and certainly didn't expect to paint quite so many minis. I still don't miss my terrible commute and am not looking forward to going back to the office. Anyway.

Gaming

Not much going on in video gaming this year though I have run two simultaneous RPGs for most of the year. Most of my campaigns of late have been going at around the 9-10 month range which is still a good long time so probably another two will end nextthis year. I've been revamping my sci-fi game so maybe we'll get back to that sometime soon. Also in RPGs, my in-person game has been fully painted for the first time and I totally see why people insist on playing fully painted now.

Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries ***** (2019)

I've saidtyped at least a few times here that Battletech is one of the few things that I have nostalgia for. Now that I'm thinking about it, a strange number of the things I have nostalgia for came from FASA who were big in the 90s. That probably isn't a coincidence. Anyway, I've played many of these over the years and this installment does not disappoint. For all the hours I put into it, ~120 hours sez Steam, blowing up mechs and walking through buildings never got old. I've now played through various campaigns most of three times and still fire it up occasionally whenever I need stompy mech on mech action. Will we see painted Battletech minis in 2022? Watch and see.

Dwarf Fortress ***** (2006)

I playrun Dwarf Fortress every few years to see what's changed and I'm pretty sure I've talked about that here before. I still hesitate to call it a game but it's still endlessly amusing and at the end of thislast year, I fired it up again to see what's changed. Answer: not as much as I'd expected but that didn't make it any less enjoyable. Probably I'll keep up this tradition as long as I'm able and if I haven't said this before: there are things that happen in Dwarf Fortress that will never be done in any other game.

Gardening

I'm bad about picking up new hobbies on a semi-regular basis. This year I picked up gardening for reasons I still don't entirely understand. It's been hard but interesting and sadly I didn't think to take any pictures. I learned two very important things: 1) dirt is expensive, 2) you don't have to plant every tomato seed in the pouch. I had more than 30 tomato plants many of which ended up at around 12 feet. I gave a pile of them away and the heat killed more than a few of them and I still had more than 30 plants. When they were in full swing I was easily getting two bowls of cherry tomatoes every day. I love tomatoes probably more than the next person, but that's a lot even for me. Luckily, nextthis year I'll be prepared with more varied recipes and possibly other growable incredients.

Painting

This year I broke another major milestone. I painted more than 370 figs which means on average I completed more than one per day. They certainly weren't all winners but either way that's a pretty serious accomplishment, especially since I don't play army games. I'm pretty sure this is a top N% kind of accomplishment, especially for a non-pro and non-commission painter, but don't really have a feel for what's normal in this space.

Pretty sure I noted it somewhere in one of those batches' writeups but I do find utility in doing them even if I might not particularly enjoy them. Previously I got pretty significant speed gains. This time around I'm only seeing minor speed gains, possibly because I've already exhausted the easy stuff, but I am seeing quality gains. I didn't snap pictures, but the Frostgrave Soldiers in week 51 are a significant upgrade from the first ten when you sit them side by side. That's a delta of, I dunno, 800 or so figs in about three years.

I'm also seeing a pretty significant increase in quality over the year. I've suspected this having completed so many figures, but it's pretty clear when you line them up. I've regarded Kyeh (the mage gal throwing the wave) as one of my top pieces but in the high quality lineup, she's clearly lackluster. Similarly, while I still think the chaos toad holding a fireball is good, it is nowhere near the two Artisan Guild prints in the front row with him. In both cases there are hundreds of figs between the two points with all the learnings that come with them.

The second milestone is perhaps less significant but not the less in stature. In the waning days in 2021, I finished a pot of miniature paint. I didn't think to take a picture of it so you'll just have to take my word for it, but it was one of my vintage pots of Reaper paints, Linen. I've used this color to do a lot of highlighting and a lot of drybrushing. In fact, the majority of the drybrushing I've done across a large swath of my painted figs was done with this pot so it's not all that surprising that it was the first to go. And, yes, I harvested the metal skull agitator.

Fin

So that was 2021 in a nutshell. I'd say on the whole it was better than 2020 but that's not a particularly high bar to clear, now is it? Will 2022 be better still? Gosh, I hope so. Let's find out!