Repaints

Here is the start of the minis I have already painted once, but due to advancing as a painter, wanted to revisit, usually to do the model more justice. I will go in order of the repaint and include the date.

4/19/2021

Red Skull becomes the first of the core set models that I repaint. The first take on him is on the left and the second take is on the right. Throughout this project, I have constantly learned the lesson that I need to use dark blues in highlighting my blacks. I decided Red Skull was an ideal model to try this out on since he's predominately black and desperately needed a repaint anyway. The level of detail I was able to maintain on the model is so much more than I was expecting, although I think a lot of that is due to 1. not using a thick contrast paint as a base coat and 2. learning how to more carefully apply thinner coats of paint. I'm really happy with how he came out. He's a much better finished piece and I'm glad my Cabal doesn't have to have a messy paintjob for their leader whenever I play as them.

I decided to make a couple stylistic changes. One, in preparation for painting Iron Man, I want to get out of the habit of highlighting red into orange, so I went with a couple red highlights and then used white mixes for the highlights. Originally I worried it would give too much of a pink vibe, but I think I pulled it off and it looks red with highlights. I also decided his hydra symbols on his arms would make more sense as red and I also didn't care for gold for his buckle. Overall I think the changes work a lot better and the miniature just has a better presence. I think the only critique I have in comparison to the first model is the heavy use of dark blues causes the model to have less contrast that the first paint job, which is unfortunate, but ultimately I feel the new model still retains a lot of contrast while simultaneously looking a lot cleaner and a lot more detailed, so it's a trade off I am very okay with.

The only real critique I have of the paint job right now is that I never really found a good balance between the red of his skull and the blue OSL from the cube. I had to repaint his face because my attempts at OSL were just making his face purple and it didn't look right. Ultimately I went with more pronounced highlights on his face and a couple really thin coats of a blue glaze for the OSL. I think it generally turned out well, but honestly I think that's only because you don't really notice it on his face, which due to the distance of the cube, I'm fine with. Outside of that I'm really happy with everything and the only improvements I can see are just spending more time on transitions, which I'm beginning to think is one of those things that you can never stop working on, so I'm not going to beat myself up about it. All works of art are eventually abandoned, so you gotta stop somewhere.

1/4/2022

Iron Man becomes the second of the core set models that I repaint. The first take on him is on the right and the second take is on the left (in case it's not obvious). I chose to do Iron Man because at the time of writing this, Hulkbuster is expected to come out in the next couple of weeks and not only do I need to paint my own, but a friend of mine wants me to paint one for them and I want to be able to do it justice. With that in mind I decided to knock out my core set repaint of him as practice before I jump into a hulk of a model (pun intended) like Hulkbuster.

As far as painting him goes, I had the benefit of a Sorastro video guide, although I only really used it for the color recipe than where to lay down highlights. My big worry going into this and one that I've constantly had to battle with in this project is my reds turning into pinks from my highlights. I think the fact that I was laying down the red as a NMM where large chunks are staying a dark red helped a lot in preventing it from looking pink. Although I also have learned quite a bit about how "going all the way to white" with my highlights doesn't mean I have to progress evenly from my base color to white, which is really why my reds were turning to pinks. That gives me hope for future projects.

At no point did I look at the model and agonize over whether the highlights were going to be "too much" or in anyway be something I regret. Painting it just felt natural and it just kind of flowed. All of this made the process just kind of fly by. I can tell when I'm getting really into how a paint job is looking because I start acting out the character like I'm a kid playing in the backyard. I found myself at multiple points holding out my arm as if I was about to blast someone with a repulsor. Kind of silly, but I think I can take it as a genuine sign that I'm happy with my paint job, which is nice.

As happy as I am I recognize there's a lot to improve on. The pics helped reveal how much smoother the paint could be, particularly on the face. I never really found a way to do the eyes in a way that I think looks striking. It was so little area to play with that I just kind of kept it simple and left it alone. I think there's no end to how long I couldn't spend playing with highlights. and shadows. I'm still not sure how much that is due to it being NMM versus my just seeing more of what "could be" as a painter compared to previous paint jobs.

The crazy thing for me is comparing the new one to the first one. The first one was admittedly a huge experiment, but the quality to me on the paint jobs is so drastically different that I just kind of stare in awe at them. They don't feel like they are painted by the same person. It really makes me feel like I've grown so much as a painter, that it feels like the time in between the paint jobs has to be longer than it is. It's such a rewarding feeling. I'm getting ready to paint the rivals set with Doc Oc and Spidey, so I'm planning on repainting them sooner rather than later. They'll likely be next of my repaint list.