A thing a week 2024, week 8

Our Blacklist Fantasy Series 1 nightmare over, we move back to the amorphous ridiculousness that this blog would be known for if anyone actually read it. One problem at a time.

First up we have 3d printed Onyx, Ironborn Fighter from DnD is a Woman and I made a very bad stupid dumb mistake. I printed them too small, like 28mm. These sculpts are way too thin to do this and they broke about a million times which probably shows if you look closely. As they're mostly armor and I was mortified of breaking them again while painting, they're  mostly painted with Vallejo Metal Color with the airbrush. There are no characters like this in my fantasy worlds so they might see use as golems which are probably over-represented but I dunno that I'm brave enough to stick them back on the table. They're a speed paint done in like 45 minutes total.

This is a Reaper Bones 4 Maggotcrown Juggernaut and he is also a speed paint. Astute viewers may note that he's also mostly armor and thus he also was mostly painted with the airbrush. I don't have a lot of undead in my fantasy worlds either so I legit have no clue when he might get screen time so I'm not super bothered by the time I didn't spend on this fig. He's painted and that counts and proves again that I can go fast if I want to. What would I do if I was punching him up a notch? Probably more detail work on his gloves, straps, stupid skull, and other details in addition to an awful lot more work in shading through glazes or washes or whatnot. Probably edge highlighting with a very shiny chrome would be good, too.

Next up we have a Bones 4 Devil whose pals we saw way back in week 28 of 2023. I also don't use a lot of demons in play except for last campaign which has since wrapped up. Her two chucklehead pals started as mini-bosses of the last half of that campaign so it's only fitting that she was the last boss of that campaign. No clue when I'll use demons again but I have them if I need them. As she's mostly exposed skin like her pals, she was also painted mostly with the airbrush with a color shift low to high of magenta to orangey-red. In this case the shiny worked to my advantage on her wings which were otherwise washes over simple drybrush. I lost a lot of the shading when doing the red on her skintones which I didn't bother to extra-highlight. With more time, demon dots, better handling of the super soft metallics, and probably painting her horns in a bone color rather than black which IMO doesn't look as nice.

This guy is also from Bones 4, particularly a Cave Troll. He's mostly slapchopped using Army Painter Speed Paint 2.0 and picking out highlights and details after that. The sculpt is doing most of the work here though I did pick out the teeth with a glossy white and each of the scales a few times. I think this is a good result for the hour or so I spent on him. The glossy is doing work on his skintones on purpose again here which is nice and marks a distinction between the super flat of his scales and (most of) his other details.

 

Rounding out this week's offering is a Nolzur's Umber Hulk and was a gift from a pal quite a long time ago. Unlike a lot of the other figs here, I have a lot of uses for his guy and was surprised to see how well he fit in a multitude of roles followed by disappointment for not having painted him sooner. The ultra speed paint target, he's a) mostly painted with the airbrush, b) washed slightly beyond that, and c) a handful of purposely shiny bits and other details. Much like the Ultramarine chapter of your favorite James Workshop Grimdark Shooty Bang Game (TM), he's named his paint scheme which is awfully convenient. Done in about a half hour all told, he's the epitome of high drama, low effort painting--my favorite.

2024 finished mini counter: 55/208

Blacklist backlog week 4 (2024 week 7)

This week we finish up the theme as I finish up the last of the Blacklist Fantasy Series 1 and simultaneously challenge my ability to take something resembling reasonable photos. The majority of these are "get 'er done" kind of paint jobs and they have the added difficulty of being large or very large. This also challenges my idea of what a "large" figure as it is especially given my goals this year so here we go.

First up we have a shambling mound and demon lord and both are speed paints. They're mostly Pro Acryl Transparents with a bunch of work to pick out details. I thought the orangey mushrooms on the shambler were a lot more saturated when I was painting him and they look really washed out here. I spent more time than I expected picking out details on it. The demon lord could really have used another ten or so hours in addition to the ten or so I spent on him. His large size made him difficult to work with in addition to all the negative spaces on him. I'm not sold on the fleshy sword thought he sculpt really insisted on it. Ultimately I don't use many of either of these dudes so other than increasing my painted count, I don't know what I'm going to do with them. The shambler was done in a couple hours in total.

These next two are ogre and troll and I don't know what the sculptor was thinking on the ogre. Other than skipping more than a few leg days, the musculature on his left arm is a mess that I struggled to work with. I can overlook the dumb spikes on his mace but the ever-present mold lines over his hand wrappings really sucked. Base coats were mainly provided by the airbrush and finished with a few hours of brush work for highlights and details. The troll was a true speed paint with basecoats provided by ProAcryl Transparents and a light drybrush. Another hour or so for details and highights and he was done. Overall the two of these jokers were done in under eight hours and like the previous two, I have very little use for them (trolls are a playable race in my game worlds and have a very different aesthetic).

This beefy gal is listed as giant and she took freakin' forever. Being mostly flesh, I spent a super long time glazing up and down to make it look OK. Basecoats were done with the airbrush and followed by a fleshwash to unsuccessfully add darklining (I did that at the end with a detail brush). The cloth and other details were (obviously) rushed and I did not realize that her leather skirt was quite so shiny. That particular Vallejo Game Color Terracotta give me a lot of trouble and probably I'll burn it on terrain or give it away so I don't have to deal with it any longer. I sunk around twenty five hours over a week or so into this fig, or "bigature" which I stole from Uncle Atom and I think we landed in a good place. There are no giants in my place so yet again, my potential uses for this fig are pretty limited. She'll count as large fig #1 for the year.

Last up we have what is hopefully clearly a dragon. He's also a bigature and again I have to note that the sculptor was a little off the rails. I watch all these youtube videos where folks are painting these $150 James Workshop dragons with intricate, painter-friendly textures then I see this guy with random cuts in his wings, barely defined webbing textures, and stupidly deep and inconvenient scales. As I don't use many dragons and don't particularly like this sculpt, this guy is a speed paint. I started with a Forest Green Daler Rowney Ink which I was going to lay over the entire model as a green dragon and immediately changed my mind. I kept it as the base for the wing webbing and ended up with an Indigo Daler Rowney Ink for the rest of the body. After that, a lot of drybrushing and detail work done to the tune of about six hours all told. Not my best work for sure, and the fig will hold a better quality paint job but I just can't be bothered.

And we're done! There's one more guy kicking around somewhere that I cannot find. I'm sure he'll show up at some point at which point I'll stick him in the pipeline but until then, I'm calling it done. It took a year to work through them all and ultimately I think they've been pretty good sans the stress of them being delayed for so long without any real understanding that they'd ever ship. Either way, they're done now and that's cool.

2024 finished mini counter: 49/208, 2/4 busts or large figs

Blacklist backlog week 3 (2024 week 6)

Continuing our mini-theme of finishing up the Blacklist Fantasy Series 1 figs, we begin with Half Orc Bard and Inkeeper. These two are speed paints and I'd like to pretend that I picked a color scheme that would be easy but that isn't actually true. The Ork probably needed more work on his skintones, in particular to desaturate it some. I probably needed to do more with his leathers, lute, and mug but this is what we got. The innkeep got even less attention and probably needed more. His fleshtones were a mess for reasons I don't fully understand and I did nowhere near enough work on his face. In retrospect, his curly mustache and purple gear gives him a very unintentional Wario vibe. I sprung for the freehand planking on the base rather than cutting him off of it and gluing a chunk of basing material. They're painted and that's good and I don't know if/when they'll ever get any real screen time.

Next up we have a pair of durids, particularly Male Human Druid and Female Half Elf Druid. I'm not entirely sure that either of their setups really screams "durid" to me but I'm not a sculptor. She repeats the purple of our Wario cosplayer above and I liked the red on her curls. I did not like painting her curls, however, as they were really shallow and my freehand just isn't that good. I did enough washes that it looks OK at distance but really does not hold up under scrutiny. Her face is the same way. I went back and forth on his hair which looks a lot like a turbin, reinforced by his curved sword, but the closer I looked the more it looked like hair. His face, hair, and other details needed more work than they got and again he looks OK at distance but not up close. I did do extra shading on his shield FWIW, but IMO it doesn't save anything. For a coupla speed paints, I'm not unhappy with the results.

And now we get into the fun ones. This is Male Elf Wizard and high quality #1 on the year. I experimented with a redder leather courtesy of a fun Speed Paint 2.0 color that I like a lot and the desaturated-ness of it makes the opposite saturated green work a lot better than I might have expected. The highlighting on him is minimal but effective and I kind of wish I'd stuck a tuft on his base to punch him up a bit but I didn't. You can also see the mold line that I did not enough to deal with. In my defense, mold lines over cloth folds are awfully difficult. I did a lot of darklining to separate stuff and did a bunch of work on his hair. Overall, I like this result done in about five hours.

Next up we have female human fighter and she shares the same red leather only a lot more of it. I worried a lot that the composition wouldn't work but it turned out OK on accident. Looking more closely we've got a classic red/yellow/blue triad with a desaturated yellow and red which works. I'll almost certainly do that again at some point. You can also see the difficulties I had with moldlines and similarly did a lot of darklining. Her face sells better in person than in these shots. My camera has been shooting more of a downward angle than I wanted and only just realized it. There are probably a couple more details I could have picked out but for the same five-ish hours, I like where this fig landed and she'll count as high quality #2.

I have a hang up for OSL which is similar to my hangup with NMM. I know how to do it more or less and when I get into it, I like it a lot more than I expect. So you'd think I'd remember that before I get going. I put off painting this fig until the end of the normal sized ones because I was dreading the OSL and then when I got into it, I had a lot of fun. In retrospect the composition isn't as good as I'd thought and probably her hair and the fire should have been yellow. I did her leather bits in a more saturated red but IMO it reads as a little more candy than I wanted. Her face is a lot better in person, as is the lighting but she's looking down a lot which isn't helping and my hot lights sadly blew out a lot of the more subtle shading. She'll be high quality #3 for an investment of 8-10 hours or so and I like the result. 

2024 finished mini counter: 43/208, high quality: 3/12

Blacklist Backlog week 2 (2024 week 5)

We continue our finish sprint of the remaining Blacklist Fantasy Series 1 figs. Will I ever see the Blacklist Fantasy Series 2 figs I kickstarted so many years ago? Stay tuned!

First up we have Male Human Cleric, Vampire Lord, and Female Human Paladin. The first and last will likely get some play but I don't use a lot of vampires in my game. I just don't like them. The reds were played by Contrast Paints rather than the Army Painter Speed Paints 2.0 that I've been experimenting with (note the shininess). The blending on these works better in person than in the (relatively) harsh light I shoot in, similarly for the armor metallics. I guessed on the gal's breastplate which I interpreted as metal but I have no idea if that's what was intended. Also, it doesn't count as armor if it doesn't cover your vitals. The vampire's white shirt super blew out in my lights which is yet another indication that I need to turn them down another notch. Aside from the vampire, I like these figs who were all done in around eight hours.

Next up we have Lich Lord, Male Dwarf Monk, and Female Human Constable. Of the three, I like the Constable the best and spent the most time on her. The Lich is plain and simple a speed paint since I don't use a lot of undead and the (lack of ) quality shows. I punted on the dwarf's paint job. I moved back and forth on the colors on his various bits before I settled on the blue and grey. There's nowhere near enough separation on the grey bits with the cording and while I like the blue and leathers, the greys really sink the paint job. The constable probably needed 10 minutes more on her hair which is a little too stark, and another 10 minutes on the shading on her coat which looks much nicer in person. I have no idea why the sculptor gave the lich a skeletal face and jacked arms. Ugh.

Last up we have Male Elf Paladin, Male Elf Rogue, and Half Elf Fighter. I have no idea why so many elves are showing up late in this feed but here we are. I had good luck blending on these and in this case the shiny red works for the fighter's presumably-laquered armor. His head is a little small which is weird. The leather on our emo-rogue did not come out well and I mostly phoned it in (obviously). The sanest of the three and notably the one I like the most is the Paladin. He's got a good level of detail unlike the other two and I probably should have spent more time shading his armor. And I'ma soapbox for a sec here.The paladin has a realistic sword. It's arguably too big for one handed use but it has a prominent pommel (for balance) and a fairly simple crossguard. Good. The rogue has a stupid fantasy dagger. Why? There are plenty of super-cool historicals that could be there and instead we get weird cutouts and depressions and a handle that is stupidly long. Finally, why does the clearly Samurai-inspired fighter have a European-styled sword? At least his scabbard isn't on his back. 

2024 finished mini counter: 36/208

Blacklist Backlog week 1 (2024 week 4)

This week we're beginning the end-run of Blacklist Fantasy Series 1. Astute readers will note that there's been quite a few blf1 figs here in the last several months but now we're on the home stretch.

Kicking things off, we have Street Vendor, Female Elf Barbarian and Male Half Elf Bard. These aren't  characters that are likely to get a lot of screen time and thus I didn't spend a whole lot of time with them. I'm still experimenting with Army Speed Paints 2.0 and they're continuing to impress. Also like a lot of these, the mold lines have been awful and that made a lot of the painting a lot less enjoyable than it should have been. Probably the street vendor's tchochkes should be metallic and probably the elf barbarian was meant to be pantsless but I did neither of those. The monk's wrappings, scarf, and sash are messier than they look in the figure. The barbarian's face is slightly better in person. These three aren't my best work (clearly) and overall they were done in about six hours.

 Next up we have Male Elf Bard, Female Human Barbarian, and Female Elf Ranger. I don't super like any of these sculpts but that didn't prevent me from not spending a lot of time with them. The highlighting on the green came out well as did the highlighting on the black parts. The bard's instrument and barbarian's hair really didn't come out well, tho. Also, while the color composition of the barbarian is ostensibly correct, I don't think that the shade of red I chose for her hair works super well and I certainly didn't spend enough time with it. The ranger's red basecoat was played again by Contrast Paint and again I note how shiny it is and how much I dislike that. Also not sure why her head is so small. They were done in around the same six hours and I note that the detail density on these three is right around where I want it.

Last up we have a b-b-bonus! These three props are from Dungeons and Lasers from I think their first kickstarter. They've been sitting around on my painting table for a while and one day when I was done with what I'd set out to do, I wanted to continue so I slapped some paint on them. I don't slap paint around as often as I used to so it's extra satisfying when I do so. On the one hand, I like that my standard quality is raising. On the other hand, I don't like that the time spent per fig and the pressure to paint well is raising too. Probably there's more I should think about here, but for now we'll leave it there. Also, I have three more props to use.

2024 finished mini counter: 27/208

A thing a week 2024, week 3

This week we have only the former: stuff on my painting desk that I'm trying to finish without being a part of a category I'm trying to close out. This is an artifact of how I record things (usually by year or kickstarter) and not at all interesting. These figs are mostly in the big bucket of "misc" which is everything else, and not a category that gets finished probably ever.

First up we have Vistra Dwarf Fighter from the Wrath of Ashardalon boardgame and Alaeros, Northland Fighter from the Temple of Elemental Evil boardgame. These are not good sculpts. Vistra is gigantic for a dwarf and being as hunched over as she is, she's got a lot of negative space. The texturing on her cloak is nice but the stuff on her armor is really overkill, especially compared to the other figs in that set. Last, there was no way to sanely deal with the mold lines given the texturing. All of the detail mean that despite cutting about a million corners, she still took like three hours to paint. Bleh. For Alaeros, I hate that his axe is bendy. I hate that he has so many stinking straps. I hate all the fur even though I spent what feels like too much time on it. Sometimes during the painting of these kinds of figures, I question my judgement when prepping them. 

Next up we have from the Legend of Drizzt boardgame the titular Drizzt, some notable character or other Jarlaxle, and love interest Catti-brie. Given that I read all these books when I was young, I should probably remember but I don't and I can't be bothered to look them up. These are OK sculpts with very poor molding like most of the other figs in the cycle of boardgames and as such I (clearly) didn't spend a lot of time with them. It's also curious that they're so all over the board in their style. It looks like Drizzt and Jarlaxle were done by the same people or at least people with similar styles. Catti-brie looks like she came from another set entirely. I can only guess at why this is. 

Last up we have Half-Elf Warlock - Jilsa Rennwin from DnD is a Woman and looking at that page, it seems I screwed up. I should have printed her at 32mm like a lot of the other 3d prints and and increasingly large proportion of my collection. Instead I printed her at 25mm like a dumb. That made painting her a lot harder than it needed to be especially in her face and gambeson which I spent a lot of time on. 

2024 finished mini counter: 18/208

A thing a week 2024, week 2

This week we have a continuation of what we had last week, namely me trying to finish up stuff on my workbench while also making progress on some categories I'm trying to complete.

First up we have Arjan, Dragonborn Fighter and Heskan, Dragonborn Wizard from the Castle Ravenloft board game and Wrath of Ashardalon board game respectively. These are not fantastic sculpts and the molding on these two in particular is awful. Arjan's right leg has this massive hole in it that I didn't think I could fill effectively and both of them have ridiculously bad mold lines that I did very little with. I did some highlighting on their scale-tones (or whatever) and I extra regretted picking out the lightning patterns on Heskan's robes. These were my first figs painted with Army Painter Speed Paint 2.0. Arjan's...er...jerkin? is painted solely with them and so far, I really, really like them. 

Next up from Blacklist Fantasy Series 1 we have female dragonkin warlock and male dragonkin warrior. Between the two, she is way nicer of a sculpt and sans my inability to deal with her mold lines sanely might have been this year's first high quality paint job. I super like the contrast between her cloak, her robe, and her scale-tones. He is...derpy, I mean, pretty obviously. I have no idea what the sculptor was thinking, especially since most of the rest of the blacklist sculpts have been comparatively good. His derpiness didn't prevent me from doing a lot of highlighting work though I'm not 100% sure I got the intended scale tones vs. armor bits correct.

Last up, also from Blacklist Fantasy Series 1 we have demonkin assassin and demonkin sorcerer. I like these sculpts, too, and again we have a situation where we might have had high quality paint jobs had I dealt more sanely with their mold lines. Also of note, I don't have a lot of use for demonkin in my games so I have no idea if/when they'll ever get screen time. I didn't spend a lot of time highlighting the purples and though they look shoddy here, they look slightly less shoddy in person same as the skintones. The dark leather bits is mostly played by Speed Paint 2.0 with some minor edge highlighting. My one week retro on these is that they're really good.

2024 finished mini counter: 12/208

A thing a week 2024, week 1

New year, new challenge, and the easiest numbering I'll ever do. 

We kick off the festivities with a Profane Altar and Books from bones 4. It's not something I would have likely purchased directly but it's a fun set of props for the table. I didn't spend a super long time on the altar part--it's pretty clearly a wash + drybrush cycle but the books took longer than might be obvious. The books are free floating and since they weren't big enough to stick a magnet to, I had to be super careful painting each side separately. I think it's a good result given the investment and since it counted as one number in the bones 4 campaign, it counts as one for our purposes here. 

Next up we have Balzador, Cleric from Bones 5 and Aravir, Elf Ranger from Bones 4. I'm pretty sure I have a pair of Balzador's twins one or both of which in metal so don't be surprised if his dopplegangers shows up again. These guys aren't super-detailed and Aravir in particular had a really soft mold so I had to work harder than I really wanted to. The green is played by contrast paint with layers of an ancient Reaper pot of forest green and Golden So Flat green highlight and as much as I like painting in green, you'd think I'd do it more. The metallics are pretty uninteresting by contrast. Probably they both could have used more work but I'm not unhappy with the result. 

This chonky dude is Khanag the Slayer from bones 4. He came in about a million piece (so, like four) and I dumbly, lazily glued him all together before priming. Well, that was dumb. He's so chonky with all of his negative space that I super struggled to get paint everywhere I wanted it. I also didn't study the fig well enough to start so he ended up less well color balanced than I'd like. The blue on his faulds doesn't super sell since it's patchy and doesn't match the tone of his cloak and I didn't have another place to put blue on him. I like the contrast between the orangey leathers and the blue but you can tell that I didn't spend a ton of time on those leathers. Not 100% sure why he's got all the chains going on but I'm not about to ask him.  

Last up we have Bryn, Half Elf Rogue and Estra, Iconic Spiritualist

 both from bones 4 and I did not realize these shots were so blown out prior to really looking at these shots. Bryn, like Aravir had some really soft sculpting so her sleeves and oversized bag aren't as nice as they could have been. I went back and forth with her color scheme before landingon the one shown here. I knew I wanted very saturated colors but waffled more than usual this time around. Also, WTF is going on with her outfit? That looks super uncomfortable. Why do her pants lace up the long way in two places? Fantasy artists, jeez. Estra has some awful mold lines super visible on her hands in person. I like this sculpt since it's not super busy and texturing made my brand new Army Painter Speed paints 2.0 work super well. As an added bonus, they all seem to be extra flat which is way better than the shiny finish I often get out of contrast paints. I left the patchiness of the basecoat on her robe because I liked the look of it. I like to pretend that this shows a character who's been actively adventuring, I dunno, in a dungeon or something rather than the glamor photo paintjobs that we usually see. 

2024 finished mini counter: 6/208

2024 crafting challenge

This is now the fifth year I've done this kind of challenge which is way longer than I ever expected. Probably I should write a five year retro or something. If only I could stop buying new fancy toys and could stop starting new projects maybe my pile of potential wouldn't be quite so large. Like last year I'd like to do more high quality work and have a strong disincentive from batch painting by not having anywhere near as many batches left to paint. 

Valid things:

• A finished piece or WIP representing not less than two hours of effort
• NaNoWriMo which I still haven't done, SHIPtember, and high quality paint jobs are good candidates
• Gaming terrain, prop, scatter (etc.)
• One or more painted minis
• An illustration or sketch in digital or traditional media (some day...)
• An article or other piece of writing of, I dunno, 1000 words or so
• A Lego build
• A software tool (yes, hard to believe I still build these)
• A video (some day...)
• A tool for hobbying or something
• Other?  Much of what I do defies easy categorization

Goals:

• Two Hundred Eight painted miniatures of at least tabletop quality (4/week)
• Twelve high quality pieces involving at least one of OSL, NMM, or unusual attention to detail at least six of which should be NMM (1/month and I'm not going to be super picky about NMM since it's still scary)
• Four busts or larger figs (1/quarter)
• One structure, meaningful tool, or other foam/wood/hobby creation

2023 in Review

ThisLast year was full of ups and downs. One of the ups was retiring, possibly For Realz(TM). One of the downs was a serious one. Specifically, my mother became terminally ill and I spent a chunk of the fall caring for her during her passing. This affected me way more than I expected and I don't think the affecting is over yet. Nothing is coloring my worldview more. Hug your mother if you can, kids. Life is short; play hard.

Painting

It was another big year for painting as you can probably tell from the shot on the right. I pushed through some really sticky points in the last quarter of the year but still managed to exceed the fig-per-day for the year in addition to hitting all my other goals. You could argue that the "quality paint jobs" could have been more quality which is fair. I still haven't pulled out all the stops for a single fig yet but I've thought about it a lot. Someday. Maybe. And maybe someday my photography will improve, too. 

A couple more milestones rolled by in 2023, too. All my vintage figs are painted now and I've hit five years of painting. I'd meant to write a thing to commemorate it but I didn't get to it. Dunno how many 365+ painted years I'm going to have moving forward as it's awfully grindy, especially when working through large volumes of characters. Without one of the outstanding kickstarters fulfilling soon, I'm nearing the end of the reasonably easy batches and don't foresee purchasing anything army-like in the near future.

RPGs

I ran two campaigns most of thislast year like I been doing since 2019. Neither of them finished even though both could have. The bi-weekly in-person one will be the last game we play in this world/era and it ties up a five and a half season meta-campaign that started in 2020 but you'll have to wait for it to finish to see how it turned out. I'll probably do a larger write up when I can get my head around it.  

Video Games

Starcom Nexus: *** (2019)

I forgot I played this game thislast year since I played it mostly at the very end of 2022 home sick with covid. It was...interesting. The story itself isn't anything to write home about but it had its moments. The big thing the game has is a "construct your own ship" mechanic where you bolt different components on a frame and away you go. I thought this was pretty cool until I realized that basically the only thing that mattered was speed. If you had firepower too, great, but after a point it wasn't a strict necessity. It's worth checking out and done by a single indie dude IIRC. 

Mechwarrior 5 Mercenaries: The Rise of Rasalhague: ***** (2023)

Mechwarrior 5 Mercenaries: The Dragon's Gambit: ***** (2023)

Pretty sure I said somewhere that I'm a sucker for anything Battletech and this year more or less proves it. At this point, Pirahna Games will pretty much get a tithe from me every time they release a new DLC. Rise of Rasalhague added some new mechanics which I liked, an unusually difficult mini-campaign, and some new mechs which are always good. In particular, they added a "these mercs roll here" spaces and randomly they will attack you or help you on your mission. There's a whole set of rewards for those. Fun. They also added a "these guys aren't strictly bad guys but might not be friendly" which I liked a lot, too. I don't think the second DLC added any mechanics but the mini-campaign was good and I ended up playing through the rest of the game anyway. Next DLC or Mechwarrior 6; I don't care. Take my money!

Fantasy Wars: ** (2007)

Fantasy Wars is not a great game but Steam tells me I spent not quite 24 hours with it. There are some serious design issues in it, particularly, some of the missions were overly-scripted and under-specified which led to many Throw the Controller Moments(TM). I also dislike games that have failure spirals. Example: if you squeak by losing most of your units, you're at a serious, serious disadvantage for the rest of the game since a) you won't have the cash to rebuild your army, and b) even if you have the cash, they won't be upgraded enough to see you through the later parts of the game which are brutal. The last mission in particular is a real mess but I gritted through it and despite all that, the game does have  a charm. I enjoyed it some but can't really recommend it. 

Shadowrun: Hong Kong: ****(2015)

NGL, I have a love/hate thing going on with Shadowrun Returns and despite what I said in my 2020 in Review post, I did wait...like three years. The writing is pretty good and I liked the characters a lot but at this point that's really table stakes. The system still sucks, tho, and they made decking not just worse but way worse to the point that I never wanted to do it. Sad news: you have to in some places. I would have liked to import my character from the previous versions of the game but neither the story nor the system really allow for it. I didn't play the follow-up mini-campaign and would have liked to, but I am dumb and played a modded version that supposedly fixed a bunch of bugs and would have to play through the game again. While I did like it, I don't know that I liked it that much. 

Ember: **** (2016)

I played this late in the year and honestly didn't have high expectations. I don't even remember when I bought it--almost certainly on a Steam sale at some point. Ember is a charming and solid RPG inspired by some of the Old Skool(TM) RPGs that I remember fondly. Is it a AAA offering? No, it is not, but it's a steal at the price and does a lot of work to not overstay its welcome. Steam tells me I completed it in about 15 hours but I didn't complete everything and haven't (and probably won't) playthrough for other endings. I would like to see a sequel, expansion, or another game from this studio on this engine someday, tho, and that's saying something. 

Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition: *** (2015)

In the waning days of thislast year I went rumaging through my list of Steam games to play and since I'd been on a RPG kick, I picked this one. I kickstarted it a decade (!) ago as a big fan of Larian's other games. As per usual, I started playing it way after it cam eout in late 2018 only to promptly get sidetracked by, er, probably Battletech? I'm far too lazy to go look it up. I started a brand new game and was immediately reminded of why it wasn't hard to put it down to begin with. The game is full of very vague puzzles which I hate and one-shot-kills which I also hate and later in the game they added "guys that can't be hurt at all" which I also also hate. If you're noticing a trend here, well, that's not coincidental. I don't have the patience I had when I was young and this game really tested my resolve. I get being Old-Skool(TM) but, jeez, the 80s called and they want their game design back. I liked most of the combats and some of the writing but there really was too much of it. They tried to throw a couple twists in there but IMO they didn't sell. Ultimately I suspect I'll remember this as a very grindy and painful game and I immediately uninstalled it when I'd finished mere minutes before typing this. I'm told the the sequel is better and I really hope that's the case. Will it be another three years before I get there? We'll just have to wait and see. 

2023 Crafting challenge wrap-up

If you were looking for the 2023 crafting challenge write up, you've come to the right place. Otherwise, well, I'm afraid you're lost. For the second time evar, I hit the magic 365 painted figs a year mark and I have to say that without the big batches of non-bangers, that would have been even more soul-crushing than it otherwise was.

Week 1: Galaad Kitsune Ranger high quality #1, Crippled God Foundry City Guard Elite Captain, D&D is a Woman Curiphaias Dragonborn Sorcerer, Artisan Guild Dragon Guard Lady E high quality #2 and Dragon Guard Lady F high quality #3

Week 2: One Page Rules Saurian Warriors x5, Saurian Veteran, Saurian Gecko Priest

Week 3: Titan Forge Stranger, Bones 4 Adowyn Iconic Hunter, Vae Victis Half-Orc Wizard, Twin Goddess Aileen, Celtic Wizard, Wrath of Kings Shael Han Za'Ken, Printed Obsession Tabaxi Assassin (Asha the Rogue)

Week 4: Blacklist Fantasy Series 1 (heretofor blf1) oozes, mist snakes, spirits, banshees

Week 5: blf1 air elemental, water elemental, fire elemental, earth elemental painted as a magma elemental

Week 6: blf1 trogolodytes painted as magma trogs

Week 7: vintage Leading Edge Games Lawnmower Man figs

Week 8: vintage Ral Partha 11-103 Demihuman Vampires, vintage RAFM Manipulators

Week 9: vintage Ral Partha Maria Mercurial and Kyle Morgan, vintage Laian and Tammis from Mekton

Week 10: vintage Ral Partha Dae-Shiru Commanders and 02-132 Dae-Shiru Regulars

Week 11: Velrock Leonin Tribe

Week 12: Reaper Bones Avatar of Courage, Comet Lord Miniatures Kyros, Lionman Priest, Galaad Leonin Ranger, Printed Obsession Leonidal

Week 13: Titan Forge Cursed Sands Lionness, Reaper Cheetah Girl high quality #4, Wrath of Kings Hu-Ren, Artisan Guild Rakshakin Headhunter - Moduler F (Lady)

Week 14: Reaper Lion Man high quality #5

Week 15: assorted Dungeons and Lasers floor tiles

Week 16: blf1 giant spiders

Week 17: blf1 giant rats

Week 18: blf1 wolves

Week 19: blf1 werewolves

Week 20: Vae Victis Orc Thief high quality #6

Week 21: Hover Truck

Week 22: Bones 5 Gon'Tarr Orc Shaman, Bite the Bullet Gara, the Half Orc, Twin Goddess Guldra - Orc Warlock

Week 23: Vae Victis Elf Bandit high quality #7

Week 24: Crippled God Foundry Romud, Cleric, Galaad Dwarf Female, Glavier from Chainmail Starter Pack, Artisan Guild Human Fighters Guild - D (Lady) Modular

Week 25: Wrath of Ashardalon Board Game (heretofor woabg) grell, Castle Ravenloft Board Game (heretofor carabg) gargoyles, Temple of Elemental Evil Board Game (heretofor toepbg) rock elemental

Week 26: blf1 imps and gargoyles

Week 27: blf1 purple (rainbow) worms

Week 28: Bones 4 Devils (sans Succubus), Nolzur's Griffon

Week 29: Bones 5 Wolf Dragon (no link) large #1

Week 30: blf1 gnolls

Week 31: blf1 goblins and kobolds

Week 32: blf1 orcs (as hobgoblins) and bugbears

Week 33: Bones 4 Hill Giant Huntsman's Dire Lion and Frost Giant Raiders' Giant Wolf (no link), Bones 5 The Thing From the Well (no link) large #2, Nolzur's Adult Remorhaz large #3, blf1 dire bear, Bones 4 Chaos Toad Savage

Week 34: blf1 fire beetles, Bones 4 Giant Rhino Beetle, blf1 constructs

Week 35: The Printing Goes Ever On Southern Archer (part of D&D is a woman), Galaad Female Ranger, Galaad Rogue, Goonmaster Human Rogue 1, Titan Forge Bodyguard, Reaper Bones Lanelle

Week 36: Artisan Guild (fighters guild) Fighter A Male, Fighter D Lady, Brent of Goobertown, Fighter C Lady, Sigfrido Dragonsbane, Morgana the Ascended

Week 37: blf1 dire boars

Week 38: carabg wraiths and skeletons

Week 39: carabg air and water elementals, blf1 ghouls cosplaying as demons

Week 40: carabg blazing skeletons, Bones 5 Grave King (no link)

Week 41: toepbg fire bats, Bones 4 Dire Crab, vintage Ral Partha Gorgon

Week 42: Galaad Princess Knight, Hero Forge Essith and Hinako, 

Week 43: Titan Forge Earth Elementals, toepbg Gold Dwarf Cleric, Legend of Drizzt Board Game (heretofor lodbg) Bruenor Battlehammer, woabg Orc Smashers

Week 44: blf1 cultists, woabg Cultists

Week 45: blf1 bandits, Jaxius (Duncan Shadow Otter Kit)

Week 46: Vae Victis Giant Rats, Oshounaminis Monolith Bots, Crippled God Foundry Giant Scorpion

Week 47: Bones 4 Merowyn Lightstar and Blink Berenwicket, Vae Victis Woman Pirate, Crippled God Foundry Dame Teuta and Lucius the Templar, blf1 dwarf barbarian, dwarf bard, dwarf ranger, dwarf druid, gnome cleric, halfling bard, dwarf fighter, dwarf wizard

Week 48: Bones 4 Shandra Iconic Shaman, Enora Iconic Arcanist, Taroya, Reaper Bones Avatar of Courage, blf1 human wizard and elf monk, woabg Talon Human Ranger, Galaad Knight 05, Tiger Skull Hunter Oathenshard, GloomyKidMinis Muriel Druid of the Plains, and Master Forge Lizardfolk Ranger

Week 49: Bones 4 Willow Greenivy Witch, Jahenna, Talnyth Female Elf Barbarian and Nemesra Dancing Girl, blf1 elf barbarian, female dwarf cleric, female human rogue, male gnome rogue, female halfling fighter, male halfling ranger, female gnome paladin and skeletons, lodbg Regis, RNE Studio Levita, Crippled God Foundy Eye Terror, 

Week 50: 9x vintage Mekton metals

Week 51: woabg duergar guards, carabg Gravestorm Dracolich, Athrogate Dwarven Battlerager and Wulfgar, blf1 female gnome druid (high quality #11) and female elf cleric, bones 4 Hakon, Iconic Skald (high quality #12), Isobael the Bard & Rufus, Arnise Elf Deathseeker, Khuttal Half Orc Ranger from DnD is a Woman, blf1 half orc paladin, female half orc rogue, male half orc ranger, knee- or chest-high walls ("complex structure" #1)

Week 52: blf1 mummies, unholy knights, harpies, zombies, naga.

Bonus Week 53!: bones 4 Mystic Portal, Rivani, Giant Crab Man, bones 5 Grim Reaper, Loot Golem, Runewars Outland Scouts

Final tally:

• 373/104 total figures painted
• 12/10 high quality
• 7/2 large figures/busts
• 1/1 structure

A thing a week 2023, week (gasp!) 53!

This year we get a bonus post! The first Sunday of January was the 1st and today is also a Sunday so we get a 53rd entry in the series. This is good because we have a lot of figs to get through and I'm glad I didn't have to jam them all into the previous post.

This is a Mystic Portal which I got with Bones 4 and you might note that the bronze is the same jobby as the harpies got. Yep. It's mostly otherwise done with drybrushes and washes and should be a fun set piece whenever it is that I might need such a thing. The bottom piece is warped very badly and I wasn't unable to unbend it sufficiently so I guess the lions are just not going to be very convincing while holding it. I also note that whatever transparent plastic they used in the molding was highly hydrophobic despite a lot of scrubbing to prevent exactly that problem. Anything I had to brush on rather than airbrush was a pain but on the upside, it'll count as large #5. 

The fiery guy on the left is a Temple of Elemental Evil board game Fire Elemental and the fiery guy (?) on the right is a Bones 4 Crab Man despite the fact that the morphology would indicate that it's indeed female. Did I need to paint both of them like fire? No, I did not, and neither of them is super convincing at it either way, but I did. The elemental's deep, deep details defied easy drybrushing which is usually how I pull this effect off so the yellows are too prominent and the oranges/dark reds are nearly missing. The Crab Man did this a little better but the yellows are probably not prominent enough even though the dark reds sell pretty well. I'm experimenting with the Army Painter Drybrush Set and I can say that they work pretty well even if I think they were a tad spendy.

This is Rivani from Bones 4. She's an iconic something-or-other from Pathfinder, a game I don't play and somewhat unusually, I played this one by the book keeping her normal color scheme. There are some really soft details on this sculpt which bother me and I didn't push to get a bunch of freehand on here, not like I'd normally do such a thing. I feel like I sold the shine on her hair OK but the yellow tones need a lot more work and shininess from the contrast paint on her paints still sucks. Overall, an OK job.

This guy is very clearly the Grim Reaper (no link) and probably less clearly from Bones 5. This is pretty obviously a speed paint borrowing most of the color scheme from last week's Naga plus slightly more attention to detail and some additional highlight work with the airbrush. I wanted to keep his robes dark so instead of trying to highlight with layers that a) would take a lot of time, and b) I'd invariably overdo,  I hit him with various light drybrushes instead which look good enough at arm's length. Most of the rest of the paint job is pretty simple and I pretty clearly phoned in the hourglass.

This guy is also from Bones 5 and I call him a loot golem for lack of a better name. In my mind my very careful airbrushing would have done a lot more of the work. Also, the primer would have stuck better to the transparent rubbery plastic it's made of. Neither of those are actually true. I tried real hard to sell the gold but all of my shenanigans trying to zenithal with metallics made a real mess. I also would have liked to have done better with the gemstones but I found the fully-assembled model to be hard to navigate (my fault) beyond being inconveniently big. The Golden Yellow Ghost Tint didn't super help and was luckily really hard to apply so I got that goin' for me. He'll count as large #6. 

Last up for this post and this year, we have Runewars Outland Scouts. This is a game that a) I don't play, and b) is currently out of print. I got these and some others at a steep discount and wanted a semi-easy batch to round things out. These had OK sculpts. The details are mostly big and chunky but there are too many of them. The chains in front draw particular ire. One serious drawback is that their eyes aren't sculpted. They seem to be entirely recessed which is why they're so indistinct in the packaging shots. That sucked and I only sort of figured it out and in the way that you learn things spending hours painting tiny figs, I decided that I like neither their pseudo-fantasy armor nor their iffy fantasy swords. I really wanted these to be better but I only got them to OK in the span of about ten hours all told. They're painted and that counts.

2023 finished mini counter: 373/104

A thing a week 2023, week 52

If you were looking for the "end of the year batches to hit an arbitrary goal", then you're in the right place. These are mostly from Blacklist Fantasy Series 1 which is now down to the last thirty or so characters and even though this week's offering won't get us over the finish line, there's a bonus posting next week that will seal the deal.

First up we have mummies which aren't a creature that I use like ever. They're a reasonable sculpt with some really difficult to deal with mold lines and I took the opportunity to do a super low rent paint scheme. Most of the work is the airbrush-provided zenithal which I followed with a couple washes to give them a nice aged tone. A very small drybrush brought out some of the details. I may have spent more effort throwing grit on the bases and painting them than on the figs. No idea what I'll ever do with these guys but they're painted.

Next up we have unholy knights. These might see some game time but again, I don't use a lot of undead in my campaigns. They are similarly low rent paint schemes mostly involving contrast paint and a drybrush for their cloaks, a simple metallic + wash for their armor and maybe three layers and a wash for their bones. I don't like spending a lot of time on figs that a) don't excite me, and/or b) aren't likely to see a lot of game time but they're fantastic for feeling like I'm making good progress on my pile of shamepotential.

These are probably the only interesting batch here. Another creature I don't use like ever are harpies but golems I use frequently including a bunch of flying golems like gargoyles. Well, painting these in a faux bronze seemed like a pretty reasonable thing to do. I went with a heavily patinaed + highly polished wear areas even though this makes zero sense within a dungeon. The patina was a turquoise zenithal provided by the airbush. The metallics were pretty obviously a drybrush, this time with a decades old pot of Reaper Brass which I only really keep around for this kind of operation. Overall I think these are serviceable.

These are pretty clearly zombies and I have almost no use for them. Thusly, I only barely painted them. The fleshtone is a two shade highlight, the pants are the same, the guts and mouths are a basetone and a wash, and the shirts aren't painted over the zenithal at all. After that: magic. Again I note that every time I use an oil wash, they elevate a paint job. I spent more time removing excess oil wash than I did applying the rest of the paints and they were done in maybe five hours total sans all the waiting you have to do between applying and removing an oil wash. Dunno that I'll ever use them but they're painted.

If there's an interesting paint job in this week's offering, and I'm not saying there is, it's this guy. This is a naga, this version of the creature IIRC, a dumb D&D monster that I have no real interest in using. I went with my gut on this one with a colored zenithal, a drybrush, wash, and final drybrush only stopping to barely pick out some of the dumb details on its dumb face and dumb spikes. This thing is trying so hard to look scary that it just looks dumb and I don't know that I'll ever put it on the table with a straight face.

Stay tuned next week when we finish off 2023 with a flurry of posts.

2023 finished mini counter: 359/104