I’ve been in the mood to do some display painting as of late so I figured it couldn’t hurt to work on a Monsterpocalypse building. I think I picked the hardest one of the buildings I own now that I’ve been working for about a week on it. It also might be the most time consuming to complete as well. After a week’s worth of painting, I only have a good chunk of one side done and there are undoubtedly touch ups that I need to work on still. Ouch! Here’s a look at where it stands.
You may recognize this as the Empire State Building in New York but with a different name for copyright reasons, I assume. One thing I didn’t expect is how hard it is to try and replicate the colors of a building like the Empire State Building. A challenge of trying to match a building is that it looks different at different times of the day based on the light of the sun. For example, the picture below shows it in the more “yellow” sunlight where it looks pretty gray and the one below shows how it can have a bit of a golden hue at sunrise or sunset.
I was shooting for a normal, sunny afternoon but I think ultimately, the building is a bit more gray in hue than the color scheme I went with. I even toyed with trying to paint the blocks like you see in the picture above but it just didn’t look convincing on the miniature, probably because of the scale.
All in all, the building looks a bit sepia toned but that might work considering the Empire State Building’s age and splendor. If you ever get a chance to visit it, the views at the top are impressive (though admission is pricey to be fair), but my favorite part is all of the art deco details, including the lobby. Obviously, none of that will factor into the painting of this miniature but I wanted to give a hearty recommendation to anyone thinking of visiting Empire State Building. Its probably one of my favorite buildings I’ve been to as a tourist.
Favorite or not, there is a TON more to paint on this miniature. There is another side that will take about as long as this one does to complete and then the remaining two sides of the building are thinner and will take less time to finish, I hope. All in all, this one is undoubtedly going to take a few weeks, if not a month, so I may sprinkle in some other minis as I work on it so as to not get bored.
The only other thing worth mentioning that happened this week hobby-wise is that I happened to see that Scale 75 USA increased their discount on Kimera Models 75mm miniatures to 40%. That is a pretty darn good deal and while they have very few miniatures for sale since they’re getting out of that business, I believe, there are two good ones that I got for about $35 each! I can’t say I was expecting that to happen. They haven’t shipped out yet but once I receive them and have a chance to do a bit of assembly, I’ll show you what I got and any thoughts I might have on them. Between the Monsterpocalypse dio and now these two new 75mm miniatures and the Age of Sigmar mini I just primed. I might have 2 years or so of hobby work saved up at the rate I usually do display painting so I’m good for a while and probably should stop buying anything else until I complete some of what’s in front of me which is a good position to be in. If nothing else, I can spend some money on other things
Kuribo's Painting 
That looks very cool, really like the colour and also like what you’ve done sprinkling lit up windows in there.
How big is the model? I have no real sense of the scale.
Cool you got some more display models so cheap, as you said it should keep you busy for a while!
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Thanks, Nic! Funnily enough, those are actually meant to be windows where the blinds are down so they have a blueish hue when seen through the glass. I think even with that, they tend to look like lights so I’m not surprised that you interpreted them this way and I don’t think that its necessarily a problem either, if that makes sense!
I’ll take a few comparison photos at some point but I measured it and the Imperial State Building is nearly five inches tall so not too much of a miniature! Unfortunately, the minis haven’t shipped yet but hopefully I’ll enjoy them when I do get them.
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Weird I thought I’d replied to this already! Must have typed in the comment and forgot to send 😉
The blinds makes a lot of sense I hadn’t considered that! Wow 5 inches is tall for a “miniature”, that’s going to be an impressive diorama when done!
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No worries! I’ve had that happen to me before too.
Yes, the diorama is way too big and I’m a maniac for attempting it. It will be a nice reality check for me, I imagine 😀
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Fantastic start Jeff, have you decided which way the sun is coming from, as that will effect the color of the building on the other sides. I like how you have more shadow at the base of the building, which is perfect for as built up area, as the other buildings would cause a lot of shadow.
Great you were able to find a couple of the 75 mm pieces at such a great price, should certainly keep you busy for a while with your other projects.
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Thanks Dave and sorry for the slow response, I injured myself and was a bit limited in what I could do for 3 or so days there. I’m glad you noticed the shadow as I painted it in and the shadow naturally falls there too so I wasn’t sure if it came across or not. In terms of lighting, you raise an excellent point that I hadn’t considered yet. I will need to think about that and make adjustments once I get the diorama layout worked out. In some ways, I probably shouldn’t be painting this building yet until I get that figured out but oh well. Its too late now, I suppose!
It was a nice surprise to get those 75mm minis for a low price. I look forward to getting them, though I’m impatiently waiting for them to be shipped at the moment… Hopefully that changes soon!
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Hope you are on the mend now
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A little better each day. I’m starting to be able to paint again which is a relief! One can only play video games for so long in the day.
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Looking really good so far, Jeff! 🙂
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Thank you, John! Its always good to get off to a good start with something like this.
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This is going to be one big diorama!
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I’m guessing it will be around 12×12 inches, give or take a bit. Definitely my most ambitious project.
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Looking great! I love how close your painted building is to the source photo. I look forward to seeing some kaiju fighting over this skyscraper.
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Thanks, mate! I’m looking forward to that too. Your manager is in recovery from a dumb back injury but I hope to get back to painting here pretty soon.
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I think the building color looks fine. If I had to pick a gripe, I’d say that the windows. From an above comment I see that it’s supposed to be blinds, but it looks like lights and the rest of the people just aren’t home. 🤷😀
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You make a good point. I probably could have had more of those painted as the pictures I saw show many offices have their blinds down during the daytime. It would be very hard to go back and add more unfortunately so I’ll give some further thought to this as I continue to work on the “Imperial State Building” 🙂
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