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Monsterpocalypse – Task Master

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Sometimes a change of “scenery” can help get you going in our hobby and that was the case for me this week. I decided to work on another small part of the ongoing Kaiju diorama and was pleasantly surprised to wrap it up in time for another weekly update. Since I got a late start on the hobby week by posting on Monday, I wasn’t sure I’d manage. Let’s take a quick look at this little guy with the only other miniature for this faction I’ve painted thus far.

While the Task Master is certainly bigger than the Spitter, its still pretty small but with some nice details. It was enjoyable to work with pinks and purples again as well. I don’t think the pinks come out quite right in these photos compared to how they look in-hand so I’m curious what the bigger miniatures will look like. These miniatures are so small that my camera doesn’t do as well as normal too. Here’s a quick look at Task Master next to a Vault dweller. It might be wider but its otherwise quite small.

Its worth mentioning that I really enjoyed painting something Lovecraftian again. I’ve talked about it before but I cut my teeth painting Mansions of Madness: Second Edition miniatures when I got back into the hobby roughly 9 years ago and so that will always bring me a bit of nostalgia. I reckon that I’ve certainly improved since then though picking better quality sculpts doesn’t hurt either. Man, those were some rough ones but I didn’t know any better back then!

Other than that, I can share that I bought a couple of minis for potential “mini-display” projects. They just shipped so I won’t have them until next week and I won’t spoil what they are just yet. I will tease you a bit and say that one is Fantasy Japanese and the other is traditional fantasy. The big question is the sculpt/miniature quality. There’s reason to think it will be good enough but I’ve also been disappointed by these miniature lines in the past so time will tell.

Truthfully, I’ve been looking around at all kinds of miniatures for ideas this week and some of my initial ideas have proven harder than I expected. The first is Roman stuff. I’ve looked over Warlord Games Hail Caesar line and to my overly discerning eyes, everything is old and outdated. The minis look a bit small and they definitely lack in detail. Here is an example of some sculpts inspired by the show Rome. While I know that scale mail like that was very much in vogue in the 2000’s (and I’m sure other periods of miniatures), it is really hard to do anything interesting with it using NMM.

Fortunately, there is a higher quality alternative for Roman miniatures. Victrix Miniatures are not lacking in detail at all and look to be high enough sculpt quality for dioramas. The only issue is that while they’re not quite mono-pose but aren’t as flexible as I would have expected for a plastic kit. That really limits what you can do diorama-wise to pretty predictable battle scenes. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that but it isn’t as exciting to work on as I’d like. It is also easy to painting a ton of miniatures when trying to create a decent scene which is a trap, I can’t afford to fall into right now.

Moving on from the Romans for now, there are some nice looking Egyptian and Greek sculpts from Crocodile Games. They’re not as detailed as Victrix and you can tell that they are hand sculpted using the traditional means. For some of you readers, this might make you feel a bit nostalgic for the olden days. I remember metal miniatures well and I understand to some degree why people like them for gaming. They’re sturdy and feel good on the table. They are not so great for display painting because the surface tends to be rougher than plastic or resin. They also tend to have poor eye and even face sculpts which make those a lot harder to do well with. Here is an example of a Greek mini that has some real strengths and weaknesses.

This miniature looks perfect for some kind of post-battle scene and channels Hector very nicely. However, the concerns I listed above have kept me from pulling the trigger so far. This one is very inexpensive $10 so I’m not out much if I decide to pick it up, though I am a little gun shy as I’ve almost uniformly been disappointed with metal miniatures’ quality.

Crocodile Games’ Egyptian stuff is less human-like and leans into fantasy more so it might work better though finding Egyptian terrain/basing bits is not as easy as you might expect. I’ve found a few interesting pieces but some of them are going to be hard to get and expensive since I live in the States. So Egyptian stuff is TBD for now and I can always resort to The Old World’s Tomb Kings (which I am a big fan of) if I decide ultimately to not pursue Wargods of Aegyptus. I will get to this setting one day as I’d love to bring the visual splendor of Ancient Egypt to life.

And by Crom, there’s one other idea I just had yesterday that might lead to something one day. I think Conan would be great in a 28mm/32mm display project as you can show him in an environment against some foes. There’s tons of larger scale Conan minis and some of them are nice but they mostly show Conan glaring at someone or something. I don’t know a lot about Avatars of War, though its pretty obvious that they were trying to be Warhammer alternatives back in the day, but they made some cool Conan/barbarian minis which are still available via 3D printing. So who knows, perhaps the Cimmerian will be captured in a diorama down the line if I can work out an impressive enough scene.

So that’s where things stand at the moment. Plenty of ideas, though if talk is cheap than display painting ideas aren’t much better. I’ve had tons of them over the years, more than I can execute in a lifetime probably so we’ll see what I can actually manage. There will certainly be some experimentation needed here as well but hopefully I’ll figure out some miniatures that work well for me and create some interesting art from all of this in the end. I look forward to revealing more next week and I have no idea what I’ll be working on next week either so there will be surprises all around!

35 thoughts on “Monsterpocalypse – Task Master”

  1. Excellent work on the task master Jeff, with his size does this mean there is an even larger creature to come for that diorama as well ?

    Look forward to seeing what new display pieces you have chosen to work on.

    with diorama’s the quality of the miniatures are a factor, but not to the point of the story or interaction the dio tells. I know you have seen some of TIM’s ( the Imperfect Modeller) and Pat’s and they tell stories brilliantly, even when models don’t even touch. lower quality casts can always be in the background, the main central part, the bit that draws you in to find more that needs to be of higher quality, hope these ideas help on your journey.

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    1. Yes, indeed! In Monsterpocalypse there are the kaiju sized miniatures and then their minions of various sizes, all much smaller overall. I’m hoping that will make for some really cool scaling visually in the dio but time will tell.

      You make a very good point about storytelling and miniature quality. I would tend to go for whatever miniature is going to help tell the story best as well (even if there is part of me that thinks you should always try to focus on the highest quality miniatures because that will lead to the best paint jobs but that is a whole other discussion). The challenge is whether that miniature is the focal point or not and if it is good enough quality. For the Tragic Hero mini I showed above, I should have probably just shared my idea as I doubt anyone out there would try to steal it. I think he looks as if he just finished a tough battle and if you can get that look across on his face, that would be the focal point of the whole scene. If you cannot or his face doesn’t look good, it would fall a bit flat and the diorama/vignette wouldn’t be high enough quality to be worth making. Hopefully that better explains what I mean. Ultimately though, I just have to buy some stuff and experiment with it to see what works and what doesn’t.

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  2. Love the task master, great colours and painting (as per usual!).

    Glad to see you chipping away at the big diorama and also proceed with that small scenes project. I was going to suggest victrix when you were talking about Romans but then saw you had that covered!
    Some great ideas you talked about there, I was going to recommend a very cool conanesque model that I could have sworn was by avatars of war but I can’t find it anywhere online so not particularly useful advice!

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    1. Thanks, Nic! I reckon these guys will make worthy foes to the apes in the diorama or at least I hope so.

      I appreciate you lending your thoughts to the various diorama settings as well. Sometimes great ideas are formed that way. If you do find any good Conanesque minis, do let me know! I’m enthusiastic about making a Conan diorama as you can probably guess!

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    1. Thanks, John! It is a repulsive miniature to be sure. I know you’re a fellow fan of Wargods too! I may pick up a cheap one and paint it just to see how I get on with it. $10 is too low not to, I figure!

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      1. Those Monsterpocalypse minis are fantastic, I love the purples and pinks!

        I have painted up a few Avatars of War minus and really liked the sculpts, but found the posing a little flat. But for a scenic piece they might be perfect!

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      2. Thank you! I’d have to agree on Avatars of War and their posing. Most of their Barbarians are flat and in kind of strange poses for actual gaming. There’s really only 1-2 that are likely to work for a diorama which is too bad as they all look cool in their own right.

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    1. Indeed. Its one of the “villains” of the diorama and its Lovecraftian so you nailed it. Hopefully the bigger, Kaiju level miniature isn’t even more creepy for you to see, mate! 🙂

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  5. That purple/pink combo just looks so gross, it’s fantastic! And you’re right, those Mansions of Madness minis were a bit rough!! I didn’t know any better either, though, and used to love any opportunity to get them on the table with other Cthulhu games 😃

    Well, I know nothing about historicals, but this is all sounding very interesting… Your mention of fantasy Japan has me wondering if you’ve gone for Shadows of Brimstone, though…?

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    1. Glad you like it, mate. I gave it a fair bit of thought before I painted it, if you can believe it. I loved Mansions of Madness 2, at least the first time or two you played things. So immersive and cool! Its a shame FFG couldn’t make it more replayable somehow though.

      I’ve never painted anything Historical that I can think of, so other than maybe Rome, I’ll be tackling things from a “Historical Fantasy” perspective. I don’t know if that’s really a term but hopefully you know what I mean by it.

      Ooh, that’s a very good guess! I hadn’t thought of it but I can definitely see why you’re thinking along those lines. I will drop another teaser and say that the fantasy Japanese game is actually made in your country! That might give it away but that’s alright, if you manage to work it out 🙂

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      1. Historical fantasy, we’ll go with that! Yeah, I think I might know what you mean now you’ve given me that clue – and if I’m right, woohoo! That should look awesome with your skills!!

        MoM was an amazing play experience the first couple of times around, yeah. I remember the first time I played it with my buddy, and at the end of the game we just sat back and were like, whoa! So good. But that was another one where it didn’t see much table time, so got culled in the end…

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      2. I hope the painting and miniature meet your expectations! I had the same problem with MoM. I do miss playing it sometimes but I know that if I still had it, I would rarely actually follow through and play it sadly.

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      3. I think that’s the issue with a lot of these big games. It’s something I’ve certainly found with the likes of Arkham 3, and Hellboy! 🥴 Set-up just scares me off, but the card games are far quicker to get to the table…

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      4. That is very true. Setup is something I hear a lot of grumbling about in board games. Card games are much easier, though miniature games that use terrain are just as bad, if not worse, I’d say!

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      5. Oh, my goodness, yes! Especially the way I set up minis games, wanting the terrain to make sense in terms of town planning and whatnot 🤣 Good boards can really help to tell the story, can’t they?

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      6. I like the attention to detail! You want to terrain that helps tell a story and brings a setting to life and provides enough tactical cover/strategic opportunities so there’s definitely an art to it 🙂

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    1. Thanks, Matt! I look forward to painting the big guy too. It will take a while but should look impressive in the end. I hope you’re doing well up North and staying warm. Its supposed to be single digit highs here in Chicago pretty soon and I can hardly wait! 😉

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      4. I had to laugh😂how on earth do you guys survive in that 🥶,it’s just hit 37c and even I who loves the cold was forced to stop clearing the block, have a few bushfires around us.

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  7. Lovecraftian, man I use to love HP Lovecraft books. I gave them to my nephew, I might have to see if he still has them and borrow them back. Your figures definitely fit the genre.

    I had forgotten about crocodile games, thanks for the reminder and bookmark set.

    One nice thing about plastic figures, they are easily cut and modified.

    I had several pounds of metal figures from my dnd days, I recently went through them and some of the poorly made metal ones had oxidized, ended up getting rid of a bunch of them.

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    1. If not, you can get Lovecraft’s books very cheaply these days, thankfully! I guess this explains why we both enjoy Arkham Horror as well. There will be more Lovecraftian monsters big and small to come for the diorama too.

      Wargods could be very handy for Broken Legions. The only challenge is that most of their “Olympus” (Greek) troops are sold in blocks which is probably way more than you need for a game.

      I think plastic and resin are generally superior to metal as well. I know many people have nostalgia for metal and I get that, but they have their fair share of problems too. Even the nice ones can have paint chip off of them pretty easily, for example.

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  9. I’m back mate, well hopefully as I said we having a warm spell which I like but fires are always a worry, a small town just up the road got ravaged, terrible loss of property but thankfully no lives.
    Well nice work on the pinky, and as for History/ Fantasy I feel it a goer, then you have more excuses if it’s not quite there 😉.

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    1. Its hard to imagine having to deal with fires in the current climate here! I’m glad to hear everyone’s okay over there too. And to survive in the winter, you have to get the right “gear”, warm coats, hats, gloves, etc. and you wear layers. Believe it or not, you get used to it! I like your idea on History/Fantasy. I reckon I’ll use that! 🙂

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      1. Yeah mate I’m sure your right, I lived in the UK for two years and coped with the snow, but then again I was young and hardy not old soft and sensitive 😂😅😂👍🏻

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      2. Haha, I think you’d get used to it again, if you needed to. I’m not sure if I can get used to the heat you have or not. There’s a reason I don’t live in Florida 😀

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  10. Jings, I wouldn’t want to turn a corner and find Task Master looking back at me. I like the colour scheme you’ve chosen but the sculpt itself seems a little passive so I’ll be interested to see how it fits into your plans for the diorama.

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    1. Jings!? Is that like when Velma says jinkies in Scooby Doo? 🙂 I’m only kidding as I’m guessing its Scottish slang! You’re right about the sculpt, it isn’t the best in terms of posing. This guy will be away from the action as a result!

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