“Fight With the Power of Light!” (Forgotten Heroes)

Okay so we come to the end of the month, and with the deadline for “Forgotten Heroes” fast approaching the question on everyone’s lips was “Did Roger get his figure of Shield finished?” (Well it should have been 🙄). But fear not gentle readers because I have! And much rejoicing was heard around the globe! (Well there should have been 🙄). So as I’m sure you remember I was shooting for this 👉🏼. but how close have I come? Read on to find out…..

Anyhow, when I left you I had the torso of our good (and undoubtedly REAL and not just some sh*t I’d made up, thank you Keith 😬) hero finished but he wasn’t much good to anyone without his trademarked “shield” (oh and a head!). and this is where I started. Now was you can see on the original toy his face is safely hidden away inside a helmet with a clear visor, but how to recreate this on a figure one and a half inches tall? The simple solution was to just paint the visor section of the helmet black, but “figure OCD” set in and of course that just wasn’t going to “cut it”. So first job was to dig out my draw of heads (this is a rather macabre hobby sometimes!) and find something suitable, his came in the form of GW imperial guard head (I think) from “Grahams big box of crap”. Now it needed to be set a little further back on his shoulders than normal so was cut in half behind the face and set on his shoulders with a little greenstuff at the back, and this was left to dry overnight. Next day I added some tiny sausages around the face and after cutting a piece of folded plastic from the front of a blister pack made a tiny visor and set it onto these sausages and again left this dry overnight. Next day (this is long winded isn’t it! 🤨) the plastic was “snapped off and his face and the inner sections of the “sausages” were undercoated in black, then his face was highlighted first in chainmail and then after I went “off-piste” a little and painted in his eyes with porcelain blue (his eyes weren’t painted on the toy), I highlighted his face again with sir coats silver. Once this was dry I carefully superglued the visor back in place (for as we know to much glue will “mist” clear plastic) and left this to dry fully.

Next (stay with me!) I built up the upper section of his helmet using my smoothing tool to get the ridges and angles along with smoothing the greenstuff carefully overlapping the edges of the visor. Next day (this took quite a while all told 😉), I added in the lower portion of his helmet setting the base part slightly further out and matching the angles of the upper section. Then adding more putty and dragging it down to form the longer pointed section between his chin and chest, again taking care to cover the lower section of the visor. Lastly here (thank god you say!) I pushed in the six “vent” holes on this lower section with a suitably shaped tool.

But he was still devoid of his shield (and an arm to hold it!), so it was back to the drawers, this time my one full of round shields for one suitable. The best I could find size and shape wise was actually a GW one originally for a “skink” warrior, now this sadly had an embossed design on it that would have to go, but I thought the best idea would be to cover the front in “greenstuff” right to the edges then once dry sand this back using the embossing as a sort of guide to get the shape even all round, hopefully the picture gives a better idea of what I mean that the above description does! 😲). This also meant I could see where the centre of the shield front was, so it was here I added a small blob of putty blended in the edges and flattened the top before pushing in the circular “bulb” in the centre of this with an old paintbrush tip that I’d pulled all the bristles out of.

Next day I bent a piece of florists wire to the right shape and length to form his robot arm and stuck it in place at the back of the shield with a bit of putty. I then built the arm up over this adding some pipes made from very thin sausages of putty and the odd “vent” of textured cover here and there “tapped” in with a scalpel blade, and again once this was dry another small ball of putty and some superglue was used to set it in place of the figure (and yes I set it up higher than on the original toy as I did need to be able to get a paint brush up under there in a bit!).

When it came to the painting, it was pretty easy stuff with a few fiddly bits of messing about due to his “clear face covering” so once he was transferred from his “klik’y” base over onto a shiny new (well it still had the queen on) two pence piece, his base was built up with some Tetrion filler and a few “kitty litter” rocks. Then it was out for a spray coat of matt black, but not before the front of his face was covered with a small square of masking tape. Once this was dry I filled in the missing area around the face plate with a small brush and a pot of more matt black. So I began by painting the areas of his body that would be his blue “undersuit” in Navy blue, then highlighted these with marine blue, and then these areas were it turn highlighted again while wet with more marine blue with some ocean blue mixed in. You may notice that hand on the toy in the original picture is black but this is not the original which should be blue to match the rest of the body. But apparently this and the soft plastic used to “elasticate” the joints was very poor quality and the majority have perished and fallen apart over the years, making a fully intact “Shield” something of a rarity!

Anyway next I painted in his helmet and body “armour” with pale grey, this was a mistake as it was WAAAAAYY to light and frankly looked crap! So I tried this again this time with a mix of dungeon stone grey, silver to give it a slight metallic edge and then a little white in tiny stages till it was about the same tint as the original toy. This was then carefully applied especially around the face plate as any mistakes would be an absolute sh*t to try and remove and would probably bugger up the whole effect. Luckily my hands stayed just about steady enough to get away with it. And once fairly dry (not long in the heat wave we’ve been having this week! I added a touch more white and added a few highlights here and there on the edges and corners. I then took some more black and added the “vents” on his helmet and the triangular “window” in its top (this too was clear plastic on the toy, but this one would just be painted in!). His robotic arm and shield were next, and though I wasn’t going to be bale to get the “chrome” finish of the original, I did want it as “Bling” as possible so after a good dry-brushing with chainmail I went it with the sir coats silver and highlighted the devil out of it! That just left his boots which I left black but highlighted with some dark grey.

Another nerve racking few minutes came next as I Quickshaded (light tone) the whole thing using a small brush to do around the face (I normally use a Daler No5 oil painting brush for this, and did on the body, but the 000 came out for this bit!). Luckily with the heat the way it is that was dry by the next day and I could set to work on the base, I went back and forth over what colour to with here, in the end I decided to forgo my usual brown and green in favour of my “Space” theme (well he is a “Space type figure after all”), So after beginning in the usual way with a coat of chocolate brown, the heavily dry-brushed terracotta of this. Then next I dabbed a little PVA wood glue here and there and sprinkled some “red” sand over this, finally I dry-brushed coffee over everything and he was ready for a coat of matt varnish. Well not before I’d covered his “visor” again, this time I used a small ball of “blu’tac” as I didn’t want to mist up the “window” to his face. So here is the finished figure  along with another picture of the original toy, not too far off I think (hope 🙏🏼).

So that brings my part in “Forgotten Heroes” to a close for the year, I love this challenge, and without wanting to “blow my own trumpet” I’m actually rather pleased with how “Shield” came out, so a big thank you for Jez for thinking it up and hosting it again this year, I also thick to give a shout out to  “3D Super Joes” for all the information and essential images, without whom I wouldn’t have been able to complete “Shield” after I couldn’t find my own toy up in the loft. It’s a real trip down memory lane so be sure to check it out. A last call out to all the other people who took part this year, all the entries had been top notch as always, what a talented bunch you are and it’s a pleasure to blog with you all.

Join me next time when we will be into Dave Stone’s “Season Of Scenery” challenge! (I try to get out but they just keep dragging me back in!)

Cheers Roger.