Wednesday 6 November 2019

"Those Blasted Rays Made Him Stronger Than Me!”

"He tossed me like I was nuthin'!!"
These two 28mm scale plastic “Wizkids” models of Mikhlo the gorilla and Peotr the orangutan are miniatures number 020 and 021 from the "Marvel" Supernova "Heroclix" range, and represent two of the Red Ghost’s three trained primates created by Stan Lee and Jack “King” Kirby for the April 1963 issue of “Fantastic Four”. However, the actual figures were mistakenly attached to the wrong bases when first released, and are disappointingly, significantly under-sized considering that they were both heavily exposed to the self-same cosmic rays which gave Reed Richards’ team their super-powers.

Indeed, Mikhlo’s superhuman strength supposedly “makes him roughly the equal of the Thing”, and this “has continued to increase over the years, such that he can probably now lift (press) roughly eighty-five tons." Whilst Peotr “possesses the ability to project magnetic forces, enabling him to attract or repel objects containing iron or steel”, and can assist in both “lab work and in operating spaceships.”
"You dare think you can stop the communist march of conquest!?!!"
Having removed the duo from their erroneous ‘clicky-bases’ and super-glued them onto 25mm circular stands, I primed Peotr with “Citadel” Doombull Brown and Mikhlo with “Vallejo” Heavy Sienna. At one stage I did consider re-painting the lowland gorilla black so it was closer to the stereotypical image of a silverback I picture in my mind’s eye, but having looked at the original character’s early comic book palette I decided to leave well enough alone.

Both models were then thoroughly drenched in “The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade, before being roughly dry-brushed with (more) “Citadel Doombull Brown” and “Vallejo” Heavy Sienna respectively. As a final touch touch I dabbed a little “Citadel” Abaddon Black into the eye sockets of the two villains, and subsequently tidied these areas up with a line or two of their appropriate base colours.
"Wizkids" WIPs - The Red Hulk, Metallo and the Crimson Dynamo
Sticking with "Wizkids" I have dusted down a few more long-forgotten "Heroclix" figures in an effort to clear my painting queue of some of its larger models. All three of these miniatures rest upon 40mm circular bases and represent foes taken from the comic book pages of both "Marvel Worldwide" and "DC Comics".

My somewhat costly sculpt of General Thunderbolt Ross's alter-ego, the Red Hulk, predominantly just needs his dark red flesh to be shaded before being finished, whilst Superman's arch-foe, Metallo, requires his metallic areas to be tidied up following my 'picking out' of all his cable ligaments with "Citadel" Abaddon Black. Once completed I should then be able to continue progressing an alternative armoured version of the Russian agent, the Crimson Dynamo...

14 comments:

  1. Great progress made so far. Looking at Peotr is like looking in a mirror!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. LOL Phil. I've got a few "Heroclix" on the tabletop currently, as I'm using them as sanity checkers whilst painting my "Warcry" stuff.

      Delete
  2. It is always nice to see your work on your Heroclix figures and those two apes look like quite a threat.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cheers Bryan, they are both incredibly small though, especially the gorilla, which is disappointingly probably the size of a dog.

      Delete
  3. Replies
    1. Well certainly the partially-painted ones are goodies, Dave, I'm not so sure about the two apes though ;-)

      Delete
  4. I think I need some of these, great job Simon.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'd check out "Black Cat Bases" or "Crooked Dice" if its gorillas you're after, Michael :-)

      Delete
  5. I'm always on the lookout for anyth critter I can use in "Jimland" but a Gorilla "the size of a dog" just won;t cut it, no matter how good the sculpt.
    Interesting up-and-coming figures from your backlog !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Joe. if you're after gorillas then have a look in my next posting then ;-)

      Delete
  6. Simians look great. I too see some sort of similarity to myself in them. LOL

    Red Hulk was such a cool story when first introduced, but goodness they got goofy after a bit. Sadly.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cheers Dai. I missed much of the Red Hulk story as I wasn't reading comics when he first came out. I'm a big fan of his in the US Avengers though :-)

      Delete