What’s that? MORE Luke Cage? That’s right, buddy, we have Luke Cage being represented in a third licenced game with a fourth miniature figure in three days! This time we have the Marvel United version, along with Korg who is along for the ride in getting a figure painted and off the desk. Korg presnted a …unique challenge for me. I got him painted, so a standard that I was pretty happy with actually, then took him outside for a varnishing, then sprayed the front of him …silver with the first blast.
oh.
oh dear.
So… I had essentially destroyed the painted model. Just like that.
Now, we’ve all heard of people doing this sort of thing by accident many times over the years, and I’ve seen people even swear off spray cans entirely because of it. But I look at it this way. I’ve been painting for nigh on 40 years now, and this is the first time this has happened. If I keep up my current rate of doing it I simply won’t have to worry about it because I’ll be (probably long) dead before it occurs again. Sweet!
Now in this case, I knew exactly what I needed to do. I needed to restart and get to work on the figure again as quickly as possible. I knew someone who has simply dropped models in the bin when this happened to them. I knew that for myself, if I put the model aside and let it sit, I’d simply resent the thing when I saw it and put off the repaint for months if not years. So I went back in immediately (after letting the silver dry) and went over it all entiely, and got it (re)completed the next day. It helps that Korg is not an especially complex figure, and so I was lucky enough that I was able to pretty well replicate the initial paintwork very closely.
One thing I did (and do) like about Korg is how his armour came out. It’s somewhat inspired by the work recently done by fellow Paint-Blogger Kuribo over on Kuribo’s Painting of a Fallout Security Guy. Kuribo did some lovely blends on the model’s armour, but I felt it looked a bit too clean. Kuribo replied that he felt the armour was supposed to look pretty pristine, but I thought that my own idea of Fallout’s vaults things would still be pretty worn down over the decades even if kept clean – so I wanted to try that kind of look on Korg’s armour – well maintained and clean, but worn and nicked through ages of use – as opposed to the beaten up & dusty look that Wastelanders or Orks might have. So this is my “show, don’t tell” version of what I was talking about.
So yeah, the impetus for painting these three Luke Cage figures came from seeing Argentbadger’s post again recently and then having it pop into my head that Luke Cage looked like a pretty straightforward model to paint – an easy win, if you will! Of course, with three different Miniature-related Mavel games in hand, it also meant that the most efficient way to try to eventually get all painted would be to do a batch paint of sorts. So… that’s what I did – working on all four pretty interchangably until all four were done, though not in the typical “army batch paint” manner where you paint all the boots, all the pants, etc – but ducking from one model to another over the course of most of a week, post-op. (And after the C:DMD Ghouls!) Now I have a character set up to play across four separate games – Marvel Zombies Hero mode and Zombie mode are related, but separate games – and both can use both figures!
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
Just when I thought I had seen all your Luke Cage models!
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Well, at this point you have, at least! 😀
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Oof! Bad luck on Korg, that’s a bummer – I knew a bloke who took out most of an army that way. Well done for getting back in the saddle right away, looking at the pictures you wouldn’t know it had happened.
That’s a fine looking collection of power-men you have gathered together there. Now you need to find some rules that allow them all to battle it out against one another; you can call it “Cage Fight”.
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Thanks Wudu – as I said, I’m just very lucky that it’s such a simple model and not something intricate like a Chaos Lord or something covered in freehand. The guilty can of silver has been exiled to a different storage space now, and so it shouldn’t happen again at least.
That’s a great idea on Cage Fight. Now if I can only find those unpainted Mantic chain-link fences, I’ll have a cool little photoshoot theme…
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Most of an army?! Fuhhhh…….
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Yeah that’s pretty horrifying…
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Yep, done that, although to be fair it was with matt varnish that refused to dry transparent! It takes a lot of willpower to not bin the model! Nice work on these – Korg is actually my favourite! 🙂
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Ouch, that sounds painful indeed! It helps(?) in this case that these models are one-offs from the Kickstarter that can’t really be replaced, but it helps more that it happened to be a one-day paintjob, so it was easier mentally to make myself just do it again.
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That is a bummer about Korg but I think you made lemonade out of the lemons in the end. For a simple sculpt, he has a nice level of texture and the armor looks lightly used as well. I’m glad I served as inspiration to you even if it was not so much in what I did but what I didn’t do! 😀 And Luke looks pretty great too! I enjoyed the weekend of Cage. Next time we’ll have to round up Nic Cage sculpts for you paint to mix things up 🙂
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I’m just lucky that the model was both simple and “rough” enough that it allowed me to repaint it. I’d dread doing the same on so many other models!
Thankfully I don’t think there are a lot of Nic Cage figures out there!
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Marvellous 😊👍
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Thanks Alex!
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Great work. Spray cans! we have all done it.
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I’m just very glad that it was so minor comparatively to what it could have been!
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Oh, I have a good number of horror stories with spray cans! I won’t touch them anymore, because I have much fewer horror stories with the airbrush! 😉
I haven’t ran into the silver/varnish spray thing, but I am taking your word for it!
I think Korg looks awesome, despite the accident. Seeing that big headed Cage next to the normal ones is quite hilarious though, haha!!
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Thankfully this was my first and only messup of this kind. If I keep to the same time/messup ratio for the rest of my life I should be okay at least.
The big-head Cage next to the more normal ones kinda gives off Kingpin vibes proportionally, doesn’t he?
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Fantastic work on both mate, not varnishing models I’ve thankfully never done that, but have picked up the wrong colour undercoat before, which is a lot easier to sort out ! LOL
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I do generally prefer the look of unvarnished models, but the protection that it gives works for me as a trade-off, whether for handling or getting dust off them! Here’s to hoping you maintain your streak!
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