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!

2021 Crafting challenge wrap-up

This end-of-year post is starting to become a tradition which started because I couldn't find reference photos and explanations when I needed them.  We crested the 100 fig goal pretty early and then took the foot off the painting gas for a bit before barreling straight into a bunch of batch paints to hit and then exceed the magical 365 fig mark. Probably this kind of output isn't in the cards until retirement. Watch this space!

2021 kickoff
Week 1: 4x Reaper Bones Townsfolk, Oman Ruul, Zentis Zadar, Arakus Landarzad, in oils

Week 2: 6x Pike & Shotte Landsknecht missile troops

Week 3: 6x more Landsknecht missile troops + 4x Oldhammer metal figs

Week 4: 5x Ghosts and Shades of the Drowned Nymph + Ankoa, Human Barbarian

Week 5: 16x Test of Honor foot troops

Week 6: 6x Test of Honor mounted Samurai with mounts

Week 7: 3x giant snakes from Wrath of Ashardalon, Crested Felldrake from Chainmail, 4x Legion of Everbright Shredders from Hordes

Week 8: 3x Reaper Bones lizard people, 4x Reaper Bones Spikeshell Warriors

Week 9: Dire Croc, Wyvern, Nolzur's Death and Grey Slaad, 3x Runewars Fleshrippers, Chaos Toad Sorcerer (OSL #1)

Week 10: Snakeman Warrior, 7x Nagendra from Reaper Bones (OSL #2)

Week 11: Lowland Owlbear, Penguin Attack Pack, the missing cart pig

Week 12: 16x 3d printed spiders

Week 13: double sided dungeon tiles (building #1)

Week 14: corner organizer

Week 15: half timbered building (building #2)

Week 16: stone and wood cabin (building #3)

Week 17: 3x Hypnotic Spirits from Legend of Drizzt Boardgame, 2x Hellhounds from Pathfinder Deep Cuts, 3x Hell Hounds from Bones 4

Week 18: 5x Frostgrave Ghost Archipelago Crewmen

Week 19: 5x Frostgrave Ghost Archipelago Crewmen

Week 20: 5x more Ghost Archipelago Crewmen

Week 21: and, yep, 5x more Ghost Archipelago Crewmen (it's a 20 fig box; what did you expect?)

Week 22: Asnofre map

Week 23: 2x Earthdawn Wormskulls, Bones 4 Cooper, Bones 4 Friar, Bones 4 Harrowgate Shrine, 2x 3d printed dwarf female warriors

Week 24: Nolzur's Human Cleric, Nolzur's Aasimar Paladin, Ostarzha, Elf Cleric, Nolzur's Female Human Wizard (high quality #2), 3d printed cat rogue

Week 25: 10x magnetized 8" tiles (building #4)

Week 26: 2x reaper bags and jars, Legend of Drizzt Handmaiden of Llolth, Bones 4 Sealed Sarcophagus, Harrowgate Shrine

Week 27: Date Coconut palms (building #5)

Week 28: 10x Frostgrave Gnolls

Week 29: 3d printed Gnoll by Manuel Boria (high quality #3)

Week 30: 10x 3d printed gnolls, Blacktongue Gnoll Archer, Toghra Gnoll Leader

Week 31: Three Years of Painting (article)

Week 32: Legend of Drizzt Shadow Dragon, Pathfinder Half-Orc Female Barbarians, 3d printed Skivvara -Tabaxi Rogue, 2x Human Female Paladin 3d prints

Week 33: 2x 3d printed Joanna the Cleric, Reaper Brianna of the Blade, Bones 4 Zadim Iconic Slayer, Chainmail Paladin, 2x 3d printed Amazons, 2x Pathfinder Human Monk

Week 34: Nolzur's Female Elf Paladins, High Elf Guardians, Elf Spearmaiden, Elf Paladin, Elf Soldiers, Aviriel

Week 35: Nolzur's Female Elf Rangers, Lindir, Earthdawn Archers, Wood Elf Scout

Week 36: Elf Paladin, 2x Elf Warriors, Shardis, Arael, Fiara

Week 37: Nolzur's Female Elf Ranger, 2x Oldhammer Wood Elf Archers, Reaper Bones Aeris Female Ranger, Reaper Bones Alistrilee

Week 38: Bones 5 5x Elf Rangers, Lanaerel, Dark Elf w/bow

Week 39: 6x Bones 5 Boulderkin, Bones 5 stump elemental

Week 40: WizKids Human Fighter, Minsc, Aasimar Paladin (non-winged) x2, Female Half Elf Monk, Female Half Elf Rogue

Week 41: WizKids Female Half-Orc Barbarians, Female Half-Orc Fighters, Female Human Clerics x2, Wererat, Elf Female Rogue

Week 42: WizKids Human Male Cleric, Half Elf Rogues, Elf Druids, Grey Knights, Female Human Paladins, Half Elf Monk

Week 43: WizKids Moon Elf Sorcerer, 2x Pathfinder Female Oracles, Female Human Wizard, Aasimar Paladin (wing version), 2x Nolzur's Female Aasimar Wizards, Nolzur's Weretiger, Female Aasimar Paladin and Fighter

Week 44: ASOAIF Lannister Halberdiers

Week 45: ASOIAF Lannister Guardsmen

Week 46: ASOIAF The Mountain's Men

Week 47: ASOIAF Builder Crossbowmen

Week 48: ASOIAF Sworn Brothers

Week 49: Warlords Celtic Warriors Command Sprue kitbash

Week 50: 10x Hail Caesar Viking Hirdmen

Week 51: 10x Frostgrave Soldiers

Week 52: 2x Orc Guards, Ral Partha vintage Orc, Half-Ogre Fighter, Ranger Teen, Dire Croc, Sony Jona, Elena - Fighters Guild Beauty

A thing a week 2021, week 52

Those who have been paying attention know that I've been twelve weeks (nineteen if you count the boulderkin filler) into several heavy themes covering a ridiculous number of minis. So for this week, the last entry for 2021, we're takin' it a little easy. What have we got? The stuff that's prepped on my desk plus a couple other choice bits and the remainder of the goals I hadn't finished yet. 

These are a pair of Orc Guards from Vae Victis Miniatures, a set of sculptors that I really like. These have the bonus of being self-supported which, for those of you who haven't worked with a resin printer, means you get the fig you're looking at without you or someone else having to spend a lot of time making them printable. So, that's nice. I love these figures, enough to pay cash money for them, and I'd been looking forward to painting them for a couple months. Given I've been in speed painting mode for a really long time, it was great to take a little bit of time to slow down and get some of the details right. These two were done in around four hours total while putting paint on a bunch of other figs on my table and I'm not unhappy with the results.

This guy is an Ork from my vintage collection, more specifically a Ral Partha 12-011 Orcs and now that I'm looking at the reference photo, it seems I've glued the wrong shield to him. Not 100% sure where his actual shield went or where this shield came from. I spent a bunch of time on his Ork-y skintones and probably not enough time on just about everything else. The metallics in particular and his cloak are awfully flat and I'm not 100% sold on the color scheme. All that said, I like this fig and I'm not unhappy with this paint job.

This guy is a Reaper Half-Ogre Fighter and mine is not metal as he came with Bones 4. I spent extra time with his Ork-y green fleshtones and probably not enough time on shading his bulky armor. History repeats itself, I guess. I did hit it with a coat of Midnight Ghost Tint and popped out the edges with Vallejo Metal Color Dark Aluminum so it's not as lousy as my usual work, just not as well as I'd hoped he'd turn out. Some day, I'm really going to push metallics to prove to myself that it's time worth spending.

This gal is Ranger Teen by Vae Victis Miniatures 3d print and I really like this fig. In addition to being full of character and bought at a steep discount, she's also self-supported which in my opinion is a superpower for a 3d model. She's been sitting on my painting table for almost a year, having been printed right around Christmas last year and at some point the top of her bow snapped off. Against all odds, I found most of it looking for something I dropped earlier this fall and lo and behold that part had also broken. Despite having only most of a bow and having a few issues that I never cleaned up, I think this is a very good result and I'm comfortable counting her as a high quality paint job and done in around eight hours. I could have certainly pushed more but I'm on a mission. The nice thing is that as a 3d print, I can print out an identical one with a whole bow and try again at a later date. We live in the future and it is good.

Bones 4 has featured heavily in these un-hallowed pixels and probably will for a while. At least, until I get the vast majority of these painted, anyway. Way back in week 9, I painted a dire croc which has subsequently seen a lot of screen time and I couldn't shake the feeling that I had two. Well, I found the other one over the summer and he ended up prepped on my desk for several months. I might not have painted him yet except that I'd mixed up a large batch of dark green wash that otherwise didn't have a home. The rest of it was dry brushing highlights and picking out details for the next hour. 

Those who have been paying attention might note that as of this writing I'm still two short for OSL. Here's the first of those two. This is Sony Jona - Sorceress Heroine from Artisan Guild which I printed last year and now almost exactly a year later, is complete. She got some paint over the summer but since then I redid most of it, shifting the colors around significantly and playing up the OSL. I realize I didn't get a good shot of the dark side of her so you can't see it being sold, but I think she came out well enough in around ten hours to count her as a high quality paint job. She's painted as a PC from a previous campaign so I'm giving her away thus the lettering on the base.

This is Elena - Fighters Guild Beauty also from Artisan Guild and another great example of a figure that I shouldn't like. Her armor is dumb, her torch is ahead of her, and she reads more as a model than as a fighter of any kind. In my head canon (not head cannon which belongs on the Awesome though I suppose technically that's a laser) she's on her way to a rave...with a sword...on some really dark path...or something. Despite all of that, I do like this fig and since she had a torch, it was time to do another OSL. For this and the last fig, I did most of a paint job then shot the umbral side with a well-thinned Paynes Grey ink to sell it. All told we're at something like twelve hours and I'm particularly happy with some of the shadow blends though these shots aren't showing some of the details in her eyes and such. I put extra effort into shading the metallic bits and now that I'm looking at the photos, her hair is awfully flat. She's definitely in the top figs I've painted this year so we're ending it on a high note.

That'll wrap up 2021's painting extravaganza. Tune in next year for the next chapter!

2021 finished mini counter:  370/100, 7/5 high quality, 5/5 OSL

A thing a week 2021 (week 51)

And rounding out the last batch of the year we have my remaining 10x Frostgrave Soldiers. I'm fond of the Northstar line of Frostgrave minis and this box is the remainder from the first batch I painted way back at the end of 2018 when I'd first started. I was far enough ahead this year to spend a little more time on these than I might have otherwise done. So, they might be slightly higher quality than my normal batch paints. The photos still suck, tho, so that should be familiar. Some day I'll figure out how my camera works but clearly not this year.

Like most of the other figs I paint, we start with a prime, shadowumbral (yeah, I'm callin' this one), and zenithal. I did some basecoating with the airbrush but less than you might expect and if I'm really honest, it helped more psychologically than artistically. Figs with only basic prep are more daunting than ones with colors on them even if the airbrush work is rough and kind of messy. I don't know why this is but it's proven true time and time again and part of how I get through big batches. Starting a big batch I will often slap an ugly wash on all of the figs to get rid of the "blank white page" aspect of staring at a field of unpainted minis.

I honestly don't know how army painters do it. I'm pretty happy with this being the last batch of the year if I'm honest. While I do like burning through figs, I don't like making such harsh cuts to quality over and over again. It gets worse with figs I like or figs that can take a higher quality paint job which is certainly not all figs. There's also a crushing weight of "holy crap, that's a lot of work" which can be daunting to break down. These guys, though, I'm pretty happy with. Happy, but never satisfied.

2021 finished mini counter: 362/100

A thing a week 2021 (week 50)

We're into the home stretch for 2021 and as mentioned last week, this week we have 10x Viking Hirdmen out of a giant box of 44 of them. These are good figs with some pretty nice sculpts and because they're supposed to be in a unit of 34 of their closest friends, they aren't overly detailed. That means that they're easier to paint so I like to theorize that this implies better quality paint jobs, though, I'm not certain this actually plays out. What I do know is that at this point, I don't expect to be buying any more big box armies.

Like the Celts from last week, they were kind of fiddly to assemble. Also like last week, I didn't think nearly enough about their poses which turned out well but were really hard to paint. I got weapons in front of faces and shields in front of eyes which is generally how you'd do that but made, say, eyeballs a real pain. I especially like the green dood in the first picture with a javelins in his shield hand and a spear in his main hand. He's also shouting. That's the kind of quality you don't get everywhere! I'm sure he'll be killed to death onscreen in my game some day.

I'd intended to glue swords on all the spear doods but I think I only got one on. I also intended to do some freehand on their shields but promptly decided not to which is why they have such plain shields. They did come with decals but, honestly, I can't be bothered to put decals on figs. Also, my basecoat was lumpy. In a batch, I'm not super disappointed but someday I really need to start practicing freehand. Not like a 2022 challenge is right around the corner or anything. Anyway, these ten are done and I think they came out OK.

2021 finished mini counter: 352/100

A thing a week 2021 (week 49)

This is a one week batch of 10 Celtic Warriors Command Sprue that I bought a long time ago. I might have painted them earlier but I am a dummy and didn't look closely enough at the sprue as they didn't come with heads. I stole some heads from my giant box of 44 Viking Hirdmen which we'll see some of next week. These are fiddly figs with really inconvenient poses and some of them had some premiumly ridiculous mold lines. My assembly didn't help any of this ad made their eyes really hard to paint. As an added difficulty, some of the sculpting on their musculature, particularly around their shoulders, was not as correct or distinct as I would have liked. 

I started them in the typical way: prime, shadowed from below, zenithaled from above. Given the amount of skin these doods are showing, I did a simple basecoat with the airbrush with a few other random colors as was convenient within the larger batch. After that it was layers and shades, and highlights and metallics and whatnots. I think they work even if they aren't particularly spectacular and because I'm a dummy I forgot to log how much time they took. I want to say around the 20 hour mark but that's just a guess. They're done, and that's good, and one fewer loose sprue kicking around the workshop.

2021 finished mini counter: 342/100

A Song of Ice and Paint week 5 (2021 week 48)

This week we finish off this enormous batch with Sworn Brothers which, like last week's offering, they're part of the Night Watch which I'm sure means something to Game of Thrones fans.

I like these figs. They have nice, dynamic poses, and not super difficult sculpts to paint though their fur linings are kind of a pain. Many of them have the same wide poses as last week's guys so they're mostly on big 35mm bases, too. The nice thing about bigger bases is there's more space to put random junk on but they don't play as well even though my game requires 2" hexes.

A thing I don't like about these figs is that they're gigantic. The Mountain's Men from week 46 were also big and these guys are nearly as tall. They stick out among my normal 25mm and 28mm figs in a not great way. They've also got a lot of details which took extra time to paint. 

These two sets were 25 figs done in just over 31 hours so slightly less fast than the first batch. This is mainly due to my screwing up of their cloaks and their overall level of details. Like last week, I think these figs can hold a better paint job than the one I did and also like last week, I think they work fine. 

2021 finished mini counter: 332/100

A Song of Ice and Paint week 4 (2021 week 47)

This week we continue the current theme with A Song of Ice and Fire 
Builder Crossbowmen. I have to think these are unaligned units that can be added to any army like salt or pepper or jalapenos. The documentation tells me they're part of the Night Watch which I know nothing about. 

These guys were a mess. Next week's will be too and for the same reason: I messed up with my airbrush. I stuck a grey over some of their cloaks that was a) too dark, and b) too messy. This resulted in a lot of extra work highlighting those cloaks since the Pro Acryl Transparent Black really wants to go over a light color. Cleanup work with a brush, especially across a batch is a tedious thing especially if you're in a hurry.

Another thing of note is that even if these guys aren't particularly tall, most of them have a really wide stance. Good for balance. Bad for basing. I had to crank out the 35mm bases for these and a bunch of the next batch so I'm glad I had a pile of these on hand. Also in basing news, I'd bought a new batch of cut-rate 25mm bases and wasn't careful with them. I usually have to glue a spacer between the base and the magnet to get them to sit right and while these needed a spacer, the ones I normally use are slightly too tall--like half a mm. So many of them wobble, too.

Overall I think these guys work. I mean, they're probably going to be killed by player characters more often than not so they don't get a ton of screen time. I do think they'd hold a better paint job if I weren't on a mission to hit 365 this year. So there's that. 

2021 finished mini counter: 319/100

A Song of Ice and Paint week 3 (2021 week 46)

This is our midpoint in this theme and we have a fun one this week. These beeftastic dudes are The Mountain's Men and again, I have to note that I don't know Game of Thrones lore so I can only imagine that "The Mountain" was some really big dude and I'm too lazy to google it.

These are done like the previous units in this theme starting with airbrush, following with washes, highlights, metallics, and gloss washes on the metallics. In retrospect, many of these guys have so much armor that I really should have airbrushed them with shaded metallics rather than the other way around. That meant that the metallic steps were especially grindy and rather flat. I'd intended to do more highlighting on the metallics but these are the guys that convinced me not to.

The next two weeks were done as a slightly smaller batch which means they'll have their own set of problems (and boy, do they). These first three weeks span 38 figs and were done in 39.5 hours which puts us at right around 1 hour per fig which is right around where I wanted them to land. Note that this is the painting only not including scraping of mold lines, building and mounting on bases, or priming. Next week we'll get some different dudes and, well, it hasn't gone as well.

2021 finished mini counter: 307/100

A Song of Ice and Paint, week 2 (2021 week 45)

Like last week, we have Lannisters from A Song of Ice and Fire again. These are Lannister Guardsmen known far and wide for I guess their plumey helmets and big shields. As many soldiers as I have in my collection, I really need to have my PCs fight more wars. Apparently.

These first three offerings (next week included) were done as a huge batch and I really wanted to see how much I could do with my new and fancy (and cheap) airbrush.What I wanted: a simple basecoat that I could stick a wash over and do a minimal amount of highlights on hopefully speeding up the process. This kind of worked. I experimented with washes. The blue, green, and flesh washes are Army Painter Quickshades which I quite like. They blue-grey guys are washed in Vallejo Dark Grey Wash which can make things look dirty if you don't get your highlights right. The blue wash is Daler Rowney Blue Ink mixed with matte medium and flow improver. This worked really well so I expect it to show up more in future work.

The metallics are Vallejo Metal Color mainly Steel, Dark Aluminum, and Gold washed with Nuln Oil Gloss which is my go-to for most things. Vallejo Metal Colors are absolutely worth investing in if you have the means and use metallic paints for these kinds of projects. Even though I didn't do any shading/highlighting on these guys, these paints readily mix with any of your highly pigmented acrylics and mix especially well with Badger Ghost Tints which I like a lot.

2021 finished mini counter: 295/100

A Song of Ice and Paint, week 1 (2021 week 44)

This week we're starting a new theme and like the last couple, this one is also a big batch paint. This time we're looking at A Song of Fire and Ice miniatures like those featured in Week 41 of 2020. These come in packs of 12 or 13 depending on if they have a specific captain fig or not. I rather like these figs. They're made of nice hard plastic, have an appropriate amount of details, and aren't covered in straps. So for the next five weeks we embark on Yet Another Batch Paint(TM). I do wish they were slightly smaller in scale to match other figs in my collection.

These guys are Lannister Halberdiers and if I knew anything about Game of Thrones, I'd know what that means beyond, you know, having halberds. You'll note their color scheme isn't what you might expect: uniform. That's because I don't use them for wargames. I use them for RPGs where it's way more important to be able to tell them apart than it is for them to look good in a unit. That said, when you do line them up as a unit, they do still look pretty good. I can only guess why that is. 

It's also interesting to note that even though they're not a great paint job, they still look OK. I think this is  two parts owing to their design which is sparse and well separated and one part due to color choices on my part which is high contrast and shiny. I did the trim and standards and heraldry in an off white to make them stand out rather than the yellow ochre I might have preferred. This helps hide some of the lousy blends and fairly serious lack of contrast. Also of note is that the upper parts of them are mostly metal which hides my lack of shading. Overall, I think these guys work and were completed in roughly over an hour per figure.

2021 finished mini counter: 282/100

Wizkids-a-rama, week 4 (week 43)

This week will round out the rest of my Nolzur's and Pathfinder normal sized figs. I've got some dragons that'll show up here at some point but for now, I can rest easier that I never have to paint another normal sized figure from these lines unless I'm a dumb and buy more. I really hope I have good reason to when I inevitably do. Also note that I'm still fiddling with my photography settings and they're still not good.

We saw Minsc in the first week of this theme. This would be his blister-mate, Moon Elf Sorcerer who I assume is someone else from Baldur's Gate. In fact, I bought them for this fig since she was holding a fireball and I really wanted to do more OSL. Clearly, I didn't do any OSL on this fig but I did spend a lot of time picking out details on her outfit even if I punted and painted her cloak black. I think this works and I like the color scheme.

These two are Pathfinder Human Female Oracles and like our Moon Elf friend, I bought them to practice OSL and then failed to follow through with that. What do you want? It's a speed painting theme! The gal with the scythe is awful. I mean, steel breastplate, bare legs, scythe and open toed sandals is all kind of fantasy hot mess. I have no idea what they were thinking. The other gal I like despite all her bejangles and other gear and I spent way too long on her. I think these work OK too.

The gal is the other half of Female Human Wizard featured in week 24 next to a repeat of Aasimar Paladin featured in the same week. She's got a definite unlimited power thing going on which I failed to do any OSL with. I don't think her Harry Potter scarf things hit. He's got super cheap & easy black wings and armor in a suitably edgelord way played by Pro Acryl Transparent Black and nothing else. These are cheap and easy paint jobs that look good for the effort expended. I.e., not much.

These two don't look OK and I had a heck of a time painting them. They're Nolzur's Female Aasimar Wizards and they look way nicer in the renders than these figs turned out in actuality. There's way too much negative space on these and the spell effect on the ground made her legs almost impossible to paint. Seriously, folks, don't make figs like these, at least not if we can't paint them in subassemblies. Those spell effects are "hey, look at me green" on purpose to draw attention to the less well done parts of those paint jobs which is generally "the rest of it." You can tell which one's wings I spent actual time on.

This guy is a Nolzur's Weretiger and he arrived with the wererat a couple weeks ago. I like that he doesn't have a million details but I really think there was a better paint scheme in there. Probably his cloak should have been grey to pop out his orangey fur and probably his armor wanted to be a less orangey brown. The freehanded stripes don't particularly work but he's fine at arm's length. I learned on this fig that tiger patterning is harder in paint than in illustration.

We saw the non-winged versions of Nolzur's Female Aasimar Paladin and Fighter in week 1 of this theme and as I recall, I rather liked those figs. I rather liked these, too, and despite being a speed paint, I put more effort into them even if it doesn't really show. The paladin gave me a great opportunity to paint a nice face so that's where the bulk of the time went despite the fact that it didn't shoot well. I especially like how her wings turned out and I think I learned that I like painting wings. I think these came out well and they'll round out the last of the theme.

So there we go, 41 figs in four weeks (three calendar weeks in actuality) for a grand total of 48 painting hours. That's right around 70 minutes a fig which is right around where I wanted to land. In truth, the same time spent on generally better/easier-to-paint figs would have probably yielded a better result, but this is what I had so this is what I did. I'm not unhappy with this effort, but in retrospect, I shouldn't have bought most of these figs.

2021 finished mini counter: 269/100