Workbench – Grimmleigh's Lab

MCP: Shadowcat

My introduction to The Uncanny X-Men was Rom Spaceknight #18, a cover with the coolest looking characters I had ever seen, teamed up with a FREAKING SPACE KNIGHT, not yet knowing that the cover had been drawn by the legendary Frank Miller. I was eleven years old, and doomed to love the X-Men from that point forward.

One of the coolest aspects of comics browsing in the early ’80s was that just about every grocery store had a spinner rack or some shelves with their comics on display, and that meant whatever hadn’t sold was pretty much still there. So, even thought the issue was a couple of months older, I was able to pick X-Men 139 up with a fortunate donation of half a buck from my mom.

This was also my introduction to John Byrne, an absolute legend in his own right. But right there, front and center, was Kitty Pryde, freshly minted X-Men rookie. She wasn’t Bucky or Robin, mere sidekicks (at the time) to title characters. She was the real deal, just training to get there. She was also about my age (sure, 13, but what’s a few years?). She was my favorite character, and pretty soon, Fifty cents a month was being saved up to follow along.

Fast forward some decades, and I’m still an X-Men fan. I don’t pick up the first-run titles, since $5 a pop is just more that I can afford, especially with an already expensive miniature hobby and Marvel cranking out half a dozen X Books a month. But I still pick up the trades where I can, and I’m still hooked.

Marvel Crisis Protocol released Kitty a bit back, and the miniature is fantastic. I wasn’t a fan of the phasing effect always being “on” with the sculpt, but these little figs are a work of art and it just works for me now that she’s painted up.

I’m hoping against hope that her “Captain Kitty” costume makes an appearance, I loved the Krakoa storyline and would really like to see new costumes! Still, this is a home run from Atomic Mass Games.

Star Wars Shatterpoint, Workbench

Star Wars: Shatterpoint- Zeb Orrelios

I’m a pretty content Star Wars fan. I think I grew up with enough hit-or-miss Star Trek that I can allow myself to enjoy a less than perfect visit to that Galaxy far, far, away, and I’ve only really loathed one of the movies. So I found myself pretty excited to get my hands on the Ghost Crew for Star Wars: Shatterpoint!

I’ve already painted Hera, who was a bit challenging because her leu pattern is pretty distinct. Still, she turned out pretty well and I’m happy with the paint job.

Zeb is a lot more straight forward, with a little bit of striping on his legs and arms. I had some fun using fluorescent yellow for his eyes.

It’s also a bit of fun painting this crew because you can either go more muted to match a live action feel, or vibrant for a cartoony look. I went somewhere in between, but that’s what I’ve been aiming for with my Shatterpoint minis from the beginning!

I should be taking on Sabine next, I hope Atomic Mass Games revisits some of these characters with the older versions from Ahsoka!

skirmish games, Workbench

Warcrow Orc Revenant

New year, new game!

I have always been a fan of Corvus Belli‘s Infinity miniatures, and have probably painted more Infinity figs than any other game. Mostly, that is because I worked in a game store that sold a ton of Infinity, and I was often contracted to paint armies for folks. I loved it. Loved the minis, loved the lore, but the game? Damn. I’m just not that kind of masochist. It’s crunchy, tricky to play, and I often found myself knowing I had lost in the first turn. Still, those minis are sublime!

We had been hearing about Corvus Belli developing a fantasy game for years, and most of us just assumed they would be putting out a fantasy re-skin of Infinity. Flash forward a few years, my store is gone, my game group is fractured, but dammit, CB just put out some lore for Warcrow, their new fantasy game. And… wow. It’s not an Infinity clone. It’s a good, solid game with very little crunch, and some amazingly well done minis. The lore is pretty spiffy, too!

My first fig for Warcrow is an Orc Revenant. The Orcs of Warcrow expect to die gloriously in battle, but they also continue growing throughout their lives. Once they reach their 30’s, they are pretty damned big, and salty as hell about not being dead yet.

These salty lads and ladies become Revenants, and set out into battle to meet the best end possible. The figure makes me happy, and I had a really good time painting him!

Assembly, on the other hand, wasn’t so great. The model is made from Siocast, which is a pretty environmentally friendly type of thermoplastic. I approve of that. The mold lines? Not so much. I also snapped the blade that goes on Punchie’s Stump, since it appears that Siocast is pretty fragile. I was going to complain a bit, but having put together more recent Warcrow minis, I’m happy to say that CB has worked out the kinks in the molding process and Siocast is working out pretty well for them!

Larnin' Stuff, Workbench

Marvel Heroclix Repaints

Every once in a while, I get a crazy urge to try and see if a Heroclix mini can be brought to any sort of table-top standard for paint. The factory paints on these guys is really thick, and stripping that paint is nigh-impossible. So, you have to get your brush in there and let it do some heavy lifting for details!

Isiaiah Bradley is a pretty tragic character in Marvel’s history. He got the super-soldier serum during World War 2, did heroic stuff, and then the government decided he was expendable and that it was experiment time. You can read the whole story in the EXCEPTIONAL Captain America: Red White and Black.

I had to do a lot of hatching on these to get any of the details to stand out, there really aren’t any crisp edges or anything to use to try and get any stark contrasts. Mold lines really stand out, too. It’s about this point that I start staring at my Marvel Crisis Protocol minis and wondering what the hell I’m doing!

Crossbones turned out a lot better, I had to really push some stark contrasts, but it’s a fun model.

Still, I think I’ll be sticking with my MCP figs! Still a fun project, and it’s good to challenge yourself from time to time!

skirmish games, Workbench

15mm Wargaming: Heartbreak and Starting Over

That’s a really dramatic headline…

The heartbreak in question isn’t anything bigger than the STL provider I was grooving on deciding to move on without finishing up the 15mm Mordheim-style minis they were designing. I loved the minis, but don’t see any point in carrying on in hopes of finding something that matches the aesthetic they were pulling off so beatifully!

The last figs of theirs I have painted pretty much finish up my undead warband at that scale, and I’ll be holding on to them because they are fundamentally cool.

That being said, I’ll be moving on to a fresh start with 28mm figs for my fantasy skirmish minis. Maybe even 32 in some cases, my eyes just aren’t that great at 56 but I’m sure as hell not stopping the painting!

There’s some great stuff coming out of Corvus Belli that has me pretty fired up, I’ll be posting the first of that and some goals for 2026 later in the week!

Miniatures, skirmish games, Workbench

15mm Wargaming: Chaos Cultist Possessed

Turning my frantic eye back to 15mm scale gaming for a bit, I’ve decided I would like to get one warband finished up for 15mm Mordheim. These minis would also work great for Frostgrave and Five Leagues from the Borderlands!

The first thing I wanted to tackle was a big possessed brute for a chaos warband, and this queen pretty much settles all scores, right? She’s hulking big, with lots of tentacles, teeth, and a little sneaky nudity for good measure.

I have one or two more possessed to finish up, and some Undead to plow through as well, but we’re off and truly running, and I couldn’t be happier!

I am also planning on getting some pretty elaborate terrain finished up for these warbands! The nice thing with this scale is 2′ by 2′ is going to give you all the gaming surface you need, and you can really go mad with kitbashing buildings, too!

Marvel Crisis Protocol, Miniatures, monsters, Workbench

MCP: The Abomination!

As I continue to mend, my stamina is picking up a little and I’m able to paint a little more! Just finished up Emil Blonsky, AKA The Abomination! He’s a delicious figure for sure!

He’s also positively huge, easily twice the size of the Hulk and close to Hulkbuster in stature. Very cool!

I’m still trying to figure out if I want to put him in a Hydra group or a Criminal Syndicate group, the big factor here being which group I’m going to get rid of. The syndicate has some cool models, but the Hydra group has a ton of Jack Kirby coolness that I love. On the other hand, Nazis. I hate those guys.

After assessing my overall storage capacity and several near death experiences over the last few years, I’m leaning heavily towards narrowing the collection down to one or two affiliations. The collector in me is shrieking like a gibbon at the moment, but I really don’t want to leave a ton of minis behind if something does actually catch up to me! That might sound a little morbid, but we all go sometime, and I would like to leave as little of my hobby behind to clean up as possible!

Enough of the maudlin, I’m hankering for some 15mm action!

Marvel Crisis Protocol, Miniatures, Workbench

MCP Proxy: Rogue

Here’s another proxy job for my 40mm miniature collection, it’s funny how much energy I spend trying to find that “goldilocks” scale! Rogue in classic MCP suffers from Jim Lee design syndrome, and again… I’m not knocking Jim Lee’s design, I would just like to acknowledge that she’s had other, really cool costumes!

Luckily, I had extra bases from other MCP figs, so I swiped an engine piece from a Necromunda model for her to perch on, and she looks pretty cool!

This is probably my favorite Rogue costume ever, so kudos to the folks who put in the work on it!

I am currently working out some fantasy prints in this scale, as I’m realizing that there are some benefits to working large like this. I love the challenge of painting 15mm scale minis, and you can’t beat the storage options, but 40mm has it’s charms as well! I’ll explore them more in depth in an upcoming post!

Marvel Crisis Protocol, Miniatures, Workbench

Marvel Crisis Protocol: Jean Grey Proxy

I am back after a seven month battle with my pancreas that saw two hospitalizations, a major surgery, and an inability to eat food due to the cessation of my digestive tract. The surgery was undertaken to fix that issue, and I am happily able to eat now! I apologize for the absence, although my pancreas has informed me that it will happen again.

With that out of the way, though, let’s look at some minis! I love the X-Men, and, while I was a fan of the Jim Lee costumes that debuted 33 years ago, I don’t think they’re the end-all, especially when it comes to the original five students of Charles Xavier. Jean’s costume in particular never really gelled for me.

When the Krakoa storyline started a few years ago, I was really happy to see Jean’s first non-school uniform show up again, and spent some time looking for a suitable proxy model to use.

Before anyone rattle a pitchfork too mightily in my direction, I have a staunch take on proxy use! I always strive to own the original model, since I am playing a game that someone spent a lot of time and resources on, I want to support that. I also make sure that my opponent is cool with me using a proxy before we play. This allows cool battles like X-Men VS X-Men, with an obvious time travel element thrown in because of the costume variations!

I found this file of Jean in her Hickman era costume, and here’s how she looks painted up!

While I’m not 100% sold on the pose, I think the sculpt is actually pretty good!

I really do hope that Atomic Mass Games are able to branch out and explore more costume designs in future minis, because there’s a vast and wondrous world of X-Threads beyond Jim Lee, but let’s face it; those costumes were iconic, immortalized in the ’90s cartoon, and nostalgia sells war dollies better than any other marketing tool!

Another proxy is coming next!

Miniatures, Workbench

Oof, 2025? What the Hell is That?

I was born in 1969, burned bright in my punk rock days, and never thought I would see 30, let alone 50. Sure, I was a dedicated miniature hobbyist by the age of 14, but I also spent plenty of time in mosh pits and dabbled in things that Mother Warned Me About, so sitting here, in the far future and 55 years of age is not something I was ever prepared for.

Despite the apparent zeal the human race holds towards teetering off the narrow precipice of civilization into George Miller’s Mad Max future, the state of the miniature hobby has never looked brighter.

If supply chains hold up, that is.

2024 saw games like Trench Crusade pop up and cause a lot of folks to not only recognize that there are games outside of the GW Sphere, but that those games might be viable as well. That’s nothing but good news.

Even GW seems intent on putting out material for their specialist games, which allows titles like Warcry and Necromunda to thrive despite the all consuming nature of 40k and AOS.

Now that I’m looking at the year ahead, I am really excited to double down on some commitments I made to myself in the latter part of last year.

I want to adhere to a couple of posts a week here on the blog, since it keeps me motivated and helps thin out the horde of unpainted minis that have taken over my studio.

I want to focus on smaller games from smaller companies, but I also want to play with stuff that I forgot I loved, like Marvel Crisis Protocol and Shatterpoint.

I am also going to be making a lot more terrain this year, because I finally finished up a building that I printed off, and I really loved the process and want to PLAY A GAME with the buildings!

The biggest thing I plan on focusing on, however, is my health. Miniature painting has been a large part of my life for over 40 years, and it has been a form of meditation for me that has seen me through a lot of adversity, as well as good times.

BUT, as with all hobbies, it can be a bit all consuming! I really like to buy new models. Sometimes those will sit on a shelf for years, untouched. Part of focusing on my mental health is recognizing that it’s really not healthy to throw money at stuff that I’m not doing anything with!

It’ll be an interesting year. I’m also thinking about taking on Rob Hawkin’s hobby bingo challenge, because this bingo card is epic and it would be fun to challenge myself to do some of these!

That’s the year ahead. Hopefully, you are all well, and have plenty of hobby happiness to come!