Back to the Marvel Crisis Protocol models with the core set villain – Baron Zemo. Zemo was a pretty easy model to paimt – the trickiest part of the process being to ensure that the stitching(?) lines of his hood are visible and emphasised without looking silly.
Zemo was a pretty enjoyable model to paint – a model in pretty normal clothing with enough different surfaces and textures to keep it interesting. As such, he only took a couple of days from start to finish once I got going.
Baron Zemo is one of those characters that I’ve seen but was never all that familiar with in the comics. I was dimly aware that he had something to do with Red Skull in some manner, and that he was a Nazi (which is very fitting for older villains – Nazis and Red Scare villains were all the rage for a long time. So when the MCU version of Zemo came along, who hates Nazis and later on does the dancing – well, how could you not prefer him to the original?
Still, I went ahead and painted him in the Comic book style – though I am tempted to try and get hold of another copy of the model to convert into MCU Zemo in some manner.
Having purchased the core set in September 2020 and only getting around to painting him in February of 2023, Baron Zemo is my latest model for Dave Stone’s Paint what You Got challenge.
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
Looks great mate! You captured the colors perfectly, which is probably the trickiest part. As for MCU Zemo, I don’t know. They threw regular comics readers for a loop, which is always interesting to me. But he’s a bit of a weird one to me, maybe I need to rewatch Captain America/Winter Soldier again. He apparently hates anyone who has super powers, and is willing to do anything to destroy them. He does don the famous mask for a short period of time though, so that was fun. You’d think more MCU villains would wear masks really.
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Yeah, I can see how the changes would be jarring – I just preferred the Nazi-hating version to the Nazi-being one. To put another perspective on it, I feel that a lot of comic villains (especially older ones/in older titles) tended to be pretty one-dimensional and also that there were a lot of esentially reskins with a few small “character tweaks” then sold as another villain for Our Hero to battle. Zemo felt like a reskinned Red Skull in a lot of ways (to my limited knowledge) and Iron Man’s cast of Armoured Super-Suit foes seemed to be the worst. At least Spideys were a bit mroe varied! 😀
The mask thing is just down to movies not wanting to pay for an actor to then hide their face for most of the film. That and it being easier to emote with a face for most actors. 😀 They got around that in Iron Man with the “in-suit” close-ups of RDJ’s face with stuff superimposed on it and we see it a lot of other times when they have some reason that the mask or hood or helmet is gone (even for awhile) – see Spidey with Doc Ock in the Underpass during No Way Home…
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Oh, no doubt there was a lot of the same two-dimensional villains (and heroes) in the old days. Part of that was the audience (we’re making this for kids!) and the other was the crazy pace they were cranking those comics out. Jack Kirby was often penciling 5 pages a day. In comparison most artists are lucky to get 1 page done a day.
Yea, I understand the actor/mask thing. And the whole idea of getting inside the Iron Man helmet with RDJ and the HUD overlay was ingenious! However, I still wish that we had more villains that start with a mask. Take it off later or whatever, but at least look the part. Funny thing, this was also an issue in the comics. I didn’t realize it, but I guess artists also found it hard to get characters with full masks to emote. I guess I never had a problem with it, as early artists like Ditko, would use body language, morphing the eye slits or head of Spidey to get across emotions. I just happen to be reading the old Kirby Black Panther series right now, and in every issue he leaves his mask off until he enters combat. I’m not sure if it was the emoting thing or if he just wanted to make sure everyone knew he was a black superhero. Anyways, just like the movies, the comics apparently ran into issues with expressing emotions too!
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Oh for sure – they had to run with a formula and just get the stuff out while making it look as cool as possible within their limits. Spidey’s eyes never really made sense from a “realistic” perspective, but it didn’t matter while I was reading the comics because it was obvios what they were doing. It was an amusing nod to the comics in… whichever of the many Spider-Man films when we got to see the brief eye-emotes of the suit (No Way Home?)
Interesting to hear that about the BP comics – makes sense on both fronts, I suppose.
The Mandalorian is a pretty good exercise in using body language and voice to emote while remaining almost entirely masked – much better than Book of Nice-Guy-Boba Fett for sure there!
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Okay, let’s admit that we don’t know most of the superheroes and villains of the comics/films: next to Spider Man and Captain America, there is a real crowd that competes with them…. Excellent work as always by painting on the surfaces, above all on the hood and the fur of the jacket. Does he wear some kind of crown on his head?
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He does indeed – and that’s exactly how I’d describe it myself since I’m not that familiar with the comic character and don’t know if there’s supposed to be something special about it – “some kind of crown”.
Thanks for the compliments – the surfaces on him were almost all fun to do – the fur was a bit annoying but worked out, and the purple top and hood were tricky but satisfying – so a good model to start and then finish so quickly (for me).
I used to read some of the comics years ago, but these days I’m really more interested in the films and tv shows – one day I might even catch up!
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Very nice! 🙂 I think the jacket looks really good!
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Thanks John! Very glad you like it!
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Yeah, he’s great mate – lovely job on the jacket!
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Thanks Alex – the Jacket seems to have been an unexpected hit! 🙂
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I think you made quite an interesting job with the different clothes and textures. So cool!
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Thanks mate – it made the model interesting and fun to paint!
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Excellent work on this one mate, not up with him in the comics, in fact I’m so behind it’s not worth trying to catch up now ! LOL
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Thanks Dave! I’m pretty happy to just let it be at knowing him as the character from the MCU in my games. 🙂
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I don’t know the comic version of Zemo all that well but I really enjoyed the MCU version. I do think the comic version looks pretty cool even if his headwear is a bit impractical. You did a great job on the Baron and I’m enjoying seeing you paint all of these MCU minis. I’ve thought about maybe picking one up and doing a display project. Perhaps I will 🙂
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Same here on Zemo. Thanks for the compliments on the model – it’d be very cool to see what you might come up with using some of these models!
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Good stuff, especially the boots and trousers look especially realistic… for a fantasy noble from some made up country in pseudo-Eastern Europe 😉
The MCU version of Zemo is a lot of fun. I enjoyed the little nod to his hood in The Falcon And The Winter Soldier too.
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Thank you! I enjoyed doing this one as a pretty quick model from start to finish. I liked the little hood moment in the series as well. 🙂
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