Saturday 13 December 2014

From SimonM - "Heroclix" Black Manta & The U-Men (30 Points)



This 28mm model of Black Manta is by “Wizkids” and comes from their “Heroclix” DC Hypertime range of plastic miniatures. The “DC Comics” supervillain debuted in the September 1967 edition of “Aquaman” and is my favourite archenemy of the King of Atlantis. However having removed the figure from its ‘clicky-base’ some six-seven years ago, I have disappointingly just let it sit on one of my shelves waiting to be painted… until now.

The miniature was reasonably simply to paint following a “Citadel” Abaddon Black” undercoat, as at first I just had to pick out its trident in Boltgun Metal. The three-pronged spear is rather bent and I did consider cutting it away from Black manta’s leg. But the villain has a nice ribbed pattern running down the sides of his rubber-suit and I just didn’t fancy trying to replicate this with green stuff. In addition, unless I completely cut away the trident’s shaft and replaced it I couldn’t see how I was going to straighten it; additional work I wasn’t prepared to contemplate.

However I did think the model looked rather boring all-black and decided to update the colour-scheme a little bit by painting the bug-eyed helmet, breathing tubes and oxygen tank Boltgun Metal as well. This is far more in line with the ‘modern’ version of the Black Manta. All the metallic areas were then treated to a wash of Nuln Oil before being lightly drybrushed with more Boltgun Metal. His eyes were painted using a combination of “Vallejo” Heavy Red” and the “Citadel” Shade Carroburg Crimson.



These five 28mm U-Men models are also by “Wizkids” but this time come from their “Heroclix” Marvel Mutant Mayhem range. In the “Marvel Comics” world these villains believe in using mutant body parts to augment their bodies and live in specially designed environment suits to protect them from “an imperfect world.” For my purposes however their scuba-gear makes them the perfect henchmen to accompany Black Manta, or any other aquatic character.

As with Black Manta, their painting scheme was simple as I used just “Citadel” Abaddon Black and Boltgun metal (with a Nuln Oil wash). These miniatures did prove a little trickier to paint than I envisaged however, as it was quite difficult getting the tip of a brush in between all their breathing pipes. I did consider doing something ‘special’ with their bases and creating some starfish and shells from green stuff to populate them with. Finch on his superb blog really does excel at this sort of thing of thing: http://minisbyfinch.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/tanked.html

But as I want to use my U-Men for a variety of roles, including German saboteurs, I’ve gone with my usual land-based “Citadel” grass flock.

From Curt:Very cool submission Simon! I really like the 'oily' black you've chosen for these figures - it gives them that wonderful 1960's evil robot look about them. No worries on the bent trident. In fact, the shaft looks sorta like what we see here on the newly designed snow shovels. Perhaps Black Manta's trident was specially crafted so he wouldn't throw out his back in pitchforking those particularly heavy heroes. :)
Well done! 

32 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thanks Tamsin. Much appreciated. Nice and simple stuff just to get some points on the board :-)

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  2. These guys look ready to infiltrate a hollowed-out volcano or defend a domed undersea lair any day of the week!

    Definitely NOT on the side of the angels... very tidy work!

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    1. Thanks Evan. They are very nice models and reasonably quick to paint up with a simple colour scheme. Definitely look good for some 'Pulp Action' Batreps :-)

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  3. What a cracking entry. Well done sir!

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  4. It's great to see you get some points up on the board! Well done.

    Now you aren't going to painting any Pulp until March right?

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    1. Thanks Anne. I'll be clearing the decks over the next couple of days with some pre-Challenge minis, and I've a load more super-heroes in the wings... but I have started to paint some "Pulp Figures" ;-)

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    2. I'm working on getting some of my Moderns done before I start seriously into Pulp. Most of my Pulp won't start showing up till late January and early February.

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    3. Sounds good to me Anne... no need to rush the 'Pulp'. If needs be you can always start Late march or after the Challenge. They won't be going anywhere :-)

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  5. Fantastic, really original. Great painting work!

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    1. Cheers Juan. Glad you like them. I find most of the stuff I paint takes people by surprise :-)

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  6. All I know about comics is from watching "The Big Bang Theory" Yes tat little! So I can't or won't comment about the figure but welcome to the asylum and your first points! Collect your meds from Nurse Campbell!

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    1. I'm extremely pleased to be a resident of Arkham, Clint [That's a Batman reference :-P], especially with the likes of you as a fellow inmate. I'm told by many that if you merged all the characters in BBT into one person, then that's me :-)

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  7. I really like the "wet" look you achieved.

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    1. Thanks Sean. Its simply gloss varnish and indeed unintentional, as I actually use it for all my models; coming from an era when toy soldiers were shiny with red cheeks :-)

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  8. excellent work, but I do not have glare on the eyepiece

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    1. Cheers Alex. The scuba visors did have me in something of two minds as "Wizkids" paint them with a horrible bright blue wash over the metallic paint they use for the rest of the face mask. I didn't want to do that, so in the end went with a simple black (Shade) look and as you say it does cause a bit of a glare.

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    2. Thank you for the clarification

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  9. Nice work Simon. You don't store these in a goldfish bowl while they're not being played with, right? ;)

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    1. Hi Roy. No I don't but I have just been to the pet store and bought some suitable scenery from their fish department for them :-)

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  10. Excellent looking figures Simon, I have to admit to never seeing these models before! Keep up the great work.

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    1. Cheers Ray. I'm afraid I do tend to paint an awful lot of stuff which few others seem to have on their painting table.

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  11. Replies
    1. Thanks Dave. Good to get some minis finally painted for the challenge :-)

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  12. Nice one! Somehow they remind me of some films with explicit content ;-P

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  13. Definitely a good choice to throw in some extra metallic highlights. The retro-villain look is strong here and I love it!

    I've heard of folks repurposing 'clix figures into wargaming minis before. How difficult is it to get them off their original bases?

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    1. Thanks for the kind comments Dave. Getting the minis off of the bases all depends on how they've been attached in the first place. The early (better) sculpts were glued directly to the bases, so a sharp modelling knife will suffice. Later "Wizkids" added small round plastic circles to the feet etc so there was more of the model in contact with the base. These again are reasonably easy to slice off and then cut the plastic circle away from the feet once the model is free. Most recently however "Wizkids" have taken to moulding the figure onto a large flat platform and that can be an absolute swine to cut off as its centre is hard plastic which doesn't cut well at all. I've had a few near misses cutting those off. Hope this helps. Perhaps I'll do a posting on my blog about it if there's the interest?

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