Thinking Outside the Box

On my last school break I picked up The Valiant Card Game - Ninjak vs The Valiant Universe . I ordered it on a whim, after hearing that it was based on a comic and live-action web-series of the same name. I confess it's been a couple of decades since I have read anything from Valiant , but I was aware that they had relaunched a few years back, and had picked up their RPG series and their card game last year, neither of which had yet to see the table. However if you've ever stopped by here before you'll know I'm a sucker for superhero comics, so none of these purchases should be a surprise. Deciding that I needed to see the web-series before trying out the game I fired up YouTube and spent an hour being mildly impressed. The writing and acting weren't anything amazing, but overall the costumes very well done, and FX were certainly better than I had expected. I would certainly watch more if it were produced. Anyway, back to the game at hand. It's a basic ...

Shortly before the Marvel Universe Miniatures Game was released by Knight Models I picked up several single pack figures at a slight discount. The game dropped shortly after, but has so far seemed difficult to acquire in Canada. I'm hoping once I get out an do a few demos it will pick up locally like the Batman game has started to do. This is the original model for Black Widow, which I prefer greatly over the highly sexualized one that comes in the Avengers starter box. Don't get me wrong, she's a sexy character but I think the new sculpt is a little over the top. She was the first Marvel figure I painted. It a pretty easy paint job and I think she turned out well. This figure proved more difficult to paint than I expected. It's a great looking pose, but I wish the details on the shield were a little deeper. I'm not the greatest when it comes to steady detail work, so found doing the stripes on the shield highly frustrating. A wash or two would usually b...

It surprised me when I looked back at the dates of my earliest Alpha Flight conversion posts. This has taken me nearly two years to complete, but with the addition of Vindicator I'm finally finished. Truthfully this figure has actually been fully painted for the past three months. Like the Bones strumpet figure she was simply waiting for a large enough batch of figures to be completed for a round of basing to take place. Like most Heroclix, the sculpt of the figure was relatively decent. Her hands and feet are a little too big but otherwise the pose is good, if covered with way too much paint. I stripped it off in some acetone, and shortly thereafter dropped the figure on the floor and busted off her head. A quick spot of glue made that problem easily forgotten Unlike my previous Guardian repaint, I shaded the white part of her suit with a grey wash which enhances the shadows. It's quite obvious when they're next to each other, but separately they both look good. ...

Last week I received two packages of stuff for the Batman Miniature Game . The first package ordered was actually the second to arrive. I already talked about these items a few weeks ago. For those not in the know, the VAT (value added tax) is a whopping 21% on orders direct from Knight Models . That makes the purchase price for these figures very high after factoring in the exchange from CAD to Euros. If you order enough stuff you don't have to pay shipping, but it's still a kick in the wallet for those folks on a limited budget. (I promise this will be the last time I grouse about the price. The products are good, so now it's up to you to decide whether they're worth the cost or not.) When my package arrived I was rather deflated to find that the exclusive Red Hood Joker figure was not included with my pre-order. I sent an email to KM's customer service email and received a reply within twelve hours, apologizing for the mistake and promising to send out the m...

While I wait for the arrival of all my stuff from the  Kickstarter campaign for Pulp City Supreme Edition I decided to give the v1 rules another look. For that I'd need to paint some more figures. Way back when I painted my starter sets, I found that the person I got my figures from had shorted me on several models I'd paid for. One of which was the level 3 hero, Solar. Not being able to play a full battle with both of my starter sets was remedied when I painted Deadeye and his vigilantes. All the rest of the Pulp City figures I received had come in their boxes except Fright Train and Night Fright. If I were going to grow the villain's ranks I realized that I'd need to round out my heroes to match, so I picked the Crimson Oni / Foxxy Blade pack and laid them all out on my painting table. It was fully my intention to paint the villains before doing the heroes. However, once I got a closer look and realized both 'Frights' would need some assembly, the heroes...

This is a project years in the making. Back when I started on these Heroclix repaints only one version of each character existed. Since them some newer versions have appeared. Some, like the new Sasquatch, were amazing. Others, like the new Puck and Shaman, were awful. The rest were somewhere in between. I have already done an Aurora figure. When I tried to do the same for Northstar I ran into troubles with the material. They were sculpted in mirroring poses, but sculpted with different costumes. I tried to remove the wrist bands, but due to the rubbery nature of the material I wasn't able to do so. He ended up becoming a custom character named Zyklon, who has paired up with Kriegshunde to battle the Exiles on at least one occasion. New versions of the twins were released in the Guardians set, again sporting mirrored poses. (Looking a little too much like the Wonder Twins for my taste, but whatever.) I rebased them and did some quick touch-ups. The skin got a light coat ...

The Purchase Well this week I took the plunge and ordered some stuff from Knight Models  for the Batman Miniatures Game . Let me say first off...OUCH. If you think the prices on the Knight Models store are high while you're browsing, wait until the shopping cart adds the taxes! Ordering enough stuff to get free shipping will cost you at least 150 Euros, but with the exchange rate and tax (21% VAT) the stuff I ordered cost me over $260 Canadian! That's a lot of money to spend on nine models and a book in my opinion (others of you out there might disagree). I could have ordered fewer items, but then I'd have been hit with shipping charges as well, so the net cost per item would have gone up. With all the cash I've spent on gaming figures in my lifetime, even I feel like it's a ridiculous amount of money for figures I have to build and paint. I'll definitely be looking for a cheaper source for Knight Models products closer to home if I order anything el...

After doing my Reaper Bones figure up as the Red Hulk, I decided to dig this one out for some custom paint work. The sculpt stuck in my head because it seemed to capture She Hulk's stature and strength, without sacrificing her femininity, or making her too 'cheesecake.' (Sorry the photos on this post are a little blurry.) The skin on the figure was a really dark green and I wanted something a little more vibrant. So I repainted it using GW Goblin Green with a GW Thraka Green wash over top. It gave a little more depth, but when I tried highlighting with goblin green again it looked crappy. I'm obviously better at sharper edges and armor than soft curves. In the end I put another coat of wash over top of the green. It's decent but I'm not entirely happy with result, as I was hoping for something more along the lines of the green hulk I already have. For her clothing I covered her shoes and the white areas of her suit with Secret Weapon Grey Wash to ad...

This figure has been rattling around in the big box of stuff in my Vampire Package that I got from the first Kickstarter campaign for Reaper Bones . I was given a version of this Bones model painted up in green and purple to represent the Hulk by Uncle Mike a while back, and decided I'd use mine to do a Red Hulk. While I don't know anything about Red Hulk or Red She-Hulk other than who their alter egos are, I think it's a cool look. I painted this figure in less than an hour, including drying time for the washes. Highlighting took another 10 to 15 minutes. Very simple paint recipe: - P3 Skorne Red for all the skin - P3 Greatcoat Grey for the shorts - P3 Menoth White Highlight for teeth and eyes - Black to simulate some hair - GW Fortress Gray for the nails Once the base colours were applied I did some rough dry brushing: P3 Midlund Flesh on the skin and some P3 Trollblood Highlight on the shorts. Following that I splashed on some GW Badab Black wash on t...

For the new year I didn't want to post this as my first finished item. It just seemed...underwhelming. In truth this Lex figure had initially been painted for quite a while, but I was never quite happy with it. You wouldn't think painting a bald figure in an orange jumpsuit would be much of a challenge, but I ended up repainting it three times before it finally seemed to look done to me. The last repaint happened during my Christmas break, but I hadn't rebased him yet. While working on my TMNT figures I decided that he needed a base that suited his outfit. I liberated a custom base insert from my Carnevale collection that looked like it might fit a prison cell and put him on that to add some character. Painting the base took a few seconds and he was all finished! The figure itself is from the  Heroclix  Superman "Fast Forces" starter set. I've got plans for more superhero game stuff, other incarnations of Luthor, and more 'clix conversions and re...

Over on Tales of a Tabletop Skirmisher , Hendybadger is doing a Christmas giveaway for some pretty sweet Batman figures from Knight Models  for their Batman Miniatures game. I don't usually post links to contests, but there it is.

The past seven days have been jam-packed with nerdy goodness. Let me break it down for youz... First thing's first, last Wednesday I got to meet Richard Comely, the creator of Canada's very own Captain Canuck . Yeah anyone who lives outside of Canada probably has no idea what I'm talking about and that's fine. Basically, Captain Canuck was the first independently created and published Canadian  superhero. Some of the first comics I remember reading were issues of the original Captain Canuck series published in the late 70s. I actually don't know where they came from, but I read most of those issues dozens of times. Last year I had a chance to meet the main colourist for the series Claude St. Aubin, who was a tremendously nice fellow. I'm pleased to say that Richard was equally so. Truly a pleasant fellow, and it was quite a thrill to get to meet him in person and have some of my long-cherished books signed. Keeping on the comic-book theme, I finally ...