I don’t have a creative title for this week’s update unfortunately so we’re recycling the last one. If you remember, I painted some little toy soldiers for Kingdom Rush and now I’ve finished the next and final six. There isn’t too much to say other than that it was nice to have these wrapped up and ready for use in-game.
I also touched up the spear on Minerva’s blade and so I thought I’d show you that as well. I lowered the highlight on the front so that its more even and symmetrical. I tried to make the highlights near the top of the blade more noticeable but I think its still kind of subtle because its such a small area. Truthfully, I’m not sure if there is a massive difference but I’d love to hear your thoughts and I will say that I’m glad the symmetry is better, if nothing else. Here is the previous version of Minerva’s blade.
And here’s the new and hopefully improved version.
As I mentioned last week, Adepticon is going on from Thursday-Sunday this weekend and I dropped by on Friday to do some shopping. I told myself that I’d take some pictures this year of the various booths but it was really crowded and hard to even get from place to place at times so I nixed that plan. I will share some thoughts on walking the floor in a bit but I thought I’d lead with what I purchased. First up, I bought Henry from Neko Galaxy.
Henry’s pretty little, not that much bigger than the Hellboy busts I’ve painted in the past, but the quality of the miniature is absolutely excellent. The details are really crisp and I have something pretty creative and different for him in mind. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s the next display piece I paint later in 2024.
I was open to purchasing a lot of other things. I debated buying Rosie and Soraya as well from Neko Galaxy but decided it was too big of a project for me right now. This would be two 75mm miniatures and scenery.
I also saw some cool stuff at Scale75 USA’s booth, including Capricorn which is pictured below. I really like this guy but I don’t know how I’d paint it and I’d like to do something fresh with it as many people have already copied the box art so that kept me from making a move. Perhaps one day I’ll paint him.
Ultimately, I ended up buying another bust from Big Child Creatives for a fairly modest price of $43. Idril looks like this and I should add that the painted version you see is done by one of the true masters of painting, Arnau Lazaro.
I opened her up and looked over the details, which are obviously very fine and I was immediately concerned.
The curling patterns just below her bosom are very faint. If you’re not extremely careful when painting those areas, you’ll lose that detail. I think simply basecoating her in black and then trying to paint her in white, for example, would kill those details after 3-4 coats. As you can probably imagine that diminishes my desire to paint this one a fair amount and she likely will be something I tackle in 2025 or possibly even never, if I’m being honest.
That was all I ended up with which was a little surprising but I’m also on a bit of a budget because we’ve recently gone down to a single income household for a little while. I also have too large of a backlog for my tastes as it is anyway so its not the worst thing in the world to not go crazy buying stuff.
If this post wasn’t long enough, I thought I’d give you some random Adepticon thoughts I had while walking the floor as well.
I very briefly stopped by Mantic’s booth and I barely saw any Hellboy Board Game stuff being sold so I’m guessing they’re moving on from that game which is not surprising. It has a ton of content as it is.
Modiphius’s booth was underwhelming this year. Last year they had more stuff in stock and they had a nice area you could basically walk in and see retail towers full of miniatures. It was a very nice way to shop. This year they were in the back of the convention center, in a smaller area, and had stuff stacked up on a table. I didn’t see anything that was all that hard to get (like their terrain) so I quickly moved on.
Big Child Creatives had a somewhat strange booth this year. Perhaps that isn’t too surprising because they have more or less taken down their website and it isn’t clear what their future is. Its odd because they’ve been a big player in the larger scale miniature scene for the last few years and their new website doesn’t show much of that at all. It seems like they might not be doing much more of that kind of thing in the future which would be a shame. Anyway, getting back to their booth, it wasn’t obvious that it was theirs and they shared it with airbrush company and Ammo by MIG. The previous year they had their own booth and more miniatures available. I might have bought something besides Idril from them if they had it.
A lot of booths at Adepticon are doing something where they have a “pro” painter using their paints in their booth for a couple of hours and you can go and talk to them and I assume get interested in buying the product. For those of you who have gone to conventions, what do you think of this idea? Would you want to talk to a Golden Demon or Monte San Savino winner about painting or the painting product they’re using? Maybe I’m just too much of an introvert or a cynic but I can’t figure out how that really moves much product. I genuinely don’t know who is walking up and talking to them and I can’t figure out what I would say to them, if I did myself. It never seems like many people are talking to them when I pass by, though the companies that do it, make a big deal about it on social media so maybe people do care or hobbyists think that if X person uses the new paint product, that they should give it a try too. Its kind of puzzling to me and I saw more of this kind of thing this year than ever before so I doubt this trend will be slowing down anytime soon.
That’s more than enough from me this week. I’m going to get to work on Minerva so I hopefully can make some progress on her this week and start wrapping up the long running project!
Kuribo's Painting 
Glad you got to Adepticon, even if you had mixed feelings about some of it! :-) And you’ve got some painting done and moved forwards there!
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It was mostly enjoyable and I certainly did what I set out to do which was buy some new things that are otherwise hard or expensive to get. Its nice the when the Europeans come across the pond to visit, in that sense 🙂
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Great work on your little soldiers Jeff, and must be good to have them finished. With the highlight on Minerva, as long as you are happy that is the main thing.
In regards to the booth layouts, it could be a lot to do with costs, the bigger the pitch the more you have to pay as a company, and the prices at the bigger shows, really can get costly, which is why you see some sharing space.
A painter endorsing a particular paint range has been happening for a while now, but it is becoming more popular, some of the painters are great and will answer any and all questions, others would rather talk about how great they are ! LOL
With the bust with the shallow detail. I would recommend not undercoating it, and go straight with paint, this will keep the layer count to a minimum, and avoid the one that can fill in detail the most.
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I do think you’re right that the rising costs was evident this year for some companies. Modiphius has trouble keeping their releases in stock (not unlike GW in some ways) and I think they just happened to not have much available so they couldn’t have as elaborate of a booth. Its also possible that some companies just decided to cut costs as well. These are tough economic times to be sure.
I think painter endorsements of paints makes sense and I understand why companies would send them free paint, etc. to promote products, especially on Youtube. Having them be at the show makes some sense too, however, not many people seem to talk to them and they end up sitting there painting by themselves a decent chunk of the time. Additionally, they seem to pick a fair amount of display painters that don’t necessarily work with the paint’s primary audience. The bulk of the people at Adepticon are tabletop gamers who paint at that standard so the products are often geared towards that. I don’t know if the average Adepticon attendee cares if a Spanish painter who doesn’t paint gaming miniatures uses a particular product or not but some of these companies still promote the heck out of it. And yes, I know exactly what you mean about the ego part of it too! 🙂
I think you’re right that being extremely careful with the layers of paint is the only way to go with that bust. If I work on it, I will target that area first because for me, the whole thing will pass or fail depending on how that section goes. Its not an ideal situation though, especially for a display project, because you don’t want a miniature to be high risk, high reward, and a major time investment too but that is the case here, unfortunately.
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Whew, lots to digest there! Let’s see…good progress on your Kingdom Rush game. Are you close to done with it? I *think* Minerva’s spear looks better. Once again, you have more experience with NMM technique than I, so I can’t help much. It looks slightly weird, at the magnified angle. But the change is an improvement. I should bone up on NMM at some point. I’m not sure I would ever have time to use it, but I’m starting to think it’s something I need to learn more about. Even if it’s a quicker/dirtier version.
All those models you showed are pretty nice. If you wanted to do something different with Capricorn, I reckon he would make a decent red-skinned devil too. Or maybe some other crazy skin tone.
The pro painters using products at a booth question….well, first off I wouldn’t even know the Pro in the first place, haha! If I saw someone using a product I heard about and was wondering how they used it, sure I might watch and/or talk to them. I’m not sure what product they were using, but if it was something like a line of Speed paints used in a unique way, that might catch my eye. I always like to learn new things after all. I guess that’s a big difference between Comic cons and Miniature cons though…Comic cons, I could walk up to most any booth and talk to the artist. Because I’m just a fan. Sometimes it would just be “love your work!” and then move on. But at ReaperCon, I found that a little more difficult at times. 1) I didn’t really know anyone there, and I don’t follow the big names in our hobby to know who they are. 2) We don’t really have a shared experience. I paint miniatures for gaming, so most of what these people would tell me, would be wasted on me, as they are at a different level than I am. Mainly because of those two, I found it much more difficult to talk to the artists at ReaperCon. Though I did manage to chat with a few, and it was fun.
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It is likely the last longer post for a bit from me! I have about half of the Kingdom Rush base game minis painted. I haven’t touched the expansions yet though and am not sure how minis are in those off the top of my head. I’ll keep chipping away at it because I only have to paint a mini or two more and I can play more scenarios in the game.
The improvements on Minerva are pretty slight, I will admit, but I’m glad for them at the same time. I really didn’t know how much different it looked until I wrote this article and compared the two side by side and I wouldn’t say I was overwhelmed by the amount of change! Its as much about fixing the symmetry as anything else.
NMM is certainly worth learning more about. If you paint TMM at a high level (display level or close to it), you end up doing some similar things. I think it is easier to achieve those things in NMM and to photograph the finished minis but that’s obviously been my preference for years. If you have any questions or need some resources, just let me know and I’ll send some your way.
That is a creative idea for Capricorn. I suppose there is nothing stopping you from making him evil. Nobody has done that before from what I’ve seen!
I think you’re in some ways the target audience for these marketing attempts so I appreciate your opinion! I think the paints being used are for airbrushing. Your friends (or should I say, co-workers!?) in Spain are pushing some new airbrush paint and since I don’t have an airbrush anymore, I haven’t paid much attention to it. I think the paint might by AMMO but Scale 75 seems to have the same kind of product. I can’t remember the name of it but I can look it up, if you’re curious.
I completely agree with you on talking to painters and what can they really say about said paint. First of all, I’m not sure that they’re experts with the new paint product or how much they are even trying to sell it. I think its more of an honorary thing that is used for marketing purposes. But you make great points as well about finding common ground and talking to them about the product and what they’re painting. It looked to me like they all painted busts and larger scale miniatures which only further proves my point. You’ve got the wrong people promoting a product to an audience that may or may not care about the endorsement/association. I would find it hard to talk to them about the product too and I do paint the same stuff as them (minus using an airbrush, of course).
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I can tell the difference in the two pics, and I think the NMM on the spear certainly got better. Even if it’s just a slight change. 🙂
The only thing I’ve really used my airbrush for is priming. I’ve thought about using it for more, but I’m not sure it would ever benefit me. The closest I’ve come is priming in different colors. Badger makes some good primers, in various colors. Which I’ve tried, but then I found I alway end up painting completely over them! Time saved? Nil! The only time I’ve found it actually useful is when I used their sort of flesh tone (like a light tan/yellow). I found that to be a great undercoat if I plan to use a lot of yellow or orange on a mini. Which we know are two very tedious colors to work with!
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I like the blending better anyway. I tried to make the contrast clearer but I think that didn’t really work out as much as I hoped.
I think airbrush is a nice time saver for basecoating and for varnishing but beyond that, it is not a must have. I do everything with brushes and have adapted to life without an airbrush after I destroyed three of them. I don’t like tinkering with things and I feel like there is a good bit of that with airbrushes.
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There is a good amount of tinkering. It probably took me half a year before I finally figured out how to consistently troubleshoot. I still have a few problems with my Iwata. Could be it’s time to replace it. The cheap one I bought just for varnishing though, still goes strong and I’ve never had any problems with it. I’m also tempted to pick up another one of those for priming.
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I bought three of the Iwata Neo (which I don’t think are actually made to the standard of real Iwata’s). Fender does the same thing where their starter guitars and basses. They are much cheaper to buy because they’re inferior, essentially. Maybe one day I’ll get another airbrush. I do think about it from time to time.
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Minerva is really looking nice man and the little soldiers are adorable hehe. I think if I’d been at adepticon with you it would’ve been more fun. We would’ve been quite the power couple haha
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I shudder to think of what kind of trouble we would cause 😉 Thank you for the kind words as well!
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It is alway fun to hear your decision making process regarding various things.
The Kingdom Rush minis are cute. Minerva is stunning but I must ad it you see subtle differences better than I do. I suppose that is why I went for community policing instead of going for detective.
I am fairly extroverted but I do not see myself talking to painters at events. Reading your posts I enjoy. Advice on painting from you I enjoy. But asking a painter I do not know at a convention? No, I just do not see that.
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I would imagine that you can relate to the convention content since you get to attend a large one yourself. Its definitely a unique experience having the hobby market at your fingertips! Some critical thinking about what you really want or should buy can go a long way too.
Thank you for the kind words as well. The differences is very subtle in Minerva. I was a little surprised and underwhelmed when I finally saw the images side-by-side though I fixed the thing that I couldn’t live with so I’ll take that anyway.
I appreciate your perspective as I think you’re more their target audience than me with this new paint line and I’m confident you’re more extroverted too. Having said that, I know exactly what you mean. A pro painter can’t give you that much help because they don’t know your painting. I might be able to make a helpful suggestion to you because I know your painting style and goals much better than them. I’m sure everyone who reads this can guess my opinion, but the “come hang out with a pro painter” marketing scheme is not very effective and I’m surprised to see some companies pushing it so hard. Then again, what do I know? I don’t work in marketing!
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I do know what it feels like needing to fix a tiny detail that annoys me. My painting skill and artistic eye just is not as finely honed as yours.
Marketing interests me but I am terrible at guessing what will catch public interest.
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I honed it through practice, I figure, so you might be able to as well. Speaking of your talents, I think it should be time for another update from you!
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Yes, I keep procrastinating. Terrible habit.
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Insert that quote from Gandalf about wizards never being late here…
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if you’re happy with the changes in M then great. I’ll be honest thst I don’t really see them. It’s probably like a recipe with a certain mix of spices that’s beyond my palate. Or like wine tasting. 😀
celebrity endorsements have always been a thing. I guess we have painting celebrities. I wouldn’t know who they were. I personally wouldn’t be too interested as I’m not into painting. I have my method of block color base, a highlight, and a wash and done. It works for me and I’m not looking to improve right now, or for the last 10 years.
I could be interested in a demonstration of a product that paints ‘fast’. see in real time something go from primer to decent with speed paint or whatever paint. I’m sometimes tempted by such a product but not enough to justify changing out my whole paint collection. 😀
so you just went the one day to adapticon? Why not the whole weekend and play some stuff?
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It could be. I look at it, like you don’t want to spend 150 hours on a miniature (I have no idea how long I actually spend on these displays pieces, its probably better not knowing), and then leave a mistake that I made that I’m reminded of whenever I see it or pick it up. So that motivated me to make what was a fairly small change overall, if that makes sense! It is pretty subtle though and I was expecting to see a little more improvement than I did, if I’m honest.
I think a celebrity endorsement makes a lot of sense for paints and I have no problem with it. I think the idea that you should come check something out because someone you don’t know very well is there using it is not so effective. I think there are a lot of people at Adepticon who think like you as well. If it doesn’t speed up their painting or improve their painting without increasing time or effort, they don’t care too much. I also strongly agree with any new paint product has got to be amazing to make me want to replace the paints I already have. That keeps me from jumping on a lot of these new products. The paints I own barely fit in my hobby desk!
I was only at Adepticon for an hour and a half. Its free to come buy or watch people play (I don’t think many people do that, to be fair) but it costs money to participate in any gaming. So that’s part of it for me this year. Fallout is complicated enough that I don’t know how much I want to play with strangers either. I think a simpler game would work better and entice me more. Most people would say I’m crazy for not actually gaming at Adepticon but I’ve not been tempted to do so yet.
Thank you for your comment as well. You gave me plenty of things to think about 🙂
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Nice progress tackling some rank and file and display in the same post! Interesting to hear your thoughts about adepticon, I’ve mostly seen Golden Demon posts so nice to hear what the stalls side of things was like.
I can see what you mean about the fine detail on Idril, but wow that cast looks crisp! I think I’d work down from white rather than up from black on that one as you said you’d want to limit the layer count!
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I think that picture is as close as I will get to the kind of painting you do for a while, Nic! 😀 The shopping is just as good, if not better, than GD for me. The selection is fantastic, especially for gaming miniatures.
I was thinking about painting the bust in white so if I prime it white, I think that will give me a great starting point. I will be nervous about losing the detail until I actually finish that part of the miniature though (assuming I do in fact paint the bust, I have two other display minis that are more likely to get done first)!
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Do you undercoat with rattle cans or with an airbrush? I have noticed since switching to airbrush undercoating that the layer of undercoat is much thinner, especially for pale colours.
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I often don’t undercoat plastic at all which a painting friend gives me all kinds of grief about 🙂 Resin needs an undercoat though and that’s what this is. I can believe that an airbrush works better than a rattle can. The rattle cans never give a totally smooth coat when I do use them and that’s part of why I don’t bother if I can avoid them. Unfortunately, I’ve killed 3 airbrushes and gave up using them a few years ago but I have occasionally thought about trying again one day. I think this mini would probably benefit from an airbrush so that is certainly food for thought.
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For the airbrush killing part, not sure what happened in your case, but it’s definitely worth getting a larger needle size for undercoats, the primer paints are thicker and usually not just standard acrylic (polyurethane for the Vallejo ones I use) and can block more often. I use a Badger Patriot 105 which has a 0.5mm nozzle for all my “coarse” work I.e. undercoating/varnishing/basecoating. I also have a harder steenbeck airbrush with a 0.2 mm nozzle for the fine stuff.
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I have heard about getting different needles. I’ve also heard people say buying a more expensive airbrush helps. I used the relatively cheap Iwata Neo airbrushes and I think I varnished more than primed with them. Priming did not go well when I did do it. I remember that all too well.
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It’s an interesting space for sure, I can really recommend the badger for that type of work it’s been really resilient and it’s quite a bit less expensive than some of the premium brands
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I appreciate the recommendation, Nic. Everything you said sounds really appealing to me!
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I really like those little dudes!
Haven’t been to a gaming convention in a long time, and it was a board game convention at that, but would have no interest in taking with a painter about new paints. I would be more interested in being able to apply the new paint on a test model to see how it spreads, etc.
Just curious, and I have to admit that I haven’t really looked, are their any 75mm busts of people of color?
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Thanks, Bret! I don’t know why more companies don’t let you demo new products like that. I think it would sell more product. Most of the game manufacturers have demos so you can try a game before buying, for instance.
There certainly are busts of people of color. I have one sitting in my backlog as we speak! Truthfully, I think there are not enough sculpts of people of color being made and just like in Warhammer, most of the minis depict white people. That is changing but slowly. Having said that, when a bust depicts someone who is non-white, you can’t paint them whatever skin tone you want. The sculpts are too lifelike for that. I think you can get away with that sort of thing with gaming miniatures however.
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warhammer community warlord games just had an article on painting skin tones, but as usual it pertained to painting zulus and miniatures of African descent. I would really like to see more variety in Golden Demon, miniatures with facial features,etc. It seems that smaller companies that 3d print are starting to address that but are still few and far between.
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I would like that too. There’s no reason miniatures can’t reflect the real world a bit more in my eyes (though I’m sure some people would disagree or not like this sentiment). I received a book for Christmas about painting skin on larger scale minis (busts, specifically) that I have yet to read. When I get around to doing so, I’ll post a review of it. Personally, I hope that there are a variety of skin tones represented in it. I’m not great at painting Asian or Middle Eastern skin tones and that’s something I’d like to improve upon.
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The mini meeples look great – truth be told I think you put more into them than they need or deserve, but as long as you’re happy with them is the important thing – likewise, with Minerva, looking carefully I can see a slight difference/improvement, but I also have to say that the original one didn’t bother me – it’s that thing where as the painter you’re always very aware of the flaws and mistakes and the “could have been better” elements in your work wheras the majority of the audience won’t notice or care.
Generally, once you get to a certain standard, aside from the artists’s self-awareness, the only people who pick up on tiny elements like this are douchebags and rivet-counters and competition judges who are actively looking for those imperfections to help cull the competition.
Companies are always going to use endorsements and sponsorships as much as they can to get a positive word out for their products, whatever they may happen to be. I don’t personally care what a pro painter would have to say about a product, especially if they’re being paid to talk it up, I’d rather put my trust into people like Stahly and Juan Hildago’s more independant reviews of products than whoever Army Painter is paying this week, along with consumer-level reviews like when Faust was going through paint brands (though decanting and thinning Citadel first does change the properties!). I also use paints from a variety of manufacturers and always have, so I have a natural distrust of anyone trying to sell me one entire range over another as “the best”.
As for Idril and her faint details… all I can say is that you have an excellent opportunity there to make the figure your own with freehand detail if the embossed details are lost. That’s genuinely what I see there with my “painter eye” when looking at the photos and reading your comments that the detail may be lost..
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Cheers, mate! I’d have to agree on the people who point out mistakes that others have made. I try not to mention that kind of stuff on other people’s work even if I do notice it (which isn’t). At that point, all you’re doing is making someone like their hard work less.
Your sentiment on cheap endorsements is spot-on. I don’t have a problem with endorsements, that’s between the painter and the company who wants to compensate them but they don’t hold any real weight with me at the same time. I can judge for myself if something is beneficial for me or not after all.
You sound like my wife, mate! She doesn’t know freehand vs. non-freehand but she told me basically that I just need to freehand the details, as if it is that easy 😀 I will have to talk a bit more about this in a future update as I have some thoughts about it.
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Those wee soldiers are quite cute but they don’t leave a lot of opportunity for you to show your skills. Still, they’re done now and I bet you’ll be glad to have them ready to play. At the opposite end of the miniatures spectrum your work on Minerva continues to amaze me.
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Its true. I did what I could with them, which isn’t all that much! Minerva is getting closer and closer to the finish line so your kind words are appreciated. Its a battle to stay motivated at this point 🙂
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