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I love the hag. Not unnoticed, just watching and nodding

 FoxHybrid wrote:
I’ve never played any of the Witcher games, which is part of the reason why I didn’t comment on your latest post, but I will say, I love your basing. The base of the water hag is just so cool, I love the texture on the edges of it.

That's understandable, not everyone is into video games, but if you are the Witcher trilogy is great (especially the 3rd).
It's great to see you becoming a bit of a regular btw.
Glad you like her base. The edges were actually the part I spent the least time on. I saw someone else on the facebook group go to town on the base with that liquid water effect stuff, but it's not something I would use often so I've never bought any before.
One of the cool things about the game is that the bases are all really detailed, but the hag is basically just flat so it took some improvising to make it work.

 inmygravenimage wrote:
I love the hag. Not unnoticed, just watching and nodding

Thanks inmygravenimage, I thought you might like her.
Not that there always has to be comments, but it helps to have some company that really know the hobby.
Everyone I know likes my work, but I'm the only one that does any painting.
My good friend who was the person that originally introduced me to Warhammer back in middle school tragically died of cancer way too young.

Anyway I finished that one more surprise I mentioned before.
It's the first witcher playable character, Ciri.
She is pretty much the only character from the videogames that is in the board game, other than Philippa Eilhart in the mages expansion.
This is because the board game takes place about a century before the videogames.
Despite this Ciri shows up because I guess technically she might have time travel powers or something, not quite sure.
Mostly she is there because during the kickstarter campaign there was a massive amount of whining by some people that there isn't enough female representation.
They didn't care in the slightest that the established witcher lore states that no girl has ever survived the Trial of the Grasses which is the chemical mutation process to which the witchers owe their enhanced reflexes and abilities.
They also didn't care that the company added an entire expansion to appease them, the mages which are half girls, because it was a paid addon so apparently that doesn't count.
Nevertheless I'm happy to have Ciri in the game.
The other witchers are basically non-cannon so I'm not sure what kind of paint scheme I will use for them yet.

I have a lot more witcher models that I want to work on, but like I said, my roommates demand that only they get to decide when it is cool enough to paint.
We have 3 air conditioners in a tiny apartment now yet they still like to act like a couple lights is a reason to start world war 3.
Not to complain excessively, but it's insufferable having the same argument over and over when conversely they get to do whatever they want.
It's not even like we live in an especially hot climate, it's Canada. eyeroll

Oy. Roommates. I know what you mean... I mean mine are 15,13 and 7 but still
Ciri looking good. Yes, people are never satisfied, it's insufferable.

 inmygravenimage wrote:
Oy. Roommates. I know what you mean... I mean mine are 15,13 and 7 but still
Ciri looking good. Yes, people are never satisfied, it's insufferable.

Thanks a bunch, and you're too right. I don't usually respond without something else to show, but case in point I guess I won't be posting my stuff to the Witcher facebook group anymore.

I'm not saying my painting is the best in the world or anything, but given that most people who play board games don't have much experience painting I can say that my work is better than about 90% of what I see posted from others there (mostly contrast and speed paints).
However, that didn't stop several people from making probably the most mean-spirited comments I've seen for that sort of thing on my Ciri post.
It really is a pathetic excuse for a so-called community, but I guess that just makes me more appreciative that Dakka seems to be one of the last vestiges of good folks left on the internet.

That's really sad. Yeah board game groups are very strange and the IP crowd tend towards the... Tetchy, at best. I for one am greatly enjoying your work. Dakka is lovely place, there's a reason I've here nearly 15 years

 inmygravenimage wrote:
That's really sad. Yeah board game groups are very strange and the IP crowd tend towards the... Tetchy, at best. I for one am greatly enjoying your work. Dakka is lovely place, there's a reason I've here nearly 15 years

I very much appreciate your reassurance. I have been on Dakka for 9 years almost to the day so I'm not that far behind you. Hopefully this sanctuary remains in perpetuity.

Today I managed to complete the ghostly Noonwraith.
They look even creepier at full size in the video game. According to the bestiary they are the spirits of young women who died violent deaths right before their weddings.
There is also a Nightwraith to get to at some point.

Next in line is one of the larger models, the Griffin. With the exception of the Nekker, I have been painting the monsters in the order in which they appear in the video game.
The Griffin is the boss fight for the opening area so once it is done I was planning on trying to get the game to the table.

Ooh dark and spooky. A real Hellboy vibe to that paintjob.

 inmygravenimage wrote:
Ooh dark and spooky. A real Hellboy vibe to that paintjob.

Thanks for that favorable comparison. I wasn't hugely into the original Hellboy movies, but I do happen to own the reboot in 4k despite it being critically panned. That's partly because I enjoy almost any movie with Milla Jovovich. Someday I'll get back to painting that giant Leeloo figure.
Anyway, it helps a lot to be painting more stuff from a video game IP, similar to the Horizon game, since there is so much reference material.

With that in mind I have another slightly bigger update for you today.
The first of this pair, the aforementioned Griffon, I actually finished a few days ago, but just hadn't gotten around to posting yet.
It's always tricky painting something with a lot of black, but I'm trying to stay as true to the source as possible. I think he turned out mostly okay.

I figured 6 monsters was enough to finally try out the base version of the game which plays pretty well so far. For a solo match you only have to fight 1 each of lv 1, 2, and 3 monsters, but it turns out even the griffon is only categorized as a lv 2.

So I'm happy to also be able to now show off my first lv 3 completed, Mr. Troll here.
I've always found trolls amusing whether it be from warhammer fantasy, to Lord of the Rings, but especially in the witcher universe. They're smart enough monsters that they can speak a broken version of the common language, but other than that they're delightfully dim.
I also really like how his belly flesh and face turned out. This one is painted in the style of an Ice Troll rather than rocky variety so I think he came out with a suitably icy sheen, but my matte varnish will most likely dull it down a bit.

I'm not sure what the next monster project will be, maybe something from the single player Wild Hunt expansion, but first I was going to try outa a second game session with the Monster Trail expansion. It has no extra minis, but it is supposed to make all of the monsters more unique in the way they fight.

Really like the shading on the troll's face and the feathers.

 inmygravenimage wrote:
Really like the shading on the troll's face and the feathers.

A much belated thanks for your consistent praise friend.

I'm ashamed at my lack of progress over the last few months. A lot of it was to try and avoid the summer heat as I previously mentioned, but the truth is I have just had a lot of other things keeping me busy.
For one thing, I have read 2 whole books in the meantime. I used to only have 3 of the 8 witcher novels, but I finally bought the complete set so I started fresh back at the beginning. I also bought some really nice hardcover copies of the complete Dune series, and the full works of HP Lovecraft.

Anyway, I can happily say I managed to get something done today, not surprisingly keeping with the Witcher theme, it's a Rotfiend. They're pretty fun in the games because once they are near death they start choking before erupting in a very damaging shower of gore so you have to stay on your toes.

He looks a bit darker than I wanted from the back side, but other than that he went pretty well.

Most of my paints are on death's door from disuse unfortunately. If citadel didn't have so many good colors I would have switched to a different brand long ago because I believe they're badly designed on purpose just to get you to spend even more on them. You have to CONSTANTLY water them down and babysit them just to get them to work at all.
They even want you to buy their lahmian medium over and over that costs just as much as the paints even though it's more or less just water anyway.

I can't say I'll return to my old pace anytime soon, but I'll try to pick it up again to some degree.
I am unable to undercoat anything new until the air conditioner comes out hopefully in the next month or so.

I did get my copy of Vampire the Masquerade Chapters though.
Even though it has an absolutely ridiculously large errata to wade through for pretty much every single scenario, it is actually really fun to play. I love its writing style and setting. I actually have already completed about 1/3 of the campaign playing 2 characters solo. I could have kept going, but I didn't want to blow past it too fast without painting any of it first.

It came with a set of prepainted minis for the players themselves, but they are pretty disappointing. It looks like they spent about 5 minutes at most on each model, but it's better than grey... I guess?

No need to apologise. And, lovely, filthy creature.

 inmygravenimage wrote:
No need to apologise. And, lovely, filthy creature.

Thanks, but I wasn't so much apologizing as expressing disappointment in myself for falling behind. I've most likely reached a point, since several of the board games I have coming have more than 100 minis a piece, that I won't have enough free time in my entire remaining life to paint everything so taking months off seems like a waste.

I think I'm starting to accept that some of them will just have to be played with mostly plain grey, and just focusing on stuff that I have the most love for. There is no point in board games sitting on the shelf unused, but I still feel the times I do play with everything painted really adds a sense of satisfaction and extra immersion.

With that in mind, I made a bit more progress on the Witcher with a little creature called an Arachas.
It seems to be a plant-like creature with a sort of bulbous venomous sack on its back. He turned out fairly well imo. I kind of wanted more of a fuchsia or pinkish than the purplish it ended up as, but I figured purple and green have always made for good complementary colors.

Oddly enough the board game developers are launching a spinoff campaign already called The Witcher Path of Destiny. I like that it will have a narrative focus, but it sounds like they aren't going far enough with it. They describe it as a Tableau building game with some deck management which sounds kind of basic with somewhat limited replay value.
It's hard for me to say no to anything with the official Witcher license, but I'm trying to hold to my promise to myself to stop pledging for anymore kickstarters even though I have yet to pay off my last one, Monster Hunter World.

The next board game I have arriving is called Nova Aetas Renaissance hopefully sometime in the next couple months. It's fairly unique in that it takes place in Italy, with some beastmen somehow mysteriously being involved.
It's going to be an even more nerve-wracking delivery process than usual because my apartment's only elevator is scheduled for extensive maintenance around that exact same time frame.
If the despicable package pirates that pollute my building steal a giant irreplaceable shipment from me I am going to be pissed.

Nice floral brain gribbly.