Deadpool kills…err..paints the Marvel Universe

And so now we reach the end of the beginning…aka Christmas.  The last two boxes I received as gifts this year.  The first is Thanos the Mad Titan who is both a playable character and also an Ultimate Encounter  (which allows one player to take the role of a powered up Thanos and two other players to run teams opposing him).  The second are alternate timeline versions of Spiderman the ever popular Miles Morales and Gwen Stacey (aka Spider-Gwen).

All three were a lot of fun to paint.  One item that was a bit difficult was the webbing on Gwen’s arms.  If you’ll recall an earlier entry the core box Spiderman has the webbing depressed into the model.  In Gwens case it’s raised which I think makes it harder to keep clean.  Some of it might be due to the use of lighter colors as well (pink and teal).  I do want to go back and add a bit of graffiti to her base but I’m happy to have her ready to take to the table.

Jumping back to Thanos, his throne was probably the part that took the most thinking.  All the source art for it just shows it flat grey.  I stuck to that concept but tried breathing some life into it with alternate colors and by adding some energy effects along the base.

As a side note I’ve played through his Ultimate Encounter a few times and it’s a lot of fun.

So, ignoring the terrain from the core pack that brings me to the end of what I currently have for MCP.   Fear not though for reinforcements are on the way.

To expand the X-force Colossus (and Majic), X-23 and Honey Badger will (eventually) be on the way.  Additionally for the X-men two of my favorites, Gambit and Rogue are being released and lastly I ordered Star-Lord for my son as he wants to start a Guardians force.  All are still sitting on pre-order here in the States so…waiting….:)

One very cool facet of the Deadpool box (and a reason it’s more expensive then most) is that it include his Chimichanga food truck which is a size 3 piece of terrain.  This was a lot of fun, and a fair bit of work, to paint up.

I made things more difficult on myself by deciding to go for a bright, sunset type fade from red to yellow across the sides of the truck.  Unfortunately this was after I primed it with a zenithal highlight which had a fair amount of black on one side.  This made getting the lighter sections a lot harder and I was already too far in by that point to want to redo the base.

The unicorn on the back is just something I added as that big billboard area needed something.

Not sure if it will show on the pictures but I tried to add some depth to the kitchen area.  The trays, drinks and food are all bits included in the kit that you can add in (I also used some on character bases).

Overall it makes for a nice piece and somewhere Bob and DP can hang between missions.

As it happens, when I was buying Cyclops and Storm  the Syn/Viper box was on sale and who can pass up a bargain?  I didn’t know much about either character at the time but I knew Syn was an alternate leader for the Cabal so knew they’d at least have some use.

Nothing too crazy in the paint job though after finishing I feel like Syn might need a tattoo on her outstretched arm.  Maybe I’ll go back and add one in the future.

For those unfamiliar with the game, MCP groups characters into affiliations which, if you use a majority of your force from one affiliation, can grant bonuses to your force.  It’s a nice way of allowing you to field any characters you want while still supporting the classic groups (X-men, X-force, Avengers, Cabal, Hydra, etc). In many cases individuals are part of multiple affiliations which allows you to shift the affiliation you choose in a given game by assigning a different leader.

That’s all important at the moment as, at the time I was painting them, X-force had a limited number of models available but many of the members are also in the X-men roster.  So that lead to picking up Cyclops and Storm as they are both leaders for the X-men affiliation.

Cyclops was another straightforward model (more yellow).  Classic pose but nothing too crazy.  Storm was a whole different story.  I love the “ride the lightning” sculpt and had to try and get a good lighting effect going from it. I went with a blue/white for the lightning just to make it a bit different.  The whole setup seems really fragile but as with other models the springiness of the plastic seems to make up for it.

Can’t recall exactly now but if I remember correctly I might have clipped or partially clipped part of the stub on the lightning she connects two (there are two touch points).  It worked out but just another word of caution to double check before you clip stuff.

Worth noting that I painted her separate from the lightning base.

To round out the X-force (at least based on what was available at the time) were everyone’s favorite pair of regenerating, clawed fury.  I painted Wolverine up in a color scheme the match how I generally picture him.  I thought about going with his darker X-force outfit but couldn’t kick the classic yellow (more yellow!).

Sabertooth was a fun model to paint.  Fairly simple in the design but still interesting details and textures to work with.

Oh and I couldn’t help but add a little touch from Wolverine’s biggest fan to the base.

With the characters from the Core Box done it was time to get back to the faction I planned on playing… the mighty X-force.  To make that happen it was time to get Deadpool’s close personal friend Cable and Domino painted up.

Cable is a very cool model with the option to go with a cape or slung rifle.  Ignoring Edna’s advice I went with the cape as I felt it added a more dynamic element to the sculpt and also allowed for some more color contrast.  In addition to the character himself, the model also includes a cool telekinetic shield.  I painted this separate from the rest of the model and added it on afterwards.   I did the same for the cape/head which made hitting all the bits of gear on his body a lot easier.

Domino was another character who had a lot of different (either subtly or significantly) versions of her art style.  In the end I picked one I liked and that seemed to fit the model and rolled with it.  Figuring out where exactly some of the lines of color should be took a bit of teasing out but I got there.

Her pose riding an explosion pretty much required OSL  I probably could have gone for a stronger contrast on some of the debris but am happy with how it ended up.  Speaking of which, figuring out what was debris and what was explosion/smoke was tough in some sections.  In the end I think it’s just a mater of “you decide”. 🙂

Finally we have the two big boys of the Core Set Doc Oct and Ultron.

Doc Oct was fairly straightforward as far as the model goes but all that yellow was a pain to build up (Painting MCP has made me realize how many heroes/villains shop in the Yellow section of the costume store).  The model is fairly static but I like it well enough.  The newer version AMG released is pretty impressive though.

Ultron presented two challenges.  The first was to make sure he didn’t end up just looking like a lump of grey.  I tried to get some good contrast between the inner body and the outer armor to help with that.  The second was all those plates.  Most had good borders to delineate where one stopped and another started but some of the patterns could be a bit confusing.

Once again I tried to add a bit of a depth effect to the base to tie the sculpted terrain on the mini to the base.

Continuing on it was time to get the Cabal put together and painted.  Red Skull was first and was pretty straight forward to paint.  His Cube of course needed to have some OSL.  I like how it turned out close up but it may be a bit too subtle from a tabletop view.

Next we have Crossbones and Baron Zemo.  The reference art I found for Crossbones was almost all just flat black on black so I diverged and added in some greens and browns to mix it up.

Zemo was one of the characters I was unfamiliar with.  A lot of his art really leans into bright purples and yellows which read as a super villain costume where as the mini seemed more grounded.  I decided to lean that way and went with more “realistic” colors that tied in more with some of the more modern imaginings I found.

Continuing along…

Black Widow was pretty straight forward

It occurred to me while painting Ironman that he could easily turn into a mustard and catsup mess if things got too yellow.  I tried to stay more gold and I think it worked out. I also went for some glow effects to help make the power points on the suit stand out.

Last but not least is the teams leader Captain America.  He had a bit more detail than some of the others.  The red and white lines on his waist were a bit tricky at times but worked out well.  Also took a bit to figure out how to highlight the shine off the shield.

First attempt at this post got eaten so I’m going to split things up a bit more in the hopes that it helps.

With Deadpool set it was on to the core box.  I asked my son if he’d like to paint them or if he’d rather I do it and wasn’t too surprised to end up with the job.

In all the models went together well enough.  Most of the Avengers did have some level of gaps though so filler was needed.  Mainly this was at the leg joins but some at the shoulder as well.

First up is Spiderman

As one of my all time favorite characters it was great painting up Spidey.  I initially thought getting the lines of the suit painted would be difficult but because they’re depressed rather than raised it was fairly easy to start dark/black wash and then build up the red without losing the lines.  I meant to add a bit of fishing line to act as a web shooting from his hand but haven’t gotten around to it yet.

Captain Marvel was fairly straight forward though her sash made for some tricky brush work at times.  Her rock is a good example of where the mini’s built in terrain can clash a bit with the base.  I tried to merge them a bit by painting it as if the road were being peeled up.  On the ground behind it I tried to add some depth to sell the illusion a bit.  It came out reasonably well and at least implies a hole.

I’d been looking at MCP for some time but it wasn’t until the Merc with the Mouth showed up that I was really pulled in.  As mentioned in the description I started by ordering the base set for my son but Deadpool managed to slip in on the same order.

Before delving into that though, this is probably a good spot to mention some general thoughts on painting the MCP models.

Firstly they paint up really quickly.  I think there are a few factors that contribute to this, the first being that they are a slightly larger scale than the 28/32mm mini’s I’m used to.  The second factor stems from the fact that they all come from a comic book medium.  This leads to a limited color palette and simplicity of design.  Unlike fantasy or sci-fi mini’s which are generally created and done, I get the feeling comic artists didn’t want to draw tons of gear hundreds of times and so these mini’s (which stay very true to the comic versions) aren’t bogged down by excess “baggage”.

The second thing that was different for me was having source material to guide how to paint them up.  Granted most manufacturers will have examples of painted versions or supporting artwork but this is really the first time I felt like I wanted to make a point of staying true to the source material.  This is also when I realized how many subtle as well as major costume changes comic book characters go through.  It was interesting going through Google image searches to find a source image or two that I wanted to work off of.  This is also when I found that it can be difficult to get a good image of a characters back.  I’m sure there’s a general rule that you want your characters “facing” the reader but that can make it a bit tough to figure out how a design flows onto a characters back.

The mini’s themselves look great.  AMG picks some cool poses and isn’t afraid to put some pretty thin contact points and weapons on the models.  I was pretty concerned about Deadpools swords for instance or Storm’s lightning but so far it seems the plastic is springy enough  to shrug off a bit of abuse.  I haven’t been brave enough to put any of it to a real test but so far so good.

On the downside the fit of many of the mini’s leaves gaps.  They’ve been easy enough to fill but are pretty common and sometimes significant.

I like that many of the mini’s have alternate pieces (arms, heads, etc) which allows for a bit of customizing.  Including sculpted bases (generally with extras) is also a nice feature though the city-scape bases sometimes conflict a bit with the mini’s built in terrain (ex. characters on rocks and such).

Overall I’m quite happy with the mini’s and with the game as well (more on that later).

So with all that said time to get to the painted stuff and of course Deadpool insisted on being first…

It took me a bit to decide if I wanted to go with the more 4th wall breaking version of DP on the rocket and with the Fwoosh!  In the end I shrugged and said to myself “It’s Deadpool” and went for it.  I did hedge my bet a bit and the Fwoosh is pinned/removable rather than glued in place but a this point I don’t see myself ever pulling it off.

The mini went together well with maybe a bit of filling.  There are a number of options included (different heads, legs, torso, etc) and they can be combined to give the mini a significantly different personality.  As mentioned earlier the thought of his swords snapping off scares me but they seem pretty sturdy so far.

Painting him was a blast.  I went with the classic red as it keeps the blood from showing rather than the X-force grey.  Perhaps worth mentioning that I painted him seperate from the rocket and stuck him on after both were pretty much done (his foot slots into the rocket). Oh also worth mentioning that in some of the mini’s the tabs they’ve cast sometimes look like just extra mold artifacts.  Double check before removing!

Of course Deadpool wouldn’t be complete without is buddy/hostage Bob!

Bob was also fun to paint.  He’s pretty straight forward so that let me spend more time on the rocket launcher and his base.  Another really characterful model and could be built with or without chef hat.

Next up the Core Box!