I’ve decided to keep hitting the D&D models in an effort to knock those remaining numbers down so we can play the boxed games at our leisure. Today’s fodder is a trio of Bugbears and a trio of Doppelgangers. Or to put it another way – a trio of decent-for-boardgame models and a trio of trash.
The Bugbears are some of the better sculpts to come out of these Adventure Boardgame boxes – solidly “Nolzurs” quality, which makes total sense.
They do at least manage to have a little bit of character along with some reasonable detail. Of course, I’m judging these things on a sliding scale. They’re not Citadel nor Rackham nor Tre’ Manor or even FFG Boardgame sculpts. They’re very comparable to random Reaper models, for example.
But yeah, ultimately they’ll do the job, and I’m happy with this trio of Wookiee-wannabes. Browns and metals, pretty simple, but enough details on them so I needed to have my eyes open to paint them over the course of a few days.
The Doppelgangers on the other hand are much more on the trash side and were two coats of Contrast over white spray, two or three layers of drybrush, a little bit on the faces and eyes, and then the bases. I guess it’s probably a byproduct of trying to create finely detailed models in this scale in this material.
They look pretty much like Greys to me, but I guess this is their “unchanged” form before they use their polymorphine to take the shape of that Ork Bodyguard model before assassinating the Warboss to put an end to the WAAAGH for the God-Emperor of Mankind. Or summat like that.
I thought I’d add in a Player Character model here so the size difference can be seen. The Bugbears have a bit of bulk to them, while the Doppelgangers look pretty weedy. If you enjoy looking at Bugbears, why not wander over to Faust’s Blog, Double Down Dice and check out his recently-painted gang of bears that don’t actually look like bugs.
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
For what you had to work with at the start I think you’ve managed an outstanding job on these models, agree you had a lot more to work with on the Bugbears, but what you’ve achieved on the Dopplegangers works really well as well.
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Thanks John. I just coped their artwork and added some purple undertones, since they looked good regardless of the OSL aspect.
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I think both types have come out really well meself! 🙂
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Thank you, John!
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Thanks for the shout out, mate! You’re nailin the Bugbears, but I really like those Doppelgängers. They look really creepy! Which is exactly how I recall them, from fighting some in the Baldurs Gate PC game!
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I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a D&D Doppelganger, even in video games so that’s probably why I’m a bit more dismissive of them. 😀
I expect they’ll be nasty in-game, though…
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They were mean due to some abilities. Poison, maybe spell use in the video game? But in anreal rpg, I’d say they are worse. Assassinate one of the players, take their place…and wait till they all go to sleep. Game over, man!! I don’t think I’d ever do that to my players though, without some leaving some clues.
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Yeah, I’ve never really understood the whole “adversarial DM” thing – I mean it’s fine for a fully competitive boardgame like HeroQuest etc, but for an RPG I always viewed the DM as more the lead storyteller to make things interesting rather than to just wipe the party because harhargodcomplex..
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I’m specially fascinated by the fur and how natural it looks. Awesome work
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Thank you!
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More great work Az.
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Cheers, Guru!
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These look great as always, mate. I do wonder what the doppelgangers are supposed to be or how they work in D&D though I’m sure I could Google it and find an answer after I finish leaving this comment. I think what I’m curious about is how they “inform” the sculpt which looks like a deformed ghoul. I’d say this illustrates what I’ve been saying about the sculpt quality may not always be high with the D&D minis but its still fascinating to see them for me anyway 🙂
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I’m honestly not sure how they work. I’ve just assumed the answer is “magical creatures be all magical and shit” as a variation of “a wizard did it”. Like you, I haven’t cared enough to google the actual answers that some unfortunate nerd had to sit down and try to contstruct in a manner that includes some form of logic. 😉
The artwork that I checked out before painting makes them look very much like slightly darker and more bluish “grey” aliens – and these D&D models don’t seem to stray far past the various “official artwork”.
We’re on a (little) hiatus from the D&D stuff now while I get some other things painted, unless I can motivate myself to try and do a couple “Player Character in an hour” jobs…
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I guess we have nobody to blame but ourselves then 🙂 The doppelgangers look a little creepy so that made me wonder what kind of nefarious stuff they get up to. And no worries on the hiatus. I’m sure you’ll come back around to them sooner or later!
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Yeah, I guess they’re a useful infiltrator when DMs want to inject a bit of thought and care into their campaigns rather than just being pure hack & slash. You’ll also be hugely happy to know that I’ve got another 9 of these D&D mobs (3×3) ready to go and have started on the first of them. I’m certainly happy about it – these ones aren’t terrible sculpts and more importantly I’m very much looking forward to getting to the end of these things!
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Brilliant stuff mate – I kinda like the doppelgängers!
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Thanks Alex – they’ve got the kinda dorky traditional arms-out zombie pose on them!
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