06/21/2026

Happy Father’s Day, and welcome back to Tabletop Thoughts!

This week has been exceptionally busy for me, so my hobby time was much more limited than usual. Between work, family commitments, and the general chaos of a packed schedule, I only managed to get three miniatures finished. While that’s not as many as I would have liked, I’m still happy to have made some progress and get a few models completed rather than letting the paintbrush sit idle all week. Sometimes, even a small amount of hobby time is a victory, and these three miniatures are proof that steady progress is still progress.

I also managed to paint the winner of the June 2026 Print, Paint, and Play series. The giant bird took first place in the voting, so I decided to paint it as a majestic bald eagle in honor of America’s 250th birthday. I thought the bold white head, dark body, and patriotic inspiration would make for a striking color scheme while also serving as a fitting tribute to this historic milestone.

The miniature itself comes from The Printing Goes Ever On and was released as part of their Longstay Rewards program. It was a fun project to work on, with plenty of opportunities to experiment with feather textures, layered highlights, and natural color transitions.

I also recorded the entire painting process, and the video is currently being edited. If all goes according to plan, it should be live on YouTube later this week. Keep an eye out for the thumbnail when you’re browsing YouTube—you won’t want to miss it!

I also painted the mermaid miniature from the selection process. Unfortunately, this one didn’t turn out quite as well as I had hoped. The model itself has a lot of potential, but I wasn’t able to do it justice with my paint job.

The biggest issue is that I chose several shades of blue that ended up being too similar in tone. As a result, many of the sculpted details blend together instead of standing out, and a lot of the visual interest in the model gets lost. Looking back, I should have pushed the contrast much further and introduced some additional colors to help separate the different elements.

Not every miniature can be a winner, and sometimes the hobby teaches you more through the projects that don’t quite work than the ones that do. While I’m a little disappointed with the final result, I’ll take the lessons learned and apply them to future painting projects.

I also painted the third monthly contestant for June, and this one ended up being my favorite of the three. I’m really pleased with how the finished miniature turned out and would happily put it on the table for a game.

For the flesh, I experimented with a new contrast paint: AK Quick Gen Human Flesh. It’s a bit too dark for a normal human skin tone, but it worked perfectly for a stitched-together flesh golem. The richer color helped give the model a grim, unsettling appearance that fit the theme I was aiming for.

The miniature is another excellent sculpt from The Printing Goes Ever On. Throughout the painting process, I tried to maintain a dark and muted color palette while still ensuring that the details remained visible. The stitches were especially important to highlight, so I painted them a lighter gray to create some contrast against the darker flesh tones. That small touch helped draw attention to one of the model’s most interesting features and added a bit more visual definition to the overall piece.

Overall, I’m very happy with the result. The dark theme came together nicely, the new paint performed well, and the finished miniature has exactly the kind of creepy presence I wanted from a flesh golem.

Keep on gaming!

2026 Goals Progress

• Minis Painted: 218/150 – COMPLETED
• Large Models / Terrain: 21/ 6 – COMPLETE
• YouTube Videos:13/ 24
• Game Reviews: 5 / 4 – COMPLETED
• Games Played (TTRPG + Board Games): 0 / 4
• Thursday Drop-Ins Created: 5 / 12
• New TTRPG Systems Tried: 0 / 3
• Shadowdark Mini-Campaign Sessions: 0 / 3
• Shadowdark Release on DriveThruRPG: 1/ 1 – COMPLETE