My next Marvel Crisis Protocol is Red Guardian – or as I think of him, Captain RedMerica. Yes, it’s the Soviet knock-off of Captain America. He came in the same box as Ursa Major, so it made sense to try and paint him up – especially with such a basic outfit. In the comics, his shield has several different ways of being illustrated, so I just chose this one and then rendered it using metallic paints. I used Vallejo’s metallic reds, highlighted up with a mix of silver and the red, then glazed with Citadel Bloodletter Shade paint. The star was painted using Velljo Model Air Chrome and shaded with black wash, then re-highlighted. At the end of the paint and seal process, I went back and gave the shield a gloss coat.
Contrast Paint did most of the heavy lifting this time – Apothecary White for the boots, gloves, belt and stars and a mix of Greenstuff World’s Red Cloak Dip and Citadel Blood Angels Red Contrast paint for…. well, I’ll let you figure that out yourself. Both colours were then highlighted in the usual manner using regular hobby acrylics from Vallejo and AK. This model was an easy win really – but there’s nothing wrong with taking easy wins when they present themselves.
I did read a little about this character while looking him up, and all I’ll say is that I much prefer the depiction of him in the Black Widow MCU film – right down to the MCU outfit. This model of course has the “classic comic” look of skintight musculature-hugging clothing with pirate booties – just like classic Cap. A shame from my personal perspective, but I get it.
This gives me three out of the four models painted for the “Winter Guard” MCP faction – the last outstanding one being Darkstar. Unfortunately, Darkstar is in three pieces still and so won’t be joining us for a little while. Perhaps she’ll arrive during Fembruary?
Red Guardian is another MCP model painted for my growing collection, and also another painted that qualifies for Dave Stone’s Paint what You Got challenge.
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
Well, he looks impressive for an easy win! I think that paint scheme has come out really well! I’m not familiar with the Marvel film version of him, but I like the mini as it is!
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thanks John! The MCU version just looks a bit (ok, a lot) more “real world” than this guy’s outfit. You’d give the MCU guy a funny look and stare if you saw him in the street rather than burst out laughing as you would seeing someone dressed like this model!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Haha, you’re right! 🙂 Thanks for posting the image, I actually quite like the MCU version as well!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nice work on this one as well Az.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thanks Guru! One more of this faction to go!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Really nice rich colours mate, another great looking model.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thanks Dave! Can’t have a Red Menace without some good Red, can you?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sometimes it’s simple color schemes that really stand out. Nice work! Looking forward to seeing the whole team assembled.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Thanks Eric – I’m hoping to have Darkstar done within the next few weeks! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Excellent – simple and elegant 😊
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, Alex!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow, once again I feel like you should be painting minis for game companies. His costume is two basic colors, red and white and yet you managed to make it look really nice with the shading and highlights. I don’t think I’ve ever got Apothecary White to play that nicely, but maybe I need to take some more time with it because it worked out really nice on your model. Character wise, I don’t think there has ever been much to him. All of them were cliche 80s Communist Russia characters and probably heavily inspired by Stallone/Schwarzenegger movies from the times. I guess your box is missing one of the characters, Vanguard. He was one of the original members who carried a (wait for it) Hammer and Sickle as weapons. Titanium Man was also known to appear occasionally. A big, green Armored villain.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Haha once again you’re far too kind, mate! The secret to smooth contrast paints is to have the medium on hand (ideally decanded into a dropper bottle) and just use it to smooth it out – extra paint you just dab up with a brush so you don’t overload the model with too much thick goop.
I looked up Vanguard and I’ve definately seen that character before – possibly in some of his appearances in X-Men and related books. I guess with Titanium Man and Vanguard both available we may see a 2-pack of them down the line. I guess I can see them not wanting to release 3 Winter Guard packs at once, especially with 2 Iron Man knockoffs in the 6 models.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi, I really like the way you paint. Would you be interested in a colab with us. https://www.etsy.com/shop/Proxywars?
You seems to have a lot of things to paint so I understand if you can’t.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi William – I do have tons of stuff to paint, but I’m open to hearing what you’re interested in. Let me know your email, I’ll send you a hello and we can take it from there.
cheers!
LikeLike
That’s super cool thank you
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nice red shading there- great work.
Cheers,
Pete.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Cheers Pete – thank you!
LikeLike
Splendid work mate, it may of been an easy win and simple colour scheme but you pulled it off really well!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks mate – I still need to try and get Darkstar done, but she may have to wait a cooler weekend to get completed.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Not one of my favourite Marvel characters but you’ve done a great job on him; I especially like his shield.
The White contrast works well, better than I expected, did you highlight it up at all?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks! The white Contrast didn’t really need a re-highlight, but I did use it diluted with medium and applied it into the “shade” areas rather than across the entire sections. I did clean up the stars with a bit of white at the end, though.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Redmerica came out great! The design is pretty simple in terms of colors but if you don’t keep the paint layers and blending smooth, it won’t look as great as yours did. The character design here is pretty bland, I must say. Yondu looks a lot like this except blue and not in spandex. I guess the Soviets weren’t interested in taking any design risks with their superheroes 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Mate! I’m looking forward to a Yondo release – very much hoping to see a version closer to the MCU than the comics, though – since those comic designs for him make the character look more like something rejected from Thundercats! When I get to Drax, I’ll be painting him more like Big Dave than the comics’ bright green as well. 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
That sounds great to me. If you don’t paint Drax like Big Dave, you might get Batista Bombed, mate! 😉
LikeLike
Great stuff Azazel, your clean painting style works a treat on this kind of comic book costume.
I recently watched the Black Widow film and did enjoy the version of Red Guardian there, but he was played for laughs a lot more than Captain America so it’s probably not a fair comparison. I quite like that this mini has the ridiculous old boots-and-gloves look; it keeps the game quite lighthearted.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Very true that he was more or less the comedy relief in that film, though I still did like his costume better than the comic versions. I wonder if we’ll see him again in a more serious setting – he may well not be all that happy after what happened to Natasha… I’ve just gotten the new-old version of Cap, with the classic, ridiculous old boots-and-gloves look. 😀
LikeLike