Iron Man and WIP Friends

12.29.2023

To wrap up the year I finally got around to opening one of the packs from Marvel Crisis Protocol that's been sitting on the shelf for a year. Or maybe three. The Hulkbuster pack has always been at the top of my list to open up and paint, but horror stories about various kits and microscopic parts to glue together has always given me pause. Un-pause, and I've finally moved forward!

There's an Iron Man and Hulkbuster in the box. Iron Man was pretty straight forward. Hulkbuster was... confusing. I had to consult YouTube for help as the instructions weren't clear on the orientation of some parts. Even the videos I watched weren't clear on the orientation for those torso-parts where I was really confused. The action-angle of stomach/chest/shoulder where things are twisted and bent, without a slot A for tab B to definitely fit in, this is where I knew I would glue things in backwards, upside down, inside out. Luckily, the videos helped and everything ended up glued where it should be.

Once it was time to paint, I used YouTube for Hulkbuster, using Army Painter metallics. Although the video is just painting Hulkbuster, regular Iron Man was going through the same treatment. I deviated from the videos by not using a coat of speed paint on top of the metallics. Evidently I like my armor extra shiny. Additionally, I used a different YouTube for the Arc reactor glows to go with a blue-glow more than green-glow.

While I started with priming Iron Man and Hulkbuster at the same time, I quickly turned to mainly painting the very much smaller Iron Man more, and finishing him up. The metallic Army Painter paint requires a couple of coats to get proper coverage and smooth things out - this stuff has the consistency of nail policy. Granted, this is my first time to use this paint and I'm obviously still learning here. With Iron Man finished, I decided to work on Hulkbuster from the bottom-up so as to focus more on getting details and coverage instead of the eventual hurry-up-to-get-done that usually comes with using 1 color at a time. Hulkbuster boots took about 6 passes to get the coverage I was happy with. Well, happy enough.

What was I saying about hurrying up to get done?

Hulkbuster is still in progress. Most of the legs are done - maybe 70%. This is one I'm definitely going to have to take my time and not rush. Not rush to the point I may throw in painting other things to completion while working on this one here and there.

Speaking of other things, one of the semi-impulse purchases I made during Christmas sales was an O Gauge Water Tower for train layouts. O is the comparable scale that fits with 28-32mm gaming minis, and for some reason I've always wanted a non-homemade water tower, probably because my homemade water tower isn't very good. But now, a legit water tower can populate my zombie infested town ship! This is another currently in-progress kit. Getting circular parts to line up on multiple levels was the challenge here, and I knew going in that any gaps or problems with alignment would turn into rust damage. As progress went on, this rusted tower kept sticking in my head and I decided to overdo the rust. This is the step I'm currently on, which boils down to "how much was too much, and how do I backpedal?" This kit is probably about half done now, and still needs a lot of detail work added.

Permalink Atlas O Gauge gaming miniatures Marvel Crisis Protocol models