My apologies once again for the erratic service. There’s been a lot going on lately, a lot of it not good and I also had some family visiting again this weekend so I couldn’t update until now. Next weekend happens to be my birthday and I’m fortunate enough to be doing something special so there won’t be any service this upcoming weekend as well. I’ll share what I got up to and hopefully have some hobby updates the following weekend.
With that service announcement out of the way, I worked on another Survivors mini for Fallout and this time it is one of your many in-game companions, Cait. Cait is an interesting character because she made little impression on me in my first playthrough and I never really used her in-game. You run into her at a Raiders fighting arena and she initially seems violent and kind of remorseless, I guess you could say. I used her more in my second Fallout playthrough and you start to find out about her backstory that way. If I remember correctly, when you meet her, she’s addicted to drugs (which in Fallout give you temporary boosts in combat so its not just a recreational thing) and fighting to survive in the arena where you discover her. She ends up on the path to redemption by spending time with you and its a nice all around story/character arc.
As a result, I really wanted to paint the mini up well and I think I did a pretty good job in many aspects though some parts of the sculpt limited what I could accomplish at the same time. The challenge I have with a lot of Fallout minis is that the face sculpts have tiny details that aren’t easy to get right. That proved to be the case with Cait. I do think her hair looks good and her clothing also matched the game art nicely. I even tried to freehand the plaid patches in her jeans though that was so small of an area, it was tough. I also tried to paint rotting/weathered wood for the floor because otherwise the colors used in a couple places on the mini would be repeated again on those planks. It makes this mini really stand out but hopefully not in a bad way!
Either way, Cait should be interesting to try out in-game though I will need to be careful with this mini as I feel like she’s very fragile and could easily be broken if she takes a dive to the floor.
In some happier news, I did receive new Monsterpocalypse minis recently and I have Hondo’s opposition assembled and looking good. I just need to prime him and I can start painting it whenever I want. I also bought some smaller Monsterpocalypse minis to add to the diorama so I thought I’d try out a color scheme and see what I think of it. This mini is small and simple but I ended up liking what I did enough that I painted up as well as I could so that I can actually place it in the diorama! Here’s a quick peek at it.
I am still planning on using a Lovecraftian monster as Hondo’s opponent in the diorama but I wanted to try and find a color scheme that would look cool but not be the typical shades of sickly green associated with Cthulhu. I also want a scheme that is going to stand out from the Apes’ color scheme which I think this does pretty nicely. Of course, I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on the scheme if you have any!
I should also note that I took the very rare step of writing down the colors that I used on this guy so that I can lean on those in the future. I never do this for anything I paint but I figure for a diorama like this, consistency will be really helpful. It was unsurprisingly a lot harder to remember the exact paints I used on Hondo since I finished him about a month or so ago but I did my best to jot those down too. We’ll see what effect this has on the process in the coming weeks and months.
Lastly, I wanted to briefly discuss a tough lesson I’ve relearned. It all started when I randomly started playing Cuphead again after I previously got stuck in the game. For those who don’t know, Cuphead is a Run n’ Gun shooter video game that is heavily inspired by 1930’s cartoons. Like many people, I LOVE this style of cartooning even if I didn’t know it before playing the video game. Because everything was hand-drawn back then, the animation and overall drawing quality is very high and I don’t think the artists in that era got the credit they deserved. If you like cartoons like Tom and Jerry, the visual gags and antics of 1930’s cartoons will feel pretty reminiscent, but the Cuphead video game has a lot of clever and fun characters in it. One of my favorites is Werner Werman, a Rat wearing a WWI-style German helmet in a soup can tank that he invented!
Playing Cuphead has made me want to draw for the first time in years and so I’ve been trying to do that, in addition to my other interests, and its been very difficult to make progress on the drawing because there just isn’t enough time in the day. Surprisingly, despite the time away from the drawing pencils, I still feel my skills are reasonably sharp. I’d consider drawing a number of things from Cuphead if I had the time but I doubt I’ll be able to follow through with it. That is one of the tough things about life, especially adult life. Your time is very finite so you have to really think about how to invest it. You can’t do everything you want and there might even be things you enjoy doing that you can’t pursue in the way you want. This recent experience is a harsh reminder of that and it also means that I’m trying to do too much so drawing probably isn’t something I’ll be able to do a lot of unless I scale back on something else I enjoy. Either way, I’ll share off the final drawing when its done because the most rewarding part of art is sharing it with others.
Kuribo's Painting 
Seems like you’ve got a very busy couple of weeks, then! (Happy advance birthday!) That little gribbly looks amazing, I don’t really know anything about Monsterpocalypse, though I have heard the Team Covenant guys mention it a couple of times. Really like the colours you’ve used though, it looks great! And kudos on the drawing! That is a skill, right there!!
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Thank you and yes, it will most likely be busy. Thank you for the kind words on the painting as well. Monsterpocalypse is probably a “dying” game in that Privateer Press is releasing everything in STLs and they may or may not support the game after that. I’m painting it for a diorama so that isn’t a huge deal for me luckily. I would imagine a Kaiju themed miniature game would be pretty fun though!
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Well, I am a big fan of the bigger models in something like MCP so I’m with you on the kaiju idea!!
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Having miniatures that show off the scale really well is definitely nice. I like that in MCP as well even if I’ve never tackled one of the minis from that game. Its just something you notice and appreciate about the miniature designs!
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Love the look of Cait and the little monster, nice job on those! Agree Cait looks very fragile, I assume it’s a resin model?
Cool to see you’re into (and good at!) drawing, it’s something I’ve always wanted to work on myself but as you put it so well time is always the issue!
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Thanks for the kind words, mate! Cait is indeed resin. Most Fallout minis are and I don’t own any of the plastic kits that are starting to come out though I would like to change that! My hope is that the plastic is more sturdy.
I learned to draw when I was young. Probably 7 or 8 so for me, drawing or really cartooning is probably engrained in me at this point. Drawing is easy to learn overall, and with Youtube and things like that, I’m sure there’s tons of resources out there now if you ever find the time to dedicate towards it. Finding the time to fit it in with other interests, now that is the real challenge!
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That’s it! The model backlog is never ending so every other hobby comes up against that 😉
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For me, I’m good at drawing one type of thing and I can paint all kinds of different things. Fantasy characters, Sci-Fi stuff, Post-apocalypse, etc. Each one has unique challenges too so that keeps it fresh no matter how many minis I paint. The backlog certainly motivates me too though! 😀
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That’s the truth of it mate – time is a limited zero-sum currency that we’re all burning all of the time. Time spent on one thing can never be used again on something else – and you’ll become more and more aware of it as you get older (yay?)
My unasked-for advice from someone further along the timeline towards the inevitable end is to spend time doing things you think are worthwhile and enjoyable and try to look at things in a way to minimise regrets. Sure, I “wasted” a lot of time playing EverQuest back in my 20’s – but in doing so I spent a lot of quality time being close with my older brother before he suddenly passed at an early age.
We do need to “choose” how to spend our time, though. A few years ago I had to choose between Jiu-Jutsu and fitness gym time as I was starting out from being overweight and very much out of shape and limited for time as we all are. As much as I would have enjoyed continuing JJ, the gym had to take priority. Similarly, I chose model painting over drawing waaaaay long ago. I mean, I can still draw and can enjoy it from time to time, but the 10,000 hours went elsewhere.
Movies & TV or Videogames & 2nd Screen YouTube? Books or internet & blogs?
So many things to do, so little time we have in the end to do all the things we’d love to do.
Ahem.
Cait looks cool. She’s a bit of a twig and I can see your concern with those spindly libs on her, but the model looks great and that’s the part you’re responsible for, anyway. The base and her boots do blend together a little. You could rectify this (if you wanted to – there’s no need to) with a tiny bit of weathering pigment around her boots on the ground to separate them from the base.
The Monsterpocalypse critter reminds me a lot of 90’s era GW monsters. KInd of a hybrid of their Tyranid paint scheme on a sculpt that could have easily come from the ‘nids or the Necromunda range. Very nicely painted retro-cool.
What I’d suggest for organic creatures and monsters is keep that recipe but do not be scared to vary it slightly on each model, using slightly darker or lighter or browner or redder/yellower/bluer/etc tones, and even varied areas or blotches on the same creature. Just look at RL animals and people to see what I mean – even human siblings can have differing skin tones and different tones to their parents, even when they have the same national/ethnic background.
Basically, just keep in mind that skin and flesh and animals aren’t wearing identical uniforms is what I’m saying!
Have a great birthday on the weekend, and I’ll finally just thank you for coming to my TED talk!
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I completely agree. I think it has probably been nearly 8-10 years since I drew last because I mostly assumed I didn’t have enough time to do it and recently, I thought, well, maybe I can make some time. I enjoy both and find both relaxing on the whole but I’m a better painter than I am a drawer so miniature painting almost wins by default.
I hadn’t really looked at Cait’s boots much since I painted them but you’re right that they blend in too much currently. The metal shoe plates don’t read well in the photo either. I tried a different setting on my camera and I don’t think it made for great photos of Cait, truthfully. I’ll give her a second look, if I don’t forget and see what I can do to improve that part.
That is interesting about a retro style paint scheme. I hadn’t even thought of it and I wasn’t in the hobby back then either so I may have never seen it before, come to think of it. There is a piece of Lovecraft art I found on DeviantArt that inspired the color scheme. I should have included it in the article but forgot. Now I can’t find it, of course too.
That is an excellent point on variation in nature. I think there probably will be some variation no matter how hard I try. I guess its the metals on the apes that should be uniform then! 🙂
Long comments are always welcome and I appreciate your feedback, mate!
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So I came to read your post, Jeff, and got a bonus one from Az! How good is that! 🙂 Nice work on Cait and the drawing and I like that slimy, crawly monster thingy!
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Its the old buy one, get one free trick like at the grocery store, John! Thank you for the kind words on both minis and for doing all that reading 😀
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Kate and Cait look like they should be taking on the undead in a different game. I could see that arm beaking off if dropped so be careful!
Hope you have a great birthday and spend your time wisely.
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There are undead (or at least undead looking creatures in both Hellboy and Fallout so that is a distinct possibility! I’m going to make sure I take better care of her than some other Fallout minis like her that I eventually broke, for sure.
I’m hopeful for a fun birthday week as well and I’ll explain what I got up to when I get back!
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There are undead (or at least undead looking creatures in both Hellboy and Fallout so that is a distinct possibility! I’m going to make sure I take better care of her than some other Fallout minis like her that I eventually broke, for sure.
I’m hopeful for a fun birthday week as well and I’ll explain what I got up to when I get back!
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Oh my, Cait looks great! Her clothes have a very soft, naturalistic palette and I love how smoothly they’ve come out – not that I expect anything less from you 😀 The base really show the effort you’ve put into it, you can almost hear the floorboards creaking.
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Thanks, mate! You’re really lavishing me with praise 🙂 I hope you enjoy seeing Cait in a future battle report!
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Oh, I cannot wait to see another of your excellent battle reports.
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You’ve got me thinking about it and what I need to do to make that happen 😀
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