Propapalooza, week 4 (2024 week 33)

We continue the theme with "stuff I haven't posted yet from my first photo shoot." Srsly. There are a lot of these and I've had a rough time grouping them.These would be sci-fi kinds of props.

First up we have a Stargate-lookin' kind of portal. It's mainly airbrushed in metallics (zenithal, naturally) with the special effects played by a couple layers of contrast paint over the top. I tried to do some highlights of the swirly effects but it generally looked pretty crappy and I wasn't interested in spending the time to make it not suck. It's all covered with a wash of thinned down Badger Engine Discharge which I'm trying to use more so I don't have to keep paying the James Workshop (TM) tax on Nuln Oil. 

These two Christmas-y dudes I interpreted as holograms of some sort. Rather than do The Force-ghost-y thing, I gave them the Wildstar Caretaker treatment. I did a very heavy white drybrush prior to the coat of contrast paint. I did some minimal picking out of highlights but IMO it didn't work out super well. Probably what I needed was highlight undercoat in white then fluorescent then midtone but I didn't do that. The metallics were washed with the same Engine Discharge wash. They're OK.

 

Next up we have assorted office chairs. For reasons I don't fully understand, they were in like four parts per chair. They look big in these shots, but they really aren't and they like to gather up in weird orientations because of the magnets they're glued to. I did almost nothing beyond drybrushing, basecoating, and washing these which shows. 

These two are (hopefully obviously) piles of eggs. Maybe they're alien eggs. Maybe they're lizard eggs. I dunno, but they're not normal and that's wot's wot. They were deceptively difficult to paint. The green bits got multiple coats of speed paints and highlights and the eggshells got multiple layers of mostly-transparent eggshell paint and highlights. It was super hard to cover errors in the very dark, very saturated green bits on the egg bits. These are the opposite of what I like: low drama, high effort.
 

Last up we have a pair of concrete barriers. As many of these as show up in my games, I was surprised that prior to these I had none. I'm helped by the fact that my Sci-Fi games tend to happen online. I did quite a lot of work weathering and shading these but otherwise they're a wash over a drybrush as one might expect. IMO these look good even though there wasn't a ton of effort put into them. If I had a FDM printer (and I might get one) this is the kind of thing that I'd print a lot more of.

2024 finished mini counter: 200/208

Propapalooza, week 3 (2024 week 32)

We continue with our soon-to-be-long-running theme with a bunch of wooden stuff. I'm having to group these to retain my sanity. Also, because I super failed to set the auto-post on this one, I'm having to post-date this one. 

These are a set of cabinets and chairs. I don't think we see this kind of cabinet super often in the west but I have it on good authority that they're common elsewhere. Across the chairs you can probably tell that I varied the undercoat which was played by two different shades of contrast paints followed by a couple washes and a couple drybrushes and no, I don't remember the particular colors. The only annoying thing about them was gluing them to their tiny magnet bases and maybe picking out the metal bits.

Next up we have a couple tables and wide benches both of which might be found in a park or a tavern or anywhere else you might need to find such furniture. They're the same kind of deal with a contrast paint base followed by washes and drybrushings. These are exactly the kind of painting that are great for breaking out a rut: high drama with low effort.

2024 finished mini counter: 189/208

Propapalooza, week 2 (2024 week 31)

This week we continue plumbing the depths of the ever-so-voluminous Dungeons and Lasers kickstarters, at least the first two I backed. I super love the terrain tiles even though I only use the flooring (walls just plain get in folks' way at the table) and the props are super fun. In retrospect I don't think I needed quite so many of them but for right now they're rescuing my finished mini counter so that's a bonus. 

First up we have a pair of mystical portals. They're not that interesting sans the contrast paint coloring and (very) light OSL-like drybrushing over the top.

Next up we have 3x melty statues and 2x really creepy smaller ones. The first melty statue was featured in week 4 of this year though laziness kept me from prepping and painting the rest of them at that same time. The creepy ones are just...creepy...I guess? Not super sure what they're supposed to be beyond that and as a result I struggle to imagine a scenario that would call for them.

Next up we have 3x dragon pillars which also featured in a previous post from way back in week 46 of 2022. The same disclaimer applies. If I'd been more attentive I would have painted the green-y one a different color to better distinguish between it and the turquoise one I've already got. Unlike the previous one, these are just painted in colors rather than any explicit marble patterning.

 

 

These last two are hearths of some sort. I'm going to go with Dwarven given the funky patterns on them. The details aren't all that interesting or well painted but they're at the right scale for my buildings so I got that goin' for me. 

edit> fixed my shoddy math here and until nearly the end of the year (womp womp)

2024 finished mini counter: 179/208

Propapalloza, week 1 (2024 week 30)

This week we start a not-terribly-exiting theme that will likely save my desire for cranking out at least 365 painted figs by the end of the year. I didn't intend to crank through all of my many prop boxes, mostly from Dungeons & Lasers kickstarters over the years but I did. Unfortunately, their accounting isn't worked into my "to do" count but they were part of my Pile of Potential(TM) and they're now mostly painted. Also of note, I'm still mucking with my photography setup so we have dumpy shots of dumpy paint jobs. Enjoy!

These are a chunk of the stone props in the collection. If you've never painted stone-like items, they're pretty easy. As per usual I primed with the airbrush and then did a quick drybrush with golden heavy body titanium white. 

After that they all got a heavy dark wash and another drybrush of a neutral dark grey. I could have stopped there but I didn't. I followed that up with a lighter neutral grey drybrush and a final very light titanium white drybrush.  

The thrones got a (very) brief pop color in case I ever need to tell them apart but otherwise were done more or less the same.

Also of note: I did experiment with one of these varying washes with a coat of Speed Paint 2.0 Gravelord Grey which was way easier to control and way less splotchy. Probably not worth it to do on big terrain pieces, but that's a good thing to know.

From this point until I get 100% caught up with my posts, my mini counter is going to be extra sus but I guarantee it'll all line up in the end.

2024 finished mini counter: 167/208

edit> through the magic of the internet, I've backdated this post because I was dumb and forgot to post it on the correct day.

A brief fantasy interlude (2024 week 29)

My typical workflow generally involves picking up random prepped figs to finish off a blob of paint that I might otherwise waste. That sometimes means that several figs are mostly painted at various times which is an excellent excuse to not do what I should be doing in order to do something potentially more fun. Also true that I often do that on days that I can't or don't want to be painting but really want to get that dopamine hit of marking something as done. We cope with our demons in any way we can, right? 

This gal is Human Fighter from Vae Victis, one of my favorite sculptors and a sculpt I like a lot. I'd intended to do more with her but really didn't. She was printed on my old printer and I found the chunkier layer lines really hard to work with, especially the metallics. She was done in about four hours and don't be surprised to see her again sometime in the unforseeable future.

This is Female Minotaur from Bones 4 plus a weapons rack from Bones 5. I don't particularly like either sculpt with the added downside of probably never getting any screen time as minotaurs aren't part of my fantasy world. As I'm hoping to complete the figs in Bones 4 this year, that meant that she needed painting in the near term. She sat prepped on my painting table for most of the year and I don't think she came out well. The sculpt is pretty soft and I picked a not good color scheme. Ultimately she's painted and that's what counts.

 

 

These are (pretty clearly) not figs, not painted very well, and not particularly good pieces to begin with. If you were thinking "hey, those look like corks glued to bases!" then you'd be 100% correct. I always seem to run out of pillars and can't be bothered to print out or buy more so I made these extra low-rent ones because I have a bag of used corks that seemed like a good purchase at a time. I could have put a bunch of grit around their bases to hide that they aren't glued on straight. I also could have done more to hide that they're cork but I didn't do that either. What I did do is paint all six in about fifteen minutes which means that they're done and ready to get in the way the next time I need pillars on a battle map. Sadly, they're not figs and don't exist in my accounting so they don't move the finished mini counter. 

2024 finished mini counter: 157/208

Sci-fi Showdown, week 4 (2024 week 28)

This may be the last contiguous week of this theme but as I expect to be running a Sci-fi mini-campaign next month, expect there to be a fifth installment somewhere near. I've been working through my backlog of figs printed/prepped over the last N years that have been cluttering up my work area. Like last week, I've also been futzing with my photography setup so expect worse pictures than usual.

First up we have O-REN and Kimiko from Titan Forge. O-REN was printed on my old Mars Pro and Kimiko was printed on my newer Saturn 2 not that it's particularly easy to tell the difference. They're both painted in pseudo-analagous color schemes and both sculpts are great despite their various negative space issues. One clever thing about Kimiko's sculpt is that it's higher detail at face level which  I appreciate intentional or otherwise though it strongly implied that I should pick out the ribbing on her parasol. If that sounds tedious, it's because it was. Probably her hair could have been slightly darker overall. O-REN by contrast has far fewer details and I took the opportunity to do another unnatural hair color. Because I can. I probably could have painted her shirt a different color but clearly I didn't. I like both of these so don't be surprised if they show up again in the future.

These two are International Women's Day Free Figure from Wargames Atlantic, an absolutely free download. I've heard quite a lot about Wargames Atlantic but as I don't play a lot of wargames, I hadn't had any reason to purchase their figs. Browsing their catalog on myminifactory, it looks like they have a bunch of fantasy stuff too so possibly more of their sculpts will show up here in the future. For these, I quite like the sculpts except that their eyes are sooooo tiny. The huge amount of detail picked up speed paints exceptionally though seriously slowed down subsequent highlighting attempts. I mostly kept to edge highlighting.  Unfortunately, I was in a hurry so didn't spend as much time as I could have picking out details. Regardless, I think this is a pretty good result for the couple hours of effort I spent.

Last up we have Jenny Silverleg from Titan Forge and Female Mercenary a free download from Moid. Jenny's been here before, way back in Week 43 of 2022 in a previous Sci-fi Showdown. When I painted the first one, I was in a hurry and noted that the sculpt would hold a higher quality paint job than I'd done. This year I got to prove it! In addition to several hundred figs' experience difference, adding several more hours of effort paid off well and yes I know that her leg is golden and her name is silverleg. The gold fit better with the synthwave color scheme. The female merc didn't get the time that Jenny did and I think it shows. I had a heck of a time getting her glued together, her head in particular which is why her neck looks weird. I like the sculpt well enough but was in a hurry like the Wargames Atlantic gals so kind of phoned it in. Both of these will likely show up here again at a later date.

2024 finished mini counter: 154/208

Sci-fi Showdown, week 3 (2024 week 27)

This week we have some Zentradi from the Robotech RPG Tactics game. I'm also experimenting (slightly) with my lighting setup today so on top of these not being great paint jobs, they're also not well shot.

These first dudes are 2x Regault Battle Pods and one Recon Scout Pod. You might remember the first two from way back in 2019 week 15. When assembling those I lost two of the leg assembly bits that I subsequently found years later when moving my hobby station from downstairs to upstairs. I'd been looking for batches to do this year and found the next four dudes and figured, this would be the right time. The scout pod was assembled, primed, and washed and subsequently kicked around for the intervening five years. Yay. I wanted a grimier, grittier finish on these so they're basically a zenithal + simple base coats followed by an oil wash. They came out a little grimier than I wanted but the heavy wash covers up many sins in the basecoating so I'm going to be OK with that. 

These dudes are Zentradi Artillery Pods and they came in a box of four that I should not have bought. It was the beginning of the pandemic and a bunch of stuff was on sale at Miniature Market and I bought *way* too much as is typical (I'm slightly better about it these days). They sat around until I started looking for not-difficult batches that would help bring my Pile of Potential(TM) at least a little under control. Pretty sure I've typed this elsewhere but these sculpts are good but in *way* too many parts a bunch of which I've lost but don't care enough to replace. I especially dislike that so many of the large artillery bits have such small attachment points. Assembly was pretty tedious and I dread looking back in the main box because I super lover the destroids and expect pain. The whole batch of these was done in like eight hours.

Last up we have a...er...the internet tells me it's a Zentradi Recovery Pod and like the Recond Scout Pod above, it was also assembled and partially prepped in 2019. It's big and it's weird, and I don't really know what to do with it. Since I was already doing Robotech stuff, I figured it was high time to get it done once and for all. It came out a little grittier than I wanted but it's pretty lacking in details so the wash really wasn't ever going to do well on it. I think it's also missing one of its tiny fins on the bottom which is gone forever. Maybe it'll show up on the table at some point but I wouldn't hold my breath.

2024 finished mini counter: 148/208

Sci-fi Showdown, week 2 (2024 week 26)

This week we continue our sci-fi theme as one might expect. 

First up we have The Smuggler from Women & Sci-Fi kickstarter and Bonnie Gun from Cyberforge. Bonnie has been here before way back in week 43 of 2022. I was pretty sure that Bonnie's sculpt could hold a higher quality paint job than my previous attempt and I'm happy to say that I was right. I went with mostly the same color scheme picking out more of the details and doing more work compositionally with the orange pop colors. I also wasn't in a hurry which helps. The Smuggler in contrast, was kind of done in a hurry. This isn't because I was under any particular deadline, but mostly because her details were far too small to pick out effectively so I basically didn't bother. One of the things I like about sci-fi figs, is that they can plausibly have not-normal colored hair but TBH, I don't think the blue works. Ultimately I don't think this is a great paint job but I'm not in a hurry to print another to try again.

Next up we have Suzanne Vega from Cyberforge and TurningGear Scifi fighter from TwinGoddess. Suzanne comes with a little drone copter guy since she's a rigger but I clearly didn't print it. I like this sculpt well enough but really disliked a) how shallow most of the details were making it hard to pick them out, and b) how much negative space there is, her coat in particular. I like how the highlights on her coat and the texture on her jeans turned out. TurningGear was also a fairly difficult paint job but for different reasons. The end of her hair pancaked badly and I was nowhere near careful enough de-supporting her as there are scars all over her back and other places. I think I salvaged it well enough but it was really tedious. The Ghost Tint Plasma Fluid on her armor and sword doesn't really sell. Still working it out.

Last up we have Cuddy Grey from Cyberforge. I liked this sculpt a lot more than I expected and only after I started painting realized that she's a medic. This particular fig was printed last summer and got periodic washes and what not over that time, the most interesting of which was a sepia wash over her duster which left a texture/tone that I really like. Most of her gear is highlighted over a contrast paint basecoat but I picked out a mess of the details. You might also notice the wash and edge highlight on the gun which came out better than expected. Overall, she was a pretty fuss-free paintjob and while I could have done a lot more with the highlights, I'm happy counting her as a high quality work.

2024 finished mini counter: 140/208, 13/12 high quality

Sci-fi Showdown, week 1 (2024 week 25)

 

This week we kick off a new theme which is always fun. I've had a pile of sci-fi characters prepped on my painting table for quite a while and I figured it was time to burn through them as a continuing "I have too many figs on my painting table" effort.

First up we have Liza Thorn from Cyberforge and Pam Pam Flores from Papsikels. Both are 3d prints and printed late last summer. They're both high drama low effort paint jobs which is great. The texturing on both sculpts is excellent which means that the mostly-contrast paint basecoats. Liza's skintones were somewhat hand-mixed. I spent maybe three hours between the two of them which is right about where I want my normal paint jobs to be. Don't be surprised if either or both of these gals show up at some point in the future.

Next up we have Asanis, Mercury Flyer from Reaper and Cree Chief Judah Starwalker from Cyber Forge. I like both of these figs and spent significantly more time on Asanis than on Judah. For Judah I didn't think nearly enough about composition and ended up not really knowing what to do with the pockets and other bits I picked out. I had the nice mahogany on the palette from other work and figured, meh, what the heck? With the black parts of his belt already blocked in and not enough willpower to repaint it, I settled on the same mahogany for his straps. I probably should have done more highlighting but I didn't. Asanis got the blue-gray basecoat several months ago when I had it on my palette leftover from some other work. This happens pretty frequently, especially when I'm wrestling with a fig I'm tired of working on. Not sure if this is good or not.

Last up is an interesting one and not particularly a gaming fig. I've worked with several great folks from Ukraine so I've been following the war more closely than many folks in the US. So when Titan Forge offered this fig and donated proceeds to humanitarian aid, I didn't think twice. This is the Ghost of Kyiv, the mythical ace of the Ukrainian Air Force. This fig was printed on my old printer and sat around like a lot of my figs for quite a while until I started working on this theme. He's another high drama low effort paint job with most of the time wrestling with the blue and yellow on the flag. I could have used better paints and saved my self some time but I didn't.

2024 finished mini counter: 135/208

A thing a week 2024, week 24

Two items this week on opposite ends of the quality spectrum. First up we have a treasure pile from Bones 5. It was one of the first figs I prepped from Bones 5 which arrived like three years ago. It's been kicking around my painting table since then. It's not a super complex object but I didn't do as much work with it as I might have. It's mostly phoned in as is evidenced by the poor handling of the chest, gemstones, and non-gold items. The gold is played by Vallejo Metal Color Gold followed by a wash of Badger Ghost Tint Golden Yellow which I'm not entirely happy with.

This is Artisan Guild's exquisitely named Orc Barbarian -D Lady Modular. I have a mess of Ork dudes and almost no Ork gals so I purchased this sculpt to fill that gap though, notably, I did also purchase one of her male counterparts one of whom was featured way back in week 10. I noted then that the fig would hold a higher quality paint job and, well, this would be that. I spent a lot of time on this fig, something like 12 hours, and I think it shows. I could have refined the highlights on her musculature and hair more and done more with the wood on her shield but ultimately I think this is a good result and I'm happy to counter has one of this year's high quality works. 

2024 finished mini counter: 130/204, high quality 12/12

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

A thing a week 2024, week 22

Continuing on last week's post, we have another pair of Rocky figs from Bones 4. They mostly follow the same scheme as the previous blue Rocky: one or more lousy ink basecoats applied badly with the airbrush followed by one or two more basecoats with contrast paints, speed paints, or homemade washes, followed by picking out every scale individually and finishing details like horns, eyes, and whatnot. And yes, I said last week that I wouldn't commit to picking out every individual scale on every fig but spoiler: I did.

First up we have Treasure Rocky in green and yes, greedy green was the only appropriate color choice. I didn't wan the chest and treasure pile to be the focus so I made sure they were muted down. The gold basecoat was a speed paint metallic IIRC followed by a seraphim sepia wash to darken it down and to knock out some of the shine. If it looks a little dark, that's why and exactly what I intended. There's still some shine in the darkest parts of his body which looks pretty wrong in the photos but sells a little better in person. I should have yellow-shifted his wings and ear webbing which is pretty consistent in all of these guys. The gems and whatnot are phoned in but I'm not unhappy with the result.

Next up we have Flying Rocky in red and I like to think that he was rudely awakened by an alarm or something and has taken flight in shock. This kind of thing happens when you spend hours picking out tiny details on a fig. Of the five, this guy is probably the weakest. There's a bunch of mold lines I didn't manage well and the shininess on him is a little distracting in person. I also failed to sufficiently pop out the scales under his eyes and all of that is on top of the difficulties I and many folks have in highlighting red. The problem is that when you push up into the lighter values it turns pink which reads incorrectly and I am not good at yellowing down into orange and salmon tones despite how much I paint in that color. Part of it is that I really don't want to lose the vibrancy of my favorite pyrrole red and it really shows on this guy since the composition is dominated by it. Yellowing down his webbing would have helped the contrast but I'm still happy to call both of these guys high quality works on the year.

2024 finished mini counter: 126/208, 9/12 high quality

A thing a week 2024, week 21

This week we have something special. This is Annoyed Rocky from Reaper and I got him and four of his dopplegangers with Bones 4. I clearly painted him in blue and pulled off the nub that holds the little dragonfly which will show up somewhere, eventually. His pals will be in a variety of colors in the future but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

I started with a very patchy blue ink basecoat with the airbrush which looked very bad. I followed that with a couple passes of a weird homemade wash and finally a speed paint coat. From there I picked out every single scale not fewer than three times with additional work on details like his horns, claws, eyes, etc. If that sounds tedious, it kind of was, but is was also kind of liberating since I didn't have to think very hard about it. It doesn't show in these photos, but there's an overall volumetric shading across all the scales but it's probably too subtle. Somewhat fittingly, the light blue on his scales is played by an ancient pot of Reaper Pro Paint Dragon Blue that I bought in the early aughts. His paint job clocked in at somewhere around ten hours all told and he'll count as a high quality paint job but I'm in no way committing to picking out individual scales on the other four.

2024 finished mini counter: 124/208, high quality 7/12

A thing a week 2024, week 20

This week we have four war mages from the Kingdom of Talarius campaign from Lion's Tower. I don't remember when this campaign ran and I'm far too lazy to look it up but suffice to say it was a while ago. Lilly from week 18 is from the same campaign. Much like Lilly, I liked these figs more before I started painting them.

These dudes are throwing skull fireball things and clearly they're a speed paint. They're clearly Gandalf-like figures complete with their beards and pointy hats...but they're also super-jacked because I guess they also cast fist? This is a weird stylistic choice IMO. I also didn't like that there was so many hard-to-reach negative spaces on them. I certainly could have put more time into these, particularly their fireball-skulls which look pretty awful, but ultimately I don't like these figs enough to do more. They're mostly basic highlights over speed paints with some details pulled out. They're the best color: painted.

These gals are throwing water--no skulls this time. I like these a lot better than the dudes and similarly a lot less once I started painting them. They've got the same hard-to-reach negative spaces that the dudes did with the added bonus of the underside of their water effects that are sculpted in, not that I would have painted them in subassemblies or anything. You can also tell how much time I didn't spend making their spell effects match even though they were painted at roughly the same time. You also can't tell how much time I did spend on their faces because their eyes didn't come out well. That's jus' how it be sometimes. Ultimately I've got two more water benders for the collection though I don't know if they'll ever see screen time.

2024 finished mini counter: 123/208

A thing a week 2024, week 19

Not sure if I mentioned this before, but I'm ever-so-slowly grinding down the last of the Bones 4 pledge I made way back in the fall of 2017. This is in preparation of receiving my Bones 6 fulfillment in the next few months. One step forward, one step back and is it just me or does 2017 seem like forever ago? Anyway.

First up we have a Tidal Lurker. It's bigger than it probably looks in these shots and if I'm honest, it's not a fig that I like a whole lot. It's very fiddly and had a mess of mold lines that were a real pain and has a lot of negative space which was difficult to deal with. It's sat prepped on my painting desk for probably a year and a half until last weekend. This is an almost coconut crab style of painting that did the rounds for Tyranid painters a few years ago. It's a pretty dramatic effect at arm's length and not particularly difficult to pull off but my first go-around here crumbles under close scrutiny, probably because I wasn't very careful and didn't work very hard. It was done in a few hours and I'm not super sure if it'll ever see in-game action.

Next up we have a Thrasher Snail. This is also a larger-than-it-seems fig and one that I actually like except for the mold lines and its lousy paint job. I didn't have a plan here and it probably shows. The composition isn't good and I was maybe a little daring with the color scheme beyond that. Overall it looks bad. I didn't have a good idea for the main color for the shell but in retrospect the off-white does not look good and neither does its dumb eyes which look entirely un-snail-like. It also sat on my painting table for multiple years (see: didn't have a plan) so I'm happy it's done. 

 

 

Last up we have a Cyclops. Maybe it's because I've been playing Dragon's Dogma II, easily the best game I've played in a really long time, but I got the inclination to paint it. I could have gone the elephant-style skin for him had I been thinking about it, but I clearly didn't. Despite being a speed paint, I wound up spending quite a lot of time on its fleshtones which I think shows. Everything else was basically phoned in. This is another monster that I don't find a lot of use for so it's not clear if it'll ever see game time. 

2024 finished mini counter: 119/208

A thing a week 2024, week 18

No theme again this week and there might not be a theme for a while. 

We start with Lilly, Arch White Mage from Lion's Tower who I got with the Kingdom of Talarius kickstarter. There are a handful of figs that I like out of this set and I thought this one one of them right up until I took a hard look at it. her proportions are off which bothers me more than I care to admit and I don't particularly like her high heels. I also don't think her face is particularly expressive but after a few hours, she's painted and that counts. 

Next up we have two of the three mounted Wraith Dread Knights from Reaper Bones 5 and I cannot find a direct link on their site. I also cannot find the third guy who I'm sure is kicking around somewhere with the missing Blacklist Fantasy Series 1 monk among other missing figs. These are a speed paint done very slowly. The starting washes were applied a couple times as I was experimenting with mixes. The highlights were intended as a single step but I did them three or four times. I also slapped a wash over the whole thing a couple times to build up the layers of grime to fit what I was going for. Most of the time that's a problem, but these guys are darkly-looking-death-knight-guys so I wanted that dirty looking finish. I did punch up the edges of the metallics very sloppily so I got that goin' for me. Unclear if these guys will ever get screen time but for now, they're done.

Last up we have a fun one shot not very well. This is Lydia the Lionness from RN Estudio, a sculptor that I like a lot despite their penchant for armor with high heels. I printed her, I think, at 28mm which was a mistake and as a result, the universe rewarded me by only printing one of the two I asked for. She's been prepped on my painting table for over a year and would occasionally pick up random paints as I was nearing the end of a session as is typical. Well, this week, the time had come. I put probably six hours or so with about half of that on her face, also as is typical. One of her eyes looks really good. Her other eye looks a little derpy and yes, I could have fixed that, but I didn't. Done > perfect, not that perfection is at all in question here. I think she came out well and I'm happy to count her as one of my high quality paints this year. The only friction between me and painting this fig again, beyond firing up my 3d printer, is the fact that the model is not pre-supported so I'd have to re-support it again before printing. 

2024 finished mini counter: 116/208, 6/12 high quality

A thing a week 2024, week 17

This week marks a return to painting from a couple month hiatus I took this year. It began with Bricks Cascade last month and continued with a huge sorting push. Good news: my collection is now 100% sorted with a handful of sets set aside that I'll probably sell. Bad news: I'm way behind in the painting that I'd like to accomplish this year. 

Here we have Reaper Fulumbar Ironhand and Gray Elf Duelist plus Gray Elf Wizard from the Chainmail Ravilla box set gifted to me by a pal. These aren't high quality paint jobs each completed at around the three hour mark. They're mostly wash, Speed Paint, or Contrast Paint basecoats with manual highlights and whatnot. As much as I like the Fulumbar sculpt, painting these Elves reminds me that metal figs frequently have sharper sculpts. 

2024 finished mini counter: 112/208

A thing a week 2024, week 16

These are the last batch of these guys known colloquially as the "teal team" for hopefully obvious reasons. Originally I had some grand plans to paint them in more of a rainbow but when I got down to mixing paints, I ended up with a lot of the teal color which I really liked. Best laid plans and all that. I can also add the year's finished mini counter this week because I've been too lazy to count the last two. So I got that goin' for me. 

2024 finished mini counter: 109/208

A thing a week 2024, week 15

This week we have the next set of Oshounaminis Free Flying Worms and Free Small Worms. I'm trying out some different camera settings in the hopes that I can figure out how to make it work a little better. I don't think I got any closer to mastery of this stupidly complicated thing. Tune in next week for the Old Man Struggles With Camera Technology Show!

A thing a week 2024, week 14

This week we have something completely different. This is a batch of Oshounaminis Free Flying Worms and Free Small Worms, particularly the green team. These guys are a) very well textured, and b) not particularly large, with c) free, so they were perfect for an experiment that I've been wanting to do for a while. "Experiment" is probably over-stating it. I mixed up some contrast-y like paints and inks and tried to wet blend them. The wet blending part didn't work (they set edges too fast) but the mixing part did work well so I guess I'ma stick that in the win column. The base is a fleshtone Citadel contrast paint with various mixins. A little color theory strongly implies how the finished color turns out modulo any weird pigment interactions and/or unexpected intensity variations. A tiny amount of picking out details (mainly the legs) and a very light drybrush to pull out even more texture and these guys were done. They're not 100% what I was going for but good enough and we'll see them for the next two weeks.