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LaserOx – Arkham Organizer III

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Its been a couple of weeks since my last hobby update and I have modest progress to show off this time despite the extra painting time. As the title suggests, I’m still chipping away at the Arkham Organizer which is way more time consuming than I ever imagined. I got the small card holder done which is unsurprisingly smaller than the other two big card holders I still need to work on. I went ahead and put my cards in it and this with the base game and one of the three expansions. There must not be TOO many small cards in the remaining two expansions or at least I hope not!

The other thing I completed was the investigator token tray. This is a pretty handy piece of kit, even if it doesn’t photograph well because everything is a bit glossy and really reflects light.

I might have made a little bit of an assembly error when putting this together because the empty spots in the middle don’t hold the tokens well and they tend to fall through the bottom. I think I may have enough good slots left that I can just leave those empty and be fine but we’ll see later on. I still need to buy one more of the Arkham Horror expansions before I can fully test this organizer.

And unfortunately, I started running out of black paint early in the week so I ordered some more and had to stop working on the organizer as of late. The upside to this is that I could devote more attention on Lokaris again and I made some decent progress which is great. I got more of his armor done which I’ll hold off and show you next time. I’ve also been working on his trusty axe as a sub-assembly. I’ve enjoyed working on the axe so far and while the picture I took isn’t quite as nice as I would like, it gives you an idea of how it looks anyway. I’m very close to being able to glue it on to the miniature and then I can finish the few axe parts that I can’t judge how the light hits currently or I can’t reach with a brush (the blade, in particular). Next update should see Lokaris really coming together as there isn’t a lot to go on the upper part of him, thankfully. Hopefully we’ll see him rounding into form soon enough!

In other hobby news, this week, Black Crow Miniatures unveiled a new bust and by Crom is it a good one! I want to focus on 75mm miniatures until I feel like I’ve mastered them, but there are quite a lot of busts out there that tempt me and this absolutely is another. It is such a perfect rendition of Conan and I honestly think he’s well suited to a bust because he’s often depicted as mostly being bone and sinew wielding a sword so you’re not missing much having to skip the limbs! Either way, the sullen Cimmerian has never looked so good and I’m so glad that Black Crow made this one.

I recently read the final issue of the first story of a new comic series that I wanted to plug as well. The title is a bit of a doozy but here it is: The Peril of the Brutal Dark: An Ezra Cain Mystery. Or as I tend to call it Ezra Cain. What is Ezra Cain? Well first off, it is a Vertigo release so that means it is not superhero related and it is ultimately published by DC Comics so you generally have some high end talent working on it. I think the best way to describe this is a bit of a classic noir PI story that mixes in and kind of becomes a pulp romp in the end. I describe it this way because the first couple issues remind me a little bit of the movie Chinatown. Ezra Cain takes on a case that seems pretty straightforward but as the title suggests, it goes much deeper and darker than he expects. By the time he figures out what is going on, he’s sucked in, like any good noir protagonist and its just too late to leave matters unresolved at that point. With that said, this isn’t really your typical noir story and the end is action packed and full of comic book fun. If you like the pulp of Hellboy or Rocketeer, then this would be right up your alley. The art is also excellent by Jacob Phillips, who happens to be the son of Sean Phillips of Criminal, Fatale, and Kill or Be Killed fame. Jacob’s style is both different but also somewhat familiar and its beautiful to look at. The world of Ezra Cain and its inhabitants are beautifully realized here.

With any luck, we’ll get plenty more Ezra Cain stories as this was a very promising story arc. Its also a bit different than anything else on the comic book stands for the last couple of years so kudos to Vertigo for giving us something that is high quality and a bit different.

That’s just about all from me this week. If I can get some time, I’ll work on my next and last bonus article about the TCG I’ve purchased. Things are pretty busy at the moment (this is almost worthy of its own blog post on its own truthfully) but I am looking forward to writing the next bonus article when I can get around to it.

18 thoughts on “LaserOx – Arkham Organizer III”

  1. I’m really impressed by the design of the organiser, all the little touches like the tentacles are really neat, it could just have been a purely functional thing but they went the extra mile with this (and you’ve taken it further with the painting!).
    That axe is looking really nice, that rust is really cool. Assuming you’re going for a nice polished blade edge that will be quite the contrast.
    That Ezra Cain comic looks right up my alley, love a good detective story in comic form, I’ll have to check it out.

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    1. I agree that organizer has some nice visual flourishes and the attention to detail is appreciated. I suppose that is what motivated me to paint it even if I second guess that decision a little bit now 🙂

      You nailed the approach on the axe. I forgot to mention it but the rusty part of the axe was sculpted to be bumpy and corroded so I figured it’d be rude not to make it look a bit rusty. This guy seems like the type to have a bit of rust somewhere too, I reckon.

      Really glad to hear it on Ezra Cain! The final issue came out two weeks ago (if I remember right) so it may take a couple of months for the collected edition to come out. Either way, its worth hunting down for any fans of Private Investigator stories!

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  2. Excellent progress on the organiser Jeff, and hopefully the paint arrives quickly so you can get it finished.

    The axe is progressing well, and look forward to seeing the rest of the progress next week.

    Great review of the comic, must admit I haven’t got anything new for almost two years now, all my budget seems to go straight on models ! LOL

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    1. It looks like the paint is arriving today so I can at least keep chipping away at the organizer, if nothing else.

      I was glad to have gotten this far with the axe and am excited to see what’s next too. The finish line is kind of getting close now finally.

      I spend too much of my budget on comics more than likely, but I have a pretty healthy backlog so maybe that isn’t the worst move on my part! Do you read the 2000 A.D. series? I keep seeing that my comic book store stocks it but I can’t figure out where they stock it so I’ve never been able to check it out. In light of your model budget, maybe I shouldn’t be mentioning this but my curiosity has gotten the better of me!

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      1. I stopped reading 2000 ad a long time ago, and only get the graphic novel’s on the stories I like now, does mean I miss out on some cool stories, but there was a whole batch that I wasn’t interested in. I’ve seen that in the US that they release the stories as separate publications, most people like Judge Dredd, my favourites were A.B.C. Warriors Nemesis the Warlock, and Slaine, but in the early days Harlem Heroes, and Flesh were great too, after all who doesn’t like Dinosaurs eating time travelling humans ! LOL

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      2. That makes sense. The series is so old that to buy and own them all would be a tall task. I don’t know how they’re stocking them because I should be able to spot 2000 AD at the store pretty easily (they put all the issues in alphabetical order after all). I’ll take a look around on Wednesday when I go next and see if I can find this latest issue. It seems like it is Judge Dredd focused and is a one-shot issue so I could easily jump in and read it, if I can find it!

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  4. The organiser is looking great! Very impressive stuff! I’ve just checked my copy of the game, and aside from the fact that my organisation is woeful in comparison (it’s pretty much just all in the core box 🤪) there’s 28 investigators so you’ll have two slots spare, I think? There are still quite a few small cards though – but I’m guessing they’ll have accounted for all those, and you should be fine?! At any rate, I’m looking forward to seeing the finished product – if WP allowed sharing images in comments, I’d show you how dire my box looks 🤣

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    1. They say the organizer is meant to fit everything released for Arkham Horror: Third Edition sleeved but I am a little concerned about the small cards at this point! I might buy some more small sleeves and sleeve up those cards in Secrets of the Order soon just to see how much that leaves me with.

      Perhaps you should send me that photo just to keep me motivated on this project! There are some days where I look at the stuff yet to paint and the finished stuff that’s waiting until its all done to be put away and I grimace! 🙂

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    1. Thank you, always good to hear from a fellow Cimmerian (I assume you’re not a Pict anyway!). For board games, there are lots of options you can buy but miniatures aren’t quite as easy I find. There is some stuff out there but its hard to design products since everyone has a different collection of miniatures.

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