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Kingdom Rush & Hellboy – Lilith and Johann

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Mark this day in your calendars, I got not one but two miniatures done in a week. I can’t recall the last time I managed that other than batch painting or cheating by painting some really tiny minis. Regardless, the first one I finished is Lilith the Fallen Angel from Kingdom Rush. In the video game, you have to buy some heroes to access them. I’m pretty sure Lilith is one of those kinds because I never used her. She kind of has a tricky look to paint but I did my best to match her in-game art.

She was fairly straightforward to paint and using metallic paints helped speed the process up. Unfortunately, while writing this, I spotted a mistake that I didn’t clean up so I guess she isn’t as done as I thought! Fortunately, she is the next miniature I needed painted for Kingdom Rush so I’m happy to say that it wasn’t hard to get motivated to paint her.

Speaking of motivation, while I have a lot of terrain to work on, I’m not feeling compelled to work on it yet. Instead, I’m tired of looking at the 15 or so miniatures that have been sitting on my desk unpainted for months, if not years now. So to start alleviating that problem, I decided to tackle Johann Kraus. This is an interesting mini because it is Mantic resin, which I haven’t touched before. This particular miniature feels pretty fragile for a gaming mini. It took a decent amount of prepping as well. I actually paid extra for it because it is a rare Kickstarter add-on but I like how it looks and it is a cool sculpt for diehard Hellboy fans.

Johann is a medium or psychic and while doing a seance, some kind of global spirit disruption occurred and he became severed from his body. Eventually, he was discovered by B.P.R.D. and given a suit for his spirit to embody. This mini shows Johann when he is in his spirit form. I should add that if you’ve seen Hellboy 2, then this character is probably familiar to you. I prefer the comic book version as I think he is a little less silly and C3PO-like than his movie counterpart.

I think this might be the first ghost miniature I’ve ever painted and I kind of improvised a scheme based on something I saw Richard Gray do on Youtube. Since this miniature has very few flat surfaces, it is hard to get smooth blends of the colors so I tried to thin down the paint and do the best I could in a short amount of time. I suspect most people who paint this mini will just drybrush it though I think I got a little bit better results than what you can get with that technique. I’ll let you be the judges though!

That’s it for me painting wise, I know I said I was going to talk about what video game I’m playing but I think instead I’d like to highlight some cool larger scale sculpts that came out recently or are on my radar. First up is The Wraith King from Black Crow Miniatures, which I admit has fairly small pictures online. I’ve seen a fully painted version on Instagram and can confirm that it is a great sculpt. This is a time sink of a project as I think the miniature is quite tall and you have a scenic base provided as well. I know Games Workshop has made some cool skeleton miniatures but I think this one probably outdoes them in a larger scale. I wouldn’t mind painting a skeleton along these lines but I have never been able to figure out a good color scheme I liked and that is why its never happened. That shield and armor is about as cool as it gets though!

Another release that is not quite as new but still very appealing is the Iron and Stone trio of busts also from Black Crow Miniatures. If there is something sure to catch my attention, it is Lord of the Rings-style dwarves and elves. That is what two of these busts are. The other feels more like a Warhammer Slayer dwarf. I could take or leave that one to be honest.

If they restock these and I have $100+ kicking around, I think I’d likely buy this set. The first two dwarves would both be great fun to paint and I reckon I could come up with something decent for the last one. Maybe an ice age dwarf would be cool (even with the fact that he’s semi naked…). These three would look great next to each other in a display cabinet too.

Now that I’ve been following larger scale miniatures more closely for a few months, I’ve noticed that a decent number of large scale miniature companies do a fair amount of limited edition sculpts. Personally, I suspect they do this because they can’t keep 50+ sculpts in production, though a little FOMO might help sales too. The bad thing about this is that you as a consumer don’t know if you should buy something you really like and squirrel it away or not. I have a good chunk of display pieces saved up now but at the same time, some of these releases which look great won’t be around forever. Its hard to keep a manageable backlog in these type of market conditions. It wasn’t so long ago, I didn’t have much of a backlog at all and now I’ve got one that will take several years to tame. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not upset about this though it can be a bit daunting when I think about it sometimes. It helps knowing that some of you out there are basically in the same situation as me too!

37 thoughts on “Kingdom Rush & Hellboy – Lilith and Johann”

  1. Great work on both Jeff, and great use of colour on both to represent the elements. I like the suit in Hellboy 2 but that is probably due to the fact that I like the old deep sea diving suits, and it reminded me a lot of them.

    Some great looking models you’ve got your eye on, the Wraith King has to be my favourite out of them.

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    1. Thank you, Dave! I like the Hellboy 2 design of Johann Kraus as well. It was probably the best way to take the comic book designs and bring it into “real life”.

      I can see where the Wraith King would be to your taste as well! It is a great miniature.

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  2. Agreed with Dave. Great work on both. I would have used contrast on the ghost model for sure. Possibly some drybrushing as well before final blended highlights but then you already know how I categorise so many models. 😅
    Also very nice work on Lilith. Playing games certainly helps a lot for the old motivation for sure.
    You’ll find that with current digital sculpting these will be a never ending torrent of excellent sculpts that you want to paint. I guess like with minis you just need to figure out a way to prioritise which ones you buy and then get to painting…. 😆

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    1. I’m sure you’d do a great job with Johann, though I suspect you don’t own him since he was hard to get and a Kickstarter extra of some sort or another.

      I do agree with you that you really have to pick and choose what to buy because there’s so much out there nowadays. I’ve always been picky with display projects as it is but I might need to get even more picky if I don’t want to have 20-25 display projects in my backlog!

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      3. Man, that’s too bad. I’d get off my butt and go to the theater right now to see Perlman as Hellboy one more time! Though the rest of the cast really helped sell the movie as well.

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      4. It was a great cast and I’m right there with you. Selma Blair probably won’t and maybe can’t reprise her role any longer due to her health issues. There are a lot of Hellboy and B.P.R.D. stories that would work well as a movie, should someone want to make them.

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  4. Both minis turned out well. It’s weird seeing you use metal paints though.
    Just think, if you can increase your output by only 5.5 minis per week, you can almost catch up with Azazel! 😂
    Of the display pieces, the first looks like a lot of work, but I can picture it being pretty amazing. I like the second Dwarf the best. I guess if they are a set, I might opt to sell if the third. Your idea of an ‘ice dwarf’. Could be be very interesting, with light bluish skin. I guess you could go the opposite with a ‘fire dwarf’ too. Dark skin, black hair, bright red/orange clothing. Just some thoughts.

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    1. I forgot to say, I’d likely have painted Johann the same way. Dry brushing can be great for terrain, where you need randomness. But I don’t have much luck on minis, because of the errant brush strokes. Plus I more easily lose focus while dry brushing and have to clean up the mistakes.

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      1. There’s definitely an art to drybrushing minis and I wouldn’t say I’ve mastered it but I have been able to do it successfully sometimes. I don’t know if it would look good on this mini or not because it has little crevices everywhere. I think it would be easy to have a pretty splotchy and chalky appearance if you aren’t careful with drybrushing. Its good to hear that you’d tackle the mini the same way. I’m often improvising on gaming miniatures because the stakes are low truthfully.

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      2. I know the Contrast thing has worked well for Azazel and others. Wish I could get it to work as well, but I guess I just have to do my own thing even if it’s going to take longer.

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      4. I still have all the first wave of Contrast and maybe a handful of the second. They work nicely for some terrain stuff. I just haven’t had much luck with minis.

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      5. It might be tricky to use them on the infantry characters you’ve been painting. If I remember right, you layer their clothing as it is and that is the “correct” way to paint them if you’re looking to make them look as nice as they can in a reasonable amount of time. I think Contrast work best on bad sculpts with texture you generally want to drybrush but that’s just me. I’m not super experienced with the paint and I mostly target those kinds of minis for Contrast.

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    2. If its weird for you, imagine how I feel using metal paints 🙂 At least I managed to paint this one without grumbling too much!

      Its interesting to hear your thoughts on the display pieces. I can’t argue with anything you said! I think a fire dwarf could be a great idea too. GW has that in Warhammer AoS and I like those minis fairly well even if I never painted one. That might be a way to get me excited about the dwarf that I’m not that into!

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  6. Two miniatures done in a week, way to set the bar high for the rest of us.

    I think everyone that reads this blog has a backlog of things to paint that will take years to get rid of, especially since shiny objects keep tempting us and our wallets.

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    1. I probably won’t hit that high of a bar again anytime soon, to be fair!

      I imagine that you’re right. Its much easier to buy things than to get it all painted, that is for sure. I’d imagine yours is mostly elves, dwarves, and xenomorphs but I might be wrong!

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  7. good job on the miniatures/ game pieces. those large display pieces have crazy amounts of detail. You could highlight each individual strand of hair. 😀

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  9. You painting 2 in one week is like me not using blood for the blood god on another miniature ever again. It can’t be true! Haha. Well done mate. The three dwarf busts would look cool all painted up and on display sitting next to each other.

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    1. Cheers, mate! I feel that way when I paint “lesser” board game minis but I never know how everyone will react at the same time. Sometimes simple minis go over better than I expect them too. I imagine it is that surprise which keeps me coming back 🙂

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