More of that Sweet, Sweet Marvel

After a through tidy of my hobby space, including putting down squishy floor tiles so it’s easier to find dropped pieces than on carpet, I found the proper head for Toad and Mel’s noggin is once again a free agent (though his mouth is a bit bigger than it was before).

So I couldn’t get the Saturday morning theme song out of my head and I ordered the X-Men. Figured it’ll be a nice treat for finishing out teaching the semester—once we get there. However, when I went to put Toad together I couldn’t find his head. Not to be deterred I said “Self, what extra heads do you have kicking about?” I replied “The first thing that comes to mind is the that the Terrain Tutor Mel mini that came with his book had two alternate heads.” So that’s what I went with.

I feel a bit awkward about it since it’s not the most glamorous model for Mel to portray. However, now I’m in a bind because if/when I do a proper tidy and find Toad’s head I’d have to decapitate Mel if I go back to the original head. Meanwhile, it gave me a smile so that’s something.

Once i saw that the wings were clear acrylic I decided not to paint them. I figured the texture and color difference would be nice and that clear wings would be perfect. I guess I’m in the minority since it looks like everyone else is painting them. I really like my final result. I just left them on the sprue (so they didn’t wander off) until everything else was painted up. This, of course, had the added benefit of making painting the rest considerably easier. Then, after a layer of matte varnish, I glued them in and brush primed, painted, and varnished the nubbin in the center.
This concludes the current batch that I have. I do have Miles Morales and Spider Gwen coming sometime in January. That may be the extent of my CP purchases for a bit. I will get the X-Men at some point, of course. Who could resist? However, I have a bunch of other things to paint (I’m looking at you Relic Blades, Rising Sun, Guildball, Infinity…) and I really do have A) many of my favorite characters, B) more than enough minis to field a wide variety of squads.
Side note about painting yellow: it used to be a real bugbear until I tried some Montana paints. They’re meant for ink pens but you can get the refills and they are full of pigment, work great in an airbrush and work well with a brush, though you have to avoid using them on large flat surfaces as they crack. There are four colors (an orangish brown, an orange, a bright yellow, and a pale yellow) that I use for yellow and there’s not of the need for multiple coats that so many yellows exhibit.

He was pretty straight forward to paint once I decided on what sections should be red. He was, however, a beast to assemble. You’ll notice his regular size form is missing a belt. That’s because the instructions tell you to put it on after you’ve stuck his legs to his torso. There’s a small gap, made smaller by my not getting his pose quite right (see his fist off the ground?) that the belt piece has to slot into and mine wouldn’t fit. In the process of trying to force it in it went flying, never to be seen again.
Long story short: I’d recommend putting the belt on before you glue his torso and legs together.

If I was any good with an airbrush the smoke plume would have been quick work. Instead I made an evening out of it with a brush.

I also made the purple a lot harder than it needed to be. My brain processes highlights much more easily than shadows so I started with a very dark purple and worked to highlight it up and it took forever to see any noticeable progress. Eventually, I pretty much threw a new basecoat of a bright/pale purple on and then darkened down the shadows and that was much quicker. I guess shadows are the new technique I get to work on for the near future.

Overall, a really neat sculpt. Definitely captures the essence of Green Goblin. He went together quite quickly once I figured out that one of his pumpkins had already been thrown.

These were really fun to paint. I was particularly pleased with how Wong came out. He went from someone I wasn’t too interested in to someone I’m looking forward to seeing on the table.
I spent a stupid amount of time faffing about with Strange’s rings. Taught me I’m rubbish at detail work with the airbrush so I pretty much started from scratch and did them up with a brush.

Next on the docket: Strange, Wong, Goblin, AntMan, and Wasp. I’ve had them for a hot minute but I’ve been busy elsewhere.
Figured I ought to get these done before I dive into the X-Men.
PSA: for normal sized AntMan do not follow the instructions. Put his belt on before you attach his torso to his legs.

So…I’m not sure how metallic this looks. I’m probably too chicken to make the highlights as extreme as they should be. I think it looks decent in this cartoony setting but any suggestions for future improvement on this or other NMM projects are welcome. If he wasn’t so pricey I’d get a second, paint that one up with metallics and use it as a reference.

All Vallejo (excepting Agrax)

1. base with  72.153 Heavy Brown
2. wash with Agrax Earthsade
3. highlight back up with 72.153
4. highlight with 50% 72.153, 50% 72.151 Heavy Gold Brown
5. highlight with 72.151
6. highlight 50% 72.151 and 50% 72.001 Dead White
7. final edges with 72.001

After it all I ended up putting a thin wash of 72.151 over much of it, particularly the pure white. You can see the progression from 3-7 here. Step two is shown in the previous (in process) post.

This concludes what I have on hand so it’s time to take a break from painting CP for a bit. Maybe I’ll get stuck back in to Infinity. I certainly have plenty more to do there.

Next up I take the plunge at NMM. Just too much metal to do with metallics. At least, that’s what I’m saying now. We’ll see how I feel after a few hours of mucking about tomorrow eve.

I tried to document my painting of white but discovered the photos really don’t capture the difference in shading. If you’re interested:

1. Base 70.821 Ger C Beige WWII
2. First highlight 70.986 Deck Tan
3. Second highlight 70.918 Ivory
4. Final highlight 70.951 White

I use the pure white very sparingly but I may have been too generous with colors 2 & 3, yielding less variegation than I’d really like.

Next up, the Mad Titan himself!

This was a really neat sculpt (though I do worry about her long run structural integrity) and fun to paint as I haven’t done a great deal with purple to date.
Pretty much just used three different purples (all Vallejo) and lightened each up with increasing amounts of white for their respective highlights.
Skin (excepting the middle section of her face): 74.030 Violet Vamp

Clothes (and center of face): 74.027 Amethyst

Straps, thigh and elbow pads, edges of armor: 74.028 Witch Purple

His skin turned out to be a lot easier and quicker than I expected—base of (all Vallejo) 71.032 Golden Brown over Zénithal prime. Wash of 70.939 Smoke (maybe my favorite paint). That was pretty much it. I did throw some highlights on his face and threw thicker coats of Smoke over the knobby bits in his skin. My only concern is that his color palette is close to Groot’s. In time I may go back and lighten him up a bit. Or I may not.
I will say he went from being one of my least favorite of this bunch to—well, not my most favorite but I do like him a lot more than before. He has his own sense of proportion and until he was painted he just fell awkward and out of whack.

He has two glowing purple bits on him (done after the pic was taken) and I did what I should have done on Ronan’s hammer: 72.087 Violet Ink over 71.065 Steel (and make sure the Steel is fully dry before you break out the ink or you’ll have a muddy mess).

Now for the two sisters to finish up the Guardians affiliation and then a wrap up with Thanos.

Clothes (all Vallejo)

1. 70.823 Luftwaffe Cam Green
2. 50% 70.823 and 50% 70.922 Uniform Green
3. Pure 70.922
4. 50% 70.922 and 50% 72.033 Livery Green for the raised bits/borders

Arms, legs, and belt:

1. base of 71.065 Steel
2. a mix of 72.085 Yellow Ink and 72.089 Green Ink. I went mainly yellow on this so it would stand out/add variety.

I’d say he’s the least interesting sculpt in the range so far. But maybe that’s in keeping with his ethos/character: unimaginative.
Went with the comic color scheme of green but threw a bit of grey in to tone it down a bit and set him apart from Hulk, Ronan, and Gamorra. Also too heavily sprayed him with the matte varnish so he is a tiny bit shiny. If anyone has suggestions of how to dull him down I’m all ears.

Together…forever…as friends!

More brown. Tried to change the tones up for Rocket. Went a bit more cream/yellow than red/black.
Also kept away from metallics. The gun certainly isn’t NMM but I’m pleased with it. I didn’t want it to be the center of attention (as if that’s possible).

Lots of wood. Lots of brown. Tried to give him texture and variegation to add interest.

All Vallejo unless noted:

1. Base with 70.872 Chocolate Brown
2. Coat of Citadel Agrax Earthshade
3. Highlight with Chocolate Brown covering most of the surfaces
4. Highlight with 50% Chocolate Brown, 50% 70.847 Dark Sand. Started painting in large lines of texture.
5. Fine lines of texture and some general highlighting with Dark Sand
6. Wash with 70.828 Woodgrain over the whole surface
7. Wash with 70.939 Smoke in recesses/underhangs to create depth and shadow. Repeat as necessary
8. Final edge darkening with Smoke

Overall I think He looks pretty decent and has reasonable interest for a big block of brown. And yes, I know real trees aren’t really very brown but groot is.
I made a point to do the limb on Rocket’s base at the same time and in the same fashion so I wouldn’t get stuck trying to match what I did here later on.

Not sure if she’s too blue rather than a blue-black. I’ll live with her for awhile and see if I need to make a change.
Her left arm is a bit janky as the tiny piece you need to glue on for her elbow went flying across the room, never to be found, when I was putting her together. Turns out my green stuff ability is pretty limited but…I did what I could and she’s much better with a janky arm than with no arm.

Update: in the end I did some checking and her clothes really are almost always just black. I threw a black wash over them to ramp down the blue and now I’m going to see if I even notice the blue and, if so, whether I like it better to create some variety or if I decide to go back and paint her clothes up from scratch.

I used the following for his skin and for Ebony Maw (all Vallejo):

1. base with 74.013 Forest Skin
2. wash with 74.009 Deep Forest Skin
3. highlight with 74.013 Forest Skin (Left pic)
4. highlight with74.015 Pale Skin (Middle pic)
5. final highlight with 50% 74.015 Pale Skin and 50% 74.016 White Flesh (Right pic)

A decent but not overwhelmingly exciting mini. I’m pleased with his rocket plumes. I wanted a flame/smoke mix so part way through I had to change from the deepest parts being lightest (flame) to the highest parts being lightest (smoke). They’re not perfect and I feel like flame is something I could really stand to work on more but they’re definitely serviceable.

He painted up pretty quickly—well in three hours, which is quick for me—and he may be one of my favorite things I’ve painted. you can also see how the base turned out.

That dry brush technique works really well on stone (see the rock around Thanos throne in the last post) and not quite as well on the flat concrete of thes bases but I’m still perfectly content with it.