Deadpool kills…err..paints the Marvel Universe

Continuing along…

Black Widow was pretty straight forward

It occurred to me while painting Ironman that he could easily turn into a mustard and catsup mess if things got too yellow.  I tried to stay more gold and I think it worked out. I also went for some glow effects to help make the power points on the suit stand out.

Last but not least is the teams leader Captain America.  He had a bit more detail than some of the others.  The red and white lines on his waist were a bit tricky at times but worked out well.  Also took a bit to figure out how to highlight the shine off the shield.

First attempt at this post got eaten so I’m going to split things up a bit more in the hopes that it helps.

With Deadpool set it was on to the core box.  I asked my son if he’d like to paint them or if he’d rather I do it and wasn’t too surprised to end up with the job.

In all the models went together well enough.  Most of the Avengers did have some level of gaps though so filler was needed.  Mainly this was at the leg joins but some at the shoulder as well.

First up is Spiderman

As one of my all time favorite characters it was great painting up Spidey.  I initially thought getting the lines of the suit painted would be difficult but because they’re depressed rather than raised it was fairly easy to start dark/black wash and then build up the red without losing the lines.  I meant to add a bit of fishing line to act as a web shooting from his hand but haven’t gotten around to it yet.

Captain Marvel was fairly straight forward though her sash made for some tricky brush work at times.  Her rock is a good example of where the mini’s built in terrain can clash a bit with the base.  I tried to merge them a bit by painting it as if the road were being peeled up.  On the ground behind it I tried to add some depth to sell the illusion a bit.  It came out reasonably well and at least implies a hole.

I’d been looking at MCP for some time but it wasn’t until the Merc with the Mouth showed up that I was really pulled in.  As mentioned in the description I started by ordering the base set for my son but Deadpool managed to slip in on the same order.

Before delving into that though, this is probably a good spot to mention some general thoughts on painting the MCP models.

Firstly they paint up really quickly.  I think there are a few factors that contribute to this, the first being that they are a slightly larger scale than the 28/32mm mini’s I’m used to.  The second factor stems from the fact that they all come from a comic book medium.  This leads to a limited color palette and simplicity of design.  Unlike fantasy or sci-fi mini’s which are generally created and done, I get the feeling comic artists didn’t want to draw tons of gear hundreds of times and so these mini’s (which stay very true to the comic versions) aren’t bogged down by excess “baggage”.

The second thing that was different for me was having source material to guide how to paint them up.  Granted most manufacturers will have examples of painted versions or supporting artwork but this is really the first time I felt like I wanted to make a point of staying true to the source material.  This is also when I realized how many subtle as well as major costume changes comic book characters go through.  It was interesting going through Google image searches to find a source image or two that I wanted to work off of.  This is also when I found that it can be difficult to get a good image of a characters back.  I’m sure there’s a general rule that you want your characters “facing” the reader but that can make it a bit tough to figure out how a design flows onto a characters back.

The mini’s themselves look great.  AMG picks some cool poses and isn’t afraid to put some pretty thin contact points and weapons on the models.  I was pretty concerned about Deadpools swords for instance or Storm’s lightning but so far it seems the plastic is springy enough  to shrug off a bit of abuse.  I haven’t been brave enough to put any of it to a real test but so far so good.

On the downside the fit of many of the mini’s leaves gaps.  They’ve been easy enough to fill but are pretty common and sometimes significant.

I like that many of the mini’s have alternate pieces (arms, heads, etc) which allows for a bit of customizing.  Including sculpted bases (generally with extras) is also a nice feature though the city-scape bases sometimes conflict a bit with the mini’s built in terrain (ex. characters on rocks and such).

Overall I’m quite happy with the mini’s and with the game as well (more on that later).

So with all that said time to get to the painted stuff and of course Deadpool insisted on being first…

It took me a bit to decide if I wanted to go with the more 4th wall breaking version of DP on the rocket and with the Fwoosh!  In the end I shrugged and said to myself “It’s Deadpool” and went for it.  I did hedge my bet a bit and the Fwoosh is pinned/removable rather than glued in place but a this point I don’t see myself ever pulling it off.

The mini went together well with maybe a bit of filling.  There are a number of options included (different heads, legs, torso, etc) and they can be combined to give the mini a significantly different personality.  As mentioned earlier the thought of his swords snapping off scares me but they seem pretty sturdy so far.

Painting him was a blast.  I went with the classic red as it keeps the blood from showing rather than the X-force grey.  Perhaps worth mentioning that I painted him seperate from the rocket and stuck him on after both were pretty much done (his foot slots into the rocket). Oh also worth mentioning that in some of the mini’s the tabs they’ve cast sometimes look like just extra mold artifacts.  Double check before removing!

Of course Deadpool wouldn’t be complete without is buddy/hostage Bob!

Bob was also fun to paint.  He’s pretty straight forward so that let me spend more time on the rocket launcher and his base.  Another really characterful model and could be built with or without chef hat.

Next up the Core Box!