Now we’re starting May off with another pair of CMON’s Marvel Zombies bystanders. Basically I was working on these when April rolled over to May and kept going for a little while before stalling out again. I’m not particularly familiar with either of these characters, but they’re apparently both X-Men adjacent. Trish is a reporter who was also Beast’s girlfriend. She’s also been race-swapped more recently because apparently it’s fine to do that with secondary and less important characters to increase representation, which doesn’t work for me on either level – disrespectful to the fans who enjoyed the characters for years or decades, disrespectful to the characters, and also disrepespectful to the people being “represented” becasue we’re going to change this secondary character so you’re represented because this character actually isn’t that important but now you’re “represented” by a token minor character. All rather than making a new character. Anyway, I’ll pause on that particular rant for now.
In the end I painted Trish with a mid skin tone that can represent the variations found in almost any ethnicity in the US. Mostly so she still matched the card ok while being passable for the original version. William Stryker I vaguely recall (in name only) from my X-Men comic-reading days. Obviously he’s also a bad guy of some description and he was apparently also in most of the X-Men movies, so I also don’t remember him from there as well! Both of these figures are from the X-Men Resistance box, so unlike many of the Kickstarter Exclusives, should remain moderately within reach for players trying to track them down.
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
The faces are really good, again!
I mean they’ve got a great paint job all over but the faces in particular…
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Thanks Frank – I think you’re being too generous there to be quite honest! 🙂
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If you say so!
Let’s just say I’d be very happy if faces on my figures came out looking like these … not that I’m doing much painting these days.
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Thanks Frank. I find keeping my hand in by doing a little bit almost every day is how I keep it up. Even simple low-skill things that don’t require a lot of concentration like basing or spraying or a bit of model cleanup when I have a chance.
I’ve found once I pause it’s all too easy to pretty much stop & drop out for awhile, so when time is tight, I’ve been trying to keep the focus on painting even if the blog drops out for awhile. I’ve got queued posts for a couple of weeks from the May output, so both should be ok for a bit!
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Excellent pair of civilians, don’t remember Trish, but do Stryker, he’s the one that that put adamantium in Wolverine in the movies, your painting is awesome, and draws the eye in, even when the sculpts have very little detail.
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Thanks Dave! Trish apparently was a minor character in X-Factor or something similar as she was most connected to Beast. Not one I can recall from when I was reading, but even that was a LOOOOOOONG time ago now!
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Nice work on these two! 🙂 Keep up the rants by the way – they’re always well structured and a good read!
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Thanks John. I try to be reasonable even when something annoys me. Since I’ve been called both a “marxist” and a “nazi” on social media, I figure I’m doing something right in not being a deranged extremist weirdo! 😀
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Barbara liked your comment as well! 🙂 Years ago someone on social media likened her to Himmler but she looks nothing like him! She’d just put forward some points in a polite, structured manner but it was obviously not what this other person wanted to hear!
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I think the usual methodology is that “if you disagree with me, you’re a Nazi/Fascist or a Marxist/Communist” – whichever is the opposite preferred side to the person levelling the accusation.
I think most people like this on both extremes fit into the “fucking idiot” bucket myself. Drop them all into the same bucket and let them fight it out, I say!
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None other than Brian Cox plays Stryker in X-2! He’s a big-time mutant hater in that movie despite the fact that his son is one. I hadn’t thought of this until now but its hard to make Stryker look immediately recognizable because he’s otherwise just a regular ol’ human. Either way, both of these came out looking great!
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I was thinking of the other Brian Cox when you wrote that as I watch some of his physics and astronomy videos on YT semi-regularly, and since he’s also been a successful musician I had a “was he acting in movies, too?” moment.
I think “clean-shaven man in suit” is always going to be tricky to make distinct in any way just from the differnet ways that comic artists have drawn characters over the decades, let alone when you let hollywood casting get involved…
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It is a common name I would think but I forgot all about him, though I do know who you’re talking about. Yes, you hit the nail on the head with the man in the suit thing. There are quite a few X-Men villains (even if they’re civilians in-game) that fit that description as well.
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A bit of an unfortuate name for a teenager, I have to say. Even more for a female teenager!
I’d probably change my surname to avoid putting my kids through such trauma.
Unless I leaned into it and named my son something like “Max/Massimo” or “Magnus”. 😮
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