Do you know what happens when a Toad gets hit by lightning?

I’ve finished another mini for the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, to accompany Blob that I previously painted, Toad:

He’s another early Heroclix sculpt, so some of the details are kind of rough, but honestly I think that they have so much charm that I love them regardless.

For all my claims of rough sculpting though, look at that surprisingly defined musculature:

I can only assume that as well as eating flies Toad has a particularly structured workout regimen.

This brings my total of finished Brotherhood of Evil Mutants to three of the four needed for a regular sized game of Super Mission Force (including the Scarlet Witch that I painted way back when), although my initial plan is to paint up a couple of alternate groups - one being more ‘mooks’ like Blob and Toad, and another being ‘Magneto and his children’, with other key characters that can be swapped in as needed before then spiralling off into weirder foes as they take my fancy. 

This is probably why this project is taking so long though, I should maybe have painted individual minis in isolation as they took my fancy (as I generally have with the rest of my superhero stuff), but I can’t help getting carried away with something like this…

Finishing him brings the Tally to:

6 vs 24 = -18

Next - more!

Danger…

 … Will Robinson? Wait, wrong robot, it’s actually this robot called Danger that I’ve painted:

I think my first exposure to the character was actually pulling this mini out of a heroclix booster (as I ended up buying a bunch for cheap from the Works when the game first went away) and my first thought was that… she looked a bit dumb. Then many years later, I read more comics and my X-Men fandom increased, and I thought… well, that she was still pretty dumb, to be fair. It’s the danger room, but walking around in a robot body? Then I read X-Club by Simon Spurrier, and honestly Danger’s still kind of dumb but in a way that I’m actually also fairly fond of…

She’s generally portrayed as being a metal frame around some glowy internal bits, like this:

So I went at her with the only pot of contrast paint that I own, to sort of sink into the recesses, and also make a quick and easy glow effect. This was fairly quick and effective, and is the main reason that she is the first ‘goodie’ that I’ve finished for my X-Men project rather than one of the more iconic characters!

As well as finishing her, I also nipped into GW with my wife to grab the new mini of the month:

As a Death Korps Engineer can definitely find a home in an inq28 warband!

So, no great change to the Tally, which now stands at: 

5 vs 24 = -19

With six days to go until Salute…

I’m Venom, my body weight is 40% tongue…

In between painting pieces for the Umbrella Academy board game, since I already had some black paints out I also finished this monstrous guy:

Whenever I’ve played with superhero miniatures with my children, my youngest has always asked to be Venom, which I didn’t have a miniature of, but thanks to eBay I’ve managed to rectify that. I’m not sure where my son’s love of the character comes from - he’s desperate to watch the Tom Hardy movies, but given that he’s five that’s not really on the cards yet. 

The spider logo came out quite nicely, I think, due to judicious use of Gundam liner pens to get the bits that I’d have struggled to line with a brush, then carefully tidying up with a brand new brush that came with my Father’s Day present, and has rapidly become my current favourite brush.

You wouldn’t believe it, but the black on Venom is three different shades, which you’d struggle to see in my pictures. Believe it or not, this was the second set of pictures I took of Venom, using natural light, but here’s another posed picture from the original set of Venom menacing the Spider-Man that I painted years ago:

I’m hoping to play some a super Mission Force with the kids, so I need to work out the stats for the symbiote. When asking my son who else he thought he might like to be on the same team as Venom, his first answer was Spider-Man (which I initially tried to object to, but thought the better of it), followed by Green Goblin. I have a Hobgoblin mini that I could paint, but apparently only ‘Green Goblin, wearing purple and green’ will do.

As of now, the Tally stands at:

57 vs 192 = -135

Now, back to the Umbrella Academy board game, no distractions. Honest.

The Protector of travelers in the night

 Moon Knight! He’s been prepped to paint for ages (I think since the Disney series was initially announced), but finally got finished this week, as the final episode of the aforementioned series is now out…

Which is surprising, given that he’s basically one colour. 

I’m not a huge fan of painting white, but have discovered the secret to this - paint it a very light grey and then use grey to shade it, before adding white to the mix to highlight, and it comes out looking not terrible!

Well, don’t look too closely at that cape as I describe it as not terrible, but you get what I mean.

The miniature itself is an old bendy Heroclix figure picked out of a bargain bin at Salute many years ago, mostly because of having seen the character in someone’s avatar many times over the years over on the LAF (you’ll know who I mean if you ever frequent that particular forum). In the years between buying the figure and actually painting it, I got round to reading a bunch of the Moon Knight comics (the Ellis and Lemire runs, and even the Max Bemis run) and found myself enjoying them. Now, on to paint one of his iconic enemies like… I don’t know, another Moon Knight? Some sort of mercenary? Some generic dudes? Maybe I’ll shelve that plan then…

The Tally:

15 vs 46 = -31

Next, back to that unit of Skaven I’ve been working on all this time, but still haven’t got ready to show…

Who is the most important Avenger?

 Probably Hawkguy:

He’s been sat half painted for years, but watching the current Hawkeye show prompted me to get him finished. Also fun was attempting to persuade my wife that he’s called Hawkguy rather than Hawkeye…

It’s a fairly tricky sculpt to get a picture of, given how hunched over he is. On the plus side, that means you can’t really see the lack of detail on his facial features, and my attempts to make him look more human. Part of me thinks I should have replaced the bow, but I think the original lump has a charm of its own (it’s an oooold Heroclix sculpt, so he’s good and chunky)

I went old school for his colour scheme, using the 1969 Marvel Comic Annual for reference, which was my first introduction to the character:

Once he was painted, I pinned him to a base I had handily prepared some years earlier - I was making some bases for The Walking Dead figures one past Zomtober, and this one came out too tall. Looking more like a typical ‘hero rock’ rather than post-apocalyptic pavement, so while it was no good for that, got stashed waiting for the right superhero to come along.

(This picture also got posted on Instagram with a caption claiming that I’d spent hours painting the invisible man, of course).

Finishing Hawkguy brings the Tally to:

43 vs 23 = +20

and also means I’ve got a half-decent spread of Avengers now:

Although you can really see the difference in sculpting styles between old and more modern Heroclix, look how giant Hawkeye looks next to the more slender Captain America! I should probably get around to painting some baddies for them to fight too, so here’s to hoping that I find some AIM or Hydra minions in a bargain bucket at a future Salute…

Wandavision

 Well guess what I’ve been enjoying on Friday nights?

I wasn’t initially particularly fussed about watching it, but my wife insisted we give it a shot (as she is always wiser than I) and I was hooked from the first episode - as soon as it finished, I hared off to the basement to dig out some minis from various boxes of Heroclix!

The Scarlet Witch I knew I had (I was always a fan of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, and so have figures of the majority of their classic members), but wasn’t sure about Vision.

After much rummaging, it turns out the only Vision figure I had was the female version (from the Ultimates?), so I found an online store with a sculpt I liked for pennies. 

Waiting for him to arrive, I started voraciously consuming back issues - definitely check out the Vision mini series if you enjoy Wandavision! I’ve since ploughed theough

Side note - when finding Scarlet Witch, I also stumbled on dozens of other figures I now want to repaint, and so was sidetracked into looking up Superhero ruleset, and also giving the X-Men movies a second chance...

Looking at the Vision figure next to Wanda, you can tell that they’re from opposite ends of the release schedule - Wanda is I think from the first set, so I’ve probably had her for somewhere between fifteen and twenty years (terrifyingly), and her proportions are somewhat more cartoony than the computer sculpted Vision from a more recent release, with his slender limbs and sensibly proportioned noggin!

Ugh, I went way too hard with a soft tone wash after basecoating Vision’s cape, and the following weeks were just an exercise in trying to undo that. Part of me thinks I should have just stripped it and started again, but after a certain point it feels like you’re in too deep!

And yes, these two fairly simple paint schemes took weeks to compete, mostly because I wanted to paint them whilst watching Wandavision (thematic!) but hampered by the fact that I was paying attention to the screen too much to do any actual painting when it was on...

Done now though, and taking the Tally to:

6 vs 18 = -12

With only one more episode to go, how do we think it is going to end? 

America! Fuck Yeah!

"Comin' again to save the motherfuckin' day, yeah…"

A bit of a random one, this. It's something plucked half finished out of the painting queue that I worked on here and there whilst waiting for washes to dry on other things, mostly. He's a repainted Heroclix figure, so the facial detail is almost non-existant, but I'm passably satisfied with how the shield turned out, so there's that. After much deliberation, I went for a reddish leather effect on his gloves and boots, as a sort of halfway-house compromise between the movie style and the classic comic costume.

Finishing him means I now have a bevy of finished Avengers - but no one for them to punch... I do have a classic style Hawkeye eyeing me from my painting desk awaiting undercoat though, so who knows, you might see some more Avengin' types in the near future...

Tally:
34 vs -46 = +80

Something of an anomoly...

... a Spider-Man villain that isn't animal themed:

As mentioned in my previous post, it wasn't just Thor Ragnarok that we had to watch to get caught up, so we also watched Spider-Man Homecoming, which again was really good (and not just because it includes a pleasing number of members of the Sinister Six). Thus, I dug out the Shocker mini that I'd had lurking around for a few years and got to painting!

One unusual thing you'll notice in this post: natural light! Unfortunately, that makes it easier to see some of the flaws... I love that the Heroclix figure had the sculpted detail on his body suit, but unfortunately it is very, very shallow, which led to some issues when going over it again after the wash!

So, here he is getting a web to the face and a quip to the earhole:

Tally:

12 vs -69 = +81

Korg, leader of a poorly advertised revolution

Breakout star of Thor: Ragnarok, it's Korg!

"Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Korg. I'm kind of like the leader in here. I'm made of rocks, as you can see, but don't let that intimidate you. You don't need to be afraid, unless you're made of scissors! Just a little Rock, Paper, Scissors joke for you."

Watch this if you haven't seen Thor Ragnarok:

Then again, it's probably worth a watch even if you have seen the film, just to remind yourself of how much fun Korg was...

Recently, in order to be caught up with the Marvel Cinematic Universe so that we could watch Black Panther in the cinema, my wife and I chugged through a few of the films that we'd missed, and were pleasantly surprised to find that they were good fun, and inspired me to paint something up (expect another imminent post featuring something else from a Marvel movie)

He's a wacky rock guy, there's not a lot else to say really. The rest of my superhero project stuff is mostly street scale (Spider-man and his villains fighting rather than intergalactic space war) so lord knows if I'll ever use him for anything, but hey, sometimes you just want to paint something because you like it...

Here he is with a dodgily painted Thor to give you an idea of how big he is:

Tally:

11 vs -69 = +80 (yes, I sold some more miniatures so the Tally continues to look incredibly uneven, but that Hellboy Kickstarter Mantic have on the go currently isn't going to pay for itself...)

Monica!

Is gonna microwave your ass (to once again reference the Nextwave theme tune):

She was in the Avengers, you know.

This was quite a fun miniature to paint, even though I'm not normally a fan of painting white, and colour matching something existing rather than just making it up as I go along (the jacket, in this case) is also not one of my favourite things. I was tempted to try and paint some 'sparkles' on the 'whoosh' effect on the miniature, but thought better of it...

Finishing Monica means that I'm now past the half way point for completing the Nextwave squad (and it's only taken me five and a half years). Once I've finished Tabitha and Aaron, I'll see about getting some Doombot heads to splice onto generic suited thug bodies to make some mooks for them to punch out. Plus, another fringe benefit of Nextwave being such a mad series is that I could dig through my stashes of Heroclix, pull out multiple Wolverine models, replace all their heads with telephones, and call it good for a random Beyond Corporation weapon...

Tally:

1 vs 0 = +1

But what next? I think I might stick to my guns and try to clear off my painting table to make space to make some terrain, truth be told...

You wouldn't like me when I'm angry...

Before I start any new projects or models, I thought I'd have a crack at finishing off a couple of the miniatures currently sat half-painted on my paint palette. Hence, one Hulk:

Originally started when the wife and I made a concerted effort to watch our way through the Marvel Cinematic Universe, after knocking out Iron Man and Thor my enthusiasm waned as I focused more on other projects.

I'd considered painting his trousers classic purple, or something at least a little brighter to give some more visual interest to the figure, but a quick google image search of stills from the first Avengers filmed revealed that he's wearing black trousers, so black trousers he got.

The Hulk's a bit of a big lad, towering over most other figures, which doesn't make for the easiest figure to take pictures of:

But yes, she does have a face! The Hulk was mostly finished when I came back to him, mostly just needing his base and pupils painting to get his to this stage of completion!

I even painted the back too, where you'll find surprisingly detailed musculature - Heroclix figures are often quite nicely detailed, if you can pick out the good ones!

Finishing the Hulk brings the Tally to: 

25 vs 131 = -106

Alas, poor Captain America (the last of the four modern Heroclix figures I'd prepped) may never see the light of day, although my brother-in-law has just lent us the second Avengers movie, so you never know...

It's been a little while...

...but I've managed to get a couple of bits finished this week! Well, last week really, this post has been sat in my drafts for a little while (8 days now I think?) getting a sentence or two added here or there before being relegated back to limbo! 

These minis were mostly sat near-finished on my painting palette, and it was mostly just a case of finishing their basing before snapping a quick pic!

First of all is a figure that I won on a Facebook competition, 'Big T' from Pigeon Guard Games. I realise that I hadn't added him to the tally yet (presumably as the original plan was to paint him fairly quickly and get him posted up ASAP), so I'll get that amended at the end of this post!

He's a lovely little figure, and potentially the cleanest resin cast I have ever worked with, and will join my band of generic survivor types to get drafted to fight zombies, fungus men or intelligent apes as I see fit! He also came with an alternate hand holding a cigar, which I'll have to see about finding a use for!

A while back (as I may or may not have mentioned on here) the wife and I were working our way through the Marvel movies (as previously we hadn't watched most of them because I am a terrible geek that hates adaptations of everything and it takes me a while before I settle down enough to enjoy such things on their own merits - ridiculous, I know) and so I ended up painting some more Marvel heroes:

Iron Man! By the third film it's really a case of Tony Stark just saying 'fuck it I'm going to blow holes in my enemies I've had enough of this'

Thor! Terrible sculpt if you look at it for too long, but nice enough at arms length or on the tabletop!

Further proof of how long this post has been sat in Drafts, when I started it I (like so many others) had caved and bought an issue of White Dwarf as for the first time in an age it came with a free man:

I may base him up on a square base just to set fire to the internet...

Interestingly, I popped back to Games Workshop (or 'Warhammer', as my local branch has now been rebranded) during the week to pick up a second copy so I'd have a spare for conversion purposes (thinking maybe some sort of Space Marine Company Champion or something Inquisitorial perhaps) but it seemed they'd sold out - ah, the age old appeal of the freebie! 

So, all in this brings the Tally to:

23 vs 106 = -83