Well, if you haven’t heard, things are very cold in the US right now and yesterday we didn’t get above 0 Fahrenheit in Chicago and with wind chills well beneath that (I think I heard -20 F or so) so needless to say, I haven’t been doing a lot outside of late. I’m dreaming of the days where I can take a rattle can outside and do some priming but more on that in a bit!
This week I thought I’d knock out another investigator for Hellboy and this week is Bud Waller. He’s an older member on the team and unfortunately, he’s one of the few I can remember that gets killed in action. I forgot to check his rules so I’m not sure how that affects his gameplay. The mini was fairly straightforward to paint since his uniform is basically identical to other investigators.
One thing that is noteworthy about this mini is his skin tone. I think painting black or African skin tone is a fun and interesting challenge because there are some subtle differences between it and other skin tones. Some people more orangish-brown warm skin tones while others have more of a dark brown with an almost pinkish tone to it that is cooler in color. Games Workshop has wisely come up with some paints to cover the cooler skin tone but I don’t own them and thought I could mix them up myself. I think the results are okay but I didn’t quite nail it. Perhaps I will get their paints in the future to see how I like them. I also look forward to working more on miniatures with different skin tones to see if I can learn and master more of them. Its one of the areas of the hobby where your work is never done. There’s always chances to learn and improve.
Other than that, I have started maybe batch painting something else for Hellboy. I was grumbling and complaining as I did the early basecoating and then some washes so I wouldn’t be surprise if I end up painting them one-by-one instead. Perhaps in the end, I don’t have what it takes to be a great army painter regular visitors Nicolas and Azazel. It seems to be a mental block as I feel rushed trying to juggle multiple miniatures at once and I hate cutting corners on miniatures (unless the sculpt is truly awful). We’ll see how I get on with this task and how many I manage this week.
I might try and squeeze in a game of Hellboy sooner or later. Its been too long since I’ve played. I have also done some investigation into Fallout and I have an idea for what I want to play. I don’t know exactly when it will happen but its probably only a matter of time now.
When I wasn’t painting, I also managed to do some more miniature assembly this week for Anne’s challenge.
First up, we’ve got some elite characters for the Institute. This is another one of my X-mas gifts that was pretty easy to put together. The courser (guy on the left) had some bad mold lines that were hard to clean up without messing up details but otherwise, I think these will look good painted up, once I can prime them, of course.
This is quite a change of pace from the previous miniatures and Brahmin are something I’ve needed for a while. They’re great objectives in games and there is at least one scenario that calls for them specifically. There are two in the box and so you might be asking where is the other? Unfortunately, a leg was snapped off it before I received them as a gift and so I contacted Modiphius and they were kind enough to send me a whole new box of them so hopefully I’ll have that in the nearish future and will get the other one assembled. Of course, this means I will have a bonus Brahmin like the one pictured above as well. Perhaps I can convert that one up a bit later on. We shall see!
So that is all the hobby progress I have. There is more hobby things to discuss though, quite a bit more in fact. First off, there is the mystery miniatures I teased last week. Unfortunately, its mostly bad news as far as these go. The one I was really excited arrived broken.
I had to research this first but in 2021, I purchased a couple of Bushido miniatures. They arrived and were metal which I wasn’t expecting. I was disappointed with them as they weren’t diorama quality in my mind at the time and I think I had trouble even assembling them. Fast forward to now, Bushido miniatures are now 3D printed resin which is quite a bit better in my opinion. I have a pretty straightforward diorama idea for an Oni fighting someone in a forest and the main subject would be the miniature I bought. Unfortunately, Bushido miniatures are in plastic blister packages with no foam or anything to prevent them from rattling around in transit. I’m pretty sure this is how the damage below occurred.
Its a little hard to see in the picture but one horn is about 75% there and the other is completely broken off and in two pieces. One of the bells came off in the back as well. I contacted the place where I purchased it (Noble Knight Games) and I believe they’re kindly sending me another one in the near future. I’m sure they think I’m crazy but I asked them to consider adding some foam or something in the blister so that the miniature can’t rattle around but we’ll see if they’re willing to do that or not. Overall, the sculpt quality of this Oni is very good. It looks extremely paintable and diorama quality even so that’s nice to see. Bushido might want to consider making adjustments to their packaging however as I can see this being a problem for any fragile minis. Of course, Resin is not sturdy like metal is either so extra precautions are needed.
The other miniature I got is a little disappointing, though I’m not at all surprised by it. I took a chance and bought a dwarf sculpt from Scibor and I’m just not happy enough with the quality of it to actually paint it. Some of the details are too soft like the runes on the shield but the main issue is that it has some really tiny details that wouldn’t be fun to paint. I think it would be much better using metallic paints than non-metallic. That isn’t what I was intending to do with the miniature so I probably won’t paint it up. It’s cheap to buy (under $10!) and I don’t regret trying another one after several years have passed just to see if I was missing out on anything. Scibor makes really cool bases and terrain and that is what always draws me in. The miniatures aren’t quite as good and I need to learn my lesson stay away from them.
So pretty deflating results overall! Obviously, I’m hoping that the Bushido replacement does end up arriving undamaged. Otherwise, I will have to turn my eyes towards something else for dioramas. It is a shame that I can’t find someone who makes good fantasy miniatures that fit my taste/interest. I like Games Workshop’s dwarves in The Old World but nothing really stands out as a display piece. The hunt goes on, I suppose!
Lastly, I saw some interesting news from Modiphius. More busts are coming and I like the look of both of them, actually.
These two have more variety in their textures and would be a little less demanding time-wise which is exactly what I would prefer. Perhaps one day I’ll pick one or both up! I wouldn’t mind if we see even more though I imagine Modiphius will want to stick to the most popular characters because if they go fairly obscure, they may not sell well.
Modiphius also shared that they’re coming out with a solo Fallout RPG. The description says you can create your own Vault Survivor and then explore the wasteland with the character. This is intriguing though I admit, I know very little about RPGs and I’ve never played one (which probably puts me in a minority in the blogging community). Has anybody played a solo RPG before? I’d be curious to hear your thoughts/experiences, if so! That would probably help me better decide if this is something I should be on the lookout for or not!
Kuribo's Painting 
First impression, that is a very nice paint job on Bud. Second impression, that is a great paint job! Doing a non-caucasian is a challenge and you did it quite well.
I find that 3d printed miniatures are very fragile depending on the resin used, I hope your next delivery is intact.
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Thank you! I’m really glad you like how he turned out. I will keep trying to improve on this first effort as I suspect I can surpass it in the future.
I’m a little worried that the next miniature is going to be damaged too but they’re doing the same thing as before and hoping for a different result. We shall see what happens and I’ve come up with a Plan B, if it doesn’t work out. There are thankfully some other means for getting the miniatures I want.
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Nice work on Bud, Jeff! 🙂 Shame that your resin mini got damaged in transit. Resin is frequently brittle and I’ve maybe been lucky in that all the models I’ve bought have been well packaged. Whereas I like 3D printed minis because of the huge variety that are available, I prefer metal figures for durability!
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Thanks, John! It was a real bummer when I realized the miniature was broken. I can’t think of hardly any miniatures I’ve bought that arrived broken as well. Its thankfully pretty uncommon. I think metal figures offer the best durability for gaming. I just wish they had the sharp details that plastic and resin have!
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Oh, I had not guessed Bushido, I was thinking GW and their Cathay models! That’s a shame about the resin chipping like that, it surprises me that they don’t have foam in the blisters, as surely this can’t be the first time it happened? Otherwise, that model does look really nice!
Bud looks great as well! I love seeing your Hellboy stuff, as it’s really making me want to get the game to the table once again… Hopefully before too long, we’ll both have had a game 😃
Seeing your Fallout stuff is definitely tempting me to look into that game again, I have to say. I’m not into video games, so have never played it before, but everything I hear about it has always sounded really good. The miniatures look great, but the setting sounds amazing…
Might have to check out that solo RPG, too. I’m not massively experienced in these things, but I’ve played the solitaire adventures in the very old Star Wars West End Games line – they were more like choose your own adventures, but it was still pretty fun!!
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Cathay is a very good guess! If I were in your shoes, that’s probably which way I’d be leaning too, come to think of it. I was surprised that GCT Studios didn’t think of this too. There isn’t a TON of room in the blister but I think some extra packing material is definitely necessary to prevent damage.
I’ve been slowly chipping away at Hellboy for a few years now and I’ve got years more work to do so its good you like to see minis from it! I will definitely get a game in sooner or later, especially if work stays slow like it has been for the last few days.
So you’re not into video games, now the millions of card games make sense! Ah-ha! 😀 I couldn’t work out how you had the time but now I understand! Its a shame because I would highly recommend playing one of the Fallout video games (especially Fallout 4) because all of the minis come directly from the video games (other than a few special minis they’ve made from the TV show). For better and worse, that is the best way to see if Fallout might be something you’d enjoy. The game itself is solo friendly and mostly focused on narrative more than points battles so you may or may not like that. Either way, I’m glad my work on Fallout inspires you! That is always cool to hear.
I’m more intrigued by Fallout RPG after hearing your experiences with solo Star Wars RPGs. I know a lot of board gamers are into solo RPGs currently so I think it might be up my alley. I’ll keep my eyes peeled on that one!
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See, I was wondering if maybe I could get a good idea of what Fallout is all about from the TV show, then see if that could allow me to graduate to the minis game – because, you know, I don’t have enough games to keep me entertained! 😃 It’s probably for the best that I just stick with what I’ve already got, as I’m not sure I’ve got the room, if nothing else! But I can live vicariously through your blog!
Yeah, I would definitely give a solo RPG a try, if the price isn’t too bad. I’ll be keeping an eye out as well, I’m not as massively into RPGs as I am other games, but I like them well enough that I’m always interested in seeing stuff like this developed…
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You can always use another game, I reckon 😉 The TV show is interesting because it is kind of like the games but its also different. I found it to be darker and more cynical or at least the characters are. The challenge is that there’s currently roughly 8-10 miniatures from the TV show and there’s minimal content to support them. The videogames have hundreds of minis and more content than you can shake a stick at. So for these reasons, I’d say you should play a Fallout video game first before deciding on Wasteland Warfare. Its also okay to say, I have enough with Star Wars and MCP and a million card games 😀
I hear you on RPGs as well. With miniature wargames, board games, and card games (plus video games in my case), I’m not short on things to do!
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There’s never too many games 🤣 My usual gaming buddy has some kind of console, I think it’s a PS5? I might have to check in on this at some point, see if he has experience with it. I think I’m just a sucker for post-apocalyptic stories, so it’s often called to me!!
I’m very wary of going down that rabbit hole of video games, though…
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Haha, I won’t try to convince you then 😀 You can play Fallout 4 on PS5, I think, and definitely on PS4. I would steer clear of Fallout 76 (which is the newest game in the series) because it is very different than previous games. It is mostly online, instead of being a single-player game, and has a mixed reputation. Fallout is the kind of game that you have to invest many hours into to fully experience it but there’s definitely plenty of post-apocalypse fun to be had even if you can only play it a bit!
I have a fairly large, physical video game collection so I’m not one to talk about rabbit holes 😀
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I think I’ve heard Fallout 4 being mentioned, yeah. I guess the time investment needed for this one might end up seeing me off, in that case – there’s only so many hours in the day for my thousands of card games, after all 🤪
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Its funny but also true. We all have to pick how we’re going to invest our time and I think you’ve already made your choices 🙂
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Yeah, I think you’re right 😃
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Excellent work on Bud Jeff, darker skin tones are harder to paint especially getting the amount of reflectiveness, the trick is the darker the tone the more extreme highlight you need, as the darker a persons skin tone is the more it reflects the sun, hope that helps.
Lot’s of cool things coming up, I see and hope you get better results with the replacement model.
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Thanks, Dave and you’re right about the reflections on darker skin tones. It would be a great thing to explore on a bust. That extra real estate would really come in handy there.
I hope so too. It has shipped so fingers crossed until it gets here…
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Lovely work on the Hellboy mini, and I know what you mean about the different skin tones being fun to work on, some years ago I did some Chaos minis and tired to do them from all different geographical areas so did lots of different skin tones and its challenging, you seem to have done a very good job here however!
Regarding the RPG, I have the standard Fallout RPG again from Morphius and run that with my normally gaming group and it was well received, and was a nice fun system. I’ve never played a solo RPG, but I could see how they would work, there are lots of adventures wrote out there just as the audience is a games master, but you could convert them to solo play I recon. Be really interested in your thoughts on it if you do get it.
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Thank you, mate! That was a really cool project you worked on as well. I wouldn’t mind doing something like that on a smaller scale in the future.
I appreciate your insight on RPGs and Fallout. I am tempted to pick it up just to see what I think of it. If nothing else, it will be an interesting read!
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Lovely painting on Bud. I think you’ve done a good job with the skin tone; it is perhaps a little too close to pink on the top of Bud’s head but that might just be an artefact of the camera anyway. I hope that he has better luck in your games that he did on the tabletop.
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Thanks, mate! I think you’re right that the tone is just a bit too pink. If I could do this one over, I would have used a slightly different shade of pink. Fortunately, its only a gaming piece so its okay for an experiment to not fully pan out. I look forward to trying him out on the tabletop soon. Its been a while since I’ve played Hellboy.
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You’re always so good at learning lessons from these painting experiments too, so I’m sure next time you paint a similar skin tone it’ll come out looking even better.
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Cheers, mate! It is the accumulation of knowledge through practice which can help a painter improve. Not unlike practicing MCP really 🙂
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I like the paint job on Bud, I think you did a good job on the skin. I’ve been experimenting a fair bit with skin tones over the last few years and it’s good to see paint manufacturers branch away from Caucasian skin tones. I picked up some paints from the Duncan Rhodes/two thin coats for darker skin tones and I really like them.
There is definitely a mix of tediousness and roughing over details in army painting. You have to learn to let go of that extra highlight (or 6!) but then you have to remember that the payoff is looking at your models on the table not zoomed right in or very close up. I found it a bit difficult at first as I came from (or aspired to come from 😉 )that more display side as well, but nowadays I find it very rewarding.
Finally that’s some bad luck on your orders! Luckily it seems the sellers are doing a good job of replacing the broken parts.
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I forgot to comment on the solo RPG! I haven’t played one myself, although given how much I enjoyed my dip into solo wargaming I think I might enjoy it. I did see that fallout book at the local store, might pick it up to have a read.
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I’d certainly be interested in your thoughts if you check it out! I’m intrigued by it and will hope to learn more about it in the coming days to see if its a good fit for me or not.
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I’ll do some reading on it, might be a good candidate for my book reading section!
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I love that idea and will look forward to your thoughts!
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Thanks, Nic! I’m definitely going to get Citadel’s new triad for darker skin tones. I’m pretty sure they’ll be easy to use and better than what I came up here.
In regards to less highlights, but what about highlights ten, eleven, and twelve!? I have to give those up too!? 😀 I know you’re right about speeding things up but I don’t like to do it when push comes to shove. I like to “take my time” and paint everything the best I can, unless a sculpt is truly awful, which these kind of are sadly.
Yes, I’m very thankful for the great customer service. I wouldn’t say anything bad about Modiphius or Noble Knight as far as that goes.
This weekend, the weather warmed up enough that I went out and got some printer ink so I have Masse d’Armes printed up. Now I just need to source some dice as I only have D6’s like a true wargamer haha! Once I get those, I’ll try and get a game in soon 🙂
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That’s exciting, although sorry about the dice. Clearly assumed too much overlap between wargaming dice collections and RPG dice collections!
As for painting speed, the key is to do what works for you. This is our fun relaxing time after all, and as soon as it starts feeling like a chore then it stops being that.
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I should add that I had some of those dice and I got rid of them when I decided I wouldn’t be playing Palaeo Diet so the joke is on me! Its also worth mentioning that that other games are using the same dice system. Burrows and Badgers uses “bigger” dice for “bigger” animals to represent that a badger is more dangerous than a mouse, for example. I will see if I can find a cheap set online somewhere and that will solve that problem 🙂
I would agree with you. We all attack the hobby differently and its fun and interesting to see how much variation there is. I think that’s why blogging works so well for our hobby. Each individual’s journey is unique and interesting!
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Indeed! I’ll have to check out Burrows and Badgers, I’m aware of it but don’t really know anything about it otherwise.
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You might enjoy it and you’d have a good jump start on the terrain. I want to say the designer was inspired by Mordheim with the rules as well. I love the setting for it as I grew up reading books like Redwall.
A follow-up question for you on the dice. How many D8’s, D10’s, and D12’s would someone need to play Mass D’armes? It looks like I can get a set of one each fairly cheaply and I can buy multiple if that’s what you recommend.
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I’d recommend 2 sets of d8s and up, that caters for your weapon die and skill die which you both roll at once for attacks (and could be the same die type). The rest is all d6. If you wanted to roll for both sides at once you would double that (so have 2 sets of 2 d8, d10, d12).
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Glad I asked! I’ll see if I can track down 4 then because I imagine it would be hard to play without being able to roll both sides at once.
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