As I mentioned in my last update, I needed a break from the Stormcast project before I make the final push to finish it and so I decided to tackle a mini I’ve been both excited to paint but also kind of dreading. Hellboy was obviously going to have to be painted to play the board game but the sculpt is lacking in detail in places and I wanted to the do the character justice, even if the sculpt did not. Fortunately, I think I did a fairly decent job on him. He looks a bit shiny to my eyes still so I may need to break out the AK Interactive Ultra Matte Varnish on him and somehow there is always a speck of dust on a mini that I don’t see before I take pictures of it…. Fortunately, you’ll be seeing this one again when I get some more minis painted from this game.
While I painted these weeks ago, I took the opportunity to varnish them and figured I’d throw them into this update too. Here are some suitably Hellboy and pulpy investigation markers for Hellboy as well. They were quick to paint and nothing too exciting but its nice to have them done all the same.
I’ve resumed working on the Stormcast this week but will save updates on that for next weekend in the hopes that I’ve made substantial progress on it by then.
Readers with good memory might recall that I said that I would review The Book of Boba Fett and I did indeed write something up but it was pretty negative because I was very disappointed by Book of Boba Fett so I decided not to post it. I don’t want to hurt or limit others’ enjoyment of the show and figured it was better not to put that kind of negativity out there on the internet. There’s plenty of that to go around as it is. I will voice my displeasure with how Disney is handling Star Wars. Its been a real disappointment to me and unfortunately, I think they chose the wrong person to steward the license. Both the person I’m talking about and Disney just don’t seem to understand the appeal of Star Wars or how to appeal to more hardcore fans like myself. The longer they own the Star Wars license, the less interested I become in it which is sad to me because it was such a big part of my childhood and one of my favorite things growing up.
Finally, it is Adepticon weekend and to my surprise, I’m not going to attend. I noticed that it now costs $10 to get in when it was free in previous years which I have no problem with but when I started to think about the cost of gas and then the admission price, I feel that I’d be just as well off ordering things I want online, even if I have to pay the shipping. It didn’t help that I was able to see some of the vendors that I probably would have bought from and noticed that they didn’t have much of what I wanted (Mantic didn’t seem to have much Hellboy stuff and Black Site Studio didn’t have a lot of MDF kits) so I figured it was better to not take the risk this year and hope that they go back to free admission next year when COVID is hopefully even more under control. It is a strange feeling not to attend this year but I think I’ll be most likely to be happy if I don’t go instead of doing the opposite and being disappointed or walking out empty handed.
Kuribo's Painting 
You did a great job despite the limitations of the sculpt mate. A great character whatever the medium but the Ron Perlman movie version is my favorite.
As for Boba Fett, I hear you mate. I will say there were some good bits but overall it felt strangely different from the successful efforts of the Mandalorian. Whether that is somehow down to Kathleen Kennedy meddling or John Faverau and Dave Filoni losing their way I do not know. But yeah, it seems there is a problem right now with Star Wars. I was very optimistic about the Obi-Wan tv series after the Mandalorian but now I am lowering my expectations following Boba Fett and the first trailer for Obi-Wan has not helped.
Still, things are better with these tv series than the last few movies.
I am not one to shy away from honest constructive criticism but I respect your desire not to add to the negativity online. Too bad we can not have a chin wag over a coffee about this.
I have spoken.
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Actually, looking into this some more this morning and thinking about which episodes of Boba were the worst… I think it is down to Robert Rodriguez. He seems to have had a bigger influence on what I am increasingly convinced was actually a third season of the Mandalorian rather than the spin-off series many of us thought it was going to be.
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Yes, I think he did the non-Mandalorian episodes of Boba Fett and in my opinion, every single episode he did had moments that did not feel like Star Wars to me. The Mods on Power Ranger speeders were probably the worst but there was a lot of weird horror elements with the monsters of Tatooine too. The weird creature with four arms is one example of this. I couldn’t believe how stupid Boba Fett flying over the Sarlacc Pit was. Wouldn’t the world’s most dangerous bounty hunter know better than that!? Now you really have heard all of my complaints about Boba Fett, mate! 😉
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Thanks, mate! I agree that Ron Perlman embodies the character really well. I haven’t seen the new attempt at a Hellboy movie because it sounds like it was really bad unfortunately and I think replacing Ron is hard to do too.
I think for me, Robert Rodriguez was not a good choice to be in charge of a show because he hasn’t really made anything especially good in his career and his episodes of Boba Fett were uneven at best. Ultimately, I guess it is Kathleen Kennedy’s fault that she picked him to be there in the first place. In my never-to-be-seen article, I said that I think Star Wars has two problems. Kathleen Kennedy doesn’t seem to understand Star Wars well enough to pick people who can handle the property well and Disney is trying to pump out as much Star Wars content as possible. That almost guarantees that there are going to be some real misses like Boba Fett. Star Wars is a property that doesn’t work well having mediocre to bad content because it is all one big connected galaxy too. Marvel is much easier to compartmentalize for me anyway. All this is to say, I’m very nearly depressed to see Star Wars in this state. I wish I could go back to before Disney taking ownership of it as Rogue One is the only thing I’ve really loved that they’ve made. There have been some other good things but very little of the content that has been made thus far is truly worthy of the Star Wars name.
That’s basically the gist of the article so you didn’t miss much of it, in the end!
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I am one of the few folks it seems who prefers A New Hope to Empire Strikes back. To me A New Hope is brilliant as a stand alone film. The only changes I would make would be to put back the originally deleted scenes and do away with the “updated cgi” over done embellishments of the re-release.
Where the rest of Star Wars seems great is in sporadic elements rather than cohesively brilliant across the board. Even the worst Star Wars tv shows, movies, comic books, toys, computer games etc etc etc has some good bits.
The original Star Wars vibe of A New Hope reminds me of the fun of the first Indiana Jones movie. And while Last Crusade is pretty good it just is not quite as good as the original. And the others are various degrees of not too impressive.
Thinking of that reminds me also of Jaws, where the original was brilliant but the sequels were various shades of mediocre to down right bad.
Same as Alien and Predator….with the exception being Aliens which in my opinion was on par with Alien in some ways did not feel like a sequel so much as a different movie in the same shared universe.
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I prefer A New Hope and then Return of the Jedi to Empire Strikes Back which is wildly controversial, I know! I think you’re spot on with A New Hope’s brilliance.
I agree with what you’re saying about sequels too. I think video games are able to make sequels that improve on the first by learning from their mistakes and making improvements to a winning formula. There are movies where a sequel is better than the first but not many that I can think of off the top of my head…
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He looks great! That’s the thing about the mid-to-upper tier of boardgame models – they’re not on the level of modern GW plastics or boutique resins, but that’s not always a bad thing as they have a good balance of detail and the freedom to just enjoy the painting process and even experiement a little. I’d say that this one is a resounding success!
I don’t really understand what happened with the Boba Fett series after how well he was portrayed in the Mandalorian – and indeed – Mando is now more Fett than Fett – reinforced by the Mandalorian epidode in the middle of the Fett run. Not to mention that Faverau and Filoni have been doing such a good job to date.
Still, as disappointing as it was, it was still better than the prequel trilogy. I went back and rewatched them awhile ago and TPM and AotC especially are just dire… and Rogue One was better than any of those three.
A bit of a shame that Han Solo movie never happened, though….
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Thanks, mate! I agree with you on board game models. Generally, they can be pretty liberating to work on because the stakes feel low. I do kinda wish I got the resin minis for Hellboy. I think I probably could have done even better with those.
I agree that the Mando is more of Boba Fett than this new version is which is weird. AotC is absolutely the low point for Star Wars. There is so much wrong with that one. I don’t particularly care for any of the prequels though I think TPM is more optimistic and enjoyable to watch than the next two for me anyway. It wasn’t perfect under George Lucas by any means, but I always felt like it was cohesive. Disney’s content is all over the place and not in a good way in my opinion.
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I don’t hate everything about the PT. There are good bits of action, industrial and character design, and some good actors performing as chatacrets I like with ok-at-best dialogue. Having said that, they’re objectively mediocre-at-best movies, so really, Star Wars has always been held up by the OT. I enjoyed RotJ, but it’s not an especially cohesive film and if you rewatch it, really feels like a rushed attempt to set everything in a nice bow to complete the trilogy. This is because it was the beginning of Lucas with the brakes off and surrounding himself with yes-men, which is what made the PT what they were. I mean, Irvin Kershner directed the best of the films, and that’s no coincidence.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think KK had done a good job, either, and TLJ is the worst of all of the films to date…
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I quite agree with you mate.
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Agreed on all points, mate! While the dialogue and plot may not always be the best, the PT was visually stunning for its time. I wouldn’t say it has aged well but not much from that period of movies has I figure. I also agree that George Lucas has not done himself any favors as time went on and the yes men really hurt the quality of his later work. With that said, I think the original trilogy will always be great and worth watching. Its just becoming harder and harder for me to imagine being really excited about Star Wars or collecting things from it like I did for decades of my life. That’s the way things go though.
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I’ve heard that Obi-Wan looks good, and Ewan McGregor is certainly an actor I like, so I’m just hoping it’s more Mando then Book… 😉
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Fingers crossed, mate!
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“it was still better than the prequel trilogy”
I walked into the spare room this morning to discover that one of our dogs had taken a dump on the floor. That experience was better than the prequel trilogy.
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Haha, I would say that but I think the more recent trilogy is less entertaining than my dog’s poop as well! Though to be fair, the prequels are in competition with that 🙂
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Nice work on Hellboy and a shame about Adepticon but understand your reasoning. Better luck ne1xt time.
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Thanks for the kind words and for understanding 🙂 I think you get it better than my wife does for what that’s worth haha!
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Great looking mini there, nice pairing! Good job navigating around the limitations of board game sculpts/castings too. That can be pretty tricky especially when looked at in close up photos. We just finished boba fett too and it did feel a bit flat. Lots of cool concepts, not a tremendous amount of substance.
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Thanks, Nic! I don’t paint a ton of board game minis and I tend to grumble about the quality when I do so I’m glad to hear Hellboy came out well 🙂 Flat and lacking in substance are excellent constructive comments on Boba Fett as well. I couldn’t agree more!
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Excellent work on Hellboy Jeff, you’ve certainly made up for any lack of detail that was on the model.
As for the Book of Boba Fett, I enjoyed it, and enjoyed the fact that Boba’s character has evolved, and want’s more to his life.
Shame about Adepticon, but can understand the decision not to go, especially with how limited some traders stock has been when attending the shows.
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Thanks, Dave! I did what I could anyway 🙂 I’m glad to hear you enjoyed Boba Fett too. I wouldn’t wish how I feel about it on anyone other than my worst enemy, I think! 😀
You hit the nail on the head about traders’ stock. That is really the issue that I don’t know if I explained well. It seems like everybody has either exactly what they already sell online or they have even less than that which makes it hard to want to pay money upfront just to browse their wares. I guess online shopping has spoiled us all a bit!
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You’ve done a great job there on Hellboy. I know that sometimes the quality of board game minis can be lacking but you couldn’t tell from how well you’ve painted Big Red.
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Thank you for the kind words as always! I’m really glad to hear you can’t see some of the issues with the sculpt. I did what I could to cover them up.
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Hellboy looks great, I can’t tell it is lacking in details.
Negativity on the internet?
Strong opinions on Star Wars?
Hard to believe.
My reviews of current star wars movies and shows is summed up by they’ll make great toys. Reinforced by seeing a lego Boba Fett throne room at Costco.
Covid has changed a lot of shows, the train shows I usually go to have either cancelled or didn’t have enough protections in place to warrant me going.
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Thanks for the kind words! I must say your sarcasm is in rare form too haha! I really enjoyed it 🙂
I used to go to a comic and Magic card store growing up and the owner said the same thing about Star Wars. Good or bad, it always is in a position to sell toys and it really is true! I still have some of my action figures from back in the day which is further proof.
I hope you’re able to get back out to the train shows. You always find good stuff at them it seems like. I should see if there is one in Chicago and pay it a visit. There has to be in a town of this size!
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Great job on Hellboy, I can see what you mean about the lack of detail but your shading and highlighting has more than compensated for that problem. The red shades are excellent, the transitions are beautifully blended.
I really enjoyed The Book of Boba Fett, I think they were going for something different to The Mandalorian so it wouldn’t be a case of just doing the same thing over again.
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Thanks, Matt! I’m glad to hear that I was able to offset some of the sculpts weaknesses. I really tried and put in some extra time to accomplish it.
I’m really glad to hear that you liked Boba Fett. I guess that just goes to show you that everything can be interpreted and enjoyed differently among different people.
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Well I think Hellboy really does look the part, Jeff! 🙂 Very nice indeed! As for Star Wars, having been able to watch the films as they came out (I was 18 when Star Wars came out and it wasn’t yet called Episode IV A New Hope) I think it all went downhill after that as far as storylines were concerned – basically the plots are just the same but moved to slightly different points in the timeline. I still can’t really follow what The Phantom Menace is about though! But I do like the action and effects in them all. I’ve still to catch the Mandalorian and Boba Fett but I can wait. Apart from A New Hope and Rogue One, I’ve really enjoyed the animated series Clone Wars and Rebels, which seem to have much better storylines and characters, but we’re all different and have our own likes and dislikes. Overall, I’m still a fan!
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I was six when I first saw Star Wars, and it’s always been Star Wars to me. Sometimes I’ll say “I watched Star Wars the other day” and someone will respond “which one?” and I’ll say “STAR WARS” 🙂
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Haha, exactly! 🙂
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Haha, makes sense to me! 😀
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Thanks, John! I couldn’t let you down with Hellboy so I tried my best to bring the character to life 😉 Its nice to hear the perspective of someone who was there from the beginning. I was in elementary school when the Special Edition versions came out and I know now that those versions didn’t really improve upon what was done before but at the time, I was very excited about them 🙂 If you like Clone Wars and Rebels, I think you’ll like most of The Mandalorian because Dave Filoni, who was involved with making those (I’m pretty sure anyway!) is also working on The Mandalorian. With that said, I knew that even among the kind people who read and comment on this blog regularly, opinions would differ on Boba Fett so that is why I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings or diminish their enjoyment of it with my criticisms and disappointments. I’ve also been glad to hear everyone’s thoughts on Star Wars. Its been a really fun discussion for me anyway! 🙂
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HellBoy looks like he stepped right off the comic book page so well done there. 😀
I only saw 3 or 4 episodes of Bobba before I just lost interest.
It makes sense that if you didn’t think you would enjoy Adepticon then why make the effort/ investment. Especially if it’s more of a shopping trip rather than for gaming for you.
Sadly after 2 years away I’m very used to not going to conventions these days.
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Thanks, Stew! I’m sorry to hear that you also weren’t into Boba Fett. I know you were looking forward to it.
Funnily enough, by missing out on being able to get the ticket to enter the Golden Demon, I couldn’t play in any games other than demos offered by vendors. So going would have been a shopping trip and nothing else for me most likely. I feel the same way as you and truthfully, I’ve mostly stayed away from people during the pandemic so I will have to reacclimate to crowds a bit more myself. Hopefully I will get to Adepticon and get to enjoy it next year. I’m sure you’ll have the chance to go to a con sooner than that since you’re in that hot bed of activity on the West Coast! 🙂
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Nicely painted. I like the Hellboy character though I’m not sure if I’ve seen all of the movies or not.
Yeah, everything has gotten so expensive. All of the conventions I’ve gone to over the years here in the Bay Area charge to get in and that was fine back when I was playing in 40K tournaments and was pretty motivated to be there but I’ve lost interest in that (and there don’t seem to be as many tournaments at the cons I go to in any case) so I usually just end up walking around looking at the exhibits, hanging out with some friends, and maybe getting into some random boardgames. As things get more expensive I find it harder to justify the cost of attending such events.
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Thank you, Ann! We’re currently at three Hellboy movies. The first two with Ron Perlman are both pretty good in a pulpy way. I haven’t seen the third one myself as I’ve heard it is disappointing.
Inflation has been a real killjoy of late to be sure. I wouldn’t say the convention is overpriced overall but adding $10 this year and the lower selection due to shipping issues and the pandemic was too much for me. I hope they’ll have a free option once again in future years.
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Great work on Hellboy, Jeff, I think you’ve captured his skin colouring spot on.
Specks of dust, my worst nightmare, but only because I keep all my figures in the garage, and even though they’re packed away, with all the sanding and stuff I’ve been doing in there lately, they still come out with a light covering!
I’ve yet to see Fett, though Yasmin watched it. She said it was just okay, with the best bits being the ones when the Mandalorian makes an appearance. Not being a life long SW fan, I’m not quite as down on everything, except the prequal trilogy of course, and I agree with Matt there 💩!
Interesting what you say about Adepticon, as I’ve just finished writing a post running along similar lines and you’ve sort of backed me up here😁
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Thanks, Justin! I found out that it wasn’t dust but some kind of painting mishap. Fortunately, I got it squared away fairly easily. I agree that dust is a real pain when it comes to taking pictures. It shows up when you’re sure there isn’t any on the mini!
I agree with Yasmin’s review of Boba Fett. It isn’t horrible but it wasn’t up the level I was hoping for. Fortunately, it isn’t quite as bad as Attack of Clones can be.
Ooh, I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this topic, me ol’ mucker! This evening is getting away from me but hopefully I’ll be able to take a look at it tomorrow 🙂
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