Forklift certified mid-boss

This week (well, technically last week, but I’ve been so wiped I was only able to snap a pic a full week later) we have another offering for the Firefly Stargrave project, à test model for one of the enemy factions:

He was originally a Rezolution APAC Enforcer Lieutenant (as you can probably tell from the micro crop top and tie combination), but for my purposes he’s going to be a fixer and potential bounty target that is a mid level boss for a vaguely future Asian themed crime family - I haven’t yet decided what they’re going to be called, but I vaguely recall planning (back when this project was originally planned, fifteen or so years ago) to call them something like the Pan Asiatic Crime Syndicate or Pan Asiatic Syndicate Tong (because, y’know, acronyms).

He’s a beautifully sculpted little mini, from his abs to his tiny cigarillo, and the back of his jacket also has some sculpted detail. I think it was supposed to be a dragon, but with some careful brushwork I was able to turn it into a tiny rendition of a tiger:

In order to reference the most famous jacket worn by a forklift certified individual, Ryu Hazuki from Shenmue. It’s not an exact copy, but I think is close enough in vibes:

Which brings the Tally to:

20 vs 29 = -9

What’s next? Probably painting the other dozen or so APAC mooks I have undercoated for him to boss around! Or some other low level enemies, or the rest of the crew. I finished my for research rewatch of Firefly a couple of weeks ago (very handy, as there are some law enforcement types that appear that I can paint some Grenadier cops to represent), and now this week they’ve announced that they’re going to being back Firefly as an animated series - it’s nice to be ahead of the zeitgeist curve for once, even if only accidentally!

‘Stick’ it to the man

A slight diversion from my current project focus, as my family D&D game is currently on hiatus until I get the next few encounters prepped. They’re entering the later stages of Dragon of Icespire Peak, so I needed a decent number of Twig Blights to menace them with:

Previously, I’d described them as vaguely humanoid fetishes made out of lashed together twigs and sticks (which is great fun, messing with your players as they wonder whether they saw it move or whether it’s just a tiny scarecrow left to scare them), which the official minis look a bit like - but they are more pricy than I wanted to spend on monsters that are going to be getting cut down in droves, so these 15mm plant monsters from Checkpoint Miniatures  were an ideal standin.

In order to make them look more like they are made out of sticks and whatnot, I dug out and opened up a baggie of ‘forest scatter’ that I bought more than a decade ago - only to find that rather than seed pods that looked like tiny leaves that I could stick on these monsters, it was mostly a bag of brown dust and the occasional tiny chunk of wood - fine for a base, maybe, but not quite what I had envisioned. 

I finished basing these last night (superglueing a frankly outstanding amount of flock and static grass to my fingers as I did so), but have had the Tally take some hits before I could get this post typed up:

Even though I’m probably never going to play Age of Sigmar, a couple of quid for a Grey Seer and a Warlock Engineer is too good a bargain to pass up. Even though I haven’t actually finished anything for my Skaven since February 2023.

It was also new mini of the month day, so we nipped into GW to grab that:

My children both grabbed one too, interestingly, so hopefully we can get some more family painting in in the near future.

With all the pluses and minuses, the Tally currently stands at:

19 vs 29 = -10

Next - back on track with Firefly Stargrave, hopefully… although I do feel like maybe I should finish the next rank of Skaven Clanrats, as I didn’t realise just how long they’ve been half finished!