This is going to be a longer than usual post because there are a lot of hobby happenings this week. The good news is that there are a lot of different topics to cover so I can keep things moving and touch upon a wide variety of topics along the way.
Early in the week, I was gearing myself up for something I am not good at and kind of dread. Batch painting or army painting is something I don’t enjoy at all. Some of it is mental as I prefer to focus on one miniature at a time for the most part but I also don’t have a way to paint more than one miniature at a time on paint handle because I only own one. I thought this time would be different, and I even consulted with someone who is much better at it than I and well, despite my best attempts to get motivated, my resolve quickly crumbled. In my defense, the miniature in question has enough details to it that I think I’m justified in not cutting any corners with it but I’m probably just justifying my own preferences, more than anything!
So that is what a Nazi Knife Fighter looks like! It is surely a little known but historically accurate title that Nazis used to classify each other, right?! In all seriousness, I had to consult with John@JustNeedsVarnish for ideas on how to paint this guy because I know nothing about WWII uniforms. We put our heads together and concluded that all of the Nazi miniatures in Hellboy are made up more or less and so you can’t really be too historically accurate with them. That’s no problem here because I’m not really a rivet counter and enjoy the lack of constraints in fantasy art. I do want to thank John for his help on getting me unstuck and while I want to say all of these miniatures are dedicated to him and his love of WWII, I’m hesitant to do so because they’re all Nazis! It reminds me a bit of this classic segment from 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown. RIP Sean Lock!
Unfortunately for me, I have five more of this same sculpt to paint so you’ll be seeing more of these as I get the desire to tackle them. I’m starting to work on the Conqueror Worm expansion for Hellboy The Board Game which not only happens to be a great Hellboy storyline but requires me to do the most batch painting of all the expansions. I think there’s either 30 or 36 Nazis in total and so that’s five or six sets of identical miniatures in total. If I can manage to get through them all in a reasonable amount of time (less than 1-2 years), I’ll be very glad and relieved!
During this week, I got a couple of replacement miniatures so I figure we’ll discuss that next. The first was a fresh box of Brahmin Herd for Fallout since one in my first box was damaged and couldn’t be repaired. Wouldn’t you know it, but in this box I was very surprised that another miniature was damaged. I am very fortunate though because it was the one I had already built. So that means it took two boxes but I have one of each of the Brahmin which is a relief. Its a shame the miniature appears to be so fragile. Most Fallout minis aren’t too bad in this regard but I’ll certainly be careful with mine.
This is the final miniature I’ll get assembled for Anne’s Challenge and in fact, I sent her a photo of everything assembled so you can look forward to seeing that on her website Anne’s Immaterium in the near future! I’m excited to see all of the other entries as well!
I also received my second copy of the Bushido Oni miniature and I had very low expectations for it and its a good thing because the second one is also damaged…. In this case it is only a tiny part of the horn that is missing so definitely some improvement there.
Unfortunately, this miniature has more 3D print lines on it than the first one and I felt the horns in my hand (what a weird thing to say!) and they feel VERY fragile. I don’t know that I’ll actually paint this miniature in the end as I’m concerned the horns will break in any kind of mishap. Its about as fragile of a mini as I’ve worked with in quite some time and I think that 3D printing might be doing Bushido miniatures a disservice here. I don’t think I’ll be buying anymore in the near future as they seem to be very frail and they’re actually somewhat expensive for what they are too. This single miniature cost $30 which is pretty much what a box of Fallout miniatures costs.
I don’t quite know what this setback means for my diorama plans. I think I’ll go back to the drawing board and do some more brainstorming. Its a minor setback but I can always pivot into some other ideas and projects so that is what I will likely do.
In the meantime, I’ve decided to start working on a different display project and while its very early days, I’m happy enough with how its going so far. This is Lokaris, the Kimera Models miniature I bought a little while ago. I’ve done a lot of sketching to test out colors and a lot of stuff like the belts are only halfway done. They’ll look much better after I put a little more time and work in them. So far, I’m having a blast painting this miniature and its great to be back working on a 75mm miniature. I really do like the scale and the larger details on this mini. I’ve heard people call it the “Painter’s scale” and I think that’s an apt name. I’ll talk more about Lokaris next time but here’s a sneak peek to wet your appetite!
But wait, there’s more! Last Christmas, my brother kindly gave me a voucher to Games Workshop as a gift. I used some of it on some paint but the rest of the balance sat in my account for a while because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with it. I guess GW ran some kind of deal when he bought the voucher because they gave my brother a gift voucher for $15 and he does not participate in our hobby so he kindly offered it to me. Games Workshop then gave me ANOTHER voucher because it had been a while since I’d bought anything from them, I guess so I ended up with about $50 in store credit. Apparently that last voucher was a temporary “deal” so I needed to use it or lose it. Long story short, I decided to buy one of my favorite Warhammer minis that I’ve been tempted to get many times.
So hopefully sometime this week it will arrive so I can get a closer look at it. Honestly, I don’t know when I’ll work on it as its a pretty big project and will take a long time to complete. I’d like to get other things done before that happens like the Kaiju diorama. It will be cool to have a Stonehorn though and I’m excited to paint it one of these days too!
Lastly (whew!), as part of my diorama brainstorming, I’ve taken to following hobby news a bit more and keeping my eyes peeled for interesting new releases. The easiest way I’ve found to do this is to check Beastsofwar.com semi-regularly as they’re always showing off newly announced miniatures. It turns out that Warriors of Athena, a game I am intrigued by based on the setting alone, is starting to get miniatures released. Take a look at these beauties!
It looks like these are plastic or resin and the details are very sharp! Apparently they’re 40mm which suits me to the ground as well. That will make them look quite impressive whether you use 28mm regular troops with them or not. I’ll certainly be keeping my eyes on these and researching a bit more on the game itself too because it is in my wheelhouse. Its certainly encouraging after the lack of success with Bushido to immediately see something else that looks like it could work just as well too.
Kuribo's Painting 
Excellent work on the Knife Boy Jeff, I think the color choices you’ve gone for evoke Nazi Germany really well, and great advice from John (reminds me of the Nazi’s in the Blues Brothers).
Great news on the replacement pieces, that you have at least a full set for Fallout, the Oni having lines could be hidden with paint, so don’t give up on it yet.
Great progress on the 75 mm model and the NMM on the plate mail looks excellent.
Shall be interesting to see what you do with the Stonehorn, and those Greek models look very interesting.
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Hey mate! I didn’t know the Hellboy Board Game has Nazis in it. Fitting for Hellboy of course, but I thought the game was set in the modern era. The ochre uniform is most evocative of the Brownshirts that predated the full rise to power, or the DAK. The armband makes it more of a Brownshirt look, though. Of course, as you say, fictional Nazis can be painted in any scheme that evokes the look and feel. I notice you left the armband red without any iconography?
Shame about the broken Fallout minis, but at least you were able to get replacements that worked. Not exactly a great set of selling points for that range and it’s QC, though!
Looking at this Oni I can see a couple of options – leaning into it and painting it “as-is” as a damaged horn; resculpting a replacement tip with greenstuff or milliput (or a mix of the two), or cutting them both off and replacing them with a pair from either a metal or plastic miniature of your choice.
To get rid of (or lessen) the print lines you can try spray filler primer, or perhaps something like a paint-on filler primer applied carefully by brush. AK sells a “microfiller primer” in small bottles (google ak filler primer) though you’ll need a laquer thinner to clean your brushes – and they won’t be good for model painting afterwards so get cheapo ones. Probably still cheaper than replacing the models, though and once it’s in your toolkit it’s there for the next instance it’s needed. Either way, I look forward to seeing what you do with Lokari.
Nice score with the chain-pull of GW vouchers! It’ll be good to see the Ogre Stonehorn once it starts appearing on the blog. The Greeks look nice as well. Reminds me I need to get onto some of the Greek Pantheon models I have here. Someday. 😮
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