HUGE batch for Marvel Crisis Protocol

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HUGE batch for Marvel Crisis Protocol

12 Mar

Yes, I have been quite idle (again) lately. Mix of different things… being an essential worked the pandemic has kept me busy and while I have been painting a fair lot (the Fallschirmjäger army is progressing nicely, too), there was a long spell when the weather was to bad to spry varnish the minis. And once that had changed it was a case of ” I will only add a few more minis and then I will post them all on the blog”. Which as you all know turns into an endless circle.

Anyway, with regards to Marvel Crisis Protocol (MCP) the only things I have not painted are Starlord (who seems to be hard to get here in Europe unless you are willing to pay a premium) and the recently released Inhuman and She-Hulk (all in the mail as I type). So in other words… I have caught up with Atomic Mass´impressive release schedule. Which seemed to be a good moment to post the latest batch of an impressive 34 miniatures total. Some of these minis have been sitting around a while been being varnished and having their photos take. I noticed you can spot some dust on some minis (most noticeably on Valkyries hair) or even some spiderwebs on Toads chest. Sorry about that.

Lets start with the last mini actually finished… Thanos. I deleted painting him until last, since I had been in no mood to paint his throne, which essentially was a couple of hours work for something I would rarely put on the table. But I am happy with the results. Had to go back to him due to a freak accident. I varnished him on wednesday but forgot to take the mini back inside. We had some gale force winds during the night and he was blown off the table. He took some massive damage to one of his shoulders (on the level that sculpting was required). Oddly enough, while the throne disintegrated into four pieces no paint was damaged on it.

Up next is Gamora. Just like Drax I would have loved a Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) version of her and for a while i thought about converting her mini. But I decided that this would be too much effort and with Atomic Mass already having released two versions of Black Widow, who is to say they will not release an MCU version of her later on. In the end I really liked painting her, although all the fine black lines and the white armour were a huge pain in the behind.

And up next her adopted sister Nebula. There is lots of crisp detail on that mini which made her extremely fun to paint. Unfortunately the frontal photo of her was blurry, so just one shot of her.

And while we are talking Guardians of the Galaxy… there are Rocket and Groot. ASs long term followers of this blog know, I hate painting animals and Rocket was no different. But in the end I think he turned out OK and I was able to do the mini justice.

Groot on the other hand was right up my alley and I think the fasted MCP mini I painted (less than 45 minutes total including drying times).

What I really love is what they have done with these minis. Groot ramming his arm into the tarmac and Rocket riding on it, where it resurfaces.

The Kingpin is an interesting mini. It is very bleak in a way, after all it is just a bold, fat man in a suit with a cane, so there is not too much about it. But the pose just has so much character that I always love looking at it. Shame that the brush brush I applied the base coat with was no longer the best and left some chips on his chest.

Taskmaster is a cracking mini as well, especially the shield and cloak were lots of fun to paint. Not entirely happy with the face, but I am not going to redo that, since one of the paints was a bit too thick (which is part of the problem) and I fear I would loose too much detail geeing it another go.

Just like Kinpin, Bullseye is a simpler mini, that takes a lot of its looks from the pose. And I love how he hides the throwing knives behind his back.

Who would these fine gentlemen be without someone to contest them. Someone like Daredevil. A lovely dynamic mini, but what I did not like is that he is propelling himself off a headstone. Apparently the idea was to tie in with the Christian motif of the character, but I simply felt it was at odds with the basing in MCP, which is all urban streets and not parks or graveyards. So I took the newspaper box from Superman (Miles Morales) and put him on that. And a little graffiti also gave it a Christian motif.

So what is Spiderman (Miles Morales) jumping over these days? Well the bin from the core set seemed like a good choice. I sculpted some trash into it and positioned it like it is tumbling over. The trash bag next to it is from Spectre Miniatures (only took me about three years to catch a moment when they actually had it in stock).

Ghost Spider did not do that much for me, but still the very bright pinks and blues were a nice contrast to the black (which actually has a lot more nuances than the photos make it look) and white of her suit.

So what would Spiderman, although that is rather the Peter Parker version, be without his arch nemesis Green Goblin? While I absolutely love Willem Dafoe playing him in the movie, I like the fact that they went with a more comic version, allowing for brighter greens and oranges on the mini.

Between priming and painting him, I actually managed to rip the pumpkin bomb from his right hand off. Since I have no idea when or where it had happened, I assumed that it had found its way into the vacuum cleaner and thus the bin. So I was quite happy when early February we found it between the leg of the kitchen table and the wall. So the mini is complete after all.

And to keep in the Spiderman setting, there is also Venom. Did not expect this mini to be much fun to paint, but the face and tongue actually made up for all the black.

And while we are talking about big minis… there is always the Hulk. I did not want to go the bright green route Crome the comics with him so I went for the more subdued olives from the MCU. Turned out larked than I had wanted, but still I am going to keep him this way.

Again with Vision, I wanted to give him colours based on the MCU rather than the comics. Unfortunately they turned out different shades than I had wanted. And in this case I am rather unhappy about it. Especially since it is such a nice sculpt.

By contrast I am rather happy with the colours on Ant-Man. What does strike me as strange though is the sculpts on this one. I can understand, that they went with the MCU suit, which has become rather iconic, but why did they use different suits for the normal and tiny sized versions?

I made a small change to the tiny version and that it is running up a pin from a soda can (real life one). I felt this emphasised his small scale better than some cracked tarmac that is supplied with the mini.

With Wasp I rather went for a more comic style look, since her suit was not that close to the movies. Again, the tiny version was placed on a huge nut to emphasise her small size.

Before I move on to the Asgardians, I have to say that while I love MCP for the nice sculpts, the Asgardings are very much on top of it all. Both Thor and Hela are absolutely stunning sculpts and Angela… I have been painting mini since the early 1990´s and she must be amongst the top ten to top five sculpts i have painted in all those years.

So let’s start with Thors. Went with a grey rather than a black tunic on him since I felt it complimented the mini better and painted the scales onto his legs that were not there on the sculpt itself. I had long thought about doing some lightning effect on his hammer and in the end went for it… what would he be without some thunder and lighting? I decided to do without some OSL, since I really liked him as he was and felt that it might overdo it.

Hela is an absolutely gorgeous sculpt and the dark greens of her suit combined with the light greens of her “magic” just make her pop! I extended the magic mists onto the base by sculpting some more tendrils. adding the skulls that actually came with Thanos felt right for her and like it or not… six skulls would have been lost on his throne (as they say in 40K… needs more skulls!).

So Angela… such a lovely animation, pose and crisp details. In a way I wish I had read her comics before I painted her and I would have done the ribbons differently and would have given her warpaint around the eyes. But I am still so happy with the paint job, I am not going back.

You can almost feel sorry for the other Asgardians, since they are nice sculpts by all means, but simply pale before the other three. Loki is a really nice sculpt, although I struggled with his face that simply captures the grandeur of the character in ints pose.

Enchantress was a bit monotone with all the green (should have gone black pants as she has in some comics) so I simply had to give her red mists for contrast.

And last of the Asgardians is Valkyrie. I flipped the left hand sword around into a defensive pose (which most sword masters with tell you is daft). Once painted I found , that I should also have changed the pose of the hand to bring it closer to her lower arm, but alas… it will stay this way.

Getting back to earth… there is is Winter Solidier. Went with a bleak colour scheme to give him a cold war movie Russian feel.

With the Punisher I gave him woodlands MARPAT pants as a nod to his Marine heritage (and to break up all the black). Really happy with how they turned out. Same for the blood on his shirt. Big shame I struggled with his face.

And up last are the X-Men and Mutants. I was not really looking forward to these. Especially the X-Men as I was in no mood for blue and yellow spandex. So I decided to approach them like a band aid… one quick pull and be done with them. Man was I mistaken as they were all huge fun to paint.

But starting with the Brotherhood of Mutants, namely Magneto. I was not really happy with going the plum / purple route of many comics or the blacks and greys of the movies. Jesse E. from the Furios Finest Podcast (BTW… if you are interested in MCP, really go and give it a listen, while I have given the link to Apple podcasts, they are available on virtually any platform) suggested white. So I went with 2019 X-men comes books run looks. While there is hardly anything except white on the mini now, it looks cracking on the tabletop.

Mystique has a nice pose but I have to admit, she is somewhat bare. Simply went with the Surf look.

Toad put me a but between a rock and a hard place. Really liked the sculpt, but did not like the jester looks I found in the comics. Then someone posted a picture from a comic (I must have missed) on Facebook the other week showing him in greens with greenish skin and I absolutely loved it.

With Sabretooth I went for fairly classic colours again, although I gave the fur and his hair different colours.

Moving on to the X-Men, Cyclops was the prime offender when it came to blue spandex. While I would have loved to go for the 2019 X-Men looks on him as well, his suit simply was too different, so it was more of a classic scheme. But once I painted him, I really liked how the colours played out.

With Storm I went for the 2019 X-Men looks and I like how that complements the skin. While I used the exact some colours on her lightning bolts as I did on Thors hammer, they came out far darker, but I still think the look fine.

Again Wolverine was a prime offender for the yellow spandex, but starting off with ochres instead of yellows toned that down. The yellows and blues are actually more nuanced in real life than on the photos.

And bringing it all to a close is Beast. Absolutely love sculpt and it is only when you start painting him that you realise how detailed it is. I went for the hand option with the book, since… what is more frightening than your opponent being so calm that he is taking the time to read a book while fighting you.

So this brings the total to some 60+ minis as of now.

All my Marvel Crisis Protocol minis painted so far

For those interested… I have also included a slideshow of the previous minis below so you do not have to click through the old posts.

2 Comments

Posted by Burkhard on March 12, 2021 in Marvel

2 responses to “HUGE batch for Marvel Crisis Protocol”

daggerandbrush

March 12, 2021 at 20:04

Id say you went all in. Great paint jobs. I think Magneto and King Pin are my favourites. The whites turned out great and both have lots of character. Really like the warped metal pieces, too. Sets the scene nicely.

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Azazel

April 25, 2021 at 09:51

Outstanding mate! I’ll be back to this post again for inspiration. 🙂

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