Friday 27 March 2015

"Anything Is Possible, Dear Boy."

"Another cup of tea, please, Alfie."
This plastic 28mm miniature of Gentleman Ghost Jim Craddock is made by “Wizkids” and is model number 90 from their “Heroclix” “DC Comics” Origin range of pre-painted figures. Once rebased I applied several thin layers of “Vallejo” White over the notorious undead highwayman in order to ensure a smooth(ish) covering all over his transparent flexible sculpt. I then liberally washed the model with Pale Grey before dry-brushing it with more White.
This gargoyle comes from the base of the "Heroclix" model Captain Ben Daimio
I have also managed to finish painting the large plastic stone gargoyle I recently removed from the base of my Captain Ben Daimio “Heroclix” miniature. As the tombstone is so large, I thought it would make an excellent objective marker. So having undercoated it “Vallejo” Heavy Bluegrey and then washed it with “Citadel” Nuln Oil, I simply dry-brushed it with more “Vallejo” Heavy Bluegrey in order to bring out the model’s wonderful detail. In addition I picked out a large snaking vine on the side of its battered column with “Vallejo” Heavy green before washing that with “Citadel” Thrakka Green.
Copper coloured WIPs - From "DC Comics" Girder and Robotman 
I have also started to progress some of the other “Heroclix” figures I based during the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge but never got close to finishing. Both of these miniatures are based upon characters from “DC Comics”. Having previously undercoated Girder with “Citadel” Tin Bitz I have now managed to ‘polish’ the model with a couple of layers of Copper in preparation for washing the entire model in brown ink. The actual comic book super-villain is made entirely from living iron so is pretty one-dimensional colour-wise. But I have seen him drawn with dull silvery hair on occasion, so I plan to break up the figure’s monotony a little bit by painting his locks similarly.

Clifford Steele, also known as Robotman, is one of my favourite members of the super team The Doom Patrol. I’ve applied the first of a couple of undercoats of Copper over the super-hero so far, and then also plan to wash him with brown ink before dry-brushing him with more Copper.

24 comments:

  1. Excellent stuff, Blax! The ghost looks great and would work well for some pulp craziness. I like the use of the gargoyle as an objective marker and will steal the idea with some of the heroclixs bases-" will have to look to see what I have unpainted. Girder is coming along really well and am looking forward to seeing what he ends up looking like.

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    1. Thanks CW. I don't like throwing anything away which is why I like to use every part of the heroclix bases that I can... and as an objective marker or simply table decoration I think the gargoyle looks good. Really happy with Girder. Hard to believe that is the same colour paint on both him and Robotman.

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  2. I'll say one thing ... With you following the exact colours of the characters, I'm certainly seeing and reading about new ideas that I would never of thought about. In this case, both the white ghost and the metal 'men'.

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    1. Cheers Roy. I try and stick to their 'classic' colours as best I can. But there's nothing more monotonous than painting and then looking at, a mini which is entirely the same colour. And many super-heroes seem to be unfortunately :-)

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  3. The Gentleman Ghost and the gargoyle look excellent. As Chris said the Ghost would work well in a pulp setting as well as in a superhero game. Sadly, I know nothing about him, Girder and Robotman as I'm not a fan of DC Comics. Even so, you make them look good with your great brushwork.

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    1. Many thanks Bryan. The Gentleman Ghost is one of my fave baddies of all time. For a start he's English, and secondly he's so wonderfully polite. The others are lesser known characters to be sure, though "Doom patrol" is one of "DC Comics" better known super-teams.

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  4. Very nice Bk. The ghost and gargoyle look great. My favourite is what you have done to Girder, that looks superb, great looking metal dude.

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    1. Cheers Bob. Girder's got a bit of work yet but he has plenty of detail to bring out with a wash and then another 'polish' of copper. I think the silver metal hair and beard will really make him stand out as well.

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  5. Blimey, even more superheroes of whom I've never heard before! Surely there can't be too many more; I thought that I was at least reasonably aware of the genre.

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    1. LOL C6 :-) Hopefully you'll be surprised by a few more to come. Though I have realised that apart from Batman and Robin, a few "Marvel Comics" characters, I've actually not painted many of the more well-known personalities. Something I need to address.

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  6. The pics show Girder after the wash has been applied, I'm guessing. Looks very good. The planned variation in hair-color is a good call.

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    1. Thanks Finch. I haven't applied the wash yet. The two photos show Girder after I've 'polished' copper straight over the Tin Bitz undercoat. By letting that darker colour show through I get that lovely burnt iron colour (otherwise he'd look identical to Robotman). The wash should now give these areas some more depth and then when I dry-brush with copper it should act as a highlight. Hope this makes sense. Just sorting through my silvers as I want a dull looking silver for the hair and beard.

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  7. I too like the Gentleman Ghost, though I know him best from the cartoon series Batman the Brave and the Bold, looks good and a lot nearer the TV version than the original "Clix" fig. But the Doom Patrol! now your talking, will we have a Negative Man to come?

    Cheers Roger.

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    1. Cheers Roger. Sadly I don't think there is a Negative Man "Heroclix" figure. I know of the Negative Woman one but she is supposedly a super rare so I've never seen her for sale. I do have an Elasti-Girl though to do, and a Beast Boy. I also had the Chief but the model is awful, so I gave him away.

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  8. These are excellent looking figures I really like the gentlemen ghost mini.

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    1. Thanks Simon. Much appreciated. Very much getting back into super-heroes... once again ;-)

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  9. I thought of adding a wheelchair bound leader model to my "Doomwatch" team, though he'd never really get played with more as just a complete'est thing for my OCD compunction, had thought of converting (well adding hair and a beard to) a prof X figure but still haven't even got round to looking for a fig yet.

    Shame about Neg'man, I've got a beast boy myself and a plastic toy dinosaur but wasn't that happy with the figure of BB and was on a casual look out for something else (I know what I want but cant find one sort of thing). Might see something at SALUTE and push the idea forward a bit more, That Giantess figure in Fourcolour mini's range could work as an elasti-girl proxy and I do fancy painting another one of those! hmm you've got me thinking now (damn you!) as they say "wargaming is like sex, you spend more time thinking about it than doing it".

    Chers Roger.

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    1. There are a few good Prof 'X' "Heroclix" out there - though I think the one I plan to paint is in a hover-chair. Certainly with your green stuff skills I'd have thought you could do a terrific Chief, Roger. I might have a go myself :-o

      The Elasti-Girl "Heroclix" is very impressive and rather tall as well, so if I can get Robotman finished, she'll be next on the Doom Patrol list. I must confess to being unimpressed with the vast majority of Beast Boy sculpts, though the leopard one is okay. But why pay all that money for a plastic leopard when a metal one is a lot cheaper - and a better sculpt :-)

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  10. Of the beast boy I have, he is half turning into a green (naturally) monkey or gorilla. But for my twist on it (Critter Kid) I was thinking of using the juvenile cave man figure from Copplestone Castings
    http://www.copplestonecastings.co.uk/range.php?range=HA
    (pack C29) or something along these lines (I don't really want the other figures in this pack as I already have them and have painted them up, though I suppose a couple of them could be converted to supers I and the clean shaven one would make a rather nice Conan).

    Looking forward to Elasti Girl now.

    Cheers Roger.

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    1. Its hard to beat Copplestone Castings for anything Roger, so I'd certainly be very interested in seeing you paint him up as Critter Kid. I'll try and base and post a picture of Elasti-Girl for you, as I'm just finishing off Ben Grimm and Awesome Android, and always like to show some WIPs at the same time.

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  11. Right I really am damming you now, you got me thinking about that Prof X figure and so I went onto Ebay to look for one and found the one I'm after in a collection somones selling off along with (also includes Robotman) and have ended up buy all 180 fig's!! Expect to see some of these up for sale on the web-site at some point (after I've taken out the one I want of course. (I'm not really blaming you of course LOL).

    Cheers Roger

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    1. LOL Roger :-) I look forward to seeing the conversion - perhaps as an early Mo'vember entry ;-) I'd be delighted to take some of those minis off of your hands so I look forward to seeing them on the website... though as you'll see from my latest posting I've gone and got into something new(ish) :-o

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  12. Never seen the headless chap before. Nice mini though with a look of an Invisible Man that is convincing.

    Likewise with the other bronze coloured sculpts, though they are certainly interesting figs.

    Objective marker has come out very nicely.

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    1. Cheers Dai. Big fan of the Gentleman Ghost. Rather pleased with the tombstone objective marker too. Thanks for stopping by :-)

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