Nord-a-thon week 10 (2022 week 31)

Last week we had team red of Frostgrave Barbarians and this week we have team blue and I probably would have made my life a lot easier if I'd broken them into batches of five rather than seven, seven, six. These guys were a challenge (I can saytype that since at the time of writing, I've completed them). I wanted to do a good job and that added a lot more stress than I expected and doing them in smaller groupings would have made that at least slightly easier. 

For this batch I experimented a lot with GW Contrast Paints which I do like. What I don't like about them is that they're so terribly expensive. Also, I hate GW pots which, like many, I spill frequently. That makes their cost that much worse. I'll probably buy a bunch more in the years to come because they are really good for speeding up base coats but in all honesty, I can't imagined ever running out of paint at this time. I mean, I've completed a lot of figs and I've run out of exactly three pots of paint, one of which was an airbrush paint used heavily for zenithals (so basically every miniature) and one was an ancient flesh wash that leaked all over the dang place. Tune in next week for the thrilling finale of this theme!

2022 finished mini counter: 154/100

Nord-a-thon week 9 (2022 week 30)

Last week ended the middle batch so this begins the late batch, and continuing the trend from last week, these guys are even less Viking than the last. These burly dudes are Frostgrave Barbarians by Northstar and like the rest of the Frostgrave figs I've painted, these have been great. Also, before anyone rushes or shuffles slowly toward the comment section, I am in no way implying that the Vikings were barbarians--I just wanted to keep the theme going!

Unlike the first two sections, this isn't a speed paint batch, though they are still a batch. Last year when I  wrote up notes for the Frostgrave Crewmen (seen in Week 18, Week 19, Week 20, and Week 21) I noted that they probably deserved better paint jobs than I gave them (~1.5 hours per fig) so this time around I spent a lot more time and I hope it shows. We'll go through the entire cycle of these guys in the next few weeks before going back to the more freeform crap that usually happens here.

2022 finished mini counter: 147/100

Nord-a-thon week 8 (2022 week 29)

These guys are not technically Vikings or Nords as far as I know, though I doubt that any non-historians would be able to tell. Like the last couple weeks, they're also metal models and in slightly better shape than the last few. These are Warlords Saxon Leaders - Battle of Stamford Bridge and Saxon Earls & Kings - 11th Century. Had I realized that the Warlord pages had such good reference and if I weren't painting these guys as a speed paint batch, I might have chosen different colors and more details. For those interested in the history, the first batch includes Morcar of Northumbria, Edwin of Mercia, and Tostig Godwinson and the second includes Ethelred the Unready (sorry, no ash on this keyboard), Leofric of Mercia, and Edmund Ironside.

These guys end the middle batch of this theme, the longest I've done to date! They were done at an average of 45 minutes per fig for the 18 of them or about 13.5 hours. They were done in about a calendar week of easy painting while managing some other junk--stay tuned to see that!

If I have a regret about this batch, it's that I didn't spend more time on these specific figs. They will hold a higher quality paint job and I almost regret how plain their shields are. 

2022 finished mini counter: 140/100

Nord-a-thon week 7 (2022 week 28)

These guys are Viking Hearthguards from Warlord and like last week's offering, these guys are metal models. Also like last week's offering, they required a lot of cleanup which I didn't do a great job with. So I got that goin' for me. Also notable, their spears are super bendy since they're the same pewter that the rest of the models are made of and I'm super certain I'm going to break them at some point.

2022 finished mini counter: 134/100

Nord-a-thon week 6 (2022 week 27)

Continuing our batch of Vikings, we have these eight huscarls from Warlord. These are metal models whose sculpts are good but whose molds are bad. There's a half-life on molds and the more you use them the more they start to break down. These seem to have broken down quite a lot so the cleanup was rough and I didn't do a great job. As a reminder, these were a batch speed paint so the paint jobs aren't super high quality.

And of those of you who were wondering what a huscarl is, I'm assuming these guys are the military retainer variety as noted in wikipedia. 

2022 finished mini counter: 130/100

Nord-a-thon week 5 (2022 week 26)

I note that the yellow team's shields look really bad without their intended decals. Some day I'll find them. Probably. (edit: I found them!) These guys will finish off the first round of this multi-batch theme. The 34 of them were done in around 22.5 hours which miraculously clocks in at about 45 minutes per fig not including assembly/priming/zenithal time. Stay tuned next week for the next cycle of (kind of) Vikings!

2022 finished mini counter: 122/100

Nord-a-thon week 4 (2022 week 25)

Next up the purple team. These are also really super saturated and while I could have spent a lot more time highlighting, this is a speed paint. The shields look a little boring but I'd intended to put the decals on them that came with these figs. I lost the decals but hope springs eternal so I didn't do anything fancy with them.

2022 finished mini counter: 115/102
 

Nord-a-thon week 3 (2022 week 24)

This week: green team. When I was gluing flock onto the bases, badly as it turns out, I thought the yellow flock would sell more than it actually does as dead grass. Next big batch I'll get to try again. Maybe I'll blend it or something.

2022 finished mini counter: 108/100

Nord-a-thon week 2 (2022 week 23)

Nord-a-thon week 2 continues our cycle of Viking Hirdmen, this time the red team (obviously). At first I didn't like the super saturated red on these guys but now that they're complete it's kind of growing on me. That'd be mostly Pro Acryl Transparent Red. This will also crest the 100 figure mark in just under half a year (reminder that these posts are scheduled in the future!)

2022 finished mini counter: 102/100

Nord-a-thon week 1 (2022 week 22)

After our mini-theme we have a maxi-theme. I own quite a lot of vikings and they need paint! These would be the first batch off the workbench of the Viking Hirdmen 10 of whom were last seen in Week 50 of last year and yes, we're finishing off the last 34 of them this go-round.

This is the blue team which is hopefully obvious. One or two of these doods in each batch is kitbashed in the way that you'd expect mercenaries or adventurers to scavange usable equipment from...well, wherever they get it from.

2022 finished mini counter: 95

Kitty-a-thon week 2 (2022 week 21)

This week we complete our miniature mini-theme of kitties! I might have a problem.

First up we have a trio of cat rogue 3d prints. These guys have shown up a lot: a pair of them in week 50 2020 and one in week 24 of 2021 who got a lot of screen time in my Saturday game which is in its last few sessions as this goes up unless it's already complete. These are fun. On top of being free models which drives my cost per print down (yes, I include hardware), it's fun to compare paint jobs spanning multiple years. Some day I might even do a side-by-side and I would super expect to get more of these guys next year, possibly in a slightly larger form, to boot!

Next up we have another Skivvara from Twin Goddess Miniatures and the originator of the Black Cat Challenge (TM) from 2021 week 32. At one point I was going to paint her white but forgot about all of that that and ended up painting her tawny like many of the other kitties in the batch. I mean, it's right there on the palette. This fig went through some mess and at one point I snapped her off the base at the ankle so there's a lot of badness there. Her hand holding the bow also broke off a couple times which is plainly obvious if you look at the attachment. These things happen.

Last up we have a pair of Cat Captains from Vae Victis Miniatures who make some of my favorite figs, like this one! On the dark fig, I probably should have pushed the ochre details to a higher highlight; probably a yellow. I think it still works and the desaturation of both the greens and the reds seem to have effectively prevented the dreaded "Christmas Colors" issue. These figs have a great mix of volumes and details and this dark kitty will count as a high quality paint job.

On the other kitty, I probably should have desaturated the orange and punched up the dark spotches. She's supposed to be calico, "Captain Calico" as it were, but it really just looks like I wasn't looking where I put my paint. Possibly additional markings could have sold it better Could there be a Calico Challenge(TM) next year? Mayhaps, yea. I think the desaturated blue of her coat works well with the saturated purple of her corset. Overall, I'm pretty happy with this paint job.  

Last up we have a Reaper Bones Avatar of Sekhmet. This kitty saw a lot of screen time in the first campaign I ran in 2016 and I'm glad to have completed painting her. I can't claim this is a good paint job because it isn't. I also wasn't able to fix her bendy staff and I didn't do nearly enough shading on the many, many metallics. I do feel I improved on Week 16's Anubis Guard's tinted metallics (Pro Acryl Light Bronze + Badger Ghost Tints, if you're keeping score) so that's cool. Done in a couple hours, I'm not unhappy with this paint job.

2022 finished mini counter: 88/100, 7/10 high quality

Kitty-a-thon week 1 (2022 week 20)

This week we have something fun. These are a mirror pair of Tabaxi Dancer 3d prints by Vae Victis Miniatures and in addition to being one of my favorite sculpts (and not just because they're kitty girls) they're also supportless. I've saidtyped it before--supportless for 3d prints is like a super power.

I'm pretty sure I've noted elsewhere that I don't particularly like dealing with folds in fabric. Well, these two have disabused me of that since they're mostly folds in fabric. I struggle with this because I suck at blending and I'm too lazy to stipple (I also don't want to ruin my brushes faster than necessary) so this was really good practice. I can't claim that I've done a particularly good job, but I can claim that I did push well past my usual stopping point. I do think I've leveled up on these two in the skill department, anyway, and that counts for...something.

As an added bonus, these two are variations in similar color palettes. The dark kitty is in split complementary (ochre, blue, and purple) and the tawny kitty is in a reasonable facsimile of triadic (ochre, green, purple). The dark kitty will also fill the bill for 2022's Unofficial Black Cat Challenge(TM) and other than not bringing the darks as low as I should have, I think she turned out well. The tawny kitty is an experiment and gearing up for at least a few more kitties in that same color scheme.

Overall, I have few regrets beyond breaking the dark kitty's foot off when removing her from the build plate. I certainly could have spent more time on them clocking in at about 25 hours for both but that's about as far as I thought I should go. I also probably could have done more with the airbrush, too, but had I done so I probably wouldn't have learned as much. I think these are a good result and I'm counting both as high quality figs. Will I print more of them and paint them at a higher quality at a later date? Watch this space!

2022 finished mini counter: 81/100, 6/10 high quality

A thing a week 2022, week 19

No theme this week, just a trio of painted figs. These three are Dark Mantle Assassin from Crippled God Foundry in both masked and unmasked versions. And if you're wondering why there are three and not four, it's because the fourth lost her arm in a terrible printing malfunction. In fact, if you look close, most of them have some pancaking going on. They were a little fiddly to paint, especially their faces which have a lot of cross-detail going on. I also had quite a lot of difficulty pinning them down through the one foot. 

Someday I'll figure out how to use my printer correctly but I'm waiting for it to warm up some before trying again. Supposedly these devices work better when it's warm which might partially explain why so many of this last round came out so bad (printed in at the end of last year). Some of it is almost certainly not having spent the time to dial in the device. 

Probably I'll buy a new one sometime soon. Unfortunately, the newer versions don't seem to be particularly more user friendly though they do print a lot faster. 

2022 finished mini counter: 79/100

A thing a week 2022, week 18

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

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

A thing a week 2022, week 17

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

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

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

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

2022 finished mini counter: 76/100

A thing a week 2022, week 16

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

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

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

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

2022 finished mini counter: 72/100

A thing a week 2022, week 15

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

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

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

A thing a week 2022, week 14

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

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

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

2022 finished mini counter: 63/100

A thing a week 2022, week 13

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

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

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

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

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

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

A thing a week 2022, week 12

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

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

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

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

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