Hobgoblin Band

You spot a lone Hobgoblin lurking beside the road. Your attack takes him by surprise, but you are surprised in turn when a band of three more jump out of the trees.

Scarneck Hobgoblin band available from Reaper Miniatures.

In the article I wrote about Kardag, I included some information about tests I did to choose the skin colour, and the specific paint colours I used painting the figure.

Kardag, Scarneck Hobgoblin Warrior available from Reaper Miniatures.

All of these figures are produced as 3D prints. I like the material a lot. For one, no mould lines! There are some printing artifacts, but because the material is hard like cast resin it is easy to scrape these off with a hobby knife blade. 3D printing also allows for a much wider range of poses to be produced as one piece figures, and I’m always happy when I don’t have to glue figures together! (I suffer a minor glue curse.)

Kardag and the Hobgoblin gang.

Bobby Jackson did a fantastic job sculpting these. Each has a unique pose, facial expression, and gear, but the figures also function as a cohesive group. I aimed for the same kind of approach in painting them, keeping the colour palette the same for all of the figures. I painted Kardag first, and worked on the band of three figures simultaneously.

I was not able to take many WIP photos, but I do have a couple of Kardag. At this stage, I was working out the exact mix of colours I wanted to use for the non-metallic metal. I wanted a cool grey with just a touch of blue to contrast against the orangey skin tone and the warm colours used on the rest of the figure. (Those dull browns, blacks, and greys are all slightly warmer versions of those colours.)

The weathering is a combination of weathering powders and weathering pencils. These materials allowed me to move marks and colour touches around, increase or decrease them, or even ‘erase’ them completely. I also find that the dusty texture I can achieve with weathering powers is different from what I get with paint alone.

In the rest of this article I talk about how what we’re experiencing and feeling in the rest of our lives can affect the painting process and how we feel about our work. Feel free to just scroll the pictures if you’re just here to enjoy some old school Hobgoblins.

I had a really tough time painting these. They ended up being one of the most difficult projects I have ever worked on. I think it’s worth talking about that a bit because I know I’m not alone in this kind of struggle. I want to be clear that what I struggled with had nothing to do with the sculpts or the physical figures themselves! Mostly my challenges had very little to do with the actual painting process, though it didn’t feel that way at the time.

One of the reasons I haven’t been painting (or writing) much the past couple of years is a back problem that makes it painful to sit at a desk for more than a couple of hours at a stretch, or for too long total throughout a day. I’m not consistently great at concentrating on a good day, and I find these aches and pains very distracting. I need or want to do a lot more things that involve sitting at a desk than I can manage, and I’m learning that I have to rotate through activities or prioritize.

These limitations are very frustrating! I imagine a lot of you can relate to that. I know a lot of people in our hobby have limitations of one kind or another. Limitations of time, money, energy or anything else can be frustrating enough that they suck some of the fun out of something we otherwise love.

I was dealing with the illness of a beloved pet around this time, and taking care of her through the last few months of her life became the focus of my time and energy. I know this is another circumstance that far too many of us have had to deal with.

One of my painting challenges was the black leather. I struggled to find the balance between highlight contrast that would bring out the shapes and the wear and tear, but also keep the black looking black. I reworked most of the black areas multiple times, so it all took far longer to paint than you would guess from looking at it.

The NMM was even more of a struggle. So much struggle. Even though I was working on weathered and worn metals, the blending process seemed to take forever. It was one of the last things I painted, and every time I sat down to work on the figures I found more spots I still hadn’t finished yet.

About half-way through the painting the NMM I realized that I had created my own problem. The colour scheme of these Hobgoblins was intended to mesh with a troop of Goblins I’d previously painted. I’d chosen to use metallic paints on those Goblins. Most of the reasons for that choice applied just as much to the Hobgoblins, on top of the fact that it would have made the two groups match together more. D’oh! Now it was more important that these three match with their chum Kadarg. I had to live with my choice, but I definitely didn’t like it.

It was a tough process. Some days I didn’t even to manage to psych myself into sitting down to paint at all, despite the deadline pressure. When I did paint, it felt like a never-ending slog. It felt like I’d been painting these few colours and textures forever, and that I’d be painting them forever more, and I just wanted to be DONE and do something, anything else.

It’s always challenging to step back and be objective about our own work and determine if something looks good or needs tweaked, and to decide when it’s done. My mental state made that much more difficult than usual; everything I did looked awful to me. I very likely fiddled and fixed stuff that didn’t need it, and missed stuff that did.

Eventually I reached a point where I felt I could call them done without feeling as if I’d phoned it in or given up. I took pictures and sent them to the art director at Reaper. He is delighted with them, I think they’re one of his favourites of what I’ve ever painted for Reaper. I’m very happy he feels that way, though I certainly don’t feel that way about them. I’ve gotten enought distance from how I was feeling then that I don’t think they look look like boring painting fails anymore, but there’s still a lingering memory of how awful I felt during the process when I look at them.

I shared this experience because I know I’m not alone, and sometimes it helps to know other people are dealing with similar challenges. We’re all creatures of sensation and emotion as much as rational thought. Our opinion of our own work and creativity is affected by our experiences and feelings. If we feel like we leveled up or did something amazing on a figure, we get upset if other people don’t love it as well, without considering that they aren’t looking at it through the same lens that we are. If we’re down on ourselves or getting battered by circumstances, it’s hard for us to see the good in what we do, even if others think it is amazing. I don’t have a lot of answers to this, other than I know it helps to think about what you enjoy about the process.