Over the past
couple of days I have mainly concentrated on applying a series of white drybrushes
to the model I plan to use as my Cold theme submission for the Analogue Hobbies
Painting Challenge. Although in many ways this can be seen as a lazy way of
painting, I also find it can be one of the most rewarding techniques for
bringing out a miniature’s detail, if you are patient and don’t try and get the
‘job done’ in one application.
The original “Heroclix” figure was actually a
bright translucent (plastic) blue and I was keen to retain that ‘ice cold’ feel
for his colour but bring out the frostiness and hard edges Iceman seems to have
whenever the X-Man is illustrated in a comic book. To achieve this I have simply
been building up the layers, and occasionally dabbing onto the figure’s detail whenever
the paint on my brush has become powdery enough. I’ve still a fair few more
applications to go yet, but once finished I’ll then draw a rather heavily
charged brush across the actual Mutant in order to highlight his hard edges in
a brighter white.
Meanwhile I have also started work on the belts for Sergeant
Rock and ten soldiers from his Easy Company. These are a little fiddly as the
sculpting is actually rather soft in this area on the plastic models, and their
rather thick pre-paint has not helped matters either.
Finally I have been preparing (and
then having been unable to resist, started painting) my target for next week’s
Challenge posting; Aquaman’s arch-nemesis Black Manta and five of his
scuba-diving henchmen. I actually based the super-villain when I was posting on
my old 2007-2008 blog, and he’s been waiting for a ‘lick of paint’ ever since.
This “Heroclix” figure’s actual (pre) paint scheme is just plain black with a metal
(wobbly) trident and large red eyes. However as the majority of his hired muscle
will also be predominantly black, and the more recent depictions of Black Manta in "DC Comics" has
him wearing a silver helmet and accessories, I plan to ‘pick out’ a lot more of
the detail on the miniature with "Citadel" Boltgun Metal.
I also have that figure of Iceman and I think he's a great sculpt. Your paintwork on him is first rate and the white highlights work extremely well. Good work, Blax!
ReplyDeleteThanks Bryan. I thought you might have the figure knowing of your love of super-heroes and "Heroclix". I managed to finish drybrushing him late last night, so just need to apply some snow flock etc and hopefully he'll be with Curt on the Challenge blog before the weekend.
Delete"if you are patient and don’t try and get the ‘job done’ in one application."
ReplyDeleteThat's me screwed then. I'm a 'biggest brush, dollops of paint' type of painter, and my use of drybrushing is a case of the paint sometimes being so wet it's anything but dry!
Cheers Roy. I think that's the biggest temptation with drybrushing and sometimes a dollop of paint works very well :-) But for this chap I wanted to get the paint extra dry and powdery so I'm afraid it was an hour or so spent with the brush whilst listening to the film "Fright Night". Not a bad way to spend an evening though imho.
DeleteMore fabulous fun miniatures on the desk! They are looking great.
ReplyDeleteThanks Michael. No models finished yet but when they do start finally coming out at the end of the line I hopefully will be producing a near endless procession of painted goodies (and baddies) :-)
DeleteWOW!!! I love what you're doing with the Iceman. The blue with that drybrush is perfect to bring out the details and to keep him looking cold. The pose on his is so dynamic and the way he's mounted is so cool. Did he come based like that? If not, what did you use?
ReplyDeleteNow altogether I'm counting six pulp figures. I'm fecked I tell you, fecked.
Hey, I'm going to try to find a way to keep track of my Pulp points and put it on my sidebar.
Many thanks Anne. Much appreciated. Sadly the only thing I've done is put the figure on a 40mm round base (which is out of shot). He comes like this and as you say the pose and ice slide is superbly sculpted. Fortunately he's now finished (much whiter) and I've just got to snow flock him in a few areas. I'm not sure which models you'd so far call Pulp tbh. They're all from 1950's-1960's comic books - even the soldiers and scuba-divers but Pulp figures to me are characters from the Pulp Magazines from the 1920's-1950's. As a result I would only probably count Sgt Rock from the "Our Army At War" publication. Sidebar is a great idea :-)
DeleteI'm only counting my little bot as Pulp for me. The Seeker is more modern Sci-fi. So I've only 5 points. I don't necessarily feel like a figure has to be a character from the Pulps in order to count. But you're right, if it's and actual character from D.C. Comics it's not Pulp. I've never read any of their comics and don't know the characters. But they certainly seem to be derived directly from Pulps.
DeleteYour name is Simon, yes.
Is it okay with you if I kid around a bit about our side duel on my blog? It can make things more fun for everyone if there is a bit of banter about our duels.
Anne, banter is very good. Always up for that :-) You're quite correct. All the early superheroes come from Pulp. Superman from Doc Savage and his fortress of Solitude in the Antarctic, Batman from The Black Bat and his cape and cowl etc. Looking forward to seeing your next blog entry more than ever - Simon :-)
DeleteCool as penguin poo dude!
ReplyDeleteHe's coming along beautifully, the other figures are pretty sweet too.
Cheers Bob. I've never had any contact with Penguin poo so I'm not sure just how cool that is :-)
DeleteDrybrushing is much maligned but it has its uses. Iceman is looking very cool.
ReplyDeleteLOL Thanks Finch. I tend to use drybrushing for the smaller scales but it seemed the best method for Iceman.
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