A thing a week 2023, week 15

This week we have tiles...lots of tiles (not all shown). These are from Dungeons and Lasers kickstarters one and two from Archon Studio. I've been prepping and not painting stuff from these kickstarters for months now though the props are very well represented. I also have lots of tiles that I've built over the years so the main motivation was less to use them on the tabletop and more to reclaim shelf space in my studio. 

These are not particularly well painted. Rather than priming with the airbrush as normal, I used a 1" craft brush and was very sloppy with it. That has resulted in some bubbles in the recesses which I do not like but didn't take any corrective measures around. After that I did a very rough basecoat with the airbrush which took a really long time because there are dozens of these things. After that I picked out some details like grates, the light Celtic knotwork and red star and then the magic started.

Every time I use oil washes I'm amazed at how good the results are. These posed a different challenge since a) they're flat, and b) they're large. I let the wash sit for a day so it'd cure enough that it wouldn't pull out of the deep recesses. I re-used some paper towel that was last seen wrapping Lego builds and burned through a lot more of my thinner than I would have liked but overall the entire process wasn't too difficult. 

No minis this week, maybe next week, so no updated counter.

Kitty-a-thon 2023, week 5 (2023 week 14)

This week we wrap up this theme with a high quality sculpt and paint.

This is a Lion Man from Reaper and he's both big and metal. This fig was PC and part of a campaign run before the current cycle in the heady days of 2019. Prep began as normal though notably he had some really lousy mold lines and I proceeded to start painting with the airbrush. Knowing that the previous leonins had paint jobs that didn't go low enough or high enough, I put extra super special effort into shadowing and highlighting and I think it shows. I didn't quite get to 1 (the lowest shadows) and not enough of 5 (the highest highlights) but I think I got the important parts of the shading on his physique. His mane and other darker fur were mostly done with contrast paints and the metallics were played by Vallejo Metal Color as per usual.

I spent a lot of effort on this fig, particularly on the details and he was done over about a week in something like a dozen hours. I will almost certainly buy and re-paint this fig but this guy is done and will count as my fifth high quality work this year.

2023 finished mini counter: 87/104, 5/10 high quality

Kitty-a-thon 2023, week 4 (2023 week 13)

Kitty-a-thon 2023 continues with three lovelies and one big bruiser. 

The gal on the left is Cursed Sands Lionness from Titan Forge. I've bemoaned the paucity of lion figures in the past and female leonin figures are even more rare for reasons I cannot fathom. This sculpt has some not fun negative space and I wrestled a lot with my color choices. I don't think her linen-colored details sell particularly well and the yellow trim on it really doesn't sell. Dark lining might have saved that choice but nearing the end of this theme I was seriously running out of steam. Astute viewers will also note the pock mark on her hood because I haven't used my printer correctly, maybe ever. I expect to print this gal again at some point and push more than the three-ish hours I spent on her.

Next up we have Cheetah Girl from Reaper and she's a metal fig. This sculpt did a lot of the work and while I didn't have to pick out the stripes in different colors, I figured that I should. The color scheme sells a little better here though the highlights on the red didn't photograph well. Her spots and markings on her face freehand weren't hard but the spots are probably too regular. Either way, I'm counting her as a high quality figure that I spent somewhere like six hours on. I'm happy with the result and expect to buy and re-paint this figure again. 

On the left we have Hu-Ren from Wrath of Kings, a game that I notably don't play. We saw his box-mate Za'ken way back in Week 3 of this year. I had hoped to use him as an NPC in the predecessor of my current Saturday game but never got him fully painted. In fact, I started painting, stopped, re-prepped, and re-started painting twice before carrying him over the finish line with this theme. His sculpt also has some really lousy negative space and the seam where his head fits is really, really serious and I did not do a good job filling it. Looking at the shots here, probably I should have colored his armor at least slightly differently; it's pretty samey even if it sells better up close. The shading on his fur, on the other hand, I think worked well. Sadly, I have to conclude that the base is the best part of the paint job.

Last up is Rashakin Headhunter - Modular F from Artisan Guild and I super love this fig. Like Cheetah Girl, the sculpt did most of the work and the bulk of the lift was done with the airbrush and washes.That didn't stop me from spending hours on her fur not including the freehand stripes. I especially like that her face is so expressive and I spent extra time there, too. I figured that the teal details would be fine over the orange pop-color of her fur but looking at the finished pics they're a little detracting. Overall if I'd spent a little more effort on the details, particularly her clothes, I might have counted her as a high quality fig. Probably we should expect to see her re-printed and re-painted at a later date.

2023 finished mini counter: 86/104, 4/10 high quality

Kitty-a-thon 2023, week 3 (2023 week 12)

For week three of Kitty-a-thon 2023 we have a hodgepodge of leonins that have needed paint for a while. It's surprisingly hard to find leonin figures because they're not super common in games but they're common people in my fantasy games. That poses some fun logistical issues.

From left to right we have Reaper Bones Avatar of Courage, Kyros, Lionman Warpriest from Comet Lord Miniatures, Leonin Ranger from Galaad, and Leonidal from Printed Obsession. They weren't as much a batch paint as pervious since they only really share their skinfurtones. 

The Avatar of Courage is painted as a Zulu warrior which matches his attire. I was pretty sure that getup was from history so I did some searches and figured it out. He's got some gaps in his arms which came separate and because I'm lazy I didn't paint in subassemblies. I wanted to do more with his muscles but honestly, I wasn't feeling it and was done in a couple hours. The lows need to be lower and the highs aren't high enough. I've got another which I expect to do a better job with.

Kyros is like a lot of 3d sculpts: very cool in preview but very hard to paint. He's got a mess of negative space and because he's resin, he's kind of brittle. I didn't do enough work pulling supports off and he's got the scars to prove it. Ultimately I think it's an OK result for the three-ish hours I spent. 

The Leonin Ranger is a pretty good sculpt (Galaad does good work) and my printer really didn't do a good job. Like I said, it's kind of broken. The pose is doing most of the work on this fig. Unlike a lot of sculpts, he doesn't have a surfeit of details. He's painted simply but because he isn't extra complex, every piece is a little bit better than otherwise in the two-ish hours I spent. I'll almost certainly print and paint this figure again somewhere in the unforseeable future.

The Leonidal is the problem child of this group. He's got a stupid number of details. He's got a huge amount of negative space. He's got a bunch of soft details that are hard to distinguish on his armor. He didn't print correctly. As such I didn't spend as much time on him though more than the others over time. I repainted his cloak probably four times and didn't even end up in a good place. I probably spent four or five hours on him all told and the best I can say is that he's painted.

2023 finished mini counter: 82/104

Kitty-a-thon 2023, week 2 (2023 week 11)

Kitty-a-thon continues with these six lovely kitty people. These are 3d prints from Velrock and more specifically the Leonin Tribe. If you follow that link you'll see that there are 18 different figs in there but that I have only six. Well. My 3d printer is ever so slightly broken. And by "ever so slightly" I really mean "my failure rate is awfully high." These are the ones that I thought were still salvageable but most of them have some kind of printing defects. I don't think this is due to the provided supports which looked perfectly reasonable to me. 

I speed painted these all in the same color scheme and all at once. They spanned maybe five hours total and I didn't do enough work on anything to be super stoked about them. While I like the sculpts in general, they were really inconvenient to paint due to a bunch of weird negative spaces on them. Things always look good in preview but it's hard to tell that kind of stuff until you're turning the fig around on a painting stick and asking "how the crap am I going to get paint in there?" While I like the color scheme (the jade paints in particular) 

I'm not certain that the Plasma Fluid over the metallics are working for me which sucks because I really like that paint. I did less on the gals than the dudes and I think they're better for it. Some day I'll figure out how to use that stuff effectively. I also think that these were not well served by being a batch paint since I left out a lot of details like their saber teeth and details on their bejangles and whatnot. Overall they were done in around ten hours and I'm not unhappy with them.

2023 finished mini counter: 78/104

Kitty-a-thon 2023, week 1 (2023 week 10)

This week we're starting our first theme of the year, the infamous Kitty-a-thon, which is a lot better than the normal "working through the prepped stuff on my desk." This week also continues the non-theme of working through my vintage backlog. 

These are 02-130 Dae-Shiru Commanders and 02-132 Dae-Shiru Regulars from Ral Partha and are among the first figures I ever bought, somewhere back in the heady days of the early 90s. These are OK sculpts and questionable molds as is common in figs from that era and I didn't take super good care of them over the last three decades. I don't recall ever using them in play and while I could contrive a reason to have them exist in my games I don't have any particular need to do such a thing. I bought them because they're cool and now they're painted. Early 90s me would be impressed.

For those who don't spend a lot of time with metal minis: the primer you use makes a big difference. Normally I use Badger Stynylrez which works great for all kinds of figures (it's even in the name) but not metal. Vallejo Surface Primer works on just about anything I'd use in the hobby. Stynylrez is inexpensive, has good leveling properties, and is paintable in about 15 minutes so far as I can tell. VSP requires about a day of curing time before painting. Also you might notice that I didn't add all the bejangles and other bits. That'd be because a) I didn't now how to assemble them (I don't still have the instructions and found them online too late) b) a lot of it is really fiddly with heavy metal bits, and c) I've just plain lost some of the bits.

Ultimately, I think this is an OK representation of them. Nothing spectacular here, just regular paint jobs partially done with the airbrush with some fancy detail work. I didn't have to call out the stitching on their armor and didn't do an especially good job on it anyway, but I did. These five were done somewhere in the 12-15 hour range for the batch and it's good to have them painted after all these years.

2023 finished mini counter: 72/104

A thing a week 2023, week 9

This week we continue our pseudo-theme looking through the remaining unpainted figures in my vintage collection.

These are Maria Mercurial and Kyle Morgan from Shadowrun and also by Ral Partha. Shadowrun is a game I have a lot of nostalgia for even though I've only actually played it a handful of times. These are fantastic sculpts and are on opposite ends of the complexity spectrum. Because most of both of these figs was done with contrast paints and because Maria is far less complex, she got a bunch of extra time which I think shows. Kyle's sculpt has a mess of detail in a very Daniel Craig-like way. About the only thing I don't like is their sculpted eyes but I can look past that (pun intended). Ultimately these figs can hold a higher quality paint job and I might repaint them at a much later date. Harder with vintage figs than 3d prints but I'm not above painting right over the existing paint job. Either way I think they look good and I'm happy with the four-ish hour investment in them.

Last up we have Laian and Tammis from Mekton, an ancient game that I actually played a long time ago. These are at best OK sculpts and the cleanup was really bad. You can kind of see how off the mold was on Laian's helmet. For this paint job I wanted two things: sculpt some with paint to make the most of out of these sculpts, and to experiment with teal and orange as a color scheme; a new one for me. Laian has pink hair and pink tights since I mostly paint fantasy figs and don't get to paint that kind of thing often. The former kind of sells, the second not so much. Overall they were done in around five hours and much like their sculpts, I think they're OK.

2023 finished mini counter: 67/100

A thing a week 2023, week 8

Continuing my trip through the remainder of my vintage collection, we start with Ral Partha 11-103 Demihuman Vampires. I bought these sometime in the aughts because at that point I had very limited non-human figures and I didn't look close enough to see that their fangs are indeed, very prominent. I  speed painted them in the same color scheme and in retrospect I should have painted the Elf's cloak red to match the others but I painted him first and really wasn't thinking. The Kender's getup doesn't really work for me but then again, Kender don't really work for me either. These aren't good paint jobs but they're done and that counts for something. 

Next up we have vintage RAFM Manipulators. These are good sculpts let down by bad molds and a questionable paint job. They're supposed to be vampires which I guess works but I think they look more like lawyers or politicians which I guess are not mutually exclusive. I had intended to paint hosiery on the gal but got lazy and didn't do any of that and ended up painting both their suits in the same color scheme for, I dunno, consistency or something. I did not realize they were quite so shiny before looking at these pictures. All things considered, I think they turned out well given the maybe four hours combined they took. 

2023 finished mini counter 61/104

A thing a week 2023, week 7

This week we dip way back into my vintage collection. These are Lawnmower Man figures from Leading Edge Games, specifically sets #44104 Character Pack and #44103 Friends Pack and I don't have proper references for them, sadly. These are early Bob Ridolfi figures and if I'm honest, while the sculpts are only OK, the molds are pretty awful and I spent not nearly enough time cleaning them up. These were a speed paint as I don't super expect any of these to get particularly much screen time. Done over a few days mostly with contrast paints they maybe took six hours all told for the eight of them. No awards are given for this effort but they're the best color: painted.

2023 finished mini counter: 56/104

A thing a week 2023, week 6

Last week I mentioned that I was practicing my magma effects so this week we're continuing that thought. These are troglodytes from Blacklist Fantasy Series 1 but since I don't need any more trogs and I do need more magma beasts...well, it's an obvious solution. I thought these guys would hold this paint job better than they actually do and I expected to do a bunch of the work as drybrush which I did but ultimately I don't think they sell super well. The darks aren't dark enough and many of them are missing the orange tones which looks wrong. That said, I am too lazy to repaint them so they're fine. Also, note that their bases are color-coded so we can tell them apart at the table and that the shooting is just as bad as ever. 

2023 finished mini counter: 48/104

A thing a week 2023, week 5

This week we have similarly medium drama, low effort paint jobs but with slightly more effort. These first three are (hopefully obviously) air, water, and fire elementals. They're cast in fairly rigid translucent plastic which I did almost no work on. The paint is mostly washes and drybrushing and being unhappy about all of the mold lines that I missed. Not much to see here, really. 

Painted at a different time is the magma elemental from the same line. Technically he's supposed to be an earth elemental to go with the others above but I thought he'd look better as a magma elemental and I wanted the practice. This looked a lot like skipping the zenithal, painting the lower recesses yellow then going orange->super dark red->black in increasingly thin drybrush layers until I got something close to what I wanted. After that I glazed with various late colors until I arrived here. In retrospect, I probably should have airbrushed in yellow to save a step and then done more with a better drybrush. I think it sells, at least slightly, so that works. 

2023 finished mini counter: 43/104

A thing a week 2023, week 4

This week we have what might be considered a filler. Nay, I say, these are still figures, they still needed paint, and I still painted them. It's not about the effort as much as being to tally things to the done column. 

Blacklist Fantasy Series 1 has been plagued with issues for a while now and I don't particularly want to think about it anymore so suffice to say, I've received my pledge (finally) and am starting to paint these figs. These are medium drama, low effort paint jobs and basically how I handle transparent figures where I want to utilize that transparency. 

First up we have mist snakes and oozes and they're individual sides of the equation. The snakes are just drybrushed and the oozes are just washed. The blue spirits and banshees are both and this time around I did them in reverse order first drybrushing then washing. Previously I've done these in the reverse order and given these results, I should go back to doing them that way.

2023 finished mini counter: 39/104

A thing a week 2023, week 3

This week we have "stuff sitting on my painting table" in preparation for a bunch of other work. 

First up we have Stranger from Titan Forge. It's a simple figure which I like and the sculpt conveys an air of old school mystery. I'd intended to paint him mostly with the airbrush and did put some blue on his cloak along those lines but only succeeded in making a mess. The blue on his cloak is thus very patchy and somewhat shiny due to multiple coats of an indigo ink and sketchy coats of anti-shine. And for reasons I don't fully understand, the prime was really thick and obscured some of the details. All told, he's done in a couple hours but I think the fig will support a much better paint job than I'm showing here. 

This is Adowyn Iconic Hunter from Reaper Bones who came in my Bones 4 order what seems like forever ago. She's sat partially painted on my table for a couple years now. The molding on her face is really soft and as a result I had to work extra hard to get a decent face on her. Other details were pretty hard to pick out, too, and I kind of wanted to be lore adjacent for this paint job. I got the last part but truth be told this was a fairly torturous piece of work. I don't like overly-detailed figs and she's got a lot of details. I also wouldn't hazard a guess as to how long it took since it spanned so much calendar time. Probably 6ish hours over those couple years. Also, I'm glad she's (finally) painted.

This a 3d print of a great sculpt from one of my favorite sculptors: Half-Orc Wizard from Vae Victis. This is not a good paint job. His skin tones are flat and I didn't do enough to light his volumes well. And if you're asking "did I put words in his book", the answer is no. I do like this color scheme, though, and as mentioned earlier, I really like this sculpt so probably he's getting printed/painted again at some point in the future. He's done in maybe three hours all told.

Next up we have Aileen, Celtic Wizard from Twin Goddess. There's lots to like about this sculpt like her expressive face and fun pose. There's also a lot to not like such as the very small connection point between her wrist which broke off way too often and the negative spaces on her shoulder and back. I also made a mess when de-supporting the print so she's got a bunch of scars a couple of which are tragically on her face. I love the hair, though, and being Celtic, I naturally had to make her a ginger. Because she's not a super complex sculpt I spent a lot of time on her face and hair which I think paid off. She, too may be printed again sometime in the unforsee-able future. 

This is Shael Han Za'ken from Wrath of Kings bereft of his kitty partner who will show up some day. His getup is pretty fancy, maybe too fancy, and he had awful mold lines and a really bad mold of his face. I did what I could with those and more or less speed painted him in a few hours. I started to like the sculpt more when I was done so it's probably good that I have a second waiting in my pile of potential. 

Last up we have a Tabaxi Assassin from Printed Obsession. If it's not already obvious, I have a weakness for kitty girls and I super duper love this fig's dynamism. The plethora of super tiny details, negative space, and bajillion straps on the other hand, I'm less fond of. As an early print before I'd cranked up the res some, she's got some pretty bad visible layers over a lot of very fine details so overall I wasn't super happy. And yes, I did intentionally not paint her buckles in metallics. You don't want metal glinting over light sources as an assassin, do you? She's been on my painting table for quite a while and even though there's a lot of room for improvement, it'll have to wait till next print. 

2023 finished mini counter: 19/104

A thing a week 2023, week 2

This week we have a continuation of the lizardpeople theme, this time sculpts from One Page Rules. These are particularly Saurian Warriors, Saurian Gecko Priest and Saurian Veteran. There's good and bad with these figs. They're awfully busy which fits the aesthetic I guess, and they're modular but in a mess of pieces. My printer struggled to not deform them as they printed which left some seriously awful gaps that I didn't handle super well. If I print these again in the future I'll spend more time filling gaps and whatnot. 

They were mostly painted with the airbrush but I didn't quite get to where I wanted to go. I intended to do a color shift from magenta to scarlet but the various washes and drybrushes I did obscured all of that. My takeaways here is "less is more" and "use fewer washes" both of which I kind of already knew. I also had aspirations to shade their metallics more but I clearly did almost none of that as per usual. Ultimately I think they're striking and to the casual observer they're fine (I checked). They were done in around ten hours for the seven of them which is pretty quick all things considered.

In addition to being out of focus (as per usual) these shots don't really capture the good stuff and make them look awfully flat. In person they're a lot less so and the "rock" bases in particular look much nicer. In retrospect looking at these shots, I really should have done more with their metallics like I wanted to. Next time, maybe. 

2023 finished mini counter: 13/104

A thing a week 2023, week 1

This year starts on a Sunday so you get three posts in one day. It also means that I've had to double-time it to get something not embarrassing in the front row of this year's wrap up post. The good news is that because it's the holidays I've had more than the usual amount of time to work on stuff.

First up we have a 3d print of Kitsune Ranger from Galaad. He's notably painted like an Australian Shepherd since he's a replacement player character for my in-person game. I have a couple gripes with what is otherwise a pretty good sculpt. The bracers' and anklets' negative space is IMO a little too pronounced which made them hard to paint. I also don't super like fur tufts like he's got since it makes picking out the larger volumes harder. All that said, he was a fun paint and despite the fact that the sculpt did most of the work, I'm calling him the first of the year's high quality jobs.

Next up we have a pair of nice figs, namely City Guard Elite Captain from Crippled God Foundry that I printed very badly. I like that this sculpt a) has a nice open pose, b) has reasonable armor, and c) has an expressive face. The last of those is why I painted these at all which I might not have otherwise. They're small, I think 28mm though I haven't measured, which made their eyes especially painful, but hey, that's good practice (always paint eyes). Someday I'll figure out how to work my printer to have fewer of these kinds of print failures. At that point I may revisit this sculpt.

This gal is Curiphaias Dragonborn Sorcerer from the D&D is a Woman campaign and sadly I can't provide a direct link. She's also really small, probably the same 28mm and came supported not terribly well so this print has more weird scarring and missed connection points than normal. She was a reasonable paint without too terribly many tiny details and completed in around three hours with the airbrush doing the bulk of the scaletone work. I'm happy with this rendition but not satisfied. Possibly she'll show up again sometime in the future.

This is Dragonguard Lady E from Artisan Guild and I super like this sculpt. Like Curiphaias, the bulk of the scalework was done with the airbrush though looking at the final shots here, I really should have done the metallics instead. I had some very lofty aspirations to do a bunch of shading on her armor that I clearly didn't do and I completely sidestepped any OSL for this round despite her obviously flaming sword. Even with the airbrush work, she represents something like six hours of effort done in about a day with a lot of attention to detail so I'm comfortable counting her as high quality #2 for the year despite the fact that the sculpt did most of the work. As a modular figure, you can expect future prints with said missing OSL sometime in the future.

What would be better than one flaming sword? How about two! Rounding out this group is, you guessed it, Dragonguard Lady F from Artisans Guild and no, she didn't actually come with two flaming swords. Astute viewers will note that the flames are going in different directions because through the magic of digital printing, I mirrored the right hand flaming sword so she could be extra rad. Or hype. Whatever the kids are saying these days. Clearly I also omitted any real OSL but I did work extra hard on her orangy cloak thingy. I really like this color scheme and I think we'll see a lot more of the blues and oranges this year since apparently last year was greens and purples. She'll count as high quality #3 done in about the same six hours as Lady E. 

2023 finished mini counter: 6/104, 3/10 high quality

2023 crafting challenge

This is now the fourth year I've done this kind of challenge. I don't know what that means but I'm cranking through crafting projects faster than I would have ever thought possible. Like last year I'd like to do more high quality work but probably that won't stop my penchant for batch paints. Also like last year, "must be done" qualifier is waived for any effort requiring >20 hours or so. 

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 so
• A Lego build
• A video
• A tool for hobbying or something
• Other?  Much of what I do defies easy categorization

Goals:

• One Hundred Four painted miniatures of at least tabletop quality (that's 2 per week)
• Ten high quality pieces involving at least one of OSL, NMM, or unusual attention to detail
• Two busts or larger figs
• One complex structure or other construction

2022 in Review

After a markedly lousy start, this decade is finally starting to look up! 2022 was still full of its own challenges, personal and otherwise, but it's easy to be optimistic given where we've been recently. What will 2023 entail? Dunno but I'm ready to find out!

Gaming

I didn't do a ton of video gaming most of the year until Dwarf Fortress released on Steam, though Super Auto Pets gets special mention even if I didn't spend a lot of time with it. I have mixed feelings about the Steam version of DF. On the one hand, some things are markedly improved for using the mouse and Toady has fixed a handful of really tedious and weird interfaces. On the other hand, the new mouse interface is just as obtuse and clunky as the old keyboard one and he moved around a bunch of the hotkeys without replacing some of them. Result? I spent way too long trying to figure out how to dig stairs down and to make track stops work...and make farm plots...and make beds. Also ran: losing the ability to queue things through hotkeys and having to use the mouse. Bad. Eventually the mod makers will catch up and I can go back to being able to, I dunno, do things effectively in a game I've spent untold hundreds of hours with already.

This year I finished two full-length RPG campaigns and ran a very amusing 3-shot sci-fi miniseries. For those of you who follow my escapades on facebook, I mention it pretty often: it's a gift to finish any campaign but in the last six-ish years I've had the luxury of finishing seven full length runs and two mini-series with two in progress right now. That's already got to be in the tiniest minority of all GMs. Better yet? We have cross-referenced jokes, cameos, and, er, references, even across genres. I don't ever recall hearing anyone ever doing that and certainly not regularly.

Gardening

My gardening efforts didn't go spectacularly this year. I transplanted tomatoes and peppers out too early this year and most of them died to a late cold spell. The late start and other weird weather kept yields fairly low. I had such grand plans for all the tomatoes I didn't get. Possibly this had something to do with soil quality, too, but I did amend heavily with compost this spring. I'll probably do more amending thisnext year so hopefully that'll help resolve. 

Painting

In addition to blowing past my painting goals for a third year in a row, I hit a the four digit mark of lifetime painted figs--a pretty cool milestone. Next thousand will be a few years out still. I also finished painting every figure I bought in 2016. I have my records in major groups either by year or by major kickstarter and a couple other random things like 3d prints. Couldn't tell you what the next group I might complete but for a few of those years I probably over-bought. I also completed 260 figs which is five per week--a far cry from the 380 or so I did in 2021 but IMO it's still pretty good. Note: there are a few missing from this shot (I gave them away at the end of campaigns) and the rows at the end are slightly out of order. I didn't think you'd mind.

I also put a lot of effort into raising the quality bar thislast year. While I don't think that the upper end of my range has moved much since 2021, I do think the average has moved quite a lot. NextThis year I want to do a bunch of side-by-sides of much older high quality paint jobs and really crank it up. I'm helped by the fact that I already have multiples or can print multiples of many of my favorites.

Fin

Ending these posts is always weird since it's recapping a year's worth of stuff. So I guess I'll saytype that I have high hopes for 2023 and I guess we'll just have to see how it all works out. 

2022 Crafting challenge wrap-up

It wouldn't be the end of the year without a crafting challenge wrap-up. As usual, the 100 fig mark was reached early in the year though the rest of the hits took longer to arrive. No 365 mark was in the cards but I did hit the magical 260 figure which is 5 figs per week. 

Week 1: Ral Partha Rangers with Longsword and Bow, Reaper Bar Maid, Angry Woman, Milk Maid, and Giant Weasel

Week 2: Artisan Guild Aline the Bold 3d print (high quality #1)

Week 3: Galaad Fisher Girl 02 3d prints (high quality #2)

Week 4: 3x Wrath of Ashardalon board game Cave Bears

Week 5: 6x Bones 5 spear kobolds

Week 6: 6x Bones 5 ranged kobolds

Week 7: 6x Bones 5 axe kobolds

Week 8: 6x Bones 5 shield kobolds

Week 9: Bones 5 Sir Rictus the Undying, 4x Barrow Rats, Reaper Bones Danar, Human Assassin, 2x Aechelon by The Dragon Trapper's Lodge

Week 10: 6x Bones 5 goblins

Week 11: 2x Bones 5 goblin woofwolf riders

Week 12: Reaper Bones Barden Dwarf Cleric, 2x 3d printed dwarf clerics, Reaper Broderick, Human Cleric, 3d printed Battlemage by Galaad (high quality #3)

Week 13: Reaper Aislinn Shadow Tracker (high quality #4)

Week 14: 3x Bones 5 treants, suit of armor, stone golem, stained glass golem

Week 15: Reaper Bones Chimera, 3x assorted dragon hatchlings

Week 16: Bones 5 Female Nagendra Warrior, Reaper Bones Wererat Berserker, Reaper Anubis Guard, 2x Drow Paladin 3d prints by Velrock

Week 17: Vae Victis Tabaxi Bandit 3d print, Reaper Bones Seelah, Iconic Paladin, Rathan Kranzhel, Bones 4 Elf Ranger Duelist Aletheia

Week 18: Asnofre Playset

Week 19: 3x Dark Mantle Assassin 3d prints by Crippled God Foundry

Week 20: 2x Tabaxi Dancer prints from Vae Victis (high quality #5, #6)

Week 21: 3x Cat Rogue 3d prints, Skivvara from Twin Goddess, 2x Cat Captains from Vae Victis, Avatar of Sekhmet from Reaper (high quality #7)

Week 22: 7x Viking Hirdmen

Week 23: 7x Viking Hirdmen

Week 24: 6x Viking Hirdmen

Week 25: 7x Viking Hirdmen

Week 26: 7x Viking Hirdmen

Week 27: 8x Viking Huscarls

Week 28: 4x Viking Hearthguards

Week 29: Warlord Saxon Leaders, Saxon Earls, 

Week 30: 7x Frostgrave Barbarians (high quality #8)

Week 31: 7x Frostgrave Barbarians (high quality #9)

Week 32: 6x Frostgrave Barbarians (high quality #10)

Week 33: Four Years of Painting article

Week 34: Dauntless deck plan

Week 35: Dauntless hero liftship prop

Week 36: Artisan Guild Goldmaw Lizard E, Dark Sword Otter Knight, Reaper Baily Silverbell, Tiger Skull RPG Hunter Oathenshard, Reaper Anval Thricedamned

Week 37: SHIP WIP

Week 38: SHIP WIP

Week 39: SHIP WIP

Week 40: HMS Dauntless

Week 41: 2x Bones 4 Dire Boars, vintage Grenadier Wereape and Wereboar, Bones 4 Bed Mockingbeast, Chainmail Starter Set Hyena, Nolzur's Bulette

Week 42: Reaper Nova Corp Riflemen and Soldiers

Week 43: Reaper Pulp Era Pilot and Sascha Dubois, Strahva, Lecter Hernandez, Jenny Silverleg, and Bonnie Gun from Titan Forge

Week 44: 6x Titan City Citizens "the gals"

Week 45: 6x Titan City Citizens "the dudes"

Week 46: Reaper Bones Bonnie, Titan Forge Ryan Ford, Tex, Dungeons & Lasers sci-fi props

Week 47: Titan Forge Jake Rockatacky, Camille Lipson, Anna Jones, July J, Jane Ferro

Week 48: Ghar Bomber, Ghar Assault, 2x 0-hr starships, Grenadier Street Gang Car and Corporate Sports Car

Week 49: Dungeons and Lasers misc props, 2x 3d printed aurumvorax, Reaper Bones Burrowing Horror, Reaper Bones Cretus, Minotaur

Week 50: Rage Drake from Wrath of Ashardalon, Reaper Bones Dragon Tortoise, Bones 5 Owlbear, 2x Reaper Bones Griffon, 

Week 51: Reaper Bones Kristianna, Cassiata, Hyrekia, Andriessa, Alastriel, Sarah the Seeress, Lysette

Week 52: 5x Bones 5 Hobgoblins, Fighters Guild Dude, RAFM Bard (male), Bril Le Ante, Vae Victis Orc Blacksmith, 10x Skellingtons from Runeforge

A thing a week 2022, week 52

We're going to round out 2022 with a bang and on Christmas Day no less. There's a lot of stuff to go through as we clear out the bow wave I've been pushing since the fall as per usual.

These five dudes are Bones 5 Hobgoblins. They were a speed paint done over a few days from the typical scheme. Prime->Zenithal->basecoats->highlights with the notable inclusion of an oil wash. Every time I use an oil wash I'm surprised at a) how messy they are, and b) how goshdarned good figs look after it. I may do a lot more of these in the not-so-distant future. Ultimately, these guys probably warranted a better paint job than I did since they're such good sculpts. They weighed in at around an hour and change per fig. While I'm not entirely satisfied with them, I'm fairly happy with the result.

I think this is Fighter Guild Male E from Artisan's Guild and found somewhere in this collection. As this guy is mostly armor and because I've wanted to use my airbrush more, he's unsurprisingly mostly airbrushed. The zenithal is basically a metallic and I only vaguely recall not using my favorite Vallejo Metal Colors for what I assume is a good reason. His cloak is a lot less smooth than I'd like but he was completed in around 3 hours over a couple of evenings because I was lazy. This fig will hold a better quality paint job so possibly he'll show up again in the future, possibly with a different weapon.

Next up we have Bril Le Ante, the mounted version. I should have pinned this guy since the Bril part was so freakin' hard to paint as opposed to the horse part. He's a vintage metal fig and the mounted version showed up here way back in week 39 of 2020 which feels like another world. He was also painted over a couple days and for the same reason. There's something distinctly different about vintage hand-sculpted figures, their smaller stature notwithstanding. I like this guy and if I was ever going to repaint a fig, this guy would be high on that list.

These next two are an exercise in persistence. He is RAFM Bard (Male) and she is RAFM Elf Ranger (Female). A couple years ago I spent a big chunk of time identifying what I thought was all of my vintage figures. Having painted these two firmly glued to their bases, I couldn't find any evidence of this and in the initial writing of this post, I decided to take one last look and guessed at the manufacturer. I lucked out and within a couple minutes had the above links. The paint jobs themselves are nothing special. He stuck around on my painting desk for most of the year picking up whatever extra paint I had in the right colors if I finished a thing up early. She was done as a speed paint over a couple days of doing other things. The story is good and the figs are painted.

This is a 3d printed Orc Blacksmith from Vae Victis. It's a mostly good sculpt full of character like a lot of their figs. There are some really annoying negative spaces, though, like between her feet and the stump, and between her left arm and her body. I also wish that some of the details were a little sharper, particularly, the straps and belts, pouches, and other tools. Possible that my printer did a bad there and you can see that the end of her hammer is missing due to a failed support--this printer does that a lot. This was otherwise a fairly enjoyable speed paint in a couple hours. This fig can probably support a better paint job so probably I'll flip her around and do a lefty version sometime in the future.

We end the year with a batch of ten skellingtons from Runeforge Skeletal Army campaign. I am a sucker for a good deal and this campaign was definitely that. I don't use a ton of undead in my campaigns usually but when I do, I need a lot of them and the samples shown in the campaign looked really good. I printed these ten out this summer in an attempt to bring my cost per fig down some (yes, I track this stuff) and they'd been bumping around since then half prepped. Well, this was the week to finish them. They're a speed paint (obviously) to the tune of about six hours for all ten. I started with a fairly run of the mill slap chop like the cool kids are doing these days but hit up additional details and washes and rust and crap after that. For reasons I don't understand every fig from my first bottle of resin is extremely brittle but everything I've printed after that have been much more durable. Overall, they aren't winning any awards but hopefully they'll terrorize my player characters sometime soon.

2022 finished mini counter: 260/100

A thing a week 2022, week 51

This is a special one for reasons that we'll get into at the end. All of these figs are from Reaper Bones and suffer from the typical Reaper Bones issues: soft details, messy mold lines, and bent weapons. These aren't the last of my normal Reaper Bones figs (there are maybe a couple dozen left that are unpainted) but probably I won't be buying more. Note: the Bones 4, 5, 6, Black, and Bones USA lines are all much better with noticeable quality improvements across those lines. 

First up we have Kristianna and Cassiata. Neither of these particular figures are helped by their Bones-ness but I did what I could with the details I could make out. These two are pseudo-speed paints to the tune of about five hours for both and looking at these shots, their metallics really could use more work. I keep using Ghost Tints over Vallejo Metal Colors and I either need to spend more time on doing so or do something else. The candy coats look nice when they're consistent but it's super easy to not let them dry completely and to tear up the previous layer. Mixing isn't anywhere near as saturated when applied and I'm not sure I have the patience to do Golden High Flow mixes with the Metal Colors (mine are unintentionally glossy). They still look good on the table and there might be a future where I get metals or Bones Black versions of these gals to paint at a later date. 

Next up are Hyrekia, Dragonthrall Mage and Andriessa, Female Wizard. Andriessa got a ton of screen time in a previous campaign but I didn't paint her based on the character description. There's some patchiness on her cloak I'm not enamored with though the blending on her dress was adequate. Probably more work was warranted on her hair but that's true on most of my figs. Hyrekia was kind of a mess to paint. The gemstones went OK but her shirt is quite notably just highlights plus the zenithal. I spent a lot of time on Andriessa doing blends that didn't really work out. Overall, they're fine.

These two are Alastriel and Sarah the Seeress. I like both of these two figs, too, and might also buy better molds in better material at a later date. I did quite a lot of sculpting with paint on both figs. Alastriel, for instance, did not come with razor sharp abs but she does look good with them. I put extra work into the hair for both figs rather than the more typical phoning it in I usually do. I'm going to have to get over that at some point, but not today!  Probably Alastriel's...ankle dress...thing...could have been in a better color. Some details on Sarah's robe could have been sharper, too. Lots of time spent blending on both figs to the tune of about eight hours for both. I think I have a dupe of Sarah so probably we'll see her here again sometime in the future.

Last up we have Lysette, Female Elf and I love this fig. The sculpt does a lot of the work and while I like the color scheme I chose, I don't think it super works. The orange of her hair is correct but unbalanced; there needs to be some other kind of orange somewhere in there. The rest of the details could certainly be sharper but I went out of my way to clean a lot of the normal junk up. She looks good at tabletop distance and OK in hand. Overall, I'm happy to count Lysette as a high quality paint job done in around six hours and will almost certainly try to find another in a different material.

And there we are, seven lovelies now painted. I'm pretty happy with these but I'm also happy that these complete the set of figures I bought in 2016. I made two orders that year, one in late May and one in late July to be used in my then-new RPGs. I remember thinking "I'm never going to paint all of those," and in fact, it'd be almost two years until I completed painting any of those, though at the time I'd forgotten all the mechs I painted with enamel last millennium. Turns out, I was wrong! What's the next category to fall? Stay tuned!

2022 finished mini counter: 240/100, 11/10 high quality