"His Divine Majesty King Groot The Twenty-Third."

"Monarch of Planet X, custodian of the branch worlds, ruler of all the shades."

This 40mm scale model of Groot is made by "CoolMiniOrNot", and was unlocked during the company's hugely successful February 2020 Kickstarter for "Marvel United" when it achieved a whopping $2,866,168 in funding. Originally created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby as an invading monster for the November 1960 issue of "Tales to Astonish" for "Marvel Comics", the figure can be found inside the boardgame's Season One expansion box entitled "Guardians Of The Galaxy Remix".

Produced in a light blue hard plastic, I was initially going to prime the miniature with either "Vallejo" Heavy Sienna or Charred Brown, as both of these colours have excellent coverage. However, having used these paints on my "Wizkids" and "Atomic Mass Games" sculpts of Groot, I always felt they were much too dark for the "sentient tree-like creature", so in the end went with a couple of layers of "Two Thin Coats" Ancient Forest instead.

"CoolMiniOrNot" WIPs - The Abomination has been primed, shaded and dry-brushed

The figure was subsequently washed with plenty of "Citadel" Agrax Earthshade, dry-brushed with (more) Ancient Forest by "Two Thin Coats", and had the odd splosh of "Citadel" Biel-Tan Green pushed into its joints, cracks and crevices. Then, so as to blend all these colours together, I added a smidgeon of "Two Thin Coats" White Star to my Ancient Forest, and delicately gave the entire ensemble one final dry-brush.

Lastly, I decided to 'drop' a couple of spots of "Two Thin Coats" Skulker Yellow into the extra-terrestrial's eye-sockets, darkened them down with "Citadel" Reikland Fleshshade, and dot them with (a little more) Skulker Yellow by "Two Thin Coats". This brought the model much more in line with Groot's comic book incarnation than the black-eyed, CGI (Computer-generated imagery) version seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

"Games Workshop" WIPs - This Praetor's cloak has been base-layered in preparation of a shade

In addition to the first of my "Marvel United" Guardians Of The Galaxy miniatures, I've also been busy making progress on another of the co-operative board-game's pieces for an upcoming Marvel Multiverse RPG (MMRPG) scenario. As with my finished "Flora colossus from Planet X", I have previously pigmented a couple of Abominations before - so hope to have Emil Blonsky's super-strong alter-ego ready for the tabletop in quick order.

I have also not completely forgotten about completing the Praetor I need to lead my Sons Of Horus force for "The Horus Heresy". This mixture of pieces by "Games Workshop" and "Forge World" is actually rather close to having a coat of varnish slapped over him - especially now I've finally dry-brushed the trio of skulls riding atop his backpack. However, I still need to carefully trace his fiddly-flowing cape with some "Vallejo" Heavy Red, and sort out then traitor space marine's aforementioned backpack too...