From PhilH: Another Week, Another Mutant - Nightcrawler (7 Points)

Gooood evening Challengers. It's Monday, 2145: time for me to squeeze in my quick entry for the week.

Yup, we're back at Superheroes Mutants again. Sorry, I know, it's not you guys' bag. But they do let me get all my favourite colours out for the same model, and go crazy with my high-contrast, bright colour-y painting.

This week's Mutant is another of the X-Men: Kurt Wagner aka Nightcrawler.

Quite a few of the X-Men look pretty much normal, dorky attire aside. Less so this guy. Dark-coloured fur to help him hide in the shadows*, two-toed feet and three-fingered hands, yellow eyes, pointy ears and a prehensile tail.

*The bright red bodysuit and white gloves/socks, not so much....

Oh, and for good measure, he has superhuman agility, adhesive hands and feet to climb walls and the ability to teleport, passing through another dimension. This is often illustrated with the delightfully onomatopeic sound "bamf".

Normal, he ain't. I like him.

What's a bit odd, is that where some guys bring a nice chunky tactical rock to give them a few inches on the next guy, Nightcrawler was sculpted with a tactical....kerbstone? Tiny set of steps to nowhere? Nope, I've no idea what Knight were thinking here, particularly as it doesn't fill the base. Probably just "whatever will get him in a cool menacing-hunched-but-vaguely-realistic pose".

Knight Models 35mm from the discontinued Marvel Universe Miniatures Game. Really nice sculpt, the pose and definition are much better than many of the other MUMG sculpts and totally capture the character.

And then there were three...

__________________________________________

Sometimes its just wonderful to let loose with a paintbrush, some bright colours (and some contrasting ones) and a wicked imagination.  And, Phil, you are absolutely the right Challenger to do just that!  Nightcrawler is just brilliant!  I think that your contrasting colours (and the rich, wonderful baroque style with which you've used them) are fantastic.  The deep red, the unearthly bleached grey hands and feet and that wonderful, shifting deep grey-blue skin show just how much you can do with a single model.

Really wonderful work, Phil - and had you not mentioned the kerbstone (yes, that is odd!), I would never have noticed.

A richly well deserved 7 points for the figure and a strong request from me, to you, for many more mutants in Challenge VIII !  Bravo!!