Monday 29 February 2016

From SimonM - "Heroclix" The U-Men (50 Points)

These ten 28mm U-Men pre-painted plastic models are by “Wizkids” and are all miniature number 001 from their “Heroclix” Marvel Mutant Mayhem range. Created by Grant Morrison for the 2001 "New X-Men" Annual by “Marvel Comics”, 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.”

However having painted and submitted five identical models to the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge last year (as "the perfect henchmen to accompany Black Manta") I thought this time round their scuba-diving gear would simply make them excellent Pulp deepsea saboteurs or Nazi Invaders.
Whilst painting one of the models though, I did decide to see just how easily these miniatures could be converted, and as a result I created a slightly recognisable squad leader by replacing the relatively straightforward barrel of his rifle with the more complicated weapon of an old plastic "Citadel" Cyberman.

As with the underwater villains I've previously painted, I initially gave all the figures an undercoat of “Citadel” Abaddon Black and then started to 'pick out' all their breathing pipes, air-tanks, weapons and face plates with Ironbreaker. These metallic areas were then heavily washed with the Shade Nuln Oil.


Well at press time this looks to be our last post of the day, but I'm not counting Adam out for another lot!  Great looking frogmen Simon - you seem to have a fixation of shiny black figures.  Nice metal detailing on the face masks and breathing apparatus.  And those look like evil underwater weapons they are carrying.  They remind me of the stories my ex-RN dad told me about Commander "Buster" Crabbe and the Russian cruiser in Portsmouth in the 1950s....
 I notice that this puts you 6 points shy of your target of 500.  Since I am sure that you will easily hit that goal, spend the week thinking about possibly upping it for the rest of the Challenge.

23 comments:

  1. Another cool submission, a busy day for you

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    1. Thanks Martin. Simple stuff these but some much needed points towards the Pulp side-challenge :-)

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  2. Creepy looking chaps and no mistake. Nice work Simon!

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    1. Cheers Michael. A simple yet hopefully effective painting scheme.

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  3. You have really pulled these different figures together for what has to be a great looking collection

    Ian

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    1. Thanks Ian. I certainly do like my "Heroclix" that's fer sure :-)

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  4. Very nice blog.I got a lot of inspiration reading your posts.We have a lot in common.I will start follow you from now.

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    1. Cheers Ptr. Glad you like it. Hopefully you've seen that the blog has a great crowd following it, and lots of banter and advice takes place. You'll be most welcome :-)

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  5. You do seem to excel at gloss black. I have no idea what u-men are so my job for the day is to look them up.

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    1. Thanks Clint. I hadn't realised just how much black I'd painted recently tbh. I need to do some more metallics ;-)

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    2. But metallic black of course. ;P

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  6. Suitably forbidding - just the chaps to defend a hollowed-out volcano or undersea lair!

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    1. Most kind Mr Hughes. My thoughts precisely :-)

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  7. These guys will be great Sci-fi villains (wouldn't be out of place in a Bond film either).

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    1. Cheers Adam. I certainly do expect them to appear in a Bond BatRep at some point...

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  8. Very menacing minions, Simon! Just need an erstwhile hero to sort em out! ;)

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    1. Thanks David. I've a BatRep or two in mind for these as you can probably imagine ;-)

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  9. I haven't come across these villains before, nice work!

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