Wednesday 13 June 2018

"I'm A Part Of The New Frightful Four!"

"I'm not taking a back seat to anybody in this group!"
This 50mm tall plastic “Wizkids” model of Hydro Man is miniature number 012 from the Sinister Marvel "Heroclix" range and is based upon the water manipulator who formed part of "the antithesis to the Fantastic Four", the Frightful Four. Transformed into a "man-of-water" when he was accidentally immersed "in a deep ocean dwelling bacteria" and exposed to an unknown radiation, Morris "Morrie" Bench's villainous alter-ego was created by Dennis O'Neil and artist John Romita Junior for the January 1981 issue of "The Amazing Spider-Man".

"Able to bodily transform himself into a watery liquid substance", the former the U.S.S. Bulldog crewman was initially primed with two coats of "Vallejo" Dark Blue so as to 'mask' its transparent, blue-coloured plastic and washed with "Citadel" Drakenhof Nightshade. The "typical low rent super criminal" machine was then dry-brushed using several more applications of "Vallejo" Dark Blue, with each one having a little more "Vallejo" Dead White added to the mix.
"Heroclix" Solomon Grundy WIPs - The undead criminal is slowly being transformed into a horde of ice zombies
As a last touch to Hydro Man's arms and lower torso, I applied a second, final wash of "Citadel" Drakenhof Nightshade over the areas and lightly dry-brushed the cusps/ridges of the waves with some extra "Vallejo" Dead White. In addition, I applied two coats of "Citadel" Abaddon Black to the supposed expert street fighter's body and a combination of "Vallejo" Heavy Sienna and "The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade to his hair.

Sticking with "Heroclix" I am currently making some slow progress on my test piece for this year's "Forgotten Heroes" challenge, as organised by Dick Garrison and Carrion Crow. Having already done a fair bit of chopping on the five Solomon Grundy "Wizkids" miniatures I aim to 'convert' into some ice zombies for Mister Freeze to use as mindless minions (as per the plot to the February 1979 edition of "Batman" by "DC Comics", I'm now just slowly 'picking out all the "Vallejo" Dead White flesh on the frozen corpses...
"Scarlet Midget" Cosplay Starship Crew WIPs - The four miniatures have simply been primed
Having received a much-anticipated white cardboard package through the post yesterday, I have also added a few more miniatures to my painting queue which will undoubtedly work their way up through my queue in ultra-fast time. Previously produced by "Y.F.T. Design" as part of their "Nexus Miniatures" range, these models from the Perkūnas Mining Corporation "Scarlet Midget" Cosplay Starship Crew are already out of production, but once finished should provide me with some science fiction-based "character-driven comedy" tabletop action.

I've actually managed to 'track down' the entire discontinued range, so expect to see future postings featuring Krissy-K, Rocky, Wildfire, Aunt Petunia, N.O.R.M. and Sputter-bots, as well as an alternative Charley. For now though, I'm working on Barry, Felix, Charley, Kry-10 and a fair few lazookas...

26 comments:

  1. Great job on Hydroman Simon, nice progress your ice zombies, so you got the full set of the scarlet midget, did you order the vehicle as well?

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    1. Many thanks Dave. Hydro man has been sat on my table for quite a while waiting to be finished. Hopefully I'll have an ice zombie or two completed soon too. I never got the opportunity to order the vehicle unfortunately, though I have seen a print-out of it - its a shame it went OOP so quickly.

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  2. Excellent job on Hydroman and grundy is off to a good start. Nice start on the sci fi cosplayers

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    1. Cheers Simon. Lots of starts this time round, as my "Burrows & Badgers" have taken all my attention lately. Hoping to get a few of the sci-fi cosplayers quickly finished...

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  3. Can't imagine Hydro man is very popukar among the cosplay community, akin to Aquaman (if The Big Bang Theory is anything to go by). Having never heard of him (of course) he does look a bit ridiculous despite your excellent brush-work, but nevertheless I'm guessing he has some great powers.
    The others look to be very interesting characters and sculpts and will be looking forward to the finished articles.

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    1. Thanks Joe. Hydro Man was quite popular for a while, and an arch-foe of Sand-Man at times too. I'm hoping to get a few of Spider-Man's foes finished in the next few months, and Hydro Man is one such villain.

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  4. I like the water effects on Hydroman very much. Good work mate.

    (Not) Red Dwarf minis!? How come I never heard about them...? *pout*

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    1. Cheers Dai. Hydro Man should have been finished ages ago, but for some reason I simply never got round to doing him.

      As for the Red Sector minis, well I do get a lot of messages these days pointing out different ranges/minis to me, and this was one I had to buy into. It’s been a long wait to finally get them, but hopefully one which will be worth it.

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  5. A very intriguing post with a bunch of figures that I do like a lot, even though I doubt if I'd have much use for any of them in my own games. Still, I'm sure you'll do a first class job on painting them and showing us how cool (or not!) they are in a few batreps. Best of luck with all of them!

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    1. Thanks Bryan. I’m certainly hoping to get all these minis on the tabletop soon, and involved in some BatReps. I certainly have some interesting pairings in mind for the Red Sector crew.

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  6. Loving Hydro Man, but can't wait to see the "Scarlet Midget" crew finishes. I had no idea these even existed.

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    1. Cheers Michael. I want to get a few more “Heroclix” minis finished over the next few weeks, with Hydro Man simply being the first. The “Scarlet Midget” minis weren’t around for long and I’m delighted to have got hold of them :-)

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  7. An interesting bunch of minis. I have not heard of Hydroman, but he looks great. The water effect is very good and I am off to look him up after writing this. You have a great imagination as the use of those Soloman Grundy minis show and I can't wait to see how they turn out. A group shot with the rest of your Mr Freeze gang would be awesome too! Those other figures do look like the crew from a certain mining ship so I am intrigued how they come out, especially the square headed looking gentleman! Where do you find all this stuff?

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    1. Thanks Undercoat. Hydro Man is one of my fave Spider-Man villains and a great “Heroclix” sculpt imho. Hoping to get the first three of my Ice Zombies finished this weekend, and a Mr Freeze group shot will certainly be forthcoming. I love the “Red Sector” stuff and was very lucky to both see and get my hands on the minis before they went OOP. Expect plenty of mining ship postings next month when I try and focus upon the range a bit more :-)

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  8. I seem to recall you startimg Hydro-Man a while ago, which would explain why this post initially seemed familiar. Must be nice to have him finished. The zombies are progressing well, but as I'm unfamiliar with what they're supposed to look like, I cannot tell how close you are to the source material.

    And I was tempted by the Red Sector miniatures at the time and it was a shame that all the figures went OOP, but that's the power of C&D letters.

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    1. Cheers Jez. I am indeed pleased to have Hydro Man finished. He's a big mini, so has given me a little extra room on the painting table now he's done.

      You can see one of the ice zombies I'm going for at the bottom of my review for "Batman" #308 here: http://thebrownbagaeccb.blogspot.com/2016/03/batman-1940-308-dc-comics.html

      I've been in for the "Red Sector" miniatures as soon as I first saw them, so am delighted to finally get my hands on them :-)

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  9. I have re-posted the Ice-zombie part of this post to the FH site.

    Cheers Roger.

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    1. Thanks Roger. Just a little update this time round. More to come obviously :-)

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    2. Hydro man is a great sculpt were you inspired by Keiths "water wizard" to get him done? I was never a fan of Red Dwarf myself but I used to work with a huge fanboy of the series who went on about it constantly!! Nice figures though. Cheers Roger.

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    3. Hydro Man has been almost done for a good while, and simply caught my eye due to the space he was taking up on my table, Roger. I'm a big "Red Dwarf" fan, which is why I was so very pleased to get my hands on these "Red Sector" minis :-)

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  10. Very nice work on Hydro Man Simon, especially the water, and it's always good to see zombies of ANY genre under the paint brush :-)
    Another "hands up" here from someone who never got to hear about the (not) Red Dwarf minis and is now sulking :-(
    (but looking forward to seeing them immensely!)

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    1. Cheers Greg. The "Red Sector" stuff flew fast I must admit.

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  11. You've made an excellent job of the water effect, I think it's worked very well, very eye catching.

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    1. Thanks Vagabond. Hopefully Hydro Man will be the first of a Spider-Man Rogues Gallery I want to paint this year :-)

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  12. Nice water super criminal! Red Dwarf types look interesting.
    Best Iain

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    1. Cheers Iain. Hopefully the “Red Sector” stuff will prove reasonably straightforward to paint :-)

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