It’s been awhile since my last post. We’re hitting one of the two busier periods at work (from now till mid-year, and then again from October-Dec). Unfortunately on top of that I’ve had some serious computer issues, where Windows Update 20H2 that keps not installing for months finally went through with no problems (for a day) and then a followup update auto-installed overnight the next day and fucked my PC. Long story short, even after a rollback and partial refresh, my pretty good PC is still only able to limp along, most of my programs are gone, I can’t find the .exe for my legit Office install since the shitheels that MS outsource here to distribute Work At Home packs only allow downloads for 3 months. (This sort of bullshit is why people pirate software!) I’ve got a laptop, but it’s just not the same as working on a real desktop with a decent monitor. Anyway, I’ve been backing things up (got just about everything done) but I’m too hesitant to allow the desktop PC to reboot and install until I’m 100% certain that it’ll be good.
So anyway, miniatures!
Today’s model is one that I absolutely hate. It’s the Harbinger from the Shadows of Brimstone starter set, and it’s a large, smooth, undetailed piece of trash. For whatever reason, I initially decided to not just paint it a cartoony demonic red, and went for a fleshy pink, but basically, due to the thing being a big, smooth piece with almost no actual detail, it didn’t go all that well, and so it’s been a WIP for ….2 years now? Hard to motivate oneself to work on something that you absolutely hate sometimes.
I did have some ideas for the model occasionally, and so I added the cracked earth as I had the idea of the demon corrupting the ground as it landed. It was only as part of this last push where the idea to make it glowing yellow-green rather than a more typical lava red-orange-yellow came up, mostly because of that Tessaract Glow technical paint I picked up recently – though it did make me start thinking of a World of Warcraft The Burning Crusade kind of overall look. This in turn led to repainting the webbing of the wings, which if you can believe it – looked even worse than they do now! I added some striation texture to them via paint, but still, they look pretty shitty.
Since finishing this thing, I’ve had a bit of a google image search on this model and I’ve seen a couple that do manage to look half-decent. I see an airbrush helps immensely on the large, smooth, undetailed masses of the model. Luckily(!) for me, I have a second one of these things. If I ever do paint the second one, I think I’ll go for an ashen grey-black overall look with perhaps some red and/or purple for the wing skin.
As far as positives go, I’m pretty happy to have finished this model just so it can get the fuck off my painting table and away from me. I guess it’ll be fine to use in actual games of Shadows of Brimstone – another target I have for the next few months – to complete the two original core sets’ models so we can start to play the game, which is apparently pretty good.
The only way I did manage to get the thing done has been due to this month’s painting challenge – Monster MAYhem, over at Dead Dick’s Tavern and Temporary Lodging. Ann, over at Ann’s Immaterium is running a “Summer Solstice” painting challenge for your best model painted between May 3rd and June 20th. Certainly a worthy challenge, but not something I’ll be submitting this thing for!
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
Well, it looks fine, if a little nightmarish, to me! 🙂
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Chers, John – it certainly was a nightmare to get finished!
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Wow, very Slaanesh 🙂 I love the paintjob on this, but I understand your frustration at a mini with a lack of details or texture; I’ve had a few of those and they’re a total pain in the arse. Nevertheless, this chap looks great!
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Thanks Matt – Slaanesh was my original direction for it, and I considered doing tattoos/etc on it, though I ended up losing my mojo for all of that kind of thing in the end and just wanted it done and gone!
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I really appreciate the work of sculptors who understand the model will be painted and design for that, when I come across models where this is not the case. Or maybe the sculptor did their best but the technology of the time wasn’t there.
I like what you’ve done here, and the group photo shows off the size of the Harbinger.
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I feel like it was sculpted in-house for some reason. The first Shadows of Brimstone campaign was the first time that Flying Frog did hard plastic, and the models are really low-tier across the board. Like late-80’s tier GW quality at best.
I mean, I like models that aren’t completely covered in detail so you can add your own touches to them – freehand or textures or whatever – but this thing is just too far down that road. As you suggested, I think it’s the result of an inexperienced sculptor – and inexperienced, quite rudimentary mouldmaking as well for that matter!
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An uninspiring model can be the hardest challenge, and you’ve got it done, so a win in my book.
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Yep – got it off the desk, so its definitely a win! 😀
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Oh man, your hate for that ‘mini’ is hilarious 😂 Get off the fence bro!
For what it’s worth, it looks ok to me – got a bit of a Slaaneshi vibe going on, which helps I think.
Good luck with the pc btw 👍
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Too subtle you think? I’ll try harder next time. 🙂
I was originally going for a Slaaneshi-type daemonic scheme, but the thing was/is such a dog to paint that it ended up just sitting there forever.
I’ve got most of my stuff backed up, so I just need to find where the hell my Office installer is, and I *may* risk rebooting and installing updates. And then have to rebuild everything else… 😡
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Have you tried turning it off and turning it on again?
I like the color scheme, it gives the demon a lot of presence.
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The PC? Ha! Love the IT Crowd as well, but sadly I did that a pile of times and it didn’t help. I *think* it was this:
https://www.pcgamesn.com/windows-10-game-performance-hit
as my updates had obviously backed up doe to the 20H2 refusing to install.
The colour scheme certainly pops, I’ll say that for it….
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For a model you hate you sure gave it a lot of brush love. I think you nailed it personally!
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Thanks Mark. I basically gave it the minimum that I could allow myself to! 😀
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Well, agree with Matt on being very Slaaneshy! I like that head a lot! Could have been a nice Demon Prince conversion (if you are inclined to that) But since you are already motivated enough to get through on finishing a paint job on a mini you don’t love (something to envy) maybe it would have been a good chance to experiment in adding what it lacks to you…? Maybe textured paints, some wild slime (or other) effect, that you wouldn’t usually apply, to not obscure details… Or even painting-in the missing texture with veins or the like…
I still like it… Looks like a freshly incarnated abomination!
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I *did* intend originally to do it in that very Slaaneshi manner, and add tattoos and all sorts of weird symbology and such, but I just kept lagging out on the model. And then I’d only get any more done if I forced myself to do a little more, then lag out, and then repeat, repeat.
I get what you’re saying here, but it was actually more a matter of disliking the model more and more over time, so as it went on I was less and less inclinded to do something more interesting with it and just wanted it done and away from me (and eventually, available if/when needed for the board game). Like the process of working on this wasn’t even uninspiring, but better described as anti-inspiring.
I *do* think you’re onto something, though – and IF I do manage to work on the other “copy” of the model that I have, I’ll use it for parts instead and perhaps use the head for a Slaaneshi Daemon Prince, the wings could be used on something else – and yeah, use the body as merely a framework for a more interesting model.
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In that case, having something to show, and on top thinking about getting something done with a second copy of the damn thing is commendable! The wings do look too cartoony… but you made the rest really work!
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Yeah, the wings suck in their almost complete lack of details. I think they’d have to go real dark to hide that in the next use of them…
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Nice pink flesh- looks raw and freshly birthed.
Cheers,
Pete.
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Thanks Pete – I’m hoping that once I’ve got some distance from it that it’s something I’ll be able to consider as “fine for boardgame” as opposed to “shit model that I hate”. 😀
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Sorry to hear about your computer issues, mate. It is extra frustrating when it is your personal computer because you just want to be able to use it whenever you want to if you know what I mean. This sculpt does indeed look rough to paint but I think it looks nice in the end and certainly captures the Lovecraftian intent behind the sculpt well. Hopefully Shadows of Brimstone ends up being fun to play and minis like this were worth the effort to complete!
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Yeah, at the moment I can use it to browse the web and do most normal web stuff, but I can’t use office, listen to music, watch videos, play games, etc – and photo editing is more difficult than previously. Going to install another update in an hour or so and see what that gets me… if it doesn’t fix the issue, I’m going to have to limp along for another week or two until I have the (mental) energy to do a complete reinstall of windows. 😡
Brimstone is at least supposed to be a great game, and with another couple (or more) months of painting I’ll finally be ready to start. Luckily I have mountains of other boardgames (and videogames) to tide me over in the meantime…
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That does sound annoying. And the solution to the problem doesn’t seem much less aggravating. That is good that you have other things to throw yourself into when you don’t feel like dealing with that headache!
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Good luck with the PC. I had a hard drive crash a few months ago, but gladly only lost some random or already backed up data.
The miniature looks fine, even though the sculpt is uninspiring. I think they had a great concept in mind, but the execution was not ideal. Super smooth surfaces are really only useful for textures such as cloth or maybe fur. Here I can see that it made the whole thing an ordeal.
Still I like the colour scheme with the purple wings.
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Yeah, this issue is bloody strange. It was working 100% fine, then windows gave me a “surprise” update overnight and then it was basically fucked and refused to cleanly reboot. My …impatience when trying to fix it only made things worse, unfortunately.
Thanks for the kind words. 🙂 The whole initial line of Brimstone models are sub-par but passable at best and pretty awful at worst. I haven’t looked in any detail att the later ones, but I can only imagine they’d have had to improve. Surely…. right?
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Well it looks the business to me, love the pink and purple colour scheme, really suits it. and the wings in particular look great!
Cheers Roger.
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Thanks Roger. I’ll certainly have another go at a similar scheme down the line on a better model and see how it turns out. Can’t be worse than on this one at least – so the only way is up! 😀
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I love the colors you chose for it. Looks great, and I’m happy my challenge provided sufficient motivation to get it off your table! I had one of those this year, too. Feels good to bid it farewell, doesn’t it?
You’re really making me want to check out Shadows of Brimstone…
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Thanks mate! From everything I’ve read, the actual game is pretty damned good – and with the motivation to get these big bastards done thanks to the Monster challenges from Dave and yourself has carried over to getting the rest of the Wave 1 stuff done so I can finally get a game or more in after a few years of chipping away at these things… 🙂
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Wow mate ! now thats what I call bright!!
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