Baldur’s Gate 3’s new pre-painted minis look so cursed even the game’s developers despise them

If you’ve been looking to add some more Baldur’s Gate 3 merchandise to your sparse collection—let’s be fair, there’s not much of it—then there’s some new plastic tat to pick up, but we wouldn’t recommend it.

Released by WizKids, the new pre-painted minis set “D&D Icons of the Realms: Baldur’s Gate 3” has released, and they look awful. While previously shown images of the new miniature party looked like they had pretty damn good paint jobs, the actual released product looks cursed beyond belief.

WizKids’ Baldur’s Gate 3 minis are shocking

The $49.99 set of pre-painted miniature figures include seven characters from Baldur’s Gate 3: Wyll, Karlach, Lae’zel, Astarion, Shadowheart, Gale, and ‘Bone Daddy’ aka Withers. While the advertised paint jobs were great for the price… in reality they look downright awful.

After receiving their own versions of the figure set, Senior Cinematic Artist Elodie Ceselli took to Twitter to share the truly awful figures with fans. Ceselli describes the figurine set as being “expensive for a 5 year old’s painting work”.

“What I ordered VS what I received. Only Gale has a decent face,” the Baldur’s Gate 3 developer wrote. “Shame on you @Wizards_DnD” she ended, tagging the official Dungeons and Dragons account.

In the images shared, Ceselli’s annoyance is well-founded. Shadowheart’s face looks like the botched restoration of Elías García Martínez’s Ecce Homo painting of Jesus Christ, and Lae’Zel looks like she’s had a rough night on the town.

Astarion’s face is warped to the left, making it look like someone is pulling him into some kind of wormhole, and Wyll’s face isn’t even entirely painted with large splotches of white underneath his chin. Karlach and Withers are also rough with paint everywhere, crossing over with large slaps of different colours, the latter looking like his chest was decorated by Jackson Pollock.

Weirdly, Gale is the only companion in the group to have a decent paint job, and it feels like an entirely different person painted this single figure. Gale’s face doesn’t really look like the mage, but it is good, and his clothes are actually neatly painted.

With the future of Baldur’s Gate now entirely in the hands of Hasbro instead of Larian, there’s always going to be a worry about the quality of future products. While Hasbro claims it wants to “raise the bar” with future BG3 projects, whether that’s games, books or more, the company should also try and get a handle on the quality of its merchandise. As it stands, this is awful.