Marvel: Crisis Protocol

Finished painting Captain Marvel, Spiderman and Captain America. Bases are unfinished, as I plan on assembly line painting all the bases once all of the characters are complete.

With this project I’m trying to level up my painting by focusing on extreme highlights where I go all the way or almost all the way to white with all the main colors. It came out much better than I anticipated and I think it will be my standard going forward. I was particularly happy with how well it worked on Cap’s shield.

I’m currently working on Black Widow, which is proving a challenge due to the extreme highlighting on black. After that comes Iron Man and then I’ll switch to working on the Villains from the main box set.

These were all painted using contrasts over Corax White primer and then layering up/shading using equivalent GW paints/glazes.

So Black Widow is complete, save for the base. This was much more challenging than the other 3 I’ve painted thus far and I’m far less happy with the end results. The extreme highlighting on the black is very difficult to make look right. I had to essentially redo the highlights a few times before I got it to this point. This is more of a me giving up it than it is me feeling like it’s done. Perhaps in the future I can revisit her when I’ve gotten in some more practice on this technique. For now I need to move on to other characters to prevent fatigue.

So to give everyone a better understanding of what this process looks like, I’ve taken a pic of Iron Man after the first step of highlights are complete. You start with the highest level of highlights and then you mix in darker colors and slowly fade into your base coat. As you can see in the photo, the first steps looks pretty terrible. I’m also new to this technique, so I’m sure that’s contributing to how bad Mr. Stark looks right now. I have to remind myself that it’s a process so I don’t get too put off on the progress I’m making on the model.

The next step here is to mix in a light orange to the yellow and paint all the yellow save for the most extreme edges. Then mix in a darker orange and feather into the base coat. Then continue doing this with darker and darker colors until you’re working with a dark red. If you prefer a different red tone you can do the same thing with white/pink instead of yellow/orange.

The next pic I’ll take of Iron Man will probably be after the next couple of layers are done to give an idea of how it looks as you progress with the technique.

Finally, after popular demand I’ve included a pic of America’s Ass. God bless.

So in preparation for an online painting competition, I wanted to get the bases finished on the models I’ve already completed and get some new pictures taken with a proper background. After trying a black background, I found that it made the highlights on the models wash out too much. Tried it again with a white background and they look much better.

The only complaint I have with a white background is how it seems to highlight every single brush stroke and makes me very self conscious of my paint jobs. I’m trying to decide which of the 3 minis I want to submit for the paint competition. I’m thinking Captain America at the moment as I’m very happy with how his shield came out, but I have some time to think it over so we’ll see.

Tried out a white background for some more professional looking pics for a paint competition. The white background looks a lot better, but the amount of detail that shows up in the pics makes me a little self conscious. Trying to figure out which mini to submit to the contest. Would definitely appreciate any feedback on that.

Tried out a white background for some more professional looking pics for a paint competition. The white background looks a lot better, but the amount of detail that shows up in the pics makes me a little self conscious. Trying to figure out which mini to submit to the contest. Would definitely appreciate any feedback on that.

Finished up Ultron yesterday. The pics really don’t do him justice as his metallic looks very chalky in the picture. Not sure why. Perhaps the white background doesn’t look great with metallics. I’ll try to experiment later with different backgrounds and see if it helps.

Finished up Doctor Octopus yesterday. Eventually I’m going to get back to Iron Man, but my motivation on him right now is low, so I’ve decided to get around that by focusing on other projects so that I’m not delaying progress. I’m getting ready to do Red Skull and Crossbones next.

Finished up Red Skull. I really don’t feel the photos do it justice, but with a black background the highlights just get washed out. After I post these updates I think I’m going to experiment with some different backgrounds and see if I can find some kind of in-between that doesn’t wash out the highlights, but doesn’t make the highlights looks so harsh and sloppy.