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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

2024 finished mini counter: 135/208

A thing a week 2024, week 24

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

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

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

A thing a week 2024, week 23

This week we have the last of the cycle of Rocky figs from Bones 4. They've all been painted in more or less the same way and curious readers can read it over in the previous two entries should you be so inclined. 

First up we have Scheming Rocky in purple, a color I like a lot but really struggle with. I should have come up higher in value on all of his scales and particularly on his face which reads a lot better in person though I did get the lowest lows in the right range. It's entirely probable that my paint table's lighting set up is too bright since I have this issue pretty often. This is made worse by the barely-sufficient lighting on my gaming table, not that these guys are particularly gaming pieces. I went magenta for his webbing but like I said last week, I should have pushed more in the yellow direction into reds. 

Last up we have Sneaky Rocky in teal. He's probably the best of the bunch despite missing some of the highlights on his left flank. His contrast is the best both in volumetric value and color temperature and he probably has the best eyes of the bunch. I put extra effort into getting his gaze focused in front of him despite the fact that the light reflection dots don't line up correctly. Eyes on these guys have been challenging even though they're really big since they bulge out so far. Usually I'm dealing with a barely curved recess if there's even an eye sculpted. 

For sure there's more work I could have done across all five but I learned a lot and I'm content to add them to my display box. Maybe someday in the unforseeable future I'll do more on them but for now I'm calling them done.

2024 finished mini counter: 128/208, 11/12 high quality

A thing a week 2024, week 22

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

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

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

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

A thing a week 2024, week 21

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

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

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

A thing a week 2024, week 20

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

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

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

2024 finished mini counter: 123/208

A thing a week 2024, week 19

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

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

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

 

 

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

2024 finished mini counter: 119/208

A thing a week 2024, week 18

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

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

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

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

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

A thing a week 2024, week 17

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

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

2024 finished mini counter: 112/208

A thing a week 2024, week 16

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

2024 finished mini counter: 109/208

A thing a week 2024, week 15

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

A thing a week 2024, week 14

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

A Roman Interlude week 3 (2024 week 13)

Wrapping up our Roman interlude we have these eight dudes who are much like last week's eight dudes. These are Hail Caesar Imperial Roman Eastern Auxiliary Archers and I'm a little shaky on my color choice for their uniforms. I didn't find a bunch of reference so I kind of guessed. These are pretty much the same scheme as the last dudes and were done in probably five hours all told. I haven't yet found a good cadence swapping from long periods of character work and long periods of batch painting. I can say that I pretty clear when I've exceeded the point that I should switch and that I'm pretty unhappy if I don't have stuff prepped to swap. I'm starting to run short on reasonable batches so probably that's not good. 

2024 finished mini counter: 79/208

A Roman Interlude week 2 (2024 week 12)

As telegraphed last week, we have more Romans this week. I may be drawing these out so that I cover for larger projects in the background or I might just be lazy. I'll never tell. Probably.

These eight dudes in formation are Hail Caesar Imperial Roman Western Auxiliary Archers and I painted them in the typical Roman legion colors. These were pretty obviously a speed paint mostly with Speed Paints plus metallics and a few details picked out
. I toyed with painting their uniforms in different colors so we can tell them apart at the table but I didn't. I also toyed with painting their bases in a different color and forgot to do that, too. It did make this shot look a lot better tho. So I got that goin' for me. 

2024 finished mini counter: 71/208

A Roman Interlude week 1 (2024 week 11)

This week we have something completely different. Well, I suppose not completely different, but different enough from my usual stuff that it warrants noting. This begins a three part pseudo-theme featuring Roman ranged weaponry. Today we have a Hail Caesar Imperial Romans:  Plastic Scorpion (2x + weapon) and if some of those dudes look familiar, they should! The two guys were painted in late 2020 and have been kicking around my prep desk for the intervening many years. The scorpion itself was partially painted not super long after the dudes and it also kicked around for far too long. Well, now they're painted and flocked very badly. My lousy photography helps hide the worst of the sins. I had intended to use these in a campaign we ended up playing 100% remotely in 2020 so the need never materialized. IIRC they came with a different base, basically a large piece of plastic, and in retrospect that probably would have worked better than the 2" base I stuck them on. Flocking the large base was a real pain since there's so many corners and what not to get glue/flock into. That was a pain but I suppose that's how we learn. 

2024 finished mini counter: 63/208. 

A thing a week 2024, week 10

This week we have funner than usual things. I'm starting a new campaign so we're getting (very) recent paint jobs with more character than usual with a notable plus one which we'll start with right here.

This is Wappellious Spellbrush from Artisan Guild. James Wappel is a seriously good, multiple award winning mini artist and a pillar of the mini painting community. I started watching his videos at the beginning of the pandemic when I started seriously pursuing the hobby and have supported him on Patreon ever since. He's been described as the Bob Ross of mini painting and you can find him on twitch regularly at very odd hours. I got this STL as a part of the Troubles in Taverns bundle and printed him out in September of 2021 which seems like forever ago. He got some paint at random times but has otherwise been among the dozens of figs in the background of my painting table. Well, I found the time and slapped some paint around and for the five-ish hours I spent, I think I got a good result. Originally I wanted to do a complicated OSL but obviously I didn't do that. Next time, maybe.

Next up we have Quinn, Skrang Duelist played by Tazythas, Dragonfolk Rogue from Reaper and he came with the Bones 4 kickstarter. This is a great fig with a high degree of modularity including wings which I didn't add since Skrang don't have wings. You can probably tell that I did a lousy job filling in the holes in his back. The base coat was provided by Army Painter Speed Paints 2.0 which picked out his scales very well and Vallejo Metal Color for the metallic bits as per usual. The red scales were highlight mostly through drybrushing and the fig was rounded out with minimal brushwork on details/highlights and a wash over the metallics. He was done in a couple hours all told and his arm fell off somewhere between taking these photos and playing a few hours later. Not to worry, since it's been found.

This is Chogan the Goblinslayer played by Orc Barbarian - B (Male) Modular. I'm pretty sure I've saidtyped this before, but I'm a sucker for modularity. In this case, the magic of 3d printing meant that I could mirror the axe/hand combo so the fig could have two axes at the request of the player. This is a fairly high drama low effort paint job. He's mostly skintones which is a simple Speed Paint 2.0 basecoat with easy highlighting followed by a bunch of metallics and detail work. The hardest part was that I glued him together first (for expediency) which made getting paint between his weaponry and body quite challenging. He was done in a few hours which is where most of my non-tryhard works land. The sculpt will hold a higher quality paint job so there's hope for his near-twin Orc Barbarian - D (Female) Modular whose shield arm fell off otherwise I would have painted her at the same time.

This doggy looking fellow is Madoc as played by a kitbash of Duncan Shadow's Fox Folk / Kitsune Multipart Kit with arms from Otter folk Multipart Kit. All of the parts were resized to match the character and the magic of modularity meant that the arms would in fact fit with the chosen body. You'll note that he shares quite a lot of colors with our pal Quinn which is on purpose. One of the guidelines of fast batch painting is to limit the number of colors used so there ya go. While the fig doesn't match the character as well as I might have liked (the player landed on a boxer-like degha rather than a fox-like degha) but I got all the other details right. As an ex-gangster, I painted his eyes as a dead "you want somma this?" kind of way that also doesn't really fit the character. I worked with the prompts I got. He was done in a few hours.

This kitty looking gal is Setsoku, my ex-carnie NPC as played by Tabaxi Monk - Amalya from DnD is a Woman. I printed her and her mirrored twin at 28mm and I regret that. All of the figs that I've printed in that campaign so far have had details far too small to handle sanely. I had intended to pick out the embroidery in her dress but couldn't sanely do so and ran out of time to futz around so I punted and ended up painting her clothes mostly in the same color. Her small size does match the character better but, I dunno, I have figs all over the spectrum from 25mm to 40mm so I'm starting to let go of that hang up. I will likely print her out again some day at 32mm and/or 75mm for fun and no profit. She was done in like two hours.

Last up we have Sparkle as played by Fairy 02 by Galaad, one of my favorite 3d sculptors. I spent *way* too long on this fig, about seven hours, which caused me lots of other prep-related issues as the clock wound down to go-time. I wanted to do a better job with fleshtone shadows so I spent a lot of time mixing and glazing up and down. It's not as smooth as I wanted, but it works on the table. The lacing on her wings was especially painful and was picked out with the glossy black Golden Hi Flow which I don't use super often due to their shine. In this case, that was exactly what I wanted and draws additional contrast to the dark parts of her monarch butterfly patterning. With more time that I didn't have, I would have made everything smoother and worked on more details like the flower in her hair and the gems in her bracelet which I threw gold and a wash over. I did do a bunch of black lining which is over-showing in the photos while the tonality in her skintones were washed out in the shoot as was the detail in her face which took a couple hours. She'll count as high quality #5 on the year.

2024 finished mini counter: 62/208, 5/12 high quality

A thing a week 2024, week 9

Leaving Blacklist Fantasy behind at least until I either find the missing monk or Series 2 finally ships (still not optimistic), we're going on to the perennial topic: clearing out stuff on my painting table. It never ends, people.

This is Aurielle - Female Ranger from RN Estudio, a sculptor that I like a lot. Howcome we haven't seen more (any?) of their sculpts here? Turns out that a lot of their earlier sculpts are unsupported which is a real pain but fret not, there are more on the way. I watch most movies that I watch very late in the cycle and I am very well versed in Tolkien's works so I was unprepared to learn that this sculpt was assumedly inspired by a character in Peter Jackson's exceptionally long The Hobbit trilogy. I've since watched that trilogy. I have thoughts but that's not what we're here for today.

I spent a lot of time on this fig though certainly not as much as I could have. We're somewhere in the ballpark of 25 hours or so over the last couple months mostly done in between doing other work, particularly if I had the appropriate paints on my palette and wasn't done for the day. Printed in the summer of 2022, she got some random blue airbrush overspray and sat in my "to do" list for quite a while. 

I spent upwards of five hours just on her face and particularly her eyes which I super failed to photograph reasonably. Her hair probably could have gotten a lot more work given that there's so much of it but my brush skills just aren't at the point of picking out individual locks especially where the details are so shallow. In reviewing the shots here, I note that I missed one of  her hair bands that should be metallic but I'm just going to leave it as a detail to do better on next time so don't be surprised if she shows up again. 

With the time spent, she'll qualify as my fourth high quality fig on the year.

2024 finished mini counter: 56/208, 4/12 high quality

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