Greybishop's Chess Set: May 2007

Manhunter green, and friends.

From left to right:
Scorpion, second layer of darkened green.
Dr. Doom, second layer of darkened green.
Doctor Octupus, first layer of darkened green.
Martian Manhunter, first layer of darkened green.
Yoda, first layer of darkened green.

Martian Manhunter

DC Heroes King, primed in black.

A little yellow.

Some yellow on Superman and The Human Torch.

The colour looks quite a bit more vivid in the picture than it does in real life. The same trouble that red has (Poor coverage, multiple coats required) is even WORSE with yellow. Ten times worse if there's any colour under it, say from an earlier mistake. Any colour even slightly darker than the yellow will bleed through quite visibly.

Red. Always red.

A second coat of darkened red on the Superman and Imperial Guard figures.

Stupid red.

A second coat of "regular" red on Thor's cape and a first coat of darkened red on The Human Torch.

How the hell do you paint a guy who's supposed to be living fire?

Princess Leia. Getting white...

White mixed about half and half with "Porcelain Blue", drybrushed over the grey base coat. Starting to look like her...

Black prime on several figures.

From left to right, Yoda, primed black, The Emperor, primed black, Princess Leia, head and hair primed black, and my "Clayface" figure, primed black.

Red, the cruelest colour of them all...

So, Superman and the two Imperial Guards all got the first layer of darkened red. Thor is on layer 3, this time "regular" lipstick red, straight from the tube. As you can see, there's still several layers to go before the colour evens out completely. Red is a pain in the ass.

Part of the problem with red, besides the lousy coverage and multiple layers is that you can't easily lighten it. It goes PINK really easily and I don't want Thor's cape highlighted with pink!

Just priming.

Priming of several figures.

Princess Leia gets grey primer, since she's almost completely dressed in white. The grey will work as an under coat AND as deeper shadows in the folds of her garment.

Superman gets primed white, since he has a lot of red and yellow to deal with. His outfit is "bright" compared to say Batman, so the lighter priming makes most of the work easier. I'll still have to "dark prime" his head and the blue bits of his suit, but the white won't hinder that.

Human Torch is basically all red, orange and yellow, so the bright undercoat is best.

Same goes for the "Imperial Guard" figures. They are dressed COMPLETELY in red, so they need bright undercoating too.

More colour.

More colour. Thor gets another coat of red mixed down with a bit of brown, while Cap gets white where he'll be

Just some colour.

More colour. Thor gets another coat of red mixed down with a bit of brown, while Cap gets white where he'll be going red.

Cap, Mr. Fantastic and Thor get colour...

Added some dark blue base to both Captain America and Mr. Fantastic. Fun to start the more costumed characters finally.

See how streaky the red looks after a single coat? Imagine if I hadn't done the white base coat first! It will get better as I layer progressively brighter reds over it.

I AM THOR!!!

"You think you're Thor? I jutht got off my horth and my ath ith killing me!"

With apologies to whoever told me that joke recently.

So here he is, God of Thunder, Thor. Black base coat, but I did his cape over in a thick layer of white. Not much detail in the cape and it's eventually supposed to be red. The only way I know to make red "pop" is to start white and add multi layers of red over top. It just looks dull otherwise.

And I think another might be done...

Now that I'm not constantly worried about getting this week's recap out on time, I am in the mood to paint.

HULK FINISHED!!!

The following four shots show the last bits of him getting done. Purple eyes, lightened hair and touched up face in the first two and then the addition of just a touch of black in his hair to tone down the bright, light green.