“I’m so money supermarket!!”

Right well before I start this week I guess I should clarify the title of this post for any readers outside of the UK, we currently have an advert running on television for a “comparison website”, and well…it’s probably easier if you just click play on the YouTube video at the bottom of the post

Anyway turning back to the figures, and well it was a close run thing, but I managed to get my two submissions for this years “Forgotten Heroes” challenge finished before the end of the month (and a day earlier than last year!). as I hope you are aware, in my last post I stated that the sculpting was now all finished and it was time to add a little colour into the lives of my two “Eternians” so after Jitsu had been “based up” with some filler and “cat litter” boulders, both figures were given a spray coat of matt black, and it was…. Painting time!

I began this as usual by touching up any areas on both figures that the black spray had missed, then Jitsu’s sword was dry-brushed with chain-mail. Then turning to his breastplate this was undercoated in dark red before I added highlights in bright red. I decided that I couldn’t live with the bright orange/red furry undies that the toy wears so undercoated these in dark grey and highlighted them in light grey instead and while I had them out I painted the fur tops of his boots in the same (The toy’s boots have “gold” fur tops? I nearly went for black but as his belt and boots are black I thought the contrast would be better in grey. Flesh came next, to get the shade I was after I began by mixing a little “Flesh tone 7” (This is quite a dark “Mexican” brownish shade), with a tiny amount of chocolate brown (to darken it slightly further) and once this was dry and his eyes had been added in white and black, I mixed up some more flesh tone 7 this time with some khaki to get a slightly oriental tome. This was then used to highlight all the muscles a skin. All the “gold bits” came next, so his “hand”, breastplate accoutrement’s, belt buckle and sword hilt were all painted shinning gold, before being highlighted in pale gold. The rest of his belt, left arm strapping, his boots and his hair and beard were then all touched up again in black before all but his hair and beard were highlighted in dark grey (a mixture of dark grey and black, being used on his hairy bits). The “jewels” on his breast plate and belt buckle were then added using metallic red, and the ones across the knuckles of his “big hand” were done in turquoise, and low and behold he was just about painted.

Beast-man, was begun by painting his whole body and head in orange, now I know I’ve said this on numerous occasions now, but why did I go with a black undercoat!! Three coats of orange later and he was reasonably evenly coated. I could now highlight this with a mixture of orange and coffee. Then I added his face and ears (the cartoon and a later version of the toy had pale ears as well as face, and as I liked this, I decided to do mine this way) so coffee was used for these areas, before adding his eyes and mouth in black and white. The darker patches under his eyes I did in a mixture of porcelain blue and royal blue to get the right shade. Turning to his breastplate “thingy” and arm plates I began by painting in dark red, then highlighted with pink burgundy and then again with bright red. I then added the cross in the middle of his breastplate in porcelain blue with a highlight of pale blue, and after this I lightly dry-brushed the tips of the spikes around his neck and on his upper arm plates with a touch of chainmail. Now his furry underpants should have been blue (well they are on the toy and cartoon), but once again I decided to stray slightly from “cannon” and after giving then a dark grey undercoat, I dry-brushed them in blue grey, that are still slightly blue’ish but at least not that awful plastic blue (really the only time I ever recall seeing this colour is on toy’s from my childhood!). That only really left his belt and electro-whip to do, so rather than paint his whole belt in bronze highlighted with a little copper, I just did the two plates on the front in this colour, deciding instead to colour the belt itself in chocolate brown with a leather brown highlight, this was also used on the strapping around his wrists and around his upper arms, holding the plates in place. His whip was left black (like the toy) but I did highlight it with some dark grey.

Both figures were then treated to coat of “quickshade” strong tone, and once this was dry their bases were first painted chocolate brown before successive dry-brushes of khaki and coffee were applied. Then areas were picked out scenic green and then these areas were flocked using “Javis” Summer Mix static hairy grass. A final spray coat of matt varnish sealed the deal.

So that’s it I made it with just a day to go, and though I would never dare to profess to being anywhere near as productive as some of the other participants in this year’s challenge all in all I’m pretty happy with what I’ve achieved, I began on fairly safe ground to be honest as having already turned out ten of these “Masters of the Universe” figures before I was reasonably confident I could produce something that should be at least recognizable as “He-man” toy proxies (though you never know when one of these little bu**ers is going to get away from you!). I was a little unsure about the pose of the dolly I had chosen for my “Jitsu” figure, but now he’s finished I think it works, it’s a little sad to say that when I first ordered these “Dollies” from “Bronze Age Miniatures” a couple of years back now I went through the pictures on the web-site and was able to name what character each pose would end up being before I ordered them. The slightly sad thing is however I have three human characters (and three cats but that’s beside the point) I still really want to produce but I only have two dollies left (one I only recently decided I wanted). Sadly the dollies are no longer on the web-site, so I’m not sure they are still available, a bridge I will have to cross at some point.

Anyway this is my last “Forgotten Heroes” post this year, so it just remains for me to say a huge thank you to all the people who have taken part, producing figures of such incredible high skill and imagination that you have exceeded all my expectations, and for everyone who has taken the time to comment either on the “Forgotten Heroes” site or on people own blogs. Thank you to all of you for making this year’s challenge so successful, and be sure to read Jez’s “end of term” round up on the FH site at the start of next month. I’ll leave you with a couple of group shots of all my “Masters of the Universe” figures to date.

Till next time, excelsior!! & cheers Roger.