The Bruce’s Decent into Madness & Comic Style Painting

I’ve been following Mike at Epic Duck Studio’s and his comic book style painting on Youtube for quite some time and have wanted to replicate this on something myself for longer than I can remember or care to admit, I’ve continued to find excuses for a while most of them just that… excuses but the main issue I kept finding was getting the recommended inks without paying extravagant postage costs and thankfully 2 weeks ago I found a local(ish) art supplier with the Daler Rowney FW inks in stock, so one order later and a few days waiting and my black & white acrylic inks finally arrived.

So for those who are not aware the black gets used for the black lining like you’d find in a comic book, the white is used in replace of a white primer and I have to tell you in testing this for the first time I’m not sure I’ll ever use white primer ever again, this was a complete game changer, its easier, its far more effective its covered the black primer like it wasnt even there as you’ll see in a moment in the pictures.

Between whoever the old turtle in Kung Fu Panda was, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Tutles and Franklin from the old kids books/TV show theres no shortage of anthropomorphic turtles to get some inspiration from, the backpack made me think of Franklin but in the end I went with a mix of him and the TMNT team.

However when blocking out the colours I must admit I immediately chicked out of doing NMM for the first time as part of this challenge, as much as metalic paints are likely going to look weird in this art style I felt one challenge at a time was enough.

Im still extremely nervous about getting into the Marvel stuff when it arrives but starting with someone “less important” has definitely helped, the big thing Im dreading right now is the black lining only because I dont have the most steady hand when it comes to free hand type stuff but I recognise I have to start somewhere.

My question to you is either what challenge in your hobby do you keep putting off and whats stopping you? Or what have you dont recently to test yourself?

To give context I’d pre-ordered the Core Set, Hulk & M.O.D.O.K. from pretty much the moment wave 1 was announced and I had ordered it with my local, I always will given the option. After of course checking if they have intentions to get it in, expecting this to be a hot ticket item so close to Christmas but as someone who’s become friends of the owners I try to mix my help and suggestions with the understanding that they can only carry so much. Sadly however due to a staff error I ended up having to order from elsewhere very much last minute. (I’d rather not go into it). So in the end my new order was made 4 days before release and the shipping notification stated I wouldn’t get it until Tuesday the 19th, sad but hey it gave me a chance to finish my Turtle right? You know.. when I wasnt working or alternatively dying in the Melbourne heat. So imagine my shock and delight when the game actually arrived on release day Friday 15th.

I build most of the boxes Saturday with the exception of M.O.D.O.K that I got completed Sunday followed by some priming and painting with a new product (for me anyway). I’ve actually got a video I’ve recorded for Getting Tabled but its not uploaded yet so expect that soon. The following is where I am standing right now.

I’ve used Vallejo black primer but I also recommend the Badger Stynylrez primers they just don’t seem to agree with me in the warmer months I find they clog too much so it was back to Vallejo but that white you can see is a single coat of Daler Rowney FW white ink, I did do a couple of touch ups in in some of the more preeminent areas. Its a product I’d never used before but without a lie I never see a reason ever to use a white primer ever again.

Sorry for the delay on the video but I had some technical issues with my Windows video editing software.

For Hulk Ive started with a much brighter green than you’d normally start with Badgers Gremlin green then highlighting up from there see with the comic book style the black outlining makes the colours look darker than they are so thats why I didn’t start with something more akin to Orc skin. I still have some more serious highlights to do yet.

The part im dreading more than anything else is the black lining thats going to be the true test for me personally.

I spent some more time with the Jolly Green Giant today building up the contrast on him, especially with the pants, comic books dont tend to have smooth transitions its more strong contrasting panels which really does go against what I’ve always done but its a nice challenge to go outside of your own instincts. Im likely going to go one level higher again (hopefully) for the vains I’ve got a fluro green which should work well but we’ll see how it looks.

From here the next step is going to be the basing when I have more time and then of course the scariest moment of all when I move to black lining. For those wondering, hair has been left on purpose as I need a colour I don’t have any left of.

A simple entry today just to explain the delay, as I am attempting to replicate the look and feel of a certain style there are certain colours I’ve either never used or ran out of that I needed to replace. I’ve made the order over the weekend mostly Citadel but a reaper paint as well. Just waiting for them to arrive tomorrow and we can get moving again.

Sorry for a bit of a dull entry today but if you havent seen the below do check it out and I use this as a reminder that you should find new ways to challenge yourself either by trying something you havent done or trying to improve something you’ve been struggling with.

After Windows video editor went down and refused to render the video but after purchasing something more concrete I present you with my first ‘real’ edited video. This is the reason I will never use white primer ever again.

I chose the use Daler Rowney FX acrylic inks because that was one of the brands recommended by Epic Duck Studio’s

Any feedback on the videos would alsao be appreciated, other than your camera is crap, which I know 😛

I’ve followed the with the same colour palette used by Mike from Epic Duck Studios so that red is Mephiston, the blue is Caledor Sky both from Mephiston, right now the white hasn’t been touched since the white ink was used as seen in the video. So far even the really tony details are a lot of fun here but I’m not going to call the mini perfect, there is actually a detail in the midsection of where those lines are supposed to be but its INTENSELY hard to see, I’ll be going back to that once Im happier with where everything else is, I might even re-white it and start again..

The best piece of advice I can offer here is to take your time, enjoy it.

I continue to see the same compliments for this particular model and I am beginning to understand why, its such a unique character and challenge and now that Ive started the basics I can see why people are falling in love. Now for those of you who know MODOK I suspect your wondering why on earth he’s brown?

Well you know what hes my mini I’ll paint him now I.. no Im kidding this is actually another tip I’ve picked up from elsewhere and I wasnt really sure at first but it worked well in the tutorials I was watching from Epic Duck and felt it was worth keeping, yellow is a pain to paint but scrag brown makes a good base because it can look like its just a shade if its done right. Heres hoping I can get close

One thing I’m trying to do from here on out is getting better pictures for those trying to follow this, I own the light booth I shouldn’t keep forgetting I have it haha

I’ve always had a love for the Marvel villains, theres a tonne of work still to be done here but not JUST using metallics on Ultron is really hard but they dont work well with the style so Im trying my best at another style, Im already hating myself for it but if I dont ever try NMM I’ll never get NMM.. This will stay simple most likely but we’ll see how he progresses.

Sadly in my paint order I recieved the wrong black so a lot of my models are still on the shelf waiting…

Captain America, Spiderman & Captain Marvel share a colour pallete and theres not really much point trying to pretend otherwise, sure I could move into what other people have done by sticking with the movies but the whole point of this was comic style so here I am… I am however very very tempted to keep that white spider as a hint to the PS4 game earlier this year.. And just for Lloyd.. I have a picture…. Of america’s ass

Captain Marvels sash needs to be re-glued but I took the chance to paint it separately..

I knew I was going to lose myself in this game and hobby challenge which is one of the reasons I put the challenge forward. Theres nothing truly ground breaking here yet a lot of what we’re looking at in this post is purely base colours but if you’ve seen Epic Duck Studio’s work then you know where its headed. Whether I can get it THAT good is yet to be seen but this is where I want to genuinely leave you with my #1 piece of advice when it comes to taking inspiration from others..

Find inspiration in the work of superior artists but dont lose yourself trying to compare your work to theirs. Look at your progress not what you see as your personal failures. If you can keep your head down then you never know.. Maybe one day you’ll find you’ve been helping people in the same way.

I’ve made no attempt to hide this but getting to the black lining of these miniatures has been absolutely terrifying, Ive been extremely nervous about ruining all of my hard work with my lack of freehand skills but finally I’ve started… With the Jolly Green himself.

For those of you who have been following this for a while you should finally be able to see something Ive been trying to explain early on, which is that the black lining of the miniature makes the colours look darker than they actually are, which is the main reason why Ive been trying to keep everything as bright and ‘poppy’ as possible. I can’t sit here and say its perfect because its not, Im unhappy with the back in particular but for my very first attempt ever Im happy to call him here, I’ll see if I want to revisit him after Ive been through the rest of the set.

I wasn’t up late last night… You were up late last night.. shh Im an adult I can do what I want…

Okay yeah so I didn’t stop at Hulk last night I finally upped the colours on Modok (he still needs some massive highlights but I grew impatient, no regrets yet. I’m kinda stating the obvious here but the only way you’re going to get better is to practice right? So after I got the base colour right I decided to keep going with the black lining.

All of the black lining on here (as well as on Hulk) has been done with a W&N size 2 brush, which is why its a bit too thick in places on Hulk but I feel I mostly controlled it better here. Its still not my strong point but Im already happier with how its improving.

Now its worth noting that Mike from Epic Duck tends to suggest to avoid black lining the faces and thats the way I intend to go, he generally says the same thing about hair but I am going to do it with Modoks hair but only because his hair isnt natural to begin with and I think it will help keep it looking different.

Help me for this descent into madness isn’t stopping…

Okay all jokes aside this was always one of my plans for Ironman & Ultron, its how it was done by Epic Studios and using actual metals in the comic book style looks weird. So yeah it was time to put aside my stubborn refusal to give in to the style and actually just hobby.

yeah I’m hinting at a bias here which isn’t anything to do with the style itself more so how some people treat others who haven’t gone that route or don’t want to, its not everyone just some people that ruin it for everyone. Also kinda the over use thing, somewhat like OSL is seen so often you tend to get tired of seeing it after a while but during this mission I intend to actually try with both, one of the reasons why I’m leaving Red Skulls final painting until last because if I screw it up I’ll need to redo him entirely… Not the greatest of thought.

So how about we look at some models?

Like many people the pandemic changed a lot of things for me, personally it meant things got so much more insanely busy, followed by a lot of physical and mental exhaustion.

Truth be told thats why this project stopped progressing, I definately have intent to return to it but with 5 current active projects I needed to officially close this one off, for now… Knowing My current active stuff is not being documented I am going to try and start actually doing a better job of that instead of just mentioning things on the podcast.