This week I turned my attention back to the Empire State Building and made some decent progress on it. I decided to work on the thinner sides of the building as they’re exactly the same which makes it easy to keep them consistent. Working on this building remains a technical challenge. I make tons of mistakes and have to clean them up. In fact, as I get close to the end, I imagine I’ll be looking over the entire building for small mistakes and fixing them quite a bit which is not something I generally need to do but this building really requires it.
Unfortunately, there’s still a fair bit to go on this one and I have to do the back which is an exact copy of the front so there’s a bit of repetition there. I’m not sure if I’ll mix it up and do a bit of this and a bit of something else or keep focusing entirely on this miniature. I’d guess I’ve got at least a couple weeks left of work on this very large building as well.
I mentioned a little while ago that I’d be taking some photos of my Goblin Town army before I list them on eBay and I forgot to share those last week so I thought I’d do that this time around.
It is perhaps just a little small to be considered a proper army. I think another box of goblins would make it a full-size army in MESBG. When I see these minis, it is amazing how much my painting style and skills have evolved. I used a lot of washes then because that is what a lot of “learn how to paint” videos said to do and I didn’t get the highlights right at all but I was pretty green when I worked on these. If anything, I’m most proud of the fact that I managed to paint this many miniatures for a single force. Army painting is not a strength of mine and I’ve rarely enjoyed painting similar (or even the same sculpts over and over) in the same color scheme. While it is mentally easy, it also becomes stale for me pretty quickly. That’s why I bounce around more and more on projects these days.
And finally, I teased last week that I got some new stuff for Hellboy and I’m happy to report that its arrived and I’m happy with my purchase. In Hellboy: The Board Game, you get cardboard tokens to simulate furniture out of the box. If you don’t like that, Mantic is happy to sell you Terrain Crate stuff that will match it (and you’ll end up with some extra pieces you don’t need as well but that’s neither here nor there).
While they get the job done, they’re a little hard to “read” when you’re playing. So naturally I decided to get 3D upgrades from Mantic since they’re designed to fit the game. Astute readers might recall that I didn’t enjoy working with the Terrain Crate stuff unfortunately. Some of the pieces didn’t accept paint well and the sculpting left something to be desired, despite the affordable price. One of the pieces I would have liked to use in Hellboy was broken and not easily repaired too.
Enter Kromlech! I haven’t bought something from them since my MESBG days (so its been about five years, I’d guess) but I liked what I got at the time and I somehow stumbled across their Wizard’s Workshop set. While its obviously designed for fantasy gamers, it works surprisingly well for the occult focus of Hellboy. I could immediately tell that the quality of the Kromlech resin was way higher and I wish I had that instead of what I bought. So of course, I did the responsible thing and picked up a few pieces!
Truthfully, the pieces I’ve purchased don’t fit Hellboy perfectly but some of them will work pretty well. The desk makes a pretty good comp to the large table pictured below.
There is a bookshelf (though I don’t own it yet) and the cabinets can serve as a nice Scenery 3 size piece as well.
I need to find some pieces that will work for the smaller Scenery 2 and 1 size so I’ll be giving that some more thought and hopefully finding a solution for that as well. Unfortunately this means that I won’t be using some of the Mantic Terrain Crate stuff I painted not too long ago and I’ll essentially be doubling my effort but I think I’ll be a lot happier with these than what I tried to paint already so its worth the effort. The only potential downside to the Kromlech stuff is that it is a bit taller which is slightly out of scale with Hellboy at least to my eyes. With that said, some of the Terrain Crate, like the smaller doors are almost too small themselves so you probably can’t win as far as scale goes.
I admit that I have one other conflict when it comes to these Kromlech scenery pieces. There is a big part of me that wants to use them for a Wizard’s Den diorama! The Kromlech line is so complete. There is a bed, bookcase, desk, bookshelves, hunting trophies, among many other things. I haven’t seen anyone do this online (which is crazy to me) and that only eggs me on further! At the same time, making a diorama means painting some of these pieces multiple times (possibly as many as 3-4 times) and that could be pretty tiresome. One solution I thought of is to make a background/floor and just pose the stuff I paint for Hellboy in it. It would be a moving diorama in that sense, if that is even a thing. I’m not completely sold on the idea because it seems to go against the point of a diorama in some ways. Its something I’ll be mulling over because now I feel like creating a den for someone like Radagast from MESBG is something I need in my life!
To close, if you don’t know Kromlech, you should check them out, especially for Warhammer fans out there. They have a ton of conversion bits (shoulder pads, heads, etc.) and they have some pretty fun sculpts. They actually make ZZ Top inspired Orks! I know a good chunk of you regular commenters are old enough to know who that is too haha so you can’t deny the appeal! For me, one of my favorite parts of our hobby is how deep it goes. If you go looking, there are all kinds of smaller companies out there that make interesting and fun products. Kromlech is a great example of that and I hope this part of the hobby can thrive as 3D printing gains a bigger and bigger foothold in the market.
Kuribo's Painting 
If you want to do something different on the back side of the building you could always have the windows do a heart like they do on valentine’s day 😂
I agree that 3d beats flat and getting them to scale right between manufacturers is always a problem.
Now I’m down the rabbit hole of ZZ top videos, starting with Legs of course.
(thanks for the reddit link, I had missed that)
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I’m not sure it will surprise you if I say that there is an idea I hadn’t thought of haha!
I don’t worry too much about scaling in general so I can live with these but it is tricky. 28mm means different things to different companies. I have a feeling these are meant to scale with Warhammer which is not 28mm, though I could be wrong.
I had a feeling at least one person would be checking out ZZ Top after this post 🙂
Hopefully One Ring returns but I’m not as optimistic as the Reddit posters. It costs money to keep a website going and if the owner doesn’t want to keep paying, it will eventually be gone, I’m afraid.
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Oh man I love that goblin army! I really like how you went for a purplish-grey skin tone rather than the usual green.
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Thanks, Matt! I was cribbing GW’s paint jobs for the most part but they still look pretty good, all things considered. I reckon you’d do a great job on these little gits, if you are ever inclined to do so 😀
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Great progress on the building Jeff, rather you than me with all those windows to paint round ! LOL
Great find for Hellboy scenery, and a ZZ Top Orks are hilarious although I don’t know why they made Frank a Goblin !
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That’s too bad as I was thinking about tagging you in for this tag team match, Dave! 🙂
The ZZ Top Orks almost feel like something you might have come up with! I thought it was odd to throw a goblin in the mix too but I guess it gives the band a bit more variety, if nothing else.
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The Empire State looks great already! Makes me want to crack open that Ghostbusters minis game from way back when… 🤣
The terrain stuff with Hellboy is interesting, though. I didn’t level up my pledge to get it back in the day, but they auto-levelled every backer’s clue tokens to be minis, and I kinda hate them. I’m thinking I’ll probably use the Call of Cthulhu tokens because they’re little magnifying glasses, and that’s better than the alternative! But the terrain does feel a bit rubbish when you’re just putting those flat cardboard pieces down. I’m interested in updates, when you have them, anyway!!
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Thanks, mate! I painted up the clue tokens for Hellboy and man, they’re not the most fun thing to paint. It takes some precise brush work and the white and black combination is not fun to paint either. I’m looking forward to seeing how Hellboy looks with them painted up too. I’m sure it will be a big improvement!
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Got to say, I’d be damn proud of an army that looked as good as those goblins. Hope the good people of ebay appreciate what they’re looking at. I like the sound of a wizard’s den diorama, that’s a great idea.
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That’s very kind of you to say. I hope so too as I’d like to have money for other miniature related expenses in the future. I will try my best to make that diorama happen. I think it would be a nice way to expand my skills a bit further. I have a tentative idea that requires a trip to the local arts and crafts store first to see if the idea has legs or not!
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Empire State Building? Whaaaaaat? I really enjoy your variety of projects. The goblin army looks amazing mate.
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I’m glad to hear it and I have to try to keep up with all the crazy projects you’re taking on someway or another! 🙂 Hopefully you like the end result as well. I’ve got a ways to go yet but I’m eager to get it done all the same.
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I’ve got way too many projects but at the same time that’s the way my brain works haha. I couldn’t NOT have too much on my plate. Id feel strange. I’ve tried it before and it just didn’t work. I admire the fact you can dedicate a good chunk of hours to one mini but I just don’t think I could do it. At the same time your output is great and consistent. Kudos to you, or Kuribos to you
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I did try to do one project at a time early in my hobby career and I found it was a bit boring. Having some variety is important to what we do, I reckon. I also think that I built up a tolerance towards focusing on a single miniature over time because I was a lot more impatient in the first couple years of painting. So it is something one can master, if they want. I don’t see any reason for you to do that though. You’ve got too many different projects to start slowing down and spending lots of time one thing 🙂 Oh and thanks for the kudos and Kuribos haha
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All of that is Great stuff. I really like how those goblins turned out — funky & pretty unique. The ZZ Top orcs are a hoot.
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Thank you! Really glad to hear you like the goblins and ZZ Top orcs 🙂
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As always, I think that you’re being very harsh on yourself with that building. In these pictures any mistakes are invisible. The only problem is that it doesn’t have two giant monsters destroying it 🙂
Using those actual scenery minis instead of the card for the Hellboy furniture is very cool. I sense that this is a rabbit hole that you could fall very deeply into, until eventually you find yourself playing the game in a fully realised doll house.
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Absolutely nothing wrong with that Goblin force (except maybe the weird designs that don’t gel well withthe LotR trilogy) but your paitn works very nicely. Nothing wrong with washes, either, despite people like the Squidmar duo having their heads up their backsides about them (and drybrushing). Techniques are techniques and you can prefer or dislike any of them for personal preference, but looking down on them as “lesser” in the way those guys often do isn’t cool.
Unfortunately, Mantic’s PVC Terrain Crate stuff is just… not of a quality that I can stomach for myself overall. Even when the sculpts are good, the material either warps, is warped and will re-warp, or runs the risk of shininess or stickiness. Same with the vast majoryti of Reaper’s Bones stuff. There’s a guy at work who plays D&D so I’m thinking once we go back, I’ll give him a couple of my painted models that have gone shiny (even if not sticky). Maybe give them a brushover of matte/satin before I do so.
It might be time for that Printer talk again if you’re after small terrain pieces. The A1 mini is incredibly cheap and takes up very little space. Being FDM, it doesn’t poison the air like a resin machine would do, either! Have a look into it! (and you can also make cool looking earrings and jewelry and such that your wife may be interested in, too!)
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I agree on the goblins not really fitting into the rest of LOTR all that well. I don’t use a lot of washes because I find them somewhat unpredictable (or at least GW’s washes are). On these goblins I had problems where I’d have to apply washes multiple times because spots would end up white instead of purple. I’ve never been able to figure out exactly what causes that to happen. It was pretty annoying anytime it happened as you can imagine.
I don’t watch Squidmar and this is going to make me sound horrible (like a xenophobe), but I find the main guy’s accent annoying to listen to. I didn’t know that they criticize washes and drybrushing. There’s nothing inherently wrong with using either technique, in my book! I know for sure I’ve used drybrushing on entries I’ve entered in painting competitions (probably just on basing, but still, it was used!). Washes are not a great idea if you’re display painting but outside of that very specific situation, washes are great for tabletop painting. While washes are somewhat unpredictable, you can water them down enough to make them perform reasonably well. I use them on a lot of Hellboy miniatures in this manner.
Agreed on Mantic’s Terrain Crate stuff. The quality of the plastic and sculpts is just not good enough to be worth the low price. I find that Mantic’s quality is a bit all over the place. Their Walking Dead minis might be the highest quality ones I’ve painted though I only tried one box of Kings of War and didn’t get on with it. Hellboy is somewhere in the middle as some minis are quite nice and others have issues like Sidney and his lean, for example.
How are the print lines with that printer? I will get one eventually because there is so much Fallout terrain that is STL only and I want to be able to use it in future games. I’m very slow moving on 3D printing, I admit but eventually I’ll get one. I just can’t say when, probably much later than I should.
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