Super heroes for charity!

Remember the Foxxy Blade model I painted for the Paint the City Pink charity auction? Well, the painting contest had prizes and some of the prizes were donated back to the auction. I volunteered my time to add some value and paint the donated models (a bunch of Pulp City models and a couple of packs of Bushido figures) free of charge.

I've never had much to do with the Pulp City game or range so aside from the delectible Foxxy I had not painted much of their output. I've got all seven of the "super heroes" painted, Bushido is next. Lets check 'em out.

This huge fella is Hellsmith. As soon as I had him assembled he just screamed "greek god" at me, there's always that "bronzed" description in Mythic creatures and I figured that making him literally bronzed would be interesting. As such I base coated his flesh in Warplock Bronze, shaded it with Agrax Earthshade and then rehighlighted. Red and rich gold complemented the scheme and I based him - indeed all of them - in a very simple "urban" scheme to allow for whoever buys them to change it easily.

Next up is Guerilla, who is literally a Gorilla with a minigun. Probably my favourite of these models. He hasn't photographed all that well (khaki colouring in a lot of the highlights) but he looks ace in person. I went for a very utilitarian look, camo fatigues (with my first attempt at the new British MTP camo), military vest and the like.

Then Iron Train, some kind of mystical accident wrapped him in his steam train, go figure. I decided to stick to basics here, dark steel, copper pipework, brass and a tiny bit of leather and blue cloth to contrast all that iron.

I really liked Ace of Wraiths, he has a real "Saint of Killers" vibe (for those who read Preacher). Given that he seems to be all cowboy all the time, I went for Ned Kelly armour plates. Denim trousers and tan duster coat. Vallejo Tan Earth is my top tip for that particular job.

Androida was an odd one, almost felt like she didn't need painting. Build up the steel colour through the layers of highlighting, glaze down with Guilliman Blue and rehighlight with Necron Compound. Really, that's it.

Solar needed to be brighter toned than some of the others. Somehow spandex just didn't lend itself to grungy colours. With a name like Solar, yellow was the only colour for me. I also painted the cloak sky blue to give that sun in the sky look. I was going to use white only for the pants by it really looked - honest to god - like Y-fronts. As a result the boots, belt and the little thing on his forehead also became white. The back of the cloak looked kinda bare so I mirrored the golden symbol on his chest on the cloak.

Finally the Gentleman. He immediately struck me as a mob hitman so I went for the slightly tacky mafioso look. Bright red shirt, pin stripe suit and slicked back hair.

Anyway, that's all of them! I'll be conferring with Herr Hendybadger as to whether he wants these now or to wait for the Bushido folks to be completed before I send them off. More pictures to follow obviously! Until next time folks.

TTFN

Paint it Pink (for charity)

Greetings all, seems like the muse is well and truly with me once more as output seems to be pretty constant! So what is on the table today?

 Now, I know what you are thinking... that's a bit different from my usual output. And you'd be correct, but it's for a very good cause:

The idea behind the Paint the City Pink campaign is nice and simple. A combination painting competition and charity auction. All the entries are auctioned to make money for cancer research and before they go they are judged and the winners get prizes donated by corporate sponser. In this case Pulp City are providing most of the prizes so most of the extra money they are getting from the theme is going right back in to the contest! The only real caveat is that the model must be a "superhero or supervillain" which has a fair degree of wriggle room and it must feature pink pretty heavily!

The model I chose is Pulp City's Foxxy Blade who has a nice Electra feel to her. You can imagine her being the martial arts vigilante rather than the "leap tall buildings" type of hero. I reasoned that the dark skin against the pink would look stunning. Speaking of the pink, as everything else on this model counts as details I'd better talk about how I did it huh?

Pink used to be one of those tricky colours, not anymore. From a white undercoat I basecoated her in a nice thin layer of Screamer Pink base paint. This was then followed up with a coat of Pink Horror that essentially covered everything but the very deepest recesses. I then highlighted up, first with a half and half mix of Pink Horror and Emperor's Children, then with pure Emperor's Children and finally with Emperor's Children with a dash of white thrown in. I then took a deep breath and glazed the whole thing down with Carroburg Crimson to return some depth to the colour. Rehighlighting with the same mixes left me just needing to add the catchlights. I wanted the catsuit to look PVC so after a bit of research on the internet - a hard job to be sure - I found a model in approximately the same pose and copied the hard white highlights onto the Foxxy Brown miniature. A dash of gloss varnish sealed the deal.

Adding the white heels, belt and alice band helped to break up the pink. The skin was simply a Dryad Bark basecoat highlighted by adding increasing amounts of Kislev Flesh and then washed with Agrax Earthshade to finish off. Simplicity itself, now if only more manufacturers would give us a little ethnic diversity in sculpting and get over the fear of having anyone non-caucasian on the "bad guys" side then we can all figure out nifty ways to paint different skin tones. Ahem, packing away my soap box now. To finish her off I attached her to one of Black Cat Bases urban pavement offerings as I felt the flat, desaturated tones would compliment her nicely. Well, she will be carefully packed and shipped off to Cornwall soon so that some lucky supporter can win her and support cancer research in the process. Until next time folks.

TTFN