"I Am Dmitri Bukharin -- The New Crimson Dynamo!"

"The Crimson Dynamo knows Iron Man -- and you -- brought down so easily -- are no Iron Man."  

This 28mm pre-painted plastic "Wizkids" model of the Crimson Dynamo is miniature number 52 from the Marvel "Heroclix" Xplosion range. "Considered to be the definitive version of the character", Dmitri Bukharin was the fifth man to don the Soviet power armour and made his debut within the pages of Issue One Hundred and Nine of "Iron Man" in April 1978.

Having given the figure an undercoat of "Vallejo" Heavy Red, Tony Stark's nemesis was treated to a heavy wash of "Citadel" Carroburg Crimson, before being dry-brushed with more "Vallejo" Heavy Red. I then gave the Russian super-villain a glaze of "Citadel" Bloodletter.

"Star Wars" WIPs - IG-88 and Chewbacca should soon be finished

Such a simple paint-job has given me a little time to potter about on three of my favourite "Fantasy Flight" plastic miniatures for the company's "Star Wars" board game "Imperial Assault". I've only just started to apply an initial layer of "Vallejo" Bronze on the brown-coloured leg-armour worn by Dengar but have already encountered something of a dilemma. The sculpt of the heavily bandaged bounty hunter really does contain an incredible amount of detail, and although I've initially 'picked out' the thin metallic straps holding his outfit together, I may eventually need to compromise such delicate brushwork simply to retain my own sanity.

Both IG-88 and Chewbacca however are proving reasonably easy to progress and have been appropriately dry-brushed and washed with brown and black ink respectively. The assassin droid just needs some additional highlighting, as well as some straps and wires to be painted, before being finished. Whilst the Wookie now needs another couple of brown dry-brushes before I start work on his weapon, satchel and ammunition belt.

Cyclopean Alien WIPs - The shaggy hide of these 'pulp' extra-terrestrials will be green

One of my aspirations for this year is to try and paint all the wonderful miniatures people have generously gifted me in recent years. These six Cyclopean Aliens were a surprise present from Roger of "Rantings From Under The Wargames Table" fame when we met at Salute 2015. Made by "Wargames Supply Dump", the metal multi-limbed creatures can be found within the manufacturer's Miscellaneous Miniatures range.

Secret Santa 2014 - "Crooked Dice" Federated Security

This year I decided to take part in the fantastic Secret Santa organized by Ian and his excellent wife, Cath, over on “The Blog With No Name” [http://walladvantage2.blogspot.co.uk].

As a result I was absolutely delighted to be greeted with these five Federated Security models by “Crooked Dice Design Game Studio” yesterday morning, and have already managed to spend some time painting up a test piece. Based upon the dastardly henchmen of the Federation from the BBC science fiction television series “Blake’s Seven” these figures look set to be a joy a paint; especially as they’re almost entirely black.

Three of the miniatures, which are slightly thinner than ‘heroic 28mm’ scale and are somewhat sedentary, are sculpted by Ian Mountain. Whilst the more dynamically posed and slightly thicker-set Federation goons are by Martin Buck. All the models come with separate heads.

To begin with I’ve given each figure a double undercoat of black and then dry-brushed them all with charcoal in order to provide some highlights but also to help me see the detail I need to pick out. I’ve seen some photographs of some lovely bright green headwear for these miniatures on the internet but I wanted mine to be somewhat more muted so I have gone with a rather bland green undercoat before applying a wash over the area. I have also seen a number of different colours used for the space henchmen’s visors. I’ve decided to go with red but as I just want the vaguest suggestion of crimson I painted just a single layer straight onto the black undercoat and then washed it with a black shade.

I like my science fiction weapons to somewhat stand out from a model so instead of painting the Federation rifle the brown-tin colour depicted in the television series I’ve simply gone with a metal undercoat heavily washed with a double helping of black shade. I’ve also picked out the belt accessories with silver in order to make them stand out a bit more than my normal “Citadel” Boltgun Metal and hopefully break-up the pure black of the Federated Security guard’s uniform. The model just needs another wash of black shade to help tie-in the charcoal highlights and should then be finished, ready for final basing.

I genuinely can’t thank my Secret Santa enough for selecting these miniatures for me as they’re really helped re-galvanize my “Blake’s Seven” “The Way Back” painting project from a couple of months ago.

 I have also managed to find a little more time to spend on these three models from Dick Garrison of “Wargames Supply Dump” [http://www.wargamessupplydump.co.uk].

These arrived as a surprise gift from Roger a couple of weeks ago now and I’ve struggled to progress them as quickly as I would like as a result of my commitment to the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. However I’m hopefully almost halfway finished with Ballistics Man, and finally getting into the orange and gold layers for Captain Garrison and Ultra Retrovian; two colours I really struggle with at the best of times.

I’ve got some high hopes for these models to prominently feature in a “7TV” campaign set in America during the Prohibition period, which I have planned for 2015. But for now I just want to get these lovely figures painted up to a similar standard to those done by Roger on his “Rantings From Under The Wargames Table” blog [http://rantingsfromunderthewargamestable.wordpress.com]. 

The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge 2014 - WIP - Week Two

I’ve spent most of my free time over the past few days steadily progressing this “Heroclix” plastic miniature of the Black Manta and five “U-Men” models. I quite naively thought that as they’d be predominantly black they’d be a nice easy project for my first Saturday Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge posting.

But I didn’t take into account just how detailed and complicated all the piping was on the scuba-divers breathing apparatus, nor that by painting the “DC Comics” supervillain’s deep-sea diving helmet silver rather than black I’d be wrestling with a couple of mold-lines. Suffice to say however that all the metallic areas have now been completed, washed, drybrushed and the models are now finished; ready for posting on the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge blog.

These three models have rather leapt to the front of my painting line having arrived as an unexpected, but very much appreciated, gift from Dick Garrison, who runs the “Rantings From Under The Wargames Table” blog: http://rantingsfromunderthewargamestable.wordpress.com/2014/12/04/28mm-superheroes-part-9

Not only did he recently paint his own casts of these models but he actually designed and sculpted them, so I am hoping to have mine finished ready for next week's Saturday Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge posting; along with a few Pulp miniatures, Anne!! My only concern is that I want to paint these miniatures using the same colour scheme as Dick Garrison has, as I thought they worked really well. But he’s picked some of my least favourite to paint pigments, such as orange, gold and to a lesser extent red.