Hellboy & things that go bump in the night

Our favourite cannon fodder Backup Agents are done!  Nice eclectic range of mostly B-listers from the Hellboy Universe here.  Comic images for reference!

Success!  A whole tray 0f minis completed and everything from the retail release is done!  Just another 2 trays to finish and 2 to start.  Hmm.  Still, progress!

I can now play whole games with everything painted, so that’s a thing.

The bullet has been bitten, and I’m on to the part I dread – batch painting repeat sculpts!  I am trying to be tough on myself hear and keep it simple (and maybe a bit stupid).  Don’t get bogged down with the fine details, don’t get lured into extra layers of highlights, just get them done.

I have kept with the same colours as I used on the Giant Frog monster and have decided to go with a bit of colour coding.  All of these Frogs are ‘brawler’ types under the game’s AI system and will close into melee combat with the player Agents.

The next two groups of Frogs are a ‘ranged’ type which does exactly what you would expect, and a ‘cowardly’ type that tries keep out of combat with the Agents (thus slowing the players down if they can’t take them out first.  So I have decided to give those groups different skin colours to help easily differentiate them on the board.  This should add both a little variety and add readability for whichever random people I get to to sit down at the club meets.

So, this is the first two sets of Frog Monster Minions done, two more to go then everything from the core retail box is done and I can move on to the expansion content – hopefully before wave 2 arrives!

I have now completed all of the markers/counters/tokens that come with the game!  Well, apart from two character busts which I’ll do when I finish up the Agents.  But still, it feels like a milestone.

First up is the clue markers, used for gathering insights into the case in preparation for the final confrontation against the boss.  Or whatever the case file says.

After that I took some better pics of the Insight markers, the Right Hand of Doom marker (for tracking, well, Impending Doom), The Information Gathered Marker, and all them Frog Spawns.  And I figured I’d throw in a shot of the Agent HQ board with all the painted pieces, because why not?

I have now started on the pile of twenty Frog Men minions and am aiming to speed paint my way through to a simple table top standard because I want to get through this project by Christmas!

These little guys are my test pieces for using army painter strong tone dip, getting ready to tackle all those minions and the inevitable repeat sculpts. I did find that the dip (applied by brush) darkens colours down alot so these had a little highlight with the base colours to punch them back up a bit.

I am moving on to getting the various 3d counters that the game uses painted up, and decided to knock out the insight markers first.

These are earned as the players explore the board for clues and typically convey bonuses in the boss fight confrontation at the end of the game & case file.

These were simply a base coat of Vallejo Tinny Tin, dry brushed with Vallejo Bright Bronze then given a citadel Nuln Oil wash for a slightly weathered look.  I used a satin varnish to keep a bit of  the shine.

I have been trundling along and decided to tackle the bosses from the core box plus the kickstarter ‘Ragnarok’ Rasputin with the electrified gauntlets.  I figure these guys will be making up the bosses of the first set of case files so should have a painted finale to look forwards to!

Just look at that manic happy face on Rasputin!

Progress continues with the completion of not one, but three Hellboys!  And another bust!  So here are some group shots of where I am at along with the colours used for Hellboy’s skin and on his stone fist/horns.

First up we have Liz Sherman and her target priority marker, which was so much fun to paint!