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Hellboy – Professor Broom and His Bane

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It has been an eventful week so I’m going to bring back the rapid and random thoughts format for today’s update.

I have not worked for over a week. Why you ask? I spilled water on my laptop on Thursday last week and my company has not been able to get me a replacement and I still don’t know exactly when a replacement will get here. Its crazy. I work for a software company and you’d think they’d be good at this sort of thing but apparently not. The timing of it is unfortunate because I was recently promoted to Senior Technical Writer and I have a bunch of deadlines that I was on top of but now am starting to not be able to meet.

The first thing I got done this week was a bit of a hobby “L” as American sports fans say. The Tentacles of Sadu-Hem is a tough sculpt to paint and to be honest not that much fun to work on. It doesn’t take washes all that well and there is a ton of mini that is partially visible in the middle but hard to get with a brush. This mini is supposed to represent a Lovecraftian god that is starting to manifest on Earth. Sadu-Hem is also responsible for turning people into the frog monsters if I remember correctly. My plan was to try get this mini done as quickly as possible and I would say I was mostly successful in that regard. Unfortunately, I made some bad color choices in an attempt to mirror the colors of the frogs. I should have gone with a blue on the tentacles instead of two shades of green. Oh well, making mistakes like this are a good way to help you learn and this is a small part of painting that I can still improve upon.

At this point, I’ve basically painted up the core game of Hellboy with the exception of some more investigators. So that is probably going to be my focus for a little bit as I’d like to have some variety in who I use in the game, especially since I have 3-4 new cases I can play now with the Tentacles of Sadu-Hem done. So with this in mind, I painted Professor Bruttenholm aka “Professor Broom” who is Hellboy’s “father” and also the founder of B.P.R.D. In the comics, Bruttenholm actually dies to a frog much earlier than you would expect. This is the old version of him which is what I chose to paint. In more recent years, the comics went back in time and showed young Professor Broom with dark hair but for me, I think the movie version of Professor Broom is what sticks in my mind so I used that as inspiration. I really focused on making all of my color choices work together and it thankfully paid off. Messing up a mini can motivate you to do that, though I might have made Broom a little too dapper when he is generally shown wearing drab clothing. I’ll let you be the judge.

Professor Broom should be an interesting one to use in-game as he seems to be nearly worthless in combat but is really good at getting clues. There is a lot of combat in Hellboy so that is a major handicap. I look forward to giving him a try and seeing how it works out.

To wrap up on Hellboy, I played once again this week and not only had fun but won a Medium difficulty case. It wasn’t too easy or too hard which was nice. Since the game is visually fairly similar from case to case (its mostly just the tile layout that varies), I didn’t bother taking pictures. At some point, I will write up a detailed review since the game doesn’t have a lot of them on Boardgamegeek.

Mantic Games, the maker of Hellboy, put the expansions up for sale now that the Kickstarter has been sent out so I went ahead and bought the final one I was missing. While I don’t have all the Kickstarter exclusive miniatures, my Hellboy board game collection is not complete barring any future releases so that is a nice accomplishment.

I took another hobby “L” this past week with the Overpass terrain for Fallout. I dropped one of the key side supports on the ramp on my wood floor and a piece snapped off. I glued it back on and kept going. Unfortunately, I snapped one of the fragile supports that go underneath the road on the bridge too. I was being careful getting it off the frame and even still, it snapped easily. At that point, I didn’t feel comfortable moving forward with the project because the weaker those pieces are, the more likely it will collapse under the added weight of the cement paste. For now I have shelved the project and will revisit it at some point in the future. I purchased another terrain project from Black Site Studio that I desperately need to spruce up my Fallout games but I have to wait 2-6 weeks for it to be made so I will have to wait a bit.

With a lot of free time this week, I re-watched the first two Hobbit movies and it was nice to revisit them. They aren’t the best movies in the world but I enjoy them and find them very visually appealing. They also got me thinking about future MESBG display projects which is good. Unfortunately, I’m struggling a bit for inspiration for next year’s Golden Demon. If I can figure something out, I really ought to get started on that sooner or later. I have some half-ideas but nothing that I’m happy with just yet.

The autumn and winter are usually my busiest seasons not just because of the holidays but the sports I enjoy are on TV. At the moment, the Chicago Bulls are mediocre and I’ve tried to watch a number of games and am close to giving up on this season. The University of Cincinnati’s football team is having a down year compared to last and I’m worried the basketball team isn’t going to have a great year either. All this is to say, I think I’m going to have more free time than previous years unless something surprising happens. A while back, I said I was going to get more into board games and while I got into Hellboy and Arkham Horror: The Card Game, that was as far as I got. I may try to branch out a bit more in the coming months to see if I can find some more games I enjoy, particularly anything that won’t add to my painting backlog.

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30 thoughts on “Hellboy – Professor Broom and His Bane”

  1. Nice job on those models, I can see what you mean about tricky spots to reach on those tentacles that looks hellish!
    Hopefully you get that laptop soon so you can get on top of deadlines, but an enforced painting break sounds rather appealing right now to me (veeeery busy at work atm!)

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    1. That mini was a real headache and tended to put me in a bit of a mood while working on it. I have certainly enjoyed my time off work but now it is getting to be a bit much. My hope is that I can get back to work soon. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for that and for a break for you too 🙂

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  2. Actually, Jeff, you do appear to have done some technical writing this week, since the Professor Broom mini is reading a book that you had to paint the writing on! 🙂 IT hardware provision can be hit and miss sometimes in my experience – I ordered a display for my laptop a couple of years ago and it was delivered to my home address in a couple of days, yet the latest order for a larger monitor has resulted in nothing after a couple of weeks!
    The minis are both very nice indeed and good to have! 🙂 I’ve started looking around for Hellboy trade paperbacks and not found many pre-owned and the prices remain consistent so they must be popular!

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    1. Haha, thank you, John! 😀 My wife actually said the text in Broom’s book looked good and getting any praise from her is tough work so I’ll take it!

      I agree wholeheartedly on IT requests. I’ve had good and painfully slow. This is by far the worst experience I’ve had and hopefully the wait is nearly over.

      I’m surprised that Hellboy trade paperbacks are not more plentiful! In the US, there is a used bookstore chain called Half Price Books and I would say you could walk into almost any of them and find at least some Hellboy volumes at a discounted price. I’m not sure if that type of thing exists in the UK and if there is, I’ve never heard of an equivalent like it but hopefully you can find some at a good price soon. The great thing about Hellboy is that you can read them out of order and enjoy one volume on its own for the most part.

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  3. Sorry for your mishaps, sometimes we roll badly in real life. Jeff, the Professor figure is painted brilliantly, the skin tones look really nice. As for the tentacles, I think they work – not sure how much more could be done but now I want calamari – though not green…

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  4. I can see what you mean about perhaps blue would have been a better choice on the tentacles as a way to break up the colors. Still, looks properly horrific… as it should!

    Your Professor is brilliant. You really brought the mini to life.

    A shame about the overpass. Still, I look forward to what you do next for Fallout.

    As for the Golden Demon… I think something with an Ash Wastes nomad on a giant space flea would be cool.

    I agree with you on Jackson’s Hobbit.

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    1. Cheers, mate! Sometimes it is nice to have validation both when you made a mistake and did well.

      Necromunda has a lot of cool minis and if I had some like minded gamers nearby (someone like yourself), I bet it would be great fun to play. As it is, its not a solo friendly game so I’ve stayed away for that reason. I was thinking something more Middle Earth for Golden Demon this year for better and worse…

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  5. Excellent work on the tentacles, as the frogs are green I can see why you went with a colour to tie in, as for other colours maybe purple would have been a better choice, being other worldly. The professor is awesome especially the detail in the book, and you have achieved a good likeness to the John Hurt colours.
    Sorry to hear about the computer woes, and hopefully it can be rectified soon, so you don’t fall behind.
    As for the flyover, send me some pictures of the plans, and the broken part, and I’ll work out a fix for you mate.
    Stopped watching real sports years ago, and now only watch the entertainment kind, although I wish they would get some new storyline material, as it’s becoming the same every big event ! LOL

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    1. A purple is a great suggestion. Just not more green as I found out the hard way 🙂 I’m really glad you think Broom represents John Hurt well as he played the character perfectly in the movies.

      I can send you pictures of the overpass and I will be curious to see what you think. I was going to just rebuy the kit and I threw away at least one of the broken pieces but if I can save some quid, I’m all for it.

      And haha, I hear you on the entertainment side of things too 🙂

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  6. Good greif – that’s one way to score yourself a week off anyway! I take it they’re still paying you though right, and not forcing you to take annual leave just because they can’t find you a spare machine? Troubling that they can’t source you another laptop though – yet another sign of how knackered the global supply chain is I’m guessing? Anyway, you’ve made good use of your time – nice work on both the prof and the Tentacles of Sadu-Hem – the latter looks tricky to paint right enough but you’ve pulled it off nicely all the same. Oh and well done on the promotion as well!

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    1. You’re telling me, mate! I would have never thought I’d be unable to do my job for over a week after I spilled water on my laptop. Then again, that was the first time I’ve made that common mistake so now I ought to know better.

      Thanks for the kind words on the painting as well! If nothing else, it was nice to have extra time to focus on that this past week. We can all use a little extra hobby time after all 😀

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  7. Could see why those tentacles could be problematic, curious though, why didn’t the washes take? Different resin or just run off? Still a nicely painted miniature as well as Professor Broom.

    Sorry to hear about the overpass, hopefully a solution can be found to fix it.

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    1. That’s a great question and I didn’t explain it very well. The washes gathered around the suction cups which prevented it from drying evenly across the tentacles so it doesn’t look as realistic as I usually aim for. The shading is very much uneven or even spotty. Thank you for the kind words on Broom as well!

      It isn’t the end of the world that the overpass hasn’t worked out. I haven’t fully cleared storage space for it and this is a reminder that I really need to get on that.

      Speaking of terrain, I didn’t have a chance to comment on Instagram but your recent CD terrain has got me thinking I need to revisit the idea for Fallout and see what I can come up with. I really like having such a sturdy and easy to use “base” where there is zero concern over warping. I’m sure I can get creative and come up with some more creative pieces to add to my collection, I just need to sit down and give it some thought.

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      1. Just posted another cd piece, used some of the grass you sent me. Tough to make tufts but worked well enough as grass against a wall. Thanks again for it.

        CDs make great bases for certain circumstances, but are limited. They work best for me as scatter terrain or mini diorama pieces.

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      2. I was thinking along the lines of mini diorama but honestly, that’s probably not what I need for Fallout right now so I may hold off on that for now. Either way, the pieces you’ve been making are really inspirational as always!

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    1. I can’t seem to win every week anyway! 🙂 I’m really glad you like the Professor and the writing. I used to not be able to do that and now I find it fun to do the script. I should probably paint Saint Celestine or one of those type of minis from GW now that I feel comfortable with it!

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  11. Broom turned out really nice and I really like how you did his pants. The book is great, the freehand writing and the cover decorations are nice. I work in IT and supply chain issues have been crazy. One order arrives in a week, and the next is 3 months. Lots of factors there, but the randomness has been a real pain. In the US, we’re also dealing with worker shortages. Trying to hire a junior tech recently took about 6 months. Add people not being onsite due to hybrid work, and yea, it’s a big mess.

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    1. Thank you, Faust! I was happy with the pants as well. Some sculpts are really hard to get right but these pants came together easily thankfully!

      That is good to know about the supply chain issues. In my company it usually is communication that is the problem. IT initially told me it was going to ship after a day or two and not only did that not happen but they never notified me that it was delayed so I kept checking for the laptop for several days before I finally figured out what was going on. Even after that, they didn’t do a great job of communicating when it would ship so it became more and more stressful as my deadlines piled up. That is way more information than you needed probably but it felt good to vent all the same! 🙂

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      1. Cloth can be tricky to draw and paint, so it’s one of the things I look at. I thought cloaks were pretty straightforward, but now I pay a lot more attention. Cloth is useful for indicating movement in the figure. Sorry to hear about the computer woes. It definitely sounds like they need to get improve in their communication.

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      2. For sure! Painting cloth realistically generally takes more time and patience than most of us have so you see all manner of shortcuts being taken on many finished gaming pieces. The pants on the Professor are no exception!

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    1. That’s a great idea and I bet the short answer is not easily! I have painted different ethnicities in the past but it is hard to get all of the colors just right like I have for white characters lately. I’ll definitely look for an opportunity to do that as it sounds like a great challenge! Thanks for mentioning it! 🙂

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