Marvel Crisis Protocol Avengers, Defenders and Midnight Sons

So, without much further ado… the last instalment for this year.

Ms. Marvel

I have some mixed feelings about this mini (or rather the two of them). They do their part and they certainly fulfill their comic looks. But they are fairly bleak when it comes to detail and even those few folds that are in their clothes seem to be in the wrong places. I personally wish I had painted her after the Disney+ show had released since I rather prefer their colour choices over the comic one.

Captain America (Sam Wilson)

I personally would have liked Sam Wilson to be depicted as Falcon and not Captain America, but alas, I am really happy with the mini. It has great detail and was a joy to paint. If anything. The original pose was a little too compact for my taste, so I folded his wings into a straighter shape using boiling water and now you get a much better view of Sam himself.

Warmachine

This one was another fabulous job, although a very complicated one to assemble. Actually the first MCP mini where I needed the instructions to assemble it. It left me a bit “scared” before I started, since the whole mini is essentially different shades of metal and gun metal which all needed to be shaded as well, but in the end he was a real fun experience to paint.

Hulkbuster Ironman

The Hulkbuster Ironman is maybe the most impressive mini in the whole range. It took ages to paint (maybe 1 ½ weekends), but I really like the results. The shading looks more dominant in real life.

Luke Cage

For Luke Cage I had been thinking about giving him a t-shirt from a rap / hip-hop group like in the TV show, but his arms block out so much of his chest, that it would have been unrecognisable, so I just went for classic colours. I went for a very washed out look for his jeans, since I felt this gave the mini a better contrast.

The Iron Fist

The Iron Fist was fun to paint and most importantly fun to paint. Simple mini with a great pose. I did the Iron Fist as blue energy, since I felt it made the mini stand out, even though I think this was never used in the comics.

Blade

Blade proved to be a more interesting mini than he would appear at first sight. While he is mostly dark colours, there is enough variation in colours and little details that really make the mini quite piece. And the misty spectral hands really added contrast to the mini. While I usually try to keep the street theme of the AMG bases as much as possible, I felt this would simply not work here, so I added a headstone from Perry Miniatures and some weed tuffs to give it a derelict cemetery look.

Moon Knight

The same holds true for the base on Moon Knight. While I,would assume, he has his right foot on some ornamental piece of a building, it was just to low (in my opinion) to make it look right. So I gave the base some kind of park look.

I am starting to develop a liking for painting minis with lots of white, but I felt he needed some contrast so I gave him the black face mask from the early 1980s (Even though the rest of his costume is in 1990s style).

And this is it for now. In this sense I wish you all a very happy new year. May it be filled with good health and peace for you and your families!

 

Marvel Crisis Protocol Convocation & Dark Dimension

It has been a busy few months and (as usual), I did not manage to post a thing. So I am trying to catch up (as usual). When it comes to MCP, I think the last time posted something was in 2021. So there is a lot of catching up, which I am going to break up into lots. Starting with Convocation and Dark Dimension.

Baron Mordo

Starting off with the mini I liked the least. Baron Mordo. All in all he is a nice mini, but he had a limited palett and I was struggling with his face, so he did not really tick my boxes.

Clea

While Clea had a just as limited colour selection, I really liked painting her. The combination of black, purple and pink was really nice to combine.

Good

Hood ended up being a really fast paintjob and one that I really like. Over the years I have started to like shading reds and I a, real happy with how his jeans turned out.

The Ancient One

The Ancient one was a real joy to paint. The combination of black and yellows took some time to paint, but I really loved it. And I am quite happy with her magic effects. Which really made me wish I had painted the the magic on the original Doctor Strange this way instead of replacing it with translucent plastic.

Doctor Strange, Sourcerer Supreme

Speaking of Doctor Strange, there was a new mini for him, the Sourcerer Supreme version. I kept the some colours Imhad chosen for his first version, but went a bit darker. As Jessy and Chris from Fury´s Finest often say, Strange worries about getting things done first and only thinks about dealing with the consequences later. As a result I feel that with his rising powers he becomes a darker (but not more evil) character, so darker colours felt right. What I really like about this mini is his base. The portal to the Dark Dimension was a neat idea on AMGs part and was nice to paint. I went a bit overboard and tried to create a 3D effect onto the concrete around the portal. Not sure if I succeeded, but I like it.

Doctor Voodoo

Another mini I really enjoyed. Unfortunately the highlights on the black do not really show on the these photos, but in real life there is a great contrast between the black, the white and the bright reds and greens. And I am much happier with the skin tone on him.

Dormammu

And last for today is Dormammu. Completely lovely minis. Really liked shading the crimson and grey. What I really liked, was the fact that the panels themselves were smooth, which allowed me complete freedom painting him. For his face I went with the looks from the first Doctor Strange movie, giving him a Technicolor look. It stands out a lot on the mini, but I still like it.

So, this is it for today. Next instalment coming before the end of the year.

 

Marvel Crisis Protocol Defenders vs. Guardians of the Galaxy

Man, it has been a long time. To cut a long story short… my day job kept me more busy than ever and catching a Covid infection did. It help things much. That being said… work is finally slowing down and I have recovered from the plague itself (still struggling with some long term effects it seems) so I thought I should take the time to start posting again.

Last Friday Martin and I played our first game of Marvel Crisis Protocol since (I think October or November). Actually the first game of anything.

The game was set on a late 1990s Ney York street. Martin gave his Defenders another spin.

I had always refrained from trying out Guardians of the Galaxy. First since I had trouble laying my hands on the Starlord miniature. And once I got him, because I felt that faction ability was not matching up to others. So with the recent rules updates, I felt it was time to try.

I cannot really give a detailed game report since it was quite fast paced and we were very immersed in the game. But I felt the Guardians all punched way above their weight class and were a lot of fun to play.

 

Inhumans and She-Hulk for Marvel Crisis Protocol

I am trying to keep up to date with Marvel Crisis Protocol, which is no easy feat, since they are setting quite a pace. Until the latest batch arrived at my door last week (still have not found the time to unpack them), these here kept me ahead of things. With the exception of Crystal they all posed a challenge to me for different reasons.

First is Black Bolt, the king of the Inhumans. I really liked his pose and the ground being broken up by the sound waves of his voice is a nice effect. Tried to keep the painting classic (probably because he never appealed too much to me in the comics and let’s not even go into the TV show 😉), so he looks a bit bleak. But I am happy with the result none the less, probably due to his clear lines.

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Black Bolt

Medusa, the Queen of the Inhumans, gave me headaches for her trademark hair before I even started. As you can see there is lots and lots of it. But the sculpt hardly has any structure to the hair. So I was a bit afraid, that I would be able to give her enough individual strands of hair, but not to overdo it while not messing up the direction of the strands. Plus the sculpt also makes it hard to reach every part of her hair. So this is actually the first MCP mini I painted in two parts (body and hair). I began by painting individual strands over the base coat in red browns. After the second or third colour (and maybe as many hours) I came to the conclusion that no matter how many more colours I would use for additional strands, I would never arrive at a point where I would be happy with it. So I gave her hair two very light drybrushes with lighter red browns using the “new” Army Painter drybrushing brushes. And that did the trick.

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Medusa

Lockjaw was a big challenge to me. I really love dogs, but I hate painting them (as I do hate painting any animal for that matter). Usually I get over this by picking a dog I know and just mimicking his or her fur pattern. Now neither our dog, any of the dogs of my friends or any of the rescue dogs we were foster parents to this year even remotely resemble Lockjaws breed. So I just went with one of his early comic renditions (with pretty basic looks) and painted him up that way. Which makes the mini itself look a bit bleak. So I put a little more effort into his face in hopes it makes him pop.

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Lockjaw

Crystal by all means did not give me any problems. Nice mini, nice colours. Only thing I did not like was the wave of water supporting her right foot. To this day I cannot understand why they included clear plastic wings for Wasp but seem to be unable to do the same for this (or Cables force shield). So I just left it off. Which worked well enough. Except I broke her off at the left ankle (not where the parts are glued together but a millimetre or two above that) shortly after painting her. And another time right before this photo session. And once more afterwards. Safe to say, I will now have to do something about it. So I will probably rebuild that wave using clear acrylic. More photos of her once that is done. But to anyone thinking about doing the same and leaving the wave off… do think about pinning through her foot. I doubt the mini is going to withstand gameplay otherwise.

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Crystal

And last for this batch is the She-Hulk. For a while I had been contemplating swapping the iron girder she is throwing for something else. Things that come to my mind where a vending machine, porta-loo or even the TARDIS. Now I had to wait a little longer for this mini to be delivered. And while I was waiting lots of other people put all these ideas and many other good ones (including a Bernie Sanders at the Biden inauguration) into action. Did not want to feel like a copycat, so I just left her as she was. I am happy with her skin. So much so that I really regret going more of an MCU route with my Hulk when I painted him in olive greens. Only thing I am not too sure about is her face. For some reason I feel I painted it in a way that it looks like an Ancient Greek statue.

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She-Hulk

So this is it for today. The next few posts will take us back to historical subjects (including the big project that kept me from posting too much this year), some enhancements to some old vehicles and a reboot of a terrain project, all of which I hope to put the finishing touches on this weekend. So please stay tuned.

 

Next batch of minis for Marvel Crisis Protocol

Right now I am immensely enjoying painting minis for Marvel Crisis Protocol so this is the batch I started before our holidays and finished afterwards.

As promised in my last post, I took some better photos. Unfortunately I forgot that this meant I should rather dust them off before taking photos. So if some of them show fibres and the like… those are not baked into the paint job.

Black Widow, Agent of Shield

Black Widow, Agent of Shield

Up first is Black Widow, Agent of Shield. This is her second version in the game. Having painted the first one on classic colours (black suit with yellow trim and red hair) I wanted this one to look different. So I went with the look from the movie Avengers: Endgame. And I have to say… I like how that turned out.

Hawkeye

Hawkeye

The mini for Hawkeye is based on the comics, but I felt the bright purples did not really fit it. So I went with dark purples going burgundy, like they did in the movies to give him a more subdued look.

Killmonger

Killmonger

Up next is Killmonger. First things first… I did away with the Panther statue he comes with, since I could see absolutely no reason, why that would be standing in the middle of the road. Resting his foot on the curb only makes him lean forward to slightly, so that was an acceptable alternative for me. The mini is pretty bare, except for the weapons and necklace, so I gave him Multicam pants. Makes him look a little more interesting and gave me a chance to try out a new paint set.

Doctor Strange

Doctor Strange

I have to say, I really loved this mini. Again it is based more on the comics than the movies, making the details a little bare at times, but the cape was a joy to paint. And I was feverishly awaiting the right time to fit those aftermarket spell rings to the mini.

Wong

Wong

The other mini from that box, Wong, left me a bit struggling. I envisioned him in bright, but otherwise bare clothing. In the end I feel he is a little too bare. But I am unsure if I should really crank it up. Maybe a few mystic flames embroiled into his sleeves and legs?

Ghost Rider

Ghost Rider

Ghost Rider

Ghost Rider was a bit of a conversion effort. While the original pose of him doing a wheelie was not bad, I felt him sliding his bike was more iconic. So I converted the mini until one leg was resting on the ground and added more flames. Contemplated keeping the chain metal in some spots, but he end decided to make it flaming hot. I also thought about painting on some OSL, but there is so many flames on this mini that a lot of it would have been covered in OSL and I felt that this would be overdoing it.

Ebony Maw

Ebony Maw

This minis seems to be a hybrid look between the comics and the movies somewhat leaning towards the later. But with the colour contrasts it was rather nice to paint. I know a lot of people have gone really elaborate on this basing, making him hover inside a whirlwind of debris, but I rather liked him just hovering.

Black Dwarf

Black Dwarf

Up next is his brother Black Dwarf. Again I converted this mini a little bit, sculpting on a pair of abs to raise him from the hunched over pose. I struggled a bit finding a good colour for him and went for an orange brown on him. Unfortunately, after filters and oil paint washes he turned out rather orange for my taste. By a twist of fate I have a second Black Dwarf (first pack I bought was misplaced), so I might eventually end up converting and painting another one.

Corvus Glaive

Corvus Glaive

The next member of the Black Order is Corvus Glaive. Great mini and a magnificent pose. I decided to go with a very dark green, which is almost black to the naked eye. Looking at pictures from the comics, I often had a feeling, that was rather painted in greens, so that felt right to me.

Proxima Midnight

Proxima Midnight

And last in this batch is his wife, Proxima Midnight. Again great mini, although it took me a while till I had the shading the way I wanted it.

And that is actually the last mini from this batch. But… there is already 13 more finished minis on my workbench, just awaiting their basing and varnish. So there will be more.

 

Modern US inner city terrain

On the heels of last weeks Marvel characters, here is some terrain for them. You could actually see some as the backdrop for the minis in the previous post, but this one is dedicated directly to the terrain.

Yes, I know the first shots look a bit bare. But this is larger than the recommended playing area for Marvel Crisis Protocol (MCP) and I simply wanted to show more of the road tiles.

So once this gets condensed to the normal table size, these will be pretty well filled. Plus I also have some 3D printed terrain that I still need to (print and) paint. So there will be even more options.

With the exception of the dumpster, which came with the MCP core set, and the cars, all the terrain is from Multiverse Gaming.

I already bought these a couple of years ago. But with the exception of the road tiles, which were already finished nearly three years ago, all the rest was assembled and painted this summer. Which was the first of my two big terrain projects for this summer.

So far everything is pretty clean. I have long contemplated the addition of graffitis, but eventually decided against it, since I was in no mood to paint them all. But I have recently bought some graffiti decals, so there will be a more lived in look soon.

The left one of these stores is still missing it´s going out of business sign.

Not sure why I forgot to take a closer photo of the chinema in the background. For the Movie titles I picked „The Green Mile“, which to this date is still one of my all time favourite movies. „Batman Begins“ is in my humble opinion part of the best Batman movies ever and Imfelt that in the Marvel Universe, Batman could well be a fictional movie.

 

Marvel Crisis Protocol… my first batch of minis

As some of the long term followers of this blog will know, this is actually not my first venture into superheroes, but my second one. But when Knight Models returned the Marvel license that game essentially went dead (for me), IMHO mostly due to the fact that there was virtually only the good guys and that I found the sculpts somewhat flimsy.

The license was sold on and last year Atomic Mass Games released a new Marvel miniatures game. The rules are sound, easy and fresh, so this should be fun to play even in the long run. And best of all… the sculpts are great and the minis are a real joy to paint. So let’s see what I got finished so far….

Captain America

Captain America

Tried to go for the more classic comic colours on him, instead of the darker colours seen in the later MCU movies. For some weeks I was not really happy with his shield which I had done in quite a plain manner. So I went back to it recently, adding some light effects and now I am really happy with the overall result.

Red Skull

Red Skull

I am usually not a big fan of OSL, but with Red Skull and the Tesseract, this seemed mandatory. The mimi is still missing its varnish, but once that is applied, I will add some satin varnish to the Tesseract, which should really make it pop.

Captain Marvel

Captain Marvel

All in all I am happy with how this one turned out, maybe except for her skin, which turned out a little dark.

Ultron

Ultron

Ultron was a bit hard to paint, with the metal / Vibranium skin being a bit hard to contrast, but with the orange glow, that mini still provided an interesting result.

Iron Man

Iron Man

Iron Man has me struggling. He definitely needs more contrast and I am quite unhappy with the result. Right now I am just unsure if I should go and continue work on this one, since I feel that artistically I have moved myself into a dead end. Or, and this being more likely, I will simply start from scratch.

Crossbones

Crossbones

Now this mini is absolutely lovely. He is based more on the comics, which is a shame, since a different helmet and an armoured plate to his chest would have allowed for the white crosses on them, giving a break to the monotony of an virtually all black mini. So I decided to borrow from the movie and give him camo pants. It is subtle on the mini, ut really makes a difference.

Spiderman

Spiderman

Very flimsy to paint, but still a real joy. Did not like the way the mini was positioned on the original iron girder provided for the mini (now being used on Ultrons base), so I placed him on a fire hydrant I had lying around (as we all do).

Doctor Octopus

Doctor Octopus

Did not really have any big ideas about this mini. So I decided to paint this mini first to get a feel for these minis. In the end he was the sixth mini I painted. But no matter where he was in line, I am really happy with how he turned out.

Black Widow

Black Widow

Not much to say about her. Tried to break up all that black with an olive holster and the belt. Atomic Mass have already released a second version of her (which was delivered to my home address a day after we had left for our holidays) and I am really looking forward to painting that version. This time in the white suit you can see in the trailer to the upcoming Black Widow movie.

Baron Zemo

Baron Zemo

Went for some classic colours on him. While it finally gave me a reason to use those five purple colours I have, I still find I am struggling with that colour. The leather bomber hecket was fun to paint though. He also finishes off the ten minis from the core set, so now on to the minis for the single packs I have painted, too.

M.O.D.O.K.

M.O.D.O.K.

Initially I was planning on even buying M.O.D.O.K., but I had so much fun painting the minis from the core set and since everything was sold out at the time I bought him anyway. And to be honest he was great fun to paint. This huge face of his was a completely different experience to paint.

Ronan the Accuser

Ronan the Accuser

Ronan put me through some problems. I was very torn between the comic and movie colours since the sculpt is close to the comic version I went that way. Compared to the other minis for the game he seems to lack detail and the contours are a little soft.

Drax the Destroyer

Drax the Destroyer

In my opinion Drax is suffering from the same problem as Ronan (the both come in the same box, so it might be a question of the designers style)… lack of detail and soft contours. He is also sculpted closer to the comic version than the movie version. Since I found the comic version quite boring, I tried to bring him closer to the movie looks. Not entirely happy with him (or Ronan) so I might go back to them later. A part of me is also hoping, that Atomic Mass releases a version based on Dave Bautista, so I could simply repaint him comic style and have a more detailed version.

Black Panther

Black Panther

Now Black Panther was a real joy to paint. I painted him on the weekend the news of Chadwick Bosemans death was released and it seemed to be the right mini to paint that weekend. The purple energy effects on his suit look better to the naked eye, but I guess I will still blend these in a little more later.

Shuri

Shuri

Up next is Black Panthers sister Shuri. Again top mini to paint with lots of details and crisp contours.

Okoye

Okoye

Continuing on the Wakanda theme, here is Okoye. Just like Shuri, this was an absolute joy to paint.

And this finishes this post. I still have a few minis at home that are assembled and still unpainted and as I said, there should be another parcel when we get back home, so there will be more to come soon.

For those interested in the terrain… I will cover that in my next post.