X-Men – 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.

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

MCP: The Juggernaut

I am blaming my friend Randon for this. I just fell helplessly back in love with Marvel Crisis Protocol. It’s not entirely his fault, the models are incredible, fun to paint, and really easy to collect… but I’m blaming him, primarily because he’s a fun guy to pal around with, but he’s also an incredible painter, which can get the inspiration juices flowing pretty easily!

The first model off the workbench is Cain Marko, half-brother of Charles Xavier and the wielder of the Crimson Gem of Cyttorak… but you probably know him as the Juggernaut!

This model is incredible! He’s so dynamic, and the base alone conveys the brutal stompiness of the character in such a huge way! I also love that Cain just grabbed a stoplight to hit someone with on his way to the fight!

Juggernaut is one of those characters that I’ve loved since I was a kid. He’s a bad guy most of the time, but he seems to have some redeemable qualities. There was a run in the early 2000’s when he was a member of the X-Men that I loved, especially his friendship with Sammy the Squidboy. Good stuff, and it still hits me like a ton of bricks 20 years later!

There’s a bunch more MCP on the way, but Juggernaut is a great way to kick off this year’s projects! He also lets me check off a hobby bingo square, since he’s been sitting partially finished on a shelf for almost two years! Woohoo!

Miniatures, Workbench

15mm Wargaming: Make Mine (Tiny) Marvel!

I’m still on this weird-ass quest to find the perfect scale, and I’m afraid it’s leading me to this whole new world of resizing existing STL files to smaller scales to see what scratches what itch the best.

Lately, that itch has been tiny super heroes, and that scale appears to be 15mm. I have been taking some regular 40mm files from C27 miniatures and printing them off at 15mm scale on my Saturn, and the results have been really fun.

And really frustrating. The figs not only get super tiny, they’re also super fiddly and really come off the supports alot, even though I’m painstakingly supporting the damned things. Oh well, live and learn. We’ll see how long I stick to it, but for now, the madness shall run its course!

First off the plates was this tiny Captain America:

I was pretty happy with the results, and really happy to see that Speed Paints and a quick highlight look FANTASTIC! Plus, this is a half hour to an hour of a paintjob, so wins all around!

Here’s Cyclops:

One down side is that my focus is getting freaked out by the penny, so I’ll probably start shooting without the scale comparison. Still, it’s fun to see how freaky tiny these guys are!

Time for some Southern charm:

And, finally, my absolute favorite character from Silver Age Marvel, MODOK. I am absolutely smitten with how this little maniac turned out!

Full transparency, I painted these before a medical emergency in November that pretty much knocked me on my ass and is still effecting me. My hand-eye coordination is pretty messed up, and I can’t hold a brush for very long, but physical therapy will help with that. I’m just trying to catch up with projects that I had been meaning to post about prior!

I’ll be trying to get more of these printed off soon, but I’m going to have to find someone to print them for me, since the doc says I can’t run resin anymore. Poo. Still, no use dwelling on that, I still have a mountain of gray plastic to tackle as I get back on my feet from surgery!