I bet that title got your attention! It has been a wild two weeks and enough has happened to nearly cause hobby whiplash so what I will try to do is explain what’s been going on in a concise manner and then share the usual hobby progress afterwards.
First, I tried to paint the first Abyssal dwarf from Mantic and it did not go well. It was definitely a step down from GW and I think it might be a half-step down from Fallout minis. There are plenty of details on the sculpt but a lot of them too small or not well-defined enough to produce satisfying results. It only took an hour of painting one to know that I wasn’t going to get on with them. This was something I started to fear after I bought into Vanguard and so I wasn’t completely taken off guard or disappointed when it occurred.
So somewhat embarrassingly, I spent $80 on a game I’m unlikely to continue with. While I can use Warhammer minis as I mentioned in my review, I think the game would work best if I can use Mantic models with it. They support the armies that they make models for much more. I think that I’m probably spreading myself too thin if I try and paint and play two games, no matter how much I would like to. I am just one person after all.
A few days later, I got two Samurai sculpts from the Bushido game that I had ordered for a diorama. Bushido is a Japanese themed skirmish game with fantastic elements, if you haven’t heard of it, and unfortunately, I was surprised to receive metal miniatures with some real issues. The way the minis are shown on their website, they appear to be resin sculpts that are done with a digital sculpting tool but that is obviously not the case at all which means I probably should have done my homework. One of the Samurai’s arms didn’t even connect in the two places where it was supposed to be glued. I messed up with the other samurai and accidentally threw away one of his horns without realizing what it was. While they were about $30, this was a low point in the week for me. I have this awesome idea for a samurai diorama and its something I’ve been wanting to make for a year or so and as I discovered, Bushido minis won’t work for it and in fact, I don’t think there are any 28/32mm minis that are going to work after doing some research. Almost all samurai miniatures are metal and while those are totally fine for gaming, they’re not up to the standard I’d like for a diorama. So this idea does not look likely to happen anytime soon.
So that was $110 wasted which is definitely an all-time high for me with miniatures. Fortunately, my mate across the pond who helps me with painting advice and is an all around good guy, gave me the advice that I should be following more often. He said, “Paint some bloody Warhammer” because I think he knows I’ve got painting talent and when I paint for gaming, I don’t push my skills as much as I can. That is normal because when most of us paint for gaming, we almost always have some kind of internal clock for how long a gaming piece should take. When I paint for display-level, I try to throw that out and just focus on getting the best results I can. I know said I was going to try and do more dioramas and minis at display-level this year and while I tried to get that going with the samurai, I realized that I’m going about this the wrong way.
I may get annoyed by Games Workshop’s limited releases and I don’t like very many recent Age of Sigmar sculpts (or even armies for that matter), they still make the highest quality miniatures at that scale and as I’ve said many times, you’ve got to have the best canvas possible to make the best art. As tempting as it is to paint stuff from smaller companies and pursue other interests, I will be better off staying focused on higher quality sculpts and that means AoS, 40k, Necromunda, and newer MESBG sculpts. With that goal in mind, I purchased a 40k miniature and that I am waiting to be delivered and hope to see after the holiday on Monday. I think the subject and color scheme will definitely surprise and probably delight a couple of you so I hope you’ll be looking forward to that!
So to summarize, my new goals for this year are:
1.) Keep painting and enjoying Fallout (which will be easy).
2.) Paint the planned MESBG Dioramas (no sweat here either).
3.) Mix in some Warhammer minis as well when I need variety.
The greatest challenge I have with painting AoS, 40k, or Necromunda is that I’m pretty detached from them. I see a lot of what GW releases and there are definitely minis that catch my eye but because I don’t game in any of those spaces, I don’t have a great attachment to them beyond nostalgia (and there’s only certain armies I have that for as well). So that has been my problem is keeping motivated to pick up the odd sculpt and paint it. I’m not quite sure how to change that lack of motivation and keep me interested in the Warhammers. An obvious solution would be to pick up a GW game in the future. I feel like Blackstone Fortress might have been the best solution but now, its hard to get many of the expansions so I don’t bother. Maybe GW will surprise me and release something I can play solo reasonably well in 2021. Another option is to buy White Dwarfs as those can be a way to keep up and get inspired by GW products. Though that money could also be used for buying actual miniatures. I’ve tried some of the Black Library books in the past like the Eisenhorn series and while I wouldn’t say they were bad, they weren’t quite good enough to draw me in either. So as you can see, its a bit of a tough nut to crack. If any of you have any suggestions or thoughts, I’d love to hear them!
But anyway, those are my goals for the near term. I guess despite my disdain for new year’s resolutions, I pretty have made some and we’ll see how they turn out!
In terms of what I have painted, I don’t have anything wildly exciting but I do have a few things that I’m glad to have done at the same time.
First up and most significantly, I finished the Super Mutant Master. He is one of the leaders/elite models for the faction in Fallout and he is a real bruiser. Based on his stat card, it looks like he is going to hit in melee close to 90% of the time which is brutal! I love the sculpt and I’d have to say his hat gives him a lot of character. He also has a great dynamic pose. I think I made a bad choice by painting his cloth the orangish brown. It blends in too much with the other drab colors on this model when he should be the one your eye is drawn to. At least the rest of the mini came out pretty well and with him finished, I’ve finished the box of Super Mutants! Another great accomplishment and I will have to look into buying some more super mutants since I’ve enjoyed painting them so much. Since I don’t think I’ll get anything else impressive finished this month, I’m entering this in Ann’s First of the Year Painting Challenge.
Speaking of drab, I also knocked out three sets of radroaches. Like many of the creatures that surived the bombs dropping in Fallout, the radiation made these bugs grow to a large size. Even with their, they’re not a big threat in Fallout and can be easily killed. They should be useful and thematic in the game nonetheless. I stuck to the Fallout 4 design/color scheme which truthfully makes them look a bit unexciting. The fact that they’re on the standard dirt ground does not help as it means there are a lot of drab brown colors on a single model. I think these would look better with metal flooring or something like that but oh well. My plan is paint the remaining three radroaches as glowing ones so they will look quite a bit different and hopefully even cooler than the first three.
That’s it for me this week. Hopefully things stabilize both in my hobby and in the United States in the coming weeks. It has been less stable than I’m comfortable with in both but I believe I will emerge from this in a better place and certainly with some lessons learned!
Kuribo's Painting 
Mate you could pint anything and make it look amazing! The Samurai diorama sounds very cool and intriguing. Pity about the sculpts from Bushido, I had my eye on getting some down the track.
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Cheers! The Bushido sculpts aren’t horrible in terms of their details, but when the pieces blatantly don’t fit together (which has always been a problem with multi-part metal sculpts) that is no good. The other annoyance is that metal swords are very difficult to keep straight and looking nice so that could be a problem as well. Hope that info on my experience with Bushido sculpts helps you make the right decision for you, mate.
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Love your work here. If you paint what you love, it will always be excellent.
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Thanks for the kind words, Mark and I will definitely keep that in mind as I pick future projects π
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I had a similar experience with Mantic. However I still still have some sculpts from them that I intend to use as tribesmen from the Icebsy of Forochel and I hope they will not be too disappointing to work on. I still think you might enjoy Battle Companies.
Considering the excellent sculpting quality of the more recent plastic multi-part plastic kits from various historical lines and your rich imagination you might consider kitbashing figures for Middle Earth proxies. Creating your own Rohan, Orc or Haradrim from Victrix/Perry/Wargames Atlantic might suit you. The crisp sculpting on the Victrix Vikings is particularly impressive and their Normans due for release soon are expected to be of the same quality.
Your Super Mutant Master is superb! I do not think it is too drab, rather it is sublimely subtle. Which works for me. You bring Fallout to life.
As for money spent, as long as you learn from it the money is not wasted. Such is the way of hobby spending. Recover what you can, perhaps on eBay, and do not best yourself up. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. One in the hand is better than two in the bush. A rolling stone gathers no moss. Etc, etc so on and so forth.
Chin up mate and let us all hope for better things in the coming days.
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The Northern Alliance sculpts do look pretty solid to me if those are what you’re planning on using for BC. You might be right on Battle Companies. I will definitely keep that in mind if I get the urge to pick up a second game again. Even if I chipped away at LOTR minis here and there, I know I’d enjoy that. I have a decent collection of them as it is too.
I’ve been thinking about painting something Roman using Victrix’s sculpt. The fact that they’re plastic and look high quality is very tempting indeed. That is also a future project with some potential, I’d say π
Thanks for the kind words on the painting and I’m glad that you like the Master. I’m certainly proud of the skin and face which came out quite nicely. I can’t wait to see him in a battle report but I better finish the tutorial scenarios first.
I probably won’t be able to sell the Mantic stuff as it doesn’t have much of an audience in the US and I don’t like to mess selling stuff on eBay unless it is worth around $50 as it doesn’t feel worth the hassle. Thankfully, I used some Christmas money on it so it doesn’t feel like as big of a loss as it might have otherwise. I will certainly give it my best effort to get things turned around and get some hobby momentum going again. We’ll see what this week brings π
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Very nicely painted minis and I agree with Mark, paint what you love, the rest will take care of itself. If it is any consolation I recently spent a lot of money on some figures only to be very disappointed. Over a great many years I have like most of us I suspect identified my preferred manufactures. A small list of companies which I can rely on for quality of product and service. As much as I can I stick with them because they do not disappoint. The problem of course is they don’t always do that something you sometimes want. Thereafter it is a gamble and like you I just lost a fair amount of money. Sadly it will inevitably happen again but there are wins too and I have added to my list of great companies as well. π
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Cheers and I appreciate your perspective on this a great deal. Anytime you feel like you’ve wasted money, you feel a bit foolish and maybe a bit ashamed to have misspent something but you’re right that if you don’t try different things, you don’t know what you like and what works for you. I should chalk this up as a lesson of that and go focus on the things I know will work for me.
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Nice mutant and roaches! π Shame about the Vanguard and Bushido minis. I think we’ve all suffered some disappointment with minis at some time or another. One option for Vanguard would be to paint the figures anyway so you can enjoy the game and don’t worry that they’re not up to scratch (the minis, not your painting)! I still use my German and Russian WW2 stuff painted in the 80s because I’ve got them and they were the best I could do at the time even though I’d paint everything differently now! The bottom line is always to enjoy what you’re doing! π
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Thanks as always for the kind words, John! That is a good approach with the Vanguard minis. I still have the box of them kicking around (unlike the Bushido ones which are in the bin) so I could certainly give that a try. For some reason, I’ve become stuck in my ways and tend to paint slower and slower to try and constantly improve and achieve perfection so thinking about how I can paint some stuff fast would be a totally different mindset for me but I don’t see any reason why I couldn’t adapt π I will definitely focus on projects that I enjoy in 2021 and I’ve not been afraid to drop something or change gears if it turns out that I no longer am enjoying it so I will make that same commitment for the future.
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Really like the Mutant King. He looks fairly radiates due to the green colour scheme. If you want to use a restricted palette, you can always try to get contrast via texture or warm / cold versions of colour e. g. a green with a blue or red bias or a yellow with a green or red bias.
If you are looking for high quality boutique miniatures, check out anything Boris WoΕoszyn sculpts. There is also a Patreon where you get a mini a month and some sculpting tutorials.
https://www.artstation.com/boriswoloszyn
https://www.patreon.com/boriswoloszyn
Another idea would be to go down the 3D printing route. I love Loot Studios, as they make very nicely detailed and proportioned sculpts. You can also print them in 32mm or 75mm.
https://www.loot-studios.com/
Maybe look for Samurai in a larger scale. Those will be much better for a Diorama. Maybe Andrea Miniatures has something you like.
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That is excellent advice on the contrasting colors and something I wish I had slowed down to consider a bit more. I had not heard of Boris Woloszyn but that seems like a cool idea and I like the style of his sculpts quite a bit. I will definitely keep that in mind.
Moving up to a larger scale for samurai might actually by my best bet to find a high quality sculpt. The tiny details in the armor would work better at a higher scale. I’ve seem some great Andrea and Pegaso sculpts so maybe that is the direction I will go in for those.
I appreciate all of the suggestions you provided. I wouldn’t have thought of any of these and that is one of the great values (in my opinion anyway) of being a part of the online blogging community π
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You are very welcome. I think Blogs still offer the opportunity to get into slightly longer conversations without the time pressure of constantly changing timelines. The ephemeral nature of more hectic platforms is also a tad frustrating. So while there might be a move to other social media I think it is worth it to come back to WP and slow down a bit.
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I couldn’t agree more. I enjoy having Instagram overall but the depth of feedback you get there and even the frequency are both less than ideal and often from total strangers which is not terribly helpful. I think WP is a better way to exchange ideas and get feedback as a result too.
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I can only agree. Same for me.
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Great work on the painting things, thanks for the heads up on Bushido, I was going to do a Samurai diorama and was considering them. As people have said Paint what you enjoy. I might have a go at printing something for the Samurai idea.
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Cheers, mate! And in regards to Bushido, the fact that they’re metal and multi-part is discouraging. GW couldn’t even make metal minis without issues so I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. I’d definitely try printing some samurai on your own first and see what you come up with. That would certainly be easier and faster than fiddling around with metal sculpts!
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Cheers, I hadnβt actually realised that they were metal.
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Shame about the money, but maybe you can use parts of the models by kitbashing them with other figures or use as corpses, etc. It is discouraging to see cad mock-ups that look great but fail in the casting process. I think that is part of the reason I don’t do kick-starters, I need to see how the figures look before buying, either by seeing blogs on the them or even rarer, in person. Unfortunately, that is harder and harder to do. One of the few game stores in the area couldn’t survive Covid restrictions and is no longer, partly unable to pay the rent, partly people unable to go and play games and partly the owner was at the age where didn’t feel it was worth the effort anymore. The one game store I do go to has only limited shelf space that GW seems to eat the majority of because that is what sells.
As mentioned above, paint what you enjoy!
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I don’t kitbash almost ever but it is a skill I should develop so maybe some of these can be used for that. I might also donate or give them away to anybody who wants them. I agree that cad mock-ups are something to be skeptical of. They often seem to be used by small companies to make their minis look better than they are.
There is a local board game and miniature shop near me which is where I prefer to buy paint because its way cheaper but I have to take the train to go there because there is no parking nearby (even if it is a 15 minute drive from my house). Obviously with COVID, I don’t take the train. Also, since the store is quite cramped, I’ve not felt safe going in there either so I’ve had to order paint for much higher prices online which is not ideal. I feel bad not supporting them more but if you can’t do it and be safe, what can you do? Hopefully some local game stores survive all this. I have a feeling when things do get back to normal, life will look quite a bit different…
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Nicely painted mutant; he certainly looks mean with that sledge hammer and congrats on getting your first miniature completed for 2021. That is one more than I’ve completed thus far! π
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Thank you, Ann, and I hope you won’t be too far behind me with that Pig Demon! π
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Haha, oh I don’t know, I’ve been working on the pig demon, but he’s proving notoriously fiddly and I’m also trying out some things I’ve never done before or haven’t done much. I’m working on getting him done by the end of the month but I’m having my doubts. I might have to paint something small and easy just so I have something to show at the end of my month for the challenge, lol. π
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If youβre eager to take your display painting further this year, I encourage you to take a crack at some larger scale figures. Even just a jump to 54mm grants a lot more scope for texture, nuance, dramatic lighting, etc.
Keep up the good work, bud!
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Cheers Toad and your advice is extremely sound. Getting myself motivated to try might be difficult but I will take this under consideration and see if I can’t get some kind of larger scale project going this year. I’m looking forward to seeing what you’re working on too. I can only imagine you’ve got some impressive projects planned for the near future!
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Great work on the Super Mutant Master! The Radroaches look good too. I think having one ‘glowing’ version would indeed be cool.
Sorry to hear that the mini quality from Vanguard disappointed you. Looking forward to all the other projects you’ll work on in 2021 though. π
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Thank you sir! I’m glad to hear the minis look good to your eyes and hopefully the glowing ones turn out well. I think there’s a good chance I’ll play around with the glowing roaches when I need a break from the 40k mini. I’m looking forward to seeing what you get up to this year as well π
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Oohhhh, I hate it when I waste money on miniatures like that; though it does happen from time to time. I once invested in some dark ages figures from Wargames Factory that were absolute trash, even by my own low standards. π
The Fallout stuff continues to look great and all match in tone which I think is important. And I think youβre revised goals are great; paint the fallout stuff for the gaming fix, LOTR for gaming and creativity, and the random GW (or there has to be other alternatives but I donβt know what they could be since I paint just to put miniatures on the table that look good from the next room over) to push the paint skills. π
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It does make me feel better and like less of a fool of a Took to know many others have had this happen to them. I have not heard almost any good things about Wargames Factory, so I can only imagine what those must have been like.
The goals sound good and I think for at least a while, I need to stay in my lane and focus on what I know I enjoy and can be successful with. I might even finally get around to painting up some stuff needed to game in MESBG this year. I’m starting to feel a bit nostalgic for painting them so maybe that will be the surprise of 2021 π
On an unrelated note, I’m eagerly anticipating your next update. It has been too long now! It can just be memes and no actually gaming or hobby progress, but give us something π
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Nice of you to say. π
Been overwhelmed with real life but writing the next post now. Fear not; there shall be memes.
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I like your Super Mutant melee monster. An interesting and unique take on doing his flesh. It looks a bit like mutant camo. π
I hear you about spending large amounts of money on games/miniatures that never get any use. I have a whole closet full of such nonsense.
You did a nice job with the space marine. Particularly with the shading of his armor, I thought.
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Thank you for the kind words! My paint scheme on the super mutant is unique (from what I’ve seen anyway) but I think it is somewhat faithful to the source material at the same time so I’m proud of it, in that sense.
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