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This was my first shot at a 54mm miniature and I chose finari, I am very happy indeed with how she came out and especially like the gold NMM which was a mix of scale 75 and reaper paints with a little Vallejo game air white. Thanks to everyone on the WIP thread for input and support and I welcome any feedback that could improve her. Hope you like her as much as I do.

I was in the mood to try out some metallics, and the victimsubject this time was Finari (apologies for the subpar pics): There were some issues with this sculpt. Most of her face was offset a couple millimeters forward, so there was an odd bump to one side. Additionally, her left foot has a large chunk that just isn’t there, just below the sword. These I hid as best I could. For the majority of her armor, I mixed three parts Royal Purple with one part Honed Steel. Compared to some other combinations I’ve tried out lately, this ended up being a nice metallic while keeping close to the base color. Rivets and ornamentation were done in Antique Gold with New Gold highlights. Not pleased with how splotchy the breastplate turned out, however. There was one detail that still eludes me. You can see in the rear view a lump of some sort next to her shield. It isn’t part of her arm or any bit of armor that I’m aware of, so I made it into a...brownish leather thing. C&C appreciated, armor isn't something I’ve done much of and I need to get better at it.

From my lunch sessions WiP. This mini is very much "get off my table now" quality. I expect to use her in my Eberron campaign as an Emerald Claw officer or Blood of Vol cultist (hence the blood drop on her shield). She's actually the second Finari I've painted, pretty well in the same color scheme, but the other was actually for a PC in a short-lived Ptolus campaign. I really like the sculpt, one of my favorite Klockes. This particular mini was from the first Bones KS, and she had a serious problem on her face in casting: pretty well everything from her left cheek to collarbone was a thick piece of flash, and most of her face was pretty soft in detail. So I carved a bit and ended up with what you see here. Also roughly removed the Crusaders symbols on her armor and shield. I do need to clean up her base, but I'll do that in a batch with a bunch of minis. Enough talk, here she is:

Her meditation was disrupted by the soft knocking at her cell in the basement of the temple grounds. The acolyte's tone spoke of subtle alarm and a sense of urgency. - You have a visitor Master Paladin, Ma'am. He says you know him. - Does he now. Did he give a name? - Yes Ma'am, he said you would know him as ehem "Orc Slayer"? - I see. I will see him at the Chapel shortly. .... - So it is you Arthrand.. It has been a long time. - It indeed has Finari. I would love to sit and chat and share fond memories of vanquishing evil but I have dire news and an urgent mission. - That I can see. What is it this time? - A necromancer, headed to the ruins of Felstad. - I see.. You do know that we have to fight magic with magic, right? I will gladly join you but we need magicians we can trust if we are to prevail. - Of course. I am on it already.. so, you are in? - When do we ride? Speed paint and home made snow. This particular bones figure was a little disfigured at the face.. Well, gotta work with what you have.. Thanks for looking and C&C is always welcome.

TL;DR: I have a lunch break. I'm going to paint during that break. Finari and the Basilisk are first up. So, coming back from a hiatus, and I have several realizations: 1. My painting station in the new house is not yet set up and won't be fully ready-for-use for a while, 2. I have lots of house-projects to do with my spare time at home, and 3. Winter is coming, so the Pittsburgh weather will not be pleasant much longer. This all points to one conclusion: I can stay indoors on my lunch break, eat quickly, and paint almost every day. So, I'm going to try to paint at least 3 days a week, if not 4, for 30-45 minutes at a go. I'll take pictures at the end of each session and post them here. When I finish up a batch of minis, I'll figure out what will be next and start a new thread (hence this being "Lunch Sessions I"). At the start of each thread, I'll lay out the goals for each mini I'm painting and reiterate my desire for honest feedback based on those goals. So, part one! Finari has been mostly basecoated since approximately 2014. This particular copy of her had some really nasty mold grossness on the face, so I carved away a lot of the plastic tumor. For this reason, she's a bit awkward in the face and my goal is mostly to get her done. I'm painting her as an Emerald Claw/Blood of Vol officer for my Eberron games, so there will be some very simple freehand to signify that affiliation; she's also got rather a lot of black, so I'll take the opportunity to work on that, since it's an important color that I don't feel confident with. The basilisk I want to paint purely for fun, but I want it to be a "tabletop display" piece. Smooth blends, etc. Nothing particularly advanced, technique-wise, but I want to show competency in the simple technique. Both pieces are starters to really get back in the swing of painting, paving the way for some more advanced/detailed stuff further down the queue. Day 0: this is where the minis were at the start of my session today. They're mostly basecoated already, with a little bit of highlighting on the basilisk's dorsal ridge and Finari's hair. You can also see some of the Rathcore V3 miniatures holders we recently received from their Kickstarter. So far, I really like them. I have a couple of the larger painting handles as well, but decided not to use them for these minis. My only problem with these is there's no good way to use the holders for penny-based figs. That said, I think I'll be able to make my own corks for penny bases when the time comes. Day 1: Today I was able to paint for about 45 minutes. Part of that time was spent painting pennies black to finish out the bases of the kobolds and rats I put up in Show-Off the other day. For these two, I brought up the highlights on the dorsal ridge and Finari's shoulders closer to linen white, sketched in the Vol blood-drop on her shield and based the red scales/ear-flaps on the basilisk. I also found several spots where Finari's original basecoat had worn away and touched those up. For the basilisk, I'm trying to decide what the smaller side-and-belly scales should look like, as well as his spines and claws. I think I like the darker green for the smaller scales, but I'm not sure if I should go pale or dark for the claws. Any thoughts?

Not the best pic, but if you look, you can see Finari's sword hilt is bent around and attached to her gauntlet. I didn't notice this initially and the figure is already primed if that matters. I'm trying to decide whether to try to separate the hilt with an Xacto knife or just bite the bullet and accept the flaw. Having not done this before, I can't think of any tricks or advice other than to be careful. Just thought I'd put out a shout here in case there was something I was missing.

Well, I may still add some more sculpted leaves to the base and fiddle with the reflection in terms of making it look "shiney" but for now, I present my crazy mad scheme of a project. I started working on this back last summer and it has languished on my desk through fits of irritation with the reflection, me bemoaning the use of monochrome and how it prevents me from doing the sneaky glazing trick, etc, etc. I could consider her done and probably sleep better at night! This is Reaper's 54 mm Master Series Finari, sculpted by the awesome but infamous Werner Klocke. I love this sculpt because it gave me a chance to really work hard on my NMM skills, and let's face it, Klockenbooty is deeply satisfying to paint! This sculpt did not contain a scary amount of buckles! Hooray! The idea started with me seeing EricJ's Ramos and thinking a reflection would be a nifty project. Then I thought about the Wizard of Oz, magic mirrors and Alice in Wonderland and morphed them all into this: For this project I wanted to practice monochrome, so the colors for most of the piece are pure black (just a bit), nightshade purple, dark elf skin, aircraft gray, leather white, pure white and a teeny tiny amount of titanium white. The mirror effect I devised using a photo of the mini that I reversed as well as a photo of the mini in a mirror to get the angles worked out. FYI if anyone decides to try this again, make sure to appropriately shrink the miniature's head in the reflection as it will be sculpted larger than reality. I played with the colors of the reflection, but I think I ended up using the ocher gold triad plus white and mahogany brown for the armor, sapphire blue and marine teal for the sky, the clouds are probably leather white, snow shadow and twilight blue, the purple is carnival with white and nightshade purple. greens are olive and IMEF olive with a bit of forest green. The base is mostly sculpey with a bit of greenstuff and the tree milliput and greenstuff. The leaves of the tree are etched brass. I am happy to answer any questions! C&C always welcome! Oh, and I entered it over on CMON in their All the Shades of Gray Contest if anyone feels like voting! I will bring her to Reapercon and am happy to let people see her up close! Just don't drop her... edited for larger pics!