“The Fiendish Four”

The end of “Box Clearing month” left me in a bit of a quandary as to what to do next, I had a few ideas, but no definite direction. Inspiration finally struck in the form of Simon Moore’s excellent blog Fantorical where he has been painting like a demon as part of the “Analogue painting challenge”

http://fantorical.blogspot.co.uk/

turning out (amongst other things) some wonderful “Heroklix” repaints. So as it’s been a while since I added anyone to my own superhero roster out came my big box of “Klicker’s” and a root through in search of suitable candidates ensued. After pulling out and discarding various figures a plan began to emerge in my fevered brain “I’d make an evil super team, a Fiendish Four”, now that I had a plan four proxies were soon arrived at, and their new powers established. So going from right to left the figures that would form the basis of my new team were an “Intergang Medic”, “Starfire”,“Intergang Agent” and “Doc Sampson”.

Blitzkrieg (Doc Sampson): Jez over at “Carrion Crows Buffet” is to blame for this one, as ever since I set eyes on his conversion of this figure into the “Nazi Super soldier, Aryan”,

https://carrioncrowsbuffet.wordpress.com/2015/04/27/the-joy-of-clix/

I’ve wanted to do one of my own, so Erik Von Hasselhoff, is my very own shield wielding “super athlete”. So to begin with all four were snapped off of their “Klicky” bases and remounted onto two pence pieces, then as Doc Sampsons pose was perfect for it, I glued an old GW round plastic shield onto his right arm and added a strap to the inside of this with some “greenstuff”. Then once he and the other slight conversions detailed below were finished he and the other three went out to the garage for a coat of matt black. I began his painting by dry-brushing the back and edge of his shield along with the buckle and studs on his belt with chainmail, Then as the majority of his costume was going to be red I undercoated his tights, shirt and the inner edge of his shield in dark red, before highlighting these areas in bright red. Then the shields centre circle, his shoulder pads and belt were undercoated in coffee, followed by a highlight in white, his collar underpants (overpants?) and boots were touched up as these would stay black, before being highlighted in dark grey. I also added the swastika onto the centre of his shield in black. Flesh was painted in flesh tone “7” then after eyes were added, highlighted in European flesh. His hair was then painted citrus orange before highlights of lemon yellow were added and the strap on his shield was done in chocolate brown and leather.

Neurotoxin (Intergang Agent): French chemist Hugo Channel created his “toxigun” and went on a one man crime wave, using the tiny toxic darts and gas pellets it fires to rob banks and jewelry stores across the world. Starting from the same black base coat I began by dry-brushing his gun and the pipes a the back of his head in chainmail, then mixing shamrock green with a little black undercoated his boots, gloves underpants and tabard, these were then highlighted with shamrock mixed with deep bronze green. The one piece uni-tard he wears underneath was then painted lime before this was then highlighted in light green (not the most descriptive colour name ever I’ll admit but that’s what it says on the pot). The original figure had big red eye covers on his mask but I thought I’d go for a bit of a “Spiderman” vibe so after painting them black I carefully added the white innards. That really just left his belt and the butt of his gun to be repainted black and then have dark grey highlights added and he was done, pretty simple really.

Infernikka (Starfire): Turning to the female member of our gang, the masses of long lair running down her back and attaching her to her flight stand immediately made me think of flames so Ivana Burnov, had to become my Russian female “Human torch”. The first job after pulling her out of her flying stand was to figure out how I was going to attach her to her new “2p” base, I ended up making a cone out of greenstuff with a socket pushed into the top that the “lug” on her hair could push into. Then I built up around this with a couple of cat litter stones and finally Tetrioned the rest of the base, and gluing her into place also built up around the join at the “lug” and where her hair met the base at the back. After undercoating in black I started by painting her tights in leather brown and then highlighted these in the same mixed with flesh tone “7”. Then her costume, wristbands and boots were painted royal purple and highlighted in plum, I decided to greatly increase the size and coverage of her costume as the ridiculously skimpy one the original had on looked to me to be in serious danger of doing what the “tabloids” refer to as “costume malfunction” as soon as she moved! Some details were added to these with coffee and white panels. Her “fleshy bits” were then done in European flesh highlighted after her eyes were added in the same with some pale flesh mixed in. Her lips were pink burgundy, and her belt buckle and little bits of jewelry were done in copper with bright gold highlights. Then it was time to add her “flaming tresses”, I started by laying down an undercoat of four wide “stripes” running crossways from the top of her head down to the tips of her hair, these were cream, citrus orange, bright red and dark red and each was blended into the next. Then once this was dry I dry-brushed lemon yellow over the top of this to about two thirds of the way down then did the same to the remaining third in light and dark grey and again blended them into each other, and she was done.

Blow’wave (Intergang Medic): Tarquin Mincer, was a successful hairdresser until a rival added hair remover to the bottles of shampoo in Tarquins shop, causing him to become a laughing stock, sworn to get revenge on the world that had mocked him and armed with a super powerful hairdryer he became the villain Blow’wave (yes I know it’s silly, but once I’d thought of it I just had to go with it! And his gun looks exactly like a hairdryer to me). So first job was to add the flex running from his drier to the pack on his back, this was done by simply bending a bit of florists wire to the appropriate shape and after drilling two small holes in the bottom of the pack and the bottom of his hand, glued the wire into place. Then once again he was started with a dry-brush of chainmail over his black undercoat, His boots, pants gloves and helmet were painted metallic blue which was highlighted with blue steel, however I didn’t like this as it was too silver so I re-coated them in metallic blue again, and fortunately where the blue steel had been showed through slightly causing highlights (happy mistake on my part). His uni-tard was undercoated in a mix of bright blue and light blue, then highlighted over his muscles in light blue and his holster and backpack were royal blue with bright blue highlights. His flesh was done exactly the same as “Infernikka” above and the cable on his drier and the leather on his belt was just left black with a touch of dark grey.

After all this it was of course “Quickshade” time (I think that sadly the “Shade” has covered up some of the brightness of Infernikka’s hair, so I’m not sure that it looks as good as before, but I can live with it), then they were based up as usual and given a final spraying of matt varnish. Four more vile villains to add to my roster, I’ve still got a couple of ideas for some more, but they need a bit more planning (and bits) before they can be fully realized.

Till next week, Excelsior Roger.