It has been relaxing and nice to get back to lower stakes painting this past week as I had hoped. It doesn’t feel like I accomplished a ton but I wanted to paint my Hellboy bust as nicely as I could since the sculpt has some pretty nice detail. Here is a look at the regular mini and bust next to each other.
I put some extra time to get smooth blends on the skin and the bust came together other than that. It does have some nasty mold lines that I couldn’t entirely remove so that is why you’re seeing it from the one good angle it has! I hadn’t really noticed but Hellboy is a lot chunkier than Liz’s bust is. Its surprising when you put them side-by-side.
There are definitely more Hellboy sculpts for the board game so you’ll see him pop up again down the road but for now, I’m going to try and focus on getting the last few minis I need to get the game in a playable state. I think another investigator and bust and possibly four more frogs should do it. I managed to get something else done that is not exciting to look at but will be useful when gaming.
These markers help you track clues that you gather in the game if I remember right and they are a bit of a chore to paint. Because they’re white with black trim, it takes a number of coats of white paint before you can paint the BPRD symbol and edges in black. By the time you apply those coats of white, the details aren’t lost but they aren’t very pronounced either so it is like guided freehand at that point. Needless to say, these took a fair bit of time and patience to finish. I’m curious how they hold up to repeated use as well. I used the usual coat of gloss and matte varnish on them but I almost wonder if that will be enough to maintain them. I guess we’ll see!
A couple of other tidbits that don’t necessarily relate to this week’s hobby progress. I posted the finished Stormcast on Instagram and finally achieved the kind of attention I’ve been hoping to garner. It has over 600 likes currently which is probably three times higher than anything else I’ve posted. Personally, I’m not all that concerned about having tons of followers or how many likes anything I paint gets but I was curious if I could ever get something with a lot of likes from people who don’t follow my work. This is the first time that has happened and I consider it humbling because it means a lot of people who don’t know me or my painting saw this and liked it. Also somebody who writes for the Tale of Painters blog followed me which is amazing because when I painted MESBG exclusively several years ago, I used their tutorials to help me figure out how to paint Hobbit miniatures. It feels like I’ve come full circle in the best way possible and that has certainly brought me some joy this week.
Something else that was fun was getting back to playing Arkham Horror: The Card Game. I made some new acquisitions with an old gift card including the Nathaniel Cho Starter Deck, Return to Dunwich Legacy, and the Edge of the Earth Campaign box. This means I have a lot of new content to play through which is something to look forward to. I used Nathaniel Cho and Rex Murphy to try and finally beat Return to the Night of the Zealot and I was thankfully successful. I’ve never used Rex because he seems overpowered and boring to play and honestly, he pretty much is! He is just too good at getting clues in a way that other investigators struggle to match and his weakness is kind of a joke, especially compared to others.
Nathaniel Cho is pretty fun to use, thankfully. While he needs a weapon like all Guardian investigators, but in his case, his boxing gloves mostly help fuel your deck by drawing cards you need as you kill enemies. He relies on Spirit events (one-time use cards basically) to power him up and knock out enemies. One of his cards, One-Two Punch is one of the most powerful in the game as well. He really does feel like a boxer and I find him more interesting to play than Zoe or Roland (who is clearly inferior to the other two options).
With Rex and Nathaniel, I very nearly got all six of the cultists in Midnight Masks which is really tough and I ended up KO’ing the Lovecraftian horror as I had a slow start in the final scenario. I was able to check off another achievement by doing so and finally beating the harder version of the campaign was a great feeling. I’m working on writing up a review of Return to the Night of the Zealot and will post it here and Board Game Geek as I think it is a pretty fun addition to Arkham Horror that doesn’t get the credit it deserves.
Lastly, I have been getting interested in reading comics a bit more lately and I reread The Fade Out which is a Noir story about Hollywood that is really excellent and it got me thinking. Does anybody else out there really like Noir fiction, movies, or even the one video game I can think of, L.A. Noire? I really can’t get enough of it and I read pretty much everything Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips create because they are the masters of noir in comics. There is something about a protagonist who tries to do the right thing and cannot change their fate that I find easy to relate to. I could write a whole post just about my thoughts on noir but this is plenty long so I’ll end it here. Perhaps if there is interest, I can delve further into noir in the near future as well.
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Great work on Hellboy, and good to hear you had fun doing him. Well done on the recognition you received, always nice to know others appreciate your work. Also sounds like you have been enjoying playing your card game, so another win this week.
As for noir comics, I think the closest I’ve ever got to that genre is Sin City, and I don’t know that would count either.
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Thanks, Dave! Arkham Horror has been fun as usual. I can’t seem to get tired of it, in fact. Sin City is kind of like neo-noir, I think. I haven’t read it but I think it is definitely inspired by noir even if it puts a very different spin on it. I should probably give that one a read now that you mention it! 🙂
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Nice job on the bust, that’s a cool piece! What is it used for in the game if you already have a mini?
I love the noir aesthetic so I’ll have to find those comics, it’s not a medium I’ve ever thought to find noir in.
After you mentioned instagram I found you there and followed, was fun to see some of your models prior to when I followed the blog!
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Thank you and that is a very good question. The “bust” is really a marker that helps you track priority. I think the order of the markers dictates who gets attacked by the AI next in the game or something to that effect. To muck up the waters a bit more, Mantic does have actual busts which are fairly expensive and probably larger in scale than the markers so I probably shouldn’t refer to these as busts but too late now! 🙂
Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips have written a lot of them over the years and they’re generally excellent. Criminal is great and where they started. Fatale is excellent if you like Lovecraft at all. The Fade Out is probably my favorite story they’ve told but there are many others besides this and you can’t go wrong with any of them, in my experience!
Thanks for the follow and Instagram is an easier place to see what I’ve painted than here. That is one thing I don’t love about the page designs on WordPress. Regardless of that, I appreciate you finding me and I enjoyed looking through your previous projects as well 🙂
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Thanks for the recommendations! I’ll look them up. I do love a bit of lovecraft so Fatale seems like a great starting point.
I’ve been meaning to but a gallery together for the blog that lets people see lots of photos at once but haven’t gotten to it yet.
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You’re very welcome! That’s a great idea. I should do something along those lines as well. I’ll be curious to see what you come up with as you might inspire me to do something similar!
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Glad you had a calm week with progress to boot! I wonder what hashtag drove the increase in views? I went and looked at other paint jobs of your model, it was interesting what others highlighted and variations that were done. Especially what was done on the base. Your figure was definitely the most unique in color choices, and I mean that in the most positive manner!
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Me too. I honestly can’t tell you which hashtag was most effective. I have a feeling it is the subject of the mini that did it. Not only is it Warhammer but its the most popular faction Warhammer Age of Sigmar (fantasy space marines basically!) and it is a pretty new release. I suspect the combination of those things are what drove the interest up but there isn’t a way to know for sure. Truthfully, I had to guess at how best to paint some of the lighting on the mini since there are no other examples out there so it wouldn’t surprise me if you see other variations out there. I might have even gotten a part of the wrong here and there!
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Nice work on old Big Half Red here, mate! But when are you going to paint some Middle Earth stuff again? 😄
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Oh yeah. I think the much larger population on Instagram helps your views and likes quite a lot.
Last time I set up an account there I got an endless stream of “we can see you’re having trouble logging in” spam so I had to kill the account…
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Its relentless in trying to get you to log in and its hard to get rid of an account too. Very frustrating. Instagram unfortunately drives no traffic to my website too so it is kind of its own thing and you have to like using it to want to mess with it, if you know what I mean.
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Yeah, that’s why I decided to leave it alone. I can’t really be bothered with more social media as I can barely keep up with the blogs (including my own). Perhaps I’ll have another look down the line, but not today!
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Thanks, mate. Just as soon as you stop painting tanks I reckon! 😉 I don’t have anything Middle Earth on top for the near future but I do want to do some display projects in that space so you won’t have to wait forever for something!
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Ah, so I should stop painting the ME models that I’m actively working on and focus exclusively on tanks! I’ll get right onto it!
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Nice work on the bust and congratulations on the 600 Instagram likes. I’d say that was a damn good achievement and maybe gives you an aim and a target to beat going forward.
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Thank you, mate! Its up to 700 likes now which really blows my mind. That is a big target to try and hit but who knows what the future may hold 🙂
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Great work as usual mate and good to hear you getting the recognition you deserve.
I am a big Noir fan. While I know I am in the minority being one of the few folks who likes the Rick Deckard voice over in the original release of Bladerunner, the reason I like it is because it reinforces the Noir aspects of the movie.
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Thank you for your support as always, mate! Blade Runner is a great example of a neo-noir and I love the movie as well though I haven’t delved into the different cuts or versions of the film. I probably should do that as it is a real masterpiece that one! 🙂 “Like tears in the rain”
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Top work on that Hellboy bust. Does it also have some function in the game, or is it just fun to paint?
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Yeah, its meant to mark turn order in some capacity. I think it dictates who the enemies attack on their turn but I might be mistaken since I haven’t fully read the rules yet. I will hopefully get a game in soonish and rectify that!
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Cool, I look forward to reading about your adventures with Hellboy.
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Bust looks real cool. Makes sense to me it’d be much bigger than Liz as he is called Big Red.
It’s cool that the Storm miniature got that many likes. It’s nice to get some validation for the artistry. 😀
I like Noir well enough but I don’t seek it out much so can’t help there.
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Thank you and I suppose you’re right. Hellboy is a lot chunkier than Liz so I guess the discrepancy is spot-on. The challenge with noir is its heyday is long gone now and for me anyway, I’m not sure that I can go back and really immerse myself in the old classics. Either way, its nice to know that plenty of others out there like it as much as me. It doesn’t get talked about a lot for some reason.
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HellBoy looks amazing man. Well done and a big congrats on Instagram. Very well deserved
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Thank you, mate! That’s very kind of you to say and I appreciate it.
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By far the easiest approach for me here would have been to just have done a cut and paste of Dave Stone’s comment, since I agree with it completely! Nice work on the bust – I’m not usually a fan of them, but it does bring out a lot of extra detail and looks really nice indeed! 🙂
Now I just need to go and look up what Instagram and Noir are, since the latter is obviously more than just the French word for black! 😉
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Dave is not only pretty fast on draw with commenting but he’s also usually on point with his thoughts so copying and pasting him is never a bad idea! 🙂 I’m with you on busts. Its something I should really paint because it will make me better but they don’t hold great appeal for me for some reason.
Film noir, in particular, comes from around the same time as your wargaming interests: WWII! I suppose that it is distinctly American but there’s nothing like a good noir tale with a hard-boiled detective! 🙂
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Lovely work on the bust, the red is really well toned! If you want to try some Lovecraftian noir, get Noirlathotep: Tales of Lovecraftian Crime — it’s a great anthology!
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Thanks for the kind words and the recommendation, Matt! That does sound right up my dimly lit alley 🙂 I’ll try to hunt that one down and give it a go!
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That’s a lovely bust you’ve got there…
Seriously, great work Jeff, can’t wait to see it all in game. Talking of which, sounds like you’ve had a lot of fun with Arkham – I really need to get back into this game – and Nathaniel Cho looks interesting to play.
I had to dig Rex’s cards out to see what you were talking about. Totally agree with you regards his weakness, others are much more punishing. His ability is well powerful too, and he can just go around hoovering all the clues up. Mind you, doesn’t he need protecting a bit, I can’t remember having played him much, but is he a bit vulnerable when it comes to being attacked?
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Thanks, Justin! I’m glad you enjoyed the Arkham section as I’m pretty sure you’re one of the only people who has any idea what I’m talking about when I do cover it! 🙂
Nathaniel Cho is very playable out of the box which impressed me. I really like how many experienced cards you get too. That makes it easy to upgrade your investigator even with a limited collection. I will definitely buy more of the starter decks in the future to freshen up my investigator pool for these reasons.
Rex certainly can use protection but the reason why he’s so broken isn’t just his weakness, which is well, pretty weak, but he can grab as many as 3 or 4 clues in a single action with some help from a card like Deduction. That kind of action economy is not really topped by any other investigator and it makes me feel like I’m cheating using him!
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Nice work as ever, and well done on replicating the colours from the small version to the bust. Well done on the markers too – I always find markers to be either easy wins or a terrible chore, sounds like these were the latter so good on you for soldiering on.
As for comics I don’t read many of them but I did read some by Ed Brubaker recently and really enjoyed them, definitely something I’d check out more of.
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I don’t know why but the markers are some how a bit faster and easier which I certainly didn’t expect. Maybe it is because there are fewer surfaces so there’s less fumbling around looking for paint, etc. Glad to hear you like Ed Brubaker as well. He has done a lot of superhero comics in the past which is generally good or decent but I think his noir work is where he is at his best!
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Aye, I’m not usually that into superheroes, it was his noir stuff I read; the first volume each of Fatale and Kill Or Be Killed. Both of them were decent, definitely ones where I’d like to read more of the series if I get the chance.
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That makes sense and I’m pretty similar with superhero comics. I like some of them but generally prefer to read something like Hellboy or the noir series from Brubaker. Fatale is pretty good. I wasn’t as into Kill Or Be Killed as the other series they’ve written but its all a matter of personal taste, I’d say.
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