Painting Update - More Asgardians

Howdy everyone,

First painting post of the new year and brings me to the last Asgardian figures that I had waiting to be painted from Marvel Crisis Protocol. I recently finished Skurge and Heimdall in December and I have just finished up Thor and Valkyrie. I was lucky enough to have another excellent Sorastro video to refer to for painting Thor. For Valkyrie, I referred to some google search images and the box art that Atomic Mass Games had drawn up for this expansion.

The most consistent thing that I can say about these Asgardian's is that they have certainly pushed my comfort zone with non metal metallic techniques. Thanos was very challenging for me, but almost each Asgardian is sporting some sort of armour or weapon that screams NMM, and these two were no different. Thor also added an additional opportunity and challenge with object source lighting depending on how one wanted to go with the hammer. 

Sorastro's Painting - Thor

I elected to follow Sorastro's video fairly closely to push myself to try these elements out...and I'm happy with the outcome (although my pics seemed to have blurred or muted the overall effect - another thing to learn more about I guess), and Valkyrie was a lot of fun as well as I went fairly free with the model, not stressing over any specific paint scheme or pattern. In the end, like I said, I followed the box art as I liked that look the most.

Hope you enjoy the pics.

Thor and Valkyrie

...as I said, my camera seems to have muted the object source lighting affects of the hammer, I promise, they do look much better in person. I had actually done them with the intention of them popping on the right arm. They are fairly bright in some places.

I had some sort of reaction with my dullcote spray and it left this white film over sections of Thor's cape. I have since gone back and repainted these portions of the cape to cover up the film.

Trying to get the right NMM on her swords proved to be rather challenging and admittedly I think I may have 'whited out' the reflection along the main edge. The swords were rather difficult as there were multiple edges for highlights...took a few tries, in the end I stuck with the version I liked the most. But definitely more to learn for me.

The whole Asgardian crew...looking forward to getting all of them on the table at once.

2026's Trek up Mt. Shame

Painted

15mm         0    

28mm+       2

Terrain        0

  

Bought        0

Progress   +2

Marvel Crisis Protocol - Ghost Rider!!

Hey folks,

I hope all is well in your neck of the woods. My posting-fu hasn't been up to the challenge as of late but here we are trying to get some momentum back. I have had the Ghost Rider on the workbench for quite some time...I really liked the pose, all the fire, and just the dynamics of the model. Admittedly I was a little more than intimidated with trying to meet expectations that I had built-up in my head, but also to do justice to the model...not to mention, the chain is such a finicky fragile element of the whole model.

Anywho, I can happily say that I finished it...and I'm really happy with the outcome!! A chunk of the credit has to go to Sorastro and his excellent videos. I may not have followed his process through and through, but it was handy to have it as a reference that I could go back to throughout the paint work.

The fire elements are a huge part of this model, you literally can't look at a single part of the model without seeing fire...except maybe the chain, and then its a great object source lighting component. So yeah, the fire was definitely a challenge and I really wanted to boost those to really make them popout at you when you first see the model; really I wanted them to be the focal point. If you follow Sorastro's video, I stayed pretty close to his technique and then went further with the boost using Vallejo's Ice Yellow and Off-White.

This also pushed the boundaries of my comfort with OSL and how it would reflect over all surfaces, not to mention the subtle differences between the darkness of the bike frame and the black shades of the Rider's leathers. Again, all in all, I'm really happy with how it all turned out.

The only issue that popped up for me was when I glued the back tire to the base. I had ensured that the two surfaces did not have paint on them so the bond could be solid, but I ended up having a chemical reaction that cause crystals when the paint spread out (I obviously used too much) along the sides of the tire. Luckily I was able to prime the crystals and paint them up as fiery bits, so that's why you'll see a lot of fire element on the base itself. It gave me good reason to push the fire elements ever further on the tires, showing the fire wrap around the tires and spill over to the ground.

A good save I think, lol. I hope you enjoy the pics.

Painted 

15mm            73

28mm+          39, +1

Bought         121

Progress      -9

Here we go X-Force!

I know, its a little derivative…

Hello everyone,

I hope all is well on your particular front. Those of you Ontario way, I hope you and yours are safe and sound, given the events of this long weekend it has been quite challenging for some. If you are reading this on the tail end of the weekend, then hopefully you are sharing good fortune and have had power and some normalcy returned. 

As the title of todays post says, we’re talking X-force baby! Now to be honest I did not partake in the super hero comics when I was a kid, mostly historical or WW2 for this kid. However, thanks to the MCU and the success of those movies, they certainly helped bring MC Protocol to my door. So, all that to say, characters like Cable and Domino are relatively new to me. A huge shoutout to my main painting mentor Sorastro for his first takes on these figures…very inspirational and some great elements.

Cable was a real challenge to paint up, the model is very dynamic and the shield required a certain amount of faith and OCD for me to get through. The various armour components really gave me a chance to test some new NMM techniques. Not to mention, I really liked some of the ideas that Sorastro brought to it, specifically the smoldering cape. Also stealing his idea of showing some wear/heat on Cable's weapon, I took a look at my photo albums and got a great reference from Forward Observations Group of a suppressor showing great heat damage/wear after a day at the range. The colours were really neat to see...so I tried to emulate that.

 

As for Domino, she was a fairly straight forward figure with some great dynamic action. It was a challenge to decide on an overall colour scheme, again there were some great internet images of previous comic book covers and I had the artwork that came with the packaging. In the end I settled on a mix of a couple of covers. I really liked the action around her riding a piece of concrete hurtling through the air, and the explosion was a great test of colour...I really liked how the heat of the explosion shows on the underside.

I hope you enjoy the pics.

2022 Lead Mountain Climb

Painted

15mm               24

28mm+             23. +2

 

Bought             10

Progress          +37

MCP - Green Goblin

Hello folk,

 

I hope you are all staying safe and sound. I am continuing my posting momentum on the Marvel Crisis Protocol theme and I have to say, I really do enjoy these models. On one hand, there has been some amazing frustration with how finicky they be with assembly and certainly there have been some issues that have required some patching and layering of varnish to seal up.

On the other hand, the poses are dynamic and thanks to some great reference googling there are some really great examples to see...not to mention the box and comic book art that comes with the boxes and character cards. 

I have tried to keep true to the comic book feel and definitely leaned on the painting guide put together by Sorastro. I have to admit, there are some elements that took me a couple of tries to square away (the smoke plume, the Goblins rocket wing, and the pumpkins) but I am really happy with how things turned out...and really, I think a lot of it comes down to being willing to experiment and not approach this as having to copy stroke-by-stroke what someone else does.

Anywho, I hope you enjoy the pics.

2022 Lead Mountain Climb

Painted

15mm               8 

28mm+             17, +1

 

Bought              0

Progress          +25

Ladies Night - Marvel Crisis Protocol Gamora & Nebula

Howdy folks,

I hope all is well on your side. Apparently the North Pole got my request for some snow...we got a dump of almost 50cm the other day...or...almost 2 feet and then another few inches a day or so later. Very cool, nice thing is that the bulk of it was rather light and powdery, so no shoveling heart attacks!

As the title says, this one is about the ladies, and in this case we're talking the Gamora and Nebula pack from MCP. The sculpts are very dynamic and action oriented...and while I am not familiar with their comic book origins, being a big fan of the marvel movies, I thought the poses fit my movie expectations. As for painting them up, like the marvel figures I've painted to date, I wanted to go for a brighter, 'poppier' and comic book look and feel.

Now anyone who has been reading my posts will know, I am a pretty big fan of Sorastro and his style and approach to painting figs. Thankfully from watching him work I have been able to add a few techniques to the painting toolbox over the past few years. With no dedicated guides to go by, the paint scheme was really up to me on this...sure, there is some box art to go by...and the character cards themselves also help provide that comic book look and feel. But I am happy to say I was a little more confident approaching these models...and if I'm totally honest, it was Nebula that presented the biggest challenge.

 

Gamora was pretty straight forward, the box art was close to the comic book references that I found...white and black body suit, red/orange colour bands on them, metallic looking sword. Fairly straight forward and really happy with the results.

 

Nebula took some hard time to consider...the character card was great for scaling out her clothes and form, but the model has her leaping off a booster, rocket, or some motor type thing. Taking to the google, I saw that there was a consistent approach of hitting this 'rocket' with a straight metallic or single colour and adding some rusting/weathering. Given the dynamic model, the look and feel I was going for, I thought this rocket needed more.

 

Looking at the end of it, it reminded me of a inlet turbine so I did take a look at various rockets and engine for overall metallic colours.At th end, I took the chance to try out my shading techniques and try my hand at some non-metal techniques as well. Again, very happy with the result.

Take care...enjoy the pics.

The Ladies...daughters of Thanos

Lady Gamora

the warrior Nebula...very happy with how she turned out. The colours were a lot of fun to mix and paint up. The nmm was a challenge and t really happy with how I was able to get the shading/highlights that I was looking for...

2022 Lead Mountain Climb

Painted

15mm               8

28mm+             6, +2 (Gamora and Nebula)

 

Bought              0

 

Progress          +14