In 2018, Mantic did a special edition Holiday Hellboy for Christmas. This past Christmas they did a matching Krampus figure as well.
This is a resin model, and it comes with three cards to use it on Hellboy: The Board Game.
Krampus is crouching on top of a cabinet filled with skulls. Nice detail on this, with divots in it to fit the figure atop it easily. I would have preferred that the vents were on the bottom instead of the top where you can see them (and it takes more work to cut them off and clean it so they can't be seen) Even the back has detail on it though.
The cabinet sits on a base which is also filled with skulls. So many skulls - you almost think this was a GW model :-)
The actual base is floorboards, with yes, more skulls. There is some nice detail here though - I really like how one of the boards is slightly bent up and protruding, so that the floor it not just perfectly flat.
Krampus himself is not an overly difficult model to put together. The body and legs are one piece
Then there is a small sprue with the right arm holding to the top of the cabinet
Another sprue with the head and left arm. You can see where Krampus decided to study under the Gene Simmons school - having a tongue that could make him your very best friend.
Krampus isn't really wearing clothes, but he does have sort of a scarf hanging off of him on either side.
Then there is the tail and the horns. Watch for the horns, one was off the sprue and at first I though it was just a bit of random resin that you sometimes see. The tail is also interesting as it is flat on one side (because you will attach it to the back of the cabinet!)
Assembling it is not hard, but there are some tricks to it. Which means, of course, that I did it wrong (that is what I'm here for after all - to make the mistakes so you don't have to!)
First glue the cabinet foundation to the base - it fits very well - almost so well that I had to pry it off after dry-fitting it.
Then glue the cabinet to the base. I'm thinking it will be easier to paint if I keep this separate, so I'm not gluing Krampus here until he is all painted up.
I'm not gluing him, but he fits snug enough to use it as a base for the pictures.
To me the next step was to glue on the arms. DO NOT DO THIS YET!!!!. Instead, go down to the two pieces of the scarf and glue those on first. This is because the arms fit over these and will help to hide the joint. I discovered this when I went to glue the scarf ends on after the arms, and had a difficult time doing it.
Each scarf end fits the socket on his hip - you will want to check both to make sure you have the right ones on each side (ok, the right on on the right side and the left one on the left side).
Then you can glue the arms on, and they should help to cover up the joint for the scarfs.
After gluing the arms on, I discovered I had a slight miscast in my model. The chain hanging off the left arm is missing a few links and does not meet the chain on the right arm. I believe this is something I can fix by either making a few new links, or just replacing the entire chain. But I haven't done that yet.
The head fits on the shoulders nicely
The horns then fit into the sockets on the head. I am concerned that these may be a bit fragile and break easily - but this is also more of a display piece than one I'll actually play with much.
Finally, the tail fits into a socket on his butt. This is where I noticed that one side is flat, and I realized this it to allow you to glue it to the cabinet - providing more stability for the entire model.
However the finished model does look nice.
I'm not sure when I'll get to this guy in my painting queue - I have so much other stuff to get done before convention season starts (like two sets of the base Hellboy game that I need by the middle of April for Daycon and Origins).
Lastly the two christmas Hellboy minis together
Because it is all fun and games . . .
Comments
Post a Comment