Interwar test figures

One thing that always helps me buy into a superhero scene is the presence of capable, competent non-superhumans backing up the superhero in their fight against evil. From the Avengers battling aliens alongside NYC cops and National Guard, to Wonder Woman spearheading an assault across no-man's-land, the involvement of soldiers and/or law enforcement (or even civilians, though that's a good bit rarer in our militaristic culture) helps add some weight and scope to superheroic do-goodery.

So with that in mind, I've grabbed some WWII plastic kits, with an eye towards building some late 1930s troops. With head swaps and a bit of conscientiousness about their weapons, I've made and painted my first marine and first army infantryman (with an unconverted Pulp Figures gangster for comparison).

Both soldiers are made from the appropriate Warlord Games kit. The marine has a head from the AWI Continental Infantry kit, with the crown of the hat cut down a bit to look more like a campaign hat. The army man has a brodie-helmeted head that I bought from Anvil Industries. I don't know if the rest of their kit is strictly accurate for 1938, but I think the heads do a good job of signifying "not 1942 yet!"

I rather like how these two turned out, so I will be painting the rest of their squads soon.

We Three Kingpins

A few weeks ago, I found a Kingpin mini in a $1 heroclix box at the local gaming store. The Kingpin character himself isn't going to be in this campaign, but it occurred to me that a big chunky bruiser in a suit might still be a good mini to have for this campaign, so I bought him. I added a "fedora" (17th-century floppy hat with crease filed in) and repainted him in non-kingpin colors, and he turned out great. So I bought two more Kingpin clix online, mildly converted and repainted them too.

Warlord Marine and Pulp Figures cop for scale

I love how the sculpts are different enough that they look like entirely different big dudes, and not just palette swaps of the same character. They will probably not represent specific NPCs, but rather "the big guy" within a group of thugs/minions. The Pat Roach of a given combat encounter, if you will...

League of Mid-Tier Heroes

These are the ten heroes I've painted up to be pre-generated characters, for anyone who doesn't feel like inventing a superhero from scratch. Some supers are off-limits for being too powerful (e.g. Plastic-Man, Wonder-Woman), and others are in the right power bracket, but I want to reserve them for plot-important NPCs (e.g Captain America, Batman). So here's what's left:

Phantom Lady, The Atom, Mr. Terrific, Blue Beetle, Green Arrow

Hawkman, The Bulleteer, Aquaman, Hawkgirl, the Crimson Avenger

About half are full repaints, with the other half just being washed and touched-up.

PS. modeling-wise, Green Arrow is the only interesting story here... the only golden-age version I could find was Starro-possessed, so I bought another one just to steal its head. I do have plans for the briefly-headless silver age Green Arrow mini though.

Heroclix touch-up test

I won't be doing a complete repaint of every clix mini I get. Some of the pre-paint jobs already look pretty good, and many have decals or other fine detail work that I would rather preserve than try to replicate. So I took a few non-essential minis* and just added some shading with washes, and follow-up highlighting where needed.

They need some additional touch-ups, but overall I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out, so I took the same approach with a character that actually does matter.

*by "non-essential", I mean that these characters are not strictly from the "Golden Age of Comics", nor are they required for the plot of my campaign, but they are thematically relevant enough that I may shoehorn them in somewhere anyway, depending on what specific subplots develop.

Heroclix civilians and cops

Most of the non-super miniatures will be from metals from Pulp Figures, but I've picked up a few "supporting characters" from heroclix bins as well. Also, purse lady is a model railroad accessory.

First Heroclix Repaints - Mad Science!

After a lengthy hiatus, I've made a bit of progress on this project. Here are the first of at least a couple dozen heroclix minis I'll be repainting to at least some degree. I wanted to start off pretty simple, so here are my four mad scientists.

The repainting isn't because I think I'm any better than the original factory painters. I just want the minis to match the rest of my collection. Honestly, these probably look worse now, not the least because I may have left them in the acetone a bit too long. Oh well, live and learn.

I do think the varying proportions through the heroclix line are pretty remarkable. Also, why are mad scientists always bald? I don't even have the Ultra-Humanite or Lex Luthor here!