Wizards of the Coast just put out a new line of Baldur's Gate 3 miniatures via WizKids, and some recipients are complaining because, well, half the cast looks like they got hit with an Acid Spray—maybe a Vitriolic Sphere.
"Only Gale has a decent face," writes Larian's own senior cinematic artist Elodie Ceselli, who worked on the game themselves, and presumably wanted to get a nice keepsake of the characters she spent so much time directing. "It's expensive for a 5 years[sic] old painting work... Shame on you @Wizards_DnD."
Ceselli isn't the only one left disappointed—one player even claims to have received a box where Shadowheart didn't have a head. The ways of Lady Shar are varied and mysterious, certainly, but outside of a botched Greater Invisibility spell I'm not entirely sure this is a canon appearance. Maybe she just got really excited about her new haircut.
Even our good friends over at GamesRadar+ have been left horrified, with Rollin Bishop receiving a box of melty heroes of the Forgotten Realms that writer Austin Wood describes as "a gallery of horrors from top to bottom."
Mind, pre-painted minis have never really been great, and Baldur's Gate 3 wouldn't be the first game to get a set of minis with common painting flaws. Here's a Pillars of Eternity fan getting some miniatures back in 2018 that had the same problems.
The problem is, painted minis take time and effort from skilled artists—and that kind of time and effort is expensive. We're talking several hours of skilled manual labour and materials if you really want nitty-gritty detail on just one figure. Add packaging and production scale to that equation, and you get either an incredibly expensive product, or a bad one.
Despite appearances, these minis are (by quantity) pretty cheap as far as minifigs go. Sure, the boxset will set you back $50 and give you seven miniatures, about $7.10 per mini. An experienced hobbyist isn't going to expect a high-quality pre-painted mini for seven bucks. However, I'm not about to let WizKids get off scot-free here. Here's a couple of screenshots the company posted on its store page:
While you're not exactly gonna pop these things in the Louvre, the eyes are still where the eyes are supposed to be. Things get much, much worse, however when you consider the promotional, press-release material WizKids sent to publications. Including us.
I'm not expecting the platonic ideal of a mini to track with the actual product, especially if it's pre-painted, but—come on, man. I can say for certain that if you want any of these minis, it's probably best to repaint them yourself. Or maybe just stick to virtual tabletops, which will be cheaper by half.
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