Saturday 2 May 2015

"Get Ready To Bite Down!"

"Girder's out! And I ain't goin' back so come on!"
This 28mm plastic model of Girder is made by “Wizkids”. It is model 014 from the “Heroclix” DC Comics Flash Booster Set. Created by Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver in 2001, this villainous mass of living iron first appeared in “Flash: Iron Heights” by “DC Comics”.

 Because the somewhat bulky model is 43mm in height, he was first super-glued to a 40mm circular base before I undercoated him with some “Citadel” Tin Bitz. I then dry-brushed and polished the figure with “Vallejo” Copper. This really helped bring out a lot of the somewhat soft sculpt’s finer details, and gave the miniature a nice shadowy cuprum-coloured layer upon which I applied a heavy wash of “The Army Painter” Strong Tone Quickshade. I then dry-brushed the entire model with more “Vallejo” Copper. As I wanted to break up the monotony of his somewhat one-dimensional paint scheme, I decided to paint Tony Woodward’s hair and beard with a combination of “Vallejo” Gunmetal Grey and “Citadel” Nuln Oil.
Mankind's last hope WIPs - All three Colonial Warriors have had tan undercoats
 Followers of Simon over on "Brummie's Wargaming Blog" will know he’s a big fan of “Nexus Miniatures” and their inspired Super-hero Dinosaur Zombie Apocalypse (S.D.Z.A.) range of models. Indeed Brummie has painted and posted up several of their ever-increasing figure collection. As a result I’ve bought a few myself, and having recently received my latest order found them to be such a stimulating distraction that I’ve put them to the front of my painting queue.

These first three models are D-Rangers and go by the codenames Helios, Galicia and Joey. They’re rather large thickly-set 28mm models which are full of cartoony character. I’ve already undercoated them tan as I intend to paint them up as the Colonial Warriors, Apollo, Starbuck and Boomer from the original 1978 American television series “Battlestar Galactica”.
The truth is out there WIP's - Early days for my FBI agents and an upright dinosaur
I’ve also managed to base and start painting two of the company’s American Agents Wolfe Sculder and Katherine Mulley. These are far slighter sculpts than the D-Rangers but should make some excellent looking FBI Agents investigating unsolved cases involving paranormal phenomena. I’ve decided to steer away from painting this pair in just black suits, as I want to use such a colour scheme for my Men in Black models. So in order to make them stand out a bit I’ve gone with giving Fox Mulder a dark brown suit and Dana Scully a dark blue one. 

“Nexus Miniatures” are also developing a rather wonderful looking range of medieval-themed dinosaurs. As I have a few of these models from a previous order, I thought I’d take the opportunity to finally base one up and start painting it.

18 comments:

  1. These are an awesome start! Looking forward to seeing thrm finished!

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    1. Thanks Simon. All your fault obviously but Drew is certainly churning out some seriously tempting minis at the moment :-)

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    2. I accept full responsibility :P

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  2. Excellent brushwork on Girder, Simon. As for the others, I'm really looking forward to seeing them completed. They are a fine set of figures that I've added to my own shopping list. I blame both of you Simons! :)

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    1. Cheers Bryan. Much appreciated. Nice to be the one tempting you for a change. I really do need to crack on with these "Nexus Miniatures" too because I've just seen some the greens for their next wave of releases and they're essential purchases as well. But for now though I have some werewolves to finish... ;-)

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  3. You certainly find some amazing miniatures and a great start you've made too. Medieval dinosaurs eh? What's not to like!

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    1. Thanks Michael. I do like the "Nexus Miniatures" range, but there's just so many interesting figures out there at the moment that I'm getting swamped flitting from mini to mini :-) I should have two (old) projects finished today. But I need to stop looking at new releases for a while... hard to do though when there's so many great blogs out there highlighting them to me :-)

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  4. Nice work on Girder. I always like 'metal-body' characters, from Robotman, through Colossus,to 80's Captain Atom, Shrapnel, and Bulleteer. Girder was unknown to me, but you have done a nice job sir. :)

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    1. Much appreciated pulpcitizen. I really like Girder but he's not one of the first names to leap to people's minds when you mention the Flash's Rogues Gallery. I too like the more metallic-looking characters, with Colossus being an all-time fave.

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  5. Classic BSG was so much better than the remake (same could be said for Dr Who and V, but I'm not getting into that argument at the moment), those are nice sculpts though a little on the chunky side, Scully and Mulder look rather nice though I was never into the series.

    And you said you don't like painting Gold! that is one cracking figure you've got there Simon, and before you say it's copper not gold it's near as makes no difference. Excellent!

    Are the Dino based on "Dinotopia" the TV series? I only ask as the other figures seem to be TV based.

    Cheers Roger.

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    1. Thanks Roger, Girder has turned out rather well I must confess... but Copper is easier to dry-brush than Gold ;-) I entirely agree with your sentiments Ref Classic vs remake serials :-) The BSG models are a little bigger than I'd like but should be good for the "Crooked Dice" Cylons I bought at Salute... and if not I believe "Nexus" are doing their own version at some point - hopefully by the same sculptor in order to keep the look and size the same. I've never seen "Dinotopia" but all of "Nexus" range seem to be based upon some post-apocalyptic earth where dinosaurs co-exist, so I'm really not sure. There's only two sculpts to that range so far but they're very nice. In fact they really match well with your splendid range, which is why I purposely didn't base mine on the lipped bases they came with.

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  6. Girder looks great dude! All the others are pretty cool looking mini's. I think Sculder and Mully might just be "must haves". Looking forward to their progress.

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    1. Cheers Bob. Very happy with Girder. The FBI duo are very nice little sculpts and are certainly "must haves" in my books :-)

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  7. Great job on Girder, BK. The steel hair/beard & dark wash frames the face very well.

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    1. Thanks Finch. Glad I decided to spend the additional time on him. Looks far better than being all copper.

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  8. Can't wait to see those Colonial pilots painted up.

    All really good additions to your collection sir.

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    1. Cheers Dai. They're certainly full of character and should look very good on the table once finished. Plus "Nexus" are promising some appropriate opposition soon :-)

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