Unboxing: Shadows of Brimstone

As promised I will do an unboxing of the Shadows of Brimstone core sets from Flying Frog Productions which I backed on Kickstarter. As stated in an earlier post, the two core sets arrived to my surprise last week. Since I hoped that the results of this project wouldn't be as disappointing as the Sedition Wars rules, I was very exited for the package to arrive. Another big reason was, that I mainly backed this game because it is played cooperatively and therefore Mrs. Para was also in this game. She doesn't like Descent too much (at least in playing it with only 2 players) because you play against each other.

Shadows of Brimstone is a Old West Horror board game. Meaning that you will play heroes placed in a wild west setting  and encountering some horror creatures in different locations.

Warning: I will not show the miniatures in this post, I completely leave them out because some of them are huge(!) and I don't know how they will fit in the boxes after I assembled them. Most likely I will have to do some magnetizing. Therefore I will cover them in a later article.

For this unboxing I will try to show the contents of both boxes in parallel because at some points they are pretty similar to each other. So let's see what is in the boxes (big wall of text incoming)!

Review: Painting Buddha - Season 1.1:Target Identified | Tale of two painters

Alllriiiiight!!! So we start directly with an insider you will understand if you have watched the first three DVDs with Ben Komets :) After watching the 6 DVDs I was completely smashed and to be honest: I had some difficulties to find a way how to describe this set and writing a review about it. Not because it is bad, on the opposite, but because it has many different things to see AND you have two different painters who have a somewhat different approach to painting those two wonderful miniatures I already wrote about.

So where to start? Perhaps some general stuff first...
The set is completely in English with subtitles in English, German and Spanish. You get a DVD set from two painters with pretty different approaches how to paint exactly the same miniatures. Ben does everything "by hand" where Rafael starts with using an airbrush.

The menus are in English and describe the parts which are painted of the miniature (not the techniques though).
Both painters are setup straight in front of the camera and Zaphod does some Q&A while they are painting. These comments from the OFF are sometimes pretty funny e.d. that is where the ALRIIIIIIGHT!!! comes from :) Maybe here is some space to optimize so that the painters are watching a bit more into the camera and not to the side where Zaphod and/or the self-monitor is placed. Telepromter effect you know? And one odd thing I noticed: The aspect ratio of the filmed material seems to be a bit off on my TV. Some parts of the screen is cut off, I tried to fix it with on-board possibilities of my TV but nothing worked. On my PC everything works fine.

Painting Buddha - Season 1.1:Target Identified | The Miniatures

After unboxing the Season 1.1:Target Identified set and having all the stuff lying around I decided to split my review into different parts because it really would be too much text for only one post. Additionally the box contains of 6 DVDs with two different approaches to painting the miniatures (and the base) so I will cover them later after I watched them completely and have a better and more general opinion of all the stuff (my first impression is a very good one). The miniatures are delivered in a small metal box with the Painting Buddha logo which is sealed with a sweet, little sticker. As already said, these small details give me the feeling that there are people at work who love(d) what they are doing. At this point of writing I notice that I completely forgot to take a picture of the miniatures inside the opened box, but you can see it on the overview picture in my first glance post if you want.

DVD Review - Miniature Painting Secrets with Jennifer Haley

Finally I had the time and the muse to write my next painting DVD review. As promised I will have a look at the "Miniature Painting Secrets with Jennifer Haley" from CMON. The set contains of 2 DVDs and says it contains about 6 hours of instructions in roughly 8 chapters.
By now you should already know who Jennifer Haley is, I did a tribute to her work a while ago.
The DVDs are in english and the painting footage is dubbed with music.
After seeing the trailer of this set I was really curious. If you missed it you can watch it directly here in all its beauty:

DVD Review - Painting Secrets with Natalya

Lucky me had the chance to get my hands on some painting DVDs for this weekend and spend some hours watching and enduring some of the stuff I saw there :)  I will start with the "Painting Secrets with Natalya" DVD set from CMON. The set was published 2011 contains of 4 DVDs and says about itself that it contains over 13-15 hours of instruction depending if you believe the printed cover or the product description. You can divide the set into roughly 5 chapters where Natalya tells you how she paints her miniatures. If you wonder who she is, maybe you know her from her artists name Alexi-Z or go visit her page now. Since Natalya speaks russian, the DVD is either in russian or in english (with voice over on the portrait parts). The painting footage is dubbed with music.

I like her work and after seeing the trailer of this set I was really curious how this set would turn out.