Thinking Outside the Box

Lately I finished a lot of models. Some of them were started and finished over a few days, but this batch has been languishing for anywhere from 6 months to 2 years in some state between primed and partially finished. As usual it's more comic-themed stuff from me. First up are some of the classic metal  SuperFigs . I know they're rather dated now compared to some of the new stuff coming out, but I still love this line and pick them up whenever I find a few I don't have somewhere. If memory serves, Artemis is a hero with GUARD and the other two characters are villains. (At one point I had created an arrow for her bow, but it got lost in one of the two moves I made in 2017.) Steel Razor reminded me of  Vera the cyborg from Superman III  and got some glossy white armour. The paint job on Serpent is not my most inspired, but it's serviceable. Artemis, Steel Razor, Serpent The next few are from Reaper Miniatures . The Black Mist is from the first Bones Kickstarte...

In December of last year I added a new range of models to my collection: Bot War . They're produced by Trader's Galaxy , an independent company in Australia. Most of the models I own are now discontinued samples, but the current range of figures is really worth looking at if you like the idea of robots battling it out over limited energy supplies. Enough rambling, here are my first painted bots!   Electroshock - Tyrant class Deceiver   Red Dot - air warrior   Wind - air warrior   Rain - air warrior Electroshock, Hail and Wind character cards are available in the 1st edition card download, but Red Dot is a custom character I designed. The game designer provided me with feedback to ensure that he's balanced within the 2nd Edition rules. If you want to try him out his rules are below. Together with the other three they make up a complete 60 point force. Red Dot 11 points Energy 2 SR 3, M 8, RA 3, CA 2, SH 3, D 6 Air Supp...

It's been a long time since I painted any figures for Uncle Mike's skirmish game Strange Aeons . I've had most of the models from their second edition Kickstarter sitting in a drawer, based and primed, awaiting paint jobs. Flipping through Netflix the other day I realized I was several years behind on the tv series  Supernatural , which I believe is going into its thirteenth season! That same week I found a 1:43 scale Impala to use, so I simply had to dig out the 'Remington' brothers and slap some paint on them while I was watching the show. Sadly one of the mirrors fell off the car right after this photo was taken. The last few games I played were using the solo deck with my ever-evolving Threshold list, but I quickly stat-ed up a new list for the boys and we got in a game for them against my very unlucky Lurkers (a cult leader, some cultists and a witch who fooled everyone into thinking she was hot and innocent). Although a little odd, I decided to make C...

A few more figures for the Marvel Universe Miniature Game  got completed a while back. I'd had the Punisher model since before the game was released and had no idea he'd eventually be usable with a downloadable card from Knight Models . I'm happy that he's usable in both Universe and the Batman Miniature Game . Ironically this paint job took more work than I expected, largely because while I was highlighting the skin I nearly messed it up entirely and had to spend quite a bit of time cleaning it up. I very nearly started over, and almost wish I had. Daredevil was an easy enough job to paint. I decided I didn't want to do the all red or the yellow and brown outfits, so I went with a red-tinted black costume with red accessories. The picture shows me that I didn't do a great job on the DD on his chest. So I might have to go back and fix that up later. Spider-Man is a great sculpt and pose. It's very evocative of the character. He was a bit more dif...

It's been months since I posted anything here...but I haven't been entirely idle in terms of hobby time. Here's some stuff I painted in Dec 2016 and throughout the first third of 2017 TV Arrow came with two different heads. I opted for the version with his hood down for two reasons. The first was that I wanted to use the hooded head for Arsenal / Speedy. I really dislike the baseball cap on him, so he got Arrow's hooded head. The second was that this version of Green Arrow was going to be almost entirely one colour, so having the hood down and some blonde hair on the top would help focus attention on his face amidst all that green. Next up was Spartan / John Diggle. Although I haven't read much in the way of Green Arrow comics, I'm fairly sure Diggle was created specifically for the TV series. This model also comes with two heads; one with a helmet and one without. I couldn't help thinking that his mask looks a lot like the one Magneto wears in the co...

Back in the spring (which feels  like a long time ago) I picked up a used copy of the Star Wars - Imperial Assault  core set. Over time I've continued to add expansions and figure packs, with the hopes of some day painting it all. I know that's unlikely but at least now I have a start. One of these figures had a broken staff, so I had to get creative trying to find a piece to replace it with. It's noticeable if you know what to look for, although at arms length I think it's a perfectly serviceable repair. Gasp, shock...yes I've actually played the game a few times, and the rules allow you to take different versions of the troopers: regular and elite. The cards for the elite squads are red, so I painted the bases of one pair red to help differentiate them during the game. The depths of red cloaks took a lot of coats to do and I could easily have kept going...but it's red, so who really cares. I do like the focus that the gloss coat gives to the helmets, ...

I always seem to have a few work-in-progress models on my table at any given time. Some of them tend to languish there for months (or years), but others will land and get finished right away. I'm not sure why that's the case, but that's how it goes. These two models were in the 'months' range, along with a few others from the "SuperFigs"   line (for SuperSystem ) who've yet to see completion. While I was working on Hawkeye and Deadpool from Knight Models  I did a bit of work on these two as they shared some common colours. First up is the villain Adder. She's a member of one of the villain groups; I believe the League of Supervillains. I've got Blackbird and Saber Skull from the same team in the queue for this month. The next one is Mystick. She's a free agent according to the profiles from 3rd edition. I'll have to sit down and do some conversions of their profiles into 4th edition. I've done a few other conversions in the...

I had some demos for the Marvel Universe Miniature game scheduled in early in October, so I wanted to put together a few teams with the figures I had. Due to the limited number of characters I actually had painted, I needed to finish up a few more to round out the teams. Both of these figures are highly detailed, as I've come to expect from Knight Models. Neither one had much in the way of gap filling required. A bit of filing and cleanup you'd expect with any metal model, some super glue and primer and I was ready for paint. I opted not to deviate from the studio colour schemes almost at all. Deadpool is a versatile character for both heroic Superhuman and Mutant teams. He's effective at range and close combat, so he makes a good utility model to add to your team. Although his "Bodyslide" ability is reactive, I'd suggest keeping Deadpool out of situations where you need to use it that way. One of my personal tactics is using it early to get him int...

When preparing for my demo earlier this month I planned out a little 2x2 table to force the player's characters into combat more quickly. I had originally planned to do some kind of bank heist scenario using loot and the safe boxes, but it seemed too far from the actual way the game is played. It wouldn't help if I made things more complicated just for the sake of a custom scenario. In the end I decided I'd do 200 reputation crews: Arkham City Batman and Robin vs Classic Harley, Joker (Killing Joke) with Turk along for the ride. Since I only had Turk painted I had some work ahead of me and only a few days to do it! Having a deadline is often helpful for me, even if it's a self imposed one. I was able to paint all four characters over a few sessions on Friday and Saturday. Harley's face detailing was just too small, so I wasn't even able to do some white in for her eyes, and may go back now that I'm no longer under pressure. The rest turned out very nicely ...

With play underway for the  Calgary Dreadball League's third season I had a finished season 2 human team, or a season 4 martian team that I could have used, but I didn't really want to play either of those teams in league play. This is the final of my four original season 1 teams to be painted. If you've stopped by and read any of my posts about other teams, you've have seen that many of them are based on characters from Masters of the Universe. The "Berserker Island Beasts" are based Beastman, who is also serving as their offensive coach. Despite looking through lots of reference images, I struggled to find a colour I liked for the fur and ended up using the bright P3 Ember Orange. Selecting uniform colours for the team was also a challenge as Beastman doesn't have much in the way of accessories or colours other than orange, and those he does have vary widely depending on the depiction. The Beastman figure I'll be using is an old Grena...

After I had my original four Avengers figures painted for the Marvel Universe Miniature Game , I knew I wanted to build up the list while I waited for some more cosmic figures to be released. Having already built several other early-release figures I looked through the cards and chose Wolverine, Black Panther and Deadpool to join my team. Deadpool still taunts me from my painting table, but the other two are finished and ready for battle. Wolverine is a nicely done sculpt. Appropriately small of stature and big on the snarls, he was a simple model to build. Only the forearms were separate and fit together easily. I mounted him on a resin base insert I had rattling around. Even based on that, he's still shorter than all the other Avengers, even Black Widow. I did some looking around online to see if I could find inspiration for a costume colour scheme, and ended up with the two-tone blue you see here. I think it fits nicely. His skin is GW Tallarn Flesh, washed with GW Bad...