This model is another of my old 1st edition WarZone models. This time a Capitol Sea Lion Hero. Capitol of course being the USA-themed faction. The Sea Lions were… well, SEA Lions. SEA L ions. SEALs. See what they did there? Yeah, GW never had a monopoly on terrible puns for their figures and units. Anyway, speaking of terrible, I was never a fan of several of the ranges, particularly the 1st edition figures. Some of those were reeeeally rough. The Capitol range being one of those. However, mixed in there were a few rough gems. Here’s one of them.
Basically, despite the gigantic moob-like slabs of beef across his chest, and his American Dad-level chin, this guy is a fun and well-sculpted enough rendition of the “Rambo” trope to have passed muster for me back then, so I picked him up. I don’t believe I got any Sea Lions at all. The idea was for this guy to be an Imperial Guard Catachan-style Captain. Hence the “C” command icons all over him and his gear.
As you can see, he also sports a nWo Wolfpac logo on his shoulder pauldron. That is of course because I was right into wrestling at the time, and wrestling is a rich source of interesting logos. As far as figure use goes, he still works perfectly well as a Catachan-type Captain, but I could also use him as a pretty decent Sly Marbo. In fact, I think this figure is a better rendition of the character than the original figure, the kitbash-your-own example or even the redux model. Because if you’re unfamiliar with the character – Sly Marbo is Sly Stallone as John Rambo. Remember what I said about terrible puns? Yeap.
So after a minor touch-up and rebasing, I’m actually in two minds as to whether to leave the figure as is. because respect the original paint. Or to repaint his hair black, the bandanna red, maybe replace the C on his pauldron with a Bullet Club logo and go full Marbo with him. His skin is orange enough, at least! 😉 I don’t actually have a Marbo figure of any kind after all. hmm…
What do you think?
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
Whoa! He is ACE! I was going to say he could be Sly Marbo. He’s great mate. A little cartoony, as you say, but very cool all the same. I like his dark eyes. Very, very cool mate.
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Thanks, IRO. He was a pleasant surprise, hidden in the old figure case I discovered him in. Didn’t need much work to get him up to standard, either – and the “Hey… he’d make a great Marbo!” was something else I didn’t expect to have. I must have painted him originally pre-Marbo’s introduction!
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I’ve been back to look at him a couple of times now. I think he encompasses why I fell in love without catachans all those moons ago.
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I will at some stage need to start digging out my Imperial Guard, including the Catachans. I had a specific project for a bunch of those back around 2000 as well – which I still plan to do!
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Haha plans hey?
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Hey, they might take awhile to come to fruition, but the Orcs got done, the Iron Warriors are happening, the Minotaurs are happening… the Catachans are on that gigantic mental list. 😉
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Oh I believe they will mate but it just makes me laugh how long our hobby project lists are. I’m just pleased I’m not the only one haha
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Yeah, dozens of projects in the mind/pipeline. The question is how many will we get to work on, let alone complete in our lifetimes?
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My trouble is I’m easily excitable and distracted haha
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Same here – this is why it’s a *challenge* to finish them!
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I always thought you were pretty good with nutting down and getting a job done. I just assumed you had so many projects that they just piled up. What I mean is, I thought when you started a project you would stay at it, then start another on completion.
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No mate – quite the opposite. I’ve been the worst kind of hobby butterfly for decades now. It’s only recently that I’ve started to:
1) make myself paint more – a LOT more – and
2) buckle down and get some coherent shit done.
Doesn’t mean all of X, Y or Z are finished, of course, but getting collections to the point of looking a bit like small but cohesive forces, and then a couple of the larger fantasy armies up to scratch.
That’s why I have been doing these “neglected model” challenges – to make myself essentially “clean up” the piles of basically abandoned models I’ve left over the years. Sometimes it means adding another unit to some army or other thing I’ve “properly started”, and other times (like with all these WarZone models) it just means getting long-unfinished models over the line.
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Is it hard to motivate yourself to get it done. For me I just don’t want tgehobby to be about pressure or “have to’s”
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Sometimes it is. I sometimes wonder if I’d ever finish any model if I didn’t make myself do it. That’s one reason I have so many unfinished and neglected models. It’s too easy for me to be distracted by the new shiny, so these days I try to use a “finish and replace” strategy for some models (finish two orcs, start two mode – or only have one Space Marine Squad on the desk even if I’d really rather be painting a different one. That way starting new models is a reward for finishing stuff.
I also often pick out a couple of models that NEED to be the next ones finished “today or tomorrow” as a way to focus. Often it’s that forcing myself to do it that pushes me past the mental block that something might have. And that’s a thing that can occur simply through negative inertia – not having worked on something for ages.
Of course, I also allow myself to paint something new or random every so often (as you’d have seen many times) because keeping it interesting is always important.
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He looks suitably ramboish. I also feel a Manowar vibe. Excellent skintone and great freehands. Black hair and red hairband would drive the Rambo theme home, but I like his Mad Max appearance, too. Would also be a shame to overpaint those freehands.
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I hadn’t thought of the Manowar vibe, but now that you mention it, he would be perfect for the cover of a single release of Violence and Bloodshed or something like that \mm/
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I think you guys have picked up on that shirtless power metal of the 80’s and 90’s thing, and he certainly fits the bill there as well. Though I personally think we need more models that scream Spın̈al Tap.
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Unfortunately, 40K has a tendency to cap things at 10, rather than letting them go to 11 😉
I should build a tiny dolmen or henge at some point, tho. You know, something that would be in danger of being trodden on by a Dwarf.
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Yes.
Do this thing.
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And now I’m listening to Spın̈al Tap.
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Some good points. I think I’ll leave him alone – it’s often super easy to figure out what needs to be changed on these old models (no luminous green cables here, thankfully!) but occasionally there’s a “hmm.. ” moment as with this guy.
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Perfect Marbo material I’d say – cheesy, but in a good way 🙂
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Yeah, this one passes muster. 🙂
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I was going to say he looks Catachan-esque, and he will make a great Catachan leader, but then you said it (great minds!)…on a side note…does he remind you of Dolph Lundgren in The Expendables?
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Oh yea, I hadn’t thought of Dolph. Maybe with red pants or something? But def with the blond hair. I guess because the mini is hunching a bit, and Dolph tends to be in those standing straight poses.
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Good spot. That facial structure and expression is very much Expendables Dolph.
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Great figure. Personally I’d leave alone but that’s because I never revisit a completed figure, mainly because changing it would probably result in making it worse not better!
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If you saw some of the garish crap I painted on otherwise-decently painted figures, you’d know why I do it. 😀
This guy is an unusual exception, simply based on his likeness with the Rambo/Marbo character that didn’t exist when I originally painted him.
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I really like the mini. Kinda looks like a Heroquest version of a mercenaries game. Thanks for linking all those pics of Sly Marbo. You’re so right, that mini looks more like Sly than any of the others.
Changes? The only thing that stuck out to me at first, was the skin. It could be the lighting, but it looks too orange. I think the mini looks fine, but if I was to change one thing, that would be the only part.
If there are Necromunda stats for Sly Marbo somewhere, then I might have to see if I can track down that model!
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Yeah, he’s a very Marbo kinda model. I briefly considered doing an extra layer of highlight to the flesh, which would have desaturated it a little, but then I considered the whole Rambo flesh tone and left it alone:
Necromunda stats? Not sure, he should be pretty easy to homebrew, though he’s really an army of one kind of model as well, so he’d probably be a bit OTT for Necromunda. 😉
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I was thinking as another Bounty Hunter character. I couldn’t find the same model through some quick Ebay searching. Likely I would want to customize to fit the look of new Necromunda models. Will see if I come up with something decent down the line. I can blame you for the inspiration either way. 😉
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There’s some other pretty fitting characters that are still available that would work for Necro from the WarZone range:
https://shop.princeaugust.ie/tg1211-warzone-capitol-infantry-captain-figures/
https://shop.princeaugust.ie/tg9728pb-warzone-capitol-ranger-sergeant-figures/
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Nice, not really familiar with WarZone, so one for me to check out.
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Yeah, just have a browse. As I mentioned, the quality is all over the shop within editions, let alone between editions.
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I’d be tempted to do him up as Nuke (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuke_(Marvel_Comics)), myself. He would make a good Marbo or Catachan officer, tho.
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I actually had that comic, back in the distant past. I wonder if I have another of this model unpainted somewhere? I picked up a fair bit of clearance WarZone when it reached the end days.
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I’m finding that there are indeed some hidden gems in that range after picking up a squad of Capital Commandos on Ebay about six months ago and needing to find out what the hell they actually were!
Interesting that you chose Wolf Pack NWO colours, and not original black and white – kind of makes me think that, if you’re going to repaint him, Bullet Club Elite imagery might be the way to go, rather than the standard for the stable.
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Well, this model was originally painted back in ’98 or so, so the choices then were between Hall/Nash/Sting/Luger/Konnan or Hogan/The Disciple/Stevie Ray/Steiner/Buff/Vincent/etc. Which would you have chosen? 😉
Aesthetically, the Black and White looks better for the nWo logo, and once I finish some rebasing there’ll be a few more nWo logos from back in the day posted up here.
You might like this dreadnought, though.
https://azazelx.com/2017/11/05/dreadtober-2017-completion-2-mentor-legion-dreadnought/
Which models are the Capitol Commandos? I googled them (I can’t remember much of what anything was/is called) but couldn’t find them.
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Sorry, I meant 1st Edition Capital Heavy Troopers – I have very little knowledge of this range, as I was pretty much a Citadel Cultist at the time they were out!
They’re front and centre in this blog post from back in March:
https://indelibleinchobbyandcustoms.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/far-corfe-queefs-warband-sgt-twitters.html
That’s a pretty nice Dreadnought – I wonder if it can do the double-foot stomp?
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Ah yes – I have those (unpainted) but I definitely have plans for them. They were part of the range of resculpts for 2nd Edition WarZone when a lot of the original super-chunky models got replaced by sculpts that were (generally) way less OTT and more refined.
Oh, and that double-stomp is REEEEEEEEAL!
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I’d leave him as he is, I think he looks great! But I had the thought, “what would he look like with a cammed-up face?” ’cause if anyone can paint that it’s Azazel!
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Thanks! I’ll do that on a future model in the same vein.
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Great work… I love (some of) those old Warzone figures. I agree it makes a very nice Sly Marbo.
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Thanks! They’re very much a product of their time, but some of them still manage to be pretty damned good regardless. 🙂
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