Its been a pretty busy hobby week for me overall so there’s a bit more to discuss than usual. First up, and probably the most exciting part, is that I got the remaining two raiders finished (they just needed rust paint and matte varnish) so I got the Burns Residence out again and took some more pictures. The intent is to show off the Raiders now that they’re done but it kind of ended up being celebration of terrain and miniatures. I wasn’t expecting it but I have to say that I really like the photos I took this time compared to when I got the Burns Residence done. Maybe it is because thematically the Raiders fit the building really well or maybe I just got lucky and ended up with higher quality photos this time. First up is a group shot of Raiders, this was after a mandatory team-building exercise and group photo! Its a shame that they aren’t all in focus but its tough when dealing with so many miniatures at once.
I also took some more cinematic photos, many of which I’m really happy with.
That last one in particular just looks fantastic and really shows Mrs. Smiley off nicely. As I mentioned before, some of these minis were a bit of a chore to work on but its a really nice reward to see them in their natural environment. It really brings Fallout to life.
The only thing left is that I need to devote some time to develop the house a bit more like I said before. Furniture and yard items are a must. I’m going to need to buy stuff to accomplish this goal but its something I intend to do soon as I’d like to get moving on this goal.
While it hasn’t quite been nice enough outside to prime anything yet, it shouldn’t be long so I’ve been working on getting new Fallout minis built in the background. I don’t have a ton of stuff left that is primed so I decided to work on something a little different that I thought would be pretty fast to get done. I’m not sure that will prove accurate as its slow going so far. I wanted to do a bit of freehand as practice and it didn’t not go smoothly. Here is what the Utility Protectron looks like in Fallout 4.
My first attempt to replicate the Caution text did not work. There isn’t enough room so I nixed that and tried to do a larger version of the triangle and lightning bolt. It took two goes and my second attempt is not perfect but its going to have to be good enough.
Weathering the legs was pretty time consuming and took a lot of glazes to get that effect but it does look worn and dirty which is exactly as it should. Hopefully by next week, I’ll be close to having this done, if not all the way there. It should look pretty nice in the end so its worth the effort, especially if you like the Protectrons, like I do.
I’ve been ruminating on a couple of other things this week, both hobby related. The first is that I’d like to get back to reviewing hobby related publications on this blog as I get time this year. Its no secret that money has been tight for about a year now and that has made it hard to acquire any new books or magazines. There’s reason to think that might be easing up finally, thankfully. I’m sure I’ve said this before but this blog gets more visits from people looking for either info about how to play Fallout or MESBG (this one makes me a bit uneasy as I wrote that years ago and can no longer vouch for its accuracy…). Review articles tend to do well too and fortunately, I enjoy writing them and so I might as well try and do that a bit more. I’m still going to write some more Sentinels of the Multiverse guides to see if those take off or not but once I get the next one done, I will write up a review of a book I’ve had for a while and keep meaning to discuss. We’ll see if I can’t manage something like one or two “bonus” articles a month going forward on top of the usual weekly updates.
The other thing I randomly started pondering this week and hopefully is somewhat interesting is that the way display painters paint and collect miniatures is likely somewhat different than those who buy miniatures to game. A wargame enthusiast might be a completionist and buy everything they can for a particular game or setting. Alternatively, they might just buy the factions that they find appealing and ignore the rest, especially in games like Warhammer which have tons of actions and tons of miniatures. None of this information is terribly surprising because its pretty normal and widely accepted in the hobby.
Display painting is a bit different in that there are A LOT of display models out there and they take a long time to complete. Its arguably even harder to paint all of the releases from a single manufacturer as several off the top of my head have roughly 30-40 sculpts available. As a result, its not crazy to put some thought into what you’re going to buy and paint and whether they will look good next to each other or not. Of course, there are no rules and you can put fantasy display pieces next to contemporary subjects which are then next to historical ones. Personally, I like the idea of having some themes or miniatures that can be grouped together nicely so this is not a road that I would probably go down in the future.
Having said that, my collection currently does not have that much unity in it. For example, my display projects include 6-8 Warhammer miniatures with one MESBG thrown in there and then I have Minerva, a 75mm miniature and Grunthal, the Slayer dwarf bust. That is more eclectic than I would like, especially from a scale perspective. Over time, I think I’ll paint more 75mm and busts to even things out but I will give some consideration to what sets of miniatures and busts might look nice together. A great example of this are the three-bust series that Black Crow Miniatures has been making. These just look nice together on a shelf because they’re themed and capture three very different but related subjects.
I really need to get a display case and I’m hoping that 2025 will finally be the year that it happens though I’ve been saying for years now that I need one and its still yet to happen. So time will tell and I’ll certainly be keeping all this in mind as I consider future projects as well.
Kuribo's Painting 
The raiders look great as a unit, and in the setting of the broken house seem right at home.
Great start to the robot, and great call on the sign over the writing, and the weathering on the legs looks spot on to the reference.
Hope you find a display cabinet this year, and find the balance you are looking for with the subject material.
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Cheers, Dave! I’m glad you think the weathering on the legs look good as well. That means it was worth the effort.
I will do my best to get a case this year, its long overdue. The balance will take much longer to achieve but its good to be thinking about it now before I buy a bunch of new display pieces or something like that.
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Nice pictures, Jeff, and I like how the robot’s coming along! 🙂
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Thank you, John! With any luck, the robot will be done in a week and hopefully that will look even better 🙂
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Always a sucker for group shots! They look great together. I enjoyed the other shots as well, especially the one where the raider is shooting out the window.
Can’t really comment on display case options, I just throw random pieces on my windowsill or bookcase to gather dust. So, overall theme is LOTR dust.
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You and me both. I like the raider in the window too. Its a bit dark but also moody in a good way.
It sounds like we better start a go fund me for display cases. Maybe we can elicit more pity and sympathy if we team up.
Progress is slow but I think your Instagram ideas are slowly going to pay off so thank you again for mentioning that a while back as well.
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The Fellout stuff looks great – there’s always a certain kind of satisfaction of having finished a group of like models, whether it’s an army/squad/.warband or just a collection from the same range or faction – even moreso when placed next to nice terrain and then even that’s enhanced when it’s the “right” terrain. You’re going to love having a printer! 😉
Speaking of printers, the Protectron looks very nice so far, but do you have access to a laser printer? You know I consider myself a pretty good freehander, but I can’t recommend making your own transfers highly enough when you have something that needs to be perfect, like printed text.
Display painting is – as you say – an entirely different beast and in it’s own way a distinct and separate branch of the hobby to painting for gaming. I don’t think you’re even “supposed” to collect a whole range from any one artist or producer, and (again) when you get a printer you’ll be shocked at how much access you have to pretty much anything you want for a very affordable price and ease of access. A shame you mention money is tight because with the tariffs and current instability grabbing one from existing US stock would be a good choice for the foreseeable future.
But aside from “display” models, you can also see how common it is for those miniature Youtubers (the ones not painting a sponsored model this episode) to have a new GW kit (because new, and because GW) and then they simply paint one single model from it to a high standard. And while that is indeed their job, so who cares about the rest of the squad – there’s also something in that for non-“display”, display models as GW and others like Corvus Belli just make some damn nice sculpts. No reason a regular Eldar model can’t be a dosplay model, let alone an Avatar or a Bloodthirster. Awhile back, Our friend over at Night Shift painted a Warhammer Sicaran Battle Tank using his armour modeller skills & methods, turning it into a pretty sweet display piece!
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Thanks, mate! And I agree with everything you said, including the printer part. It will be really nice get access to one when I can.
I do have a laser printer. Its a piece of junk but it mostly does what its supposed to do 🙂 I didn’t realize you can make your own transfers. I will have to research that as it would have made this miniature look even better, I reckon. Thanks for mentioning it!
It certainly isn’t required to collect miniatures from a particular publisher (nothing wrong with doing so either, of course) but I think most people go where their fancy takes them which is understandable considering the time investment. I probably care more symmetry in my collection than most do. I haven’t looked into display pieces available via 3D printing much but I have seen some cool busts of superheroes like Batman that are probably illegal but would still be really cool to paint! Tariffs will get a mention in this weekend’s update for a somewhat unexpected reason but you’re right about it being nice to make purchases before things get out of hand.
You’re spot-on that GW makes basically entire lines worth of display worthy minis. Personally, I don’t like infantry models in The Old World for display purposes (for the most part anyway) but nearly anything GW makes can be a display project, if you want. Until more recently, that is basically what I did. I would just look for GW minis that I really liked and didn’t mind spending lots of time on so even us non-Youtubers do what you described 🙂 I will have to watch that video Night Shift did. Maybe it will make me passionate about painting tanks 😉
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Yeah, just look for “Waterslide Decal Paper For Laser Printers” or similar – and remember to print tests in B&W to get your sizes perfect before printing – and fill up as much as possible of the sheet to boot! If you recall the cabs I did for Crisis Protocol, they’re covered in decals I made using Google and photoshop.
https://azazelx.com/2023/08/30/marvel-crisis-protocol-terrain-civilian-cars-as-melbourne-cabs/
It seems a lot of 3d models fall into the grey area of “fan art”, particularly when they’re not being charged for and are shared freely. GW is quite judicious in chasing people down for miniature clones, but there’s still plenty out there – I need to print a marine Helmet one day, but flippy’s still working on terrain (and earrings) constantly…
I think small sets work and look nice – the triads you have in this post for example, but collecting a whole line of one company’s display models bcause they’re from the same company would be beyond me – I need to paint different types of model and genre to keep myself interested!
Most of GW’s TOW stuff are simply rebadged plastics from the 90’s and 2000s, but their new Cathay stuff looks pretty sweet I have to say! I don’t knwo if Night Shift’s video will make you passionate about painting tanks (plural) but it might make you want to paint a single tank/diorama as a display project to push yourself in a new direction. 😀
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I’ll have to remember this, mate. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and I do remember the cabs which look great!
Maybe the sculpts I’ve seen fit under fan art. I didn’t realize that was a way around copyrights though to be honest, I don’t see Marvel or DC licensing a bigger name sculptor to do busts of their characters. I’d love to see them do it but I don’t think we’ll see it happen so I’m glad that “fan art” exists.
I couldn’t collect all of the releases from a company either. If I’m honest, there’s usually on a handful of busts or minis that I like from a given company. I was contemplating trying to collect some models based on theme. For example, having a few Samurai/Japanese Fantasy sculpts, along with traditional fantasy ones, but time will tell if I follow through on that or not!
Haha, I don’t think Night Shift can make me a treadhead either but your idea is a pretty realistic one 😀
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I love the shots of the minis in the scenery, they really came out well. I always find it very rewarding to see everything put together when I get to take photos of a completed project.
Love the weathering on the protectron, that grime on top of the chips really came out well. Keen to see it finished!
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Thank you, Nic! I agree that seeing your squad or army on suitable terrain is really fun. I’ve got the Protectron done and will be working on an update about it very soon! I look forward to your thoughts on the finished product.
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I absolutely love those posed photos of Mrs Smiley and her wee gang of ne’er-do-wells. Keep going with the Protectron – I admire your dedication to painting even minor minis to a very high standard.
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I’m glad to hear it because I remember you saying that you were looking forward to the photos! 🙂 I just try to paint every mini as well as I can, given the sculpt and character design.
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