D&D Monster Manual 62: Tomb of Annihilation – Su-Monsters and Velociraptors

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D&D Dungeons and Dragons Tomb of Annihilation – Su-Monsters and Velociraptors

My next pair of simple Tomb of Annihilation model sets here – a trio of Su-Monsters, which are actually pretty nice sculpts, considering their PVC model origins – and a trio of Veliciraptors.

D&D Dungeons and Dragons Tomb of Annihilation – Velociraptors

It’s almost like the D&D designers went back to the actual information with the Veliciraptors, as they’re represented by much smaller dino models than we usually see. Which is, actually, how they were. Thanks to Spielberg deciding that Jurassic Park’s Velociraptors and Compsognathus should essentially swap sizes for dramatic purposes, we had a couple of generations of people thinking that Veliciraptors were much larger than they actually were. Which has remained the perception through pop culture, not to mention been subject to the usual exaggeration in size since then….

Does it matter? Well, truth be told, not to most of us in our day to day lives in a manner that affects them in that everyday manner, but by the same token, does it matter to most of us in our day to day lives if the Sun revolves around the Earth? or if the Earth is flat? Or if both Dinosaurs and the Moon Landing are hoaxes? You see my point.

Anyway, it seems that these D&D Veliciraptors are roughly accurately sized. Which was a nice surprise to see. Paint-wise they’re pretty simple. Some contrast over a green base with a darkened spinal area. Not that you can really see much as they’re soo teeny-weeny!

D&D Dungeons and Dragons Tomb of Annihilation – Su-Monsters

Su-Monsters. That’s certainly an interesting name for something. Luckily I checked out WTF these things are supposed to be before painting them, and went with a “close enough” approximation of their description, though the blackened face was tricky to pull off, since it looks a bit unnatural and I think the models looked better with their skin in that fleshy grey. But whatever. I’m not really sure what else to write about these? They “feel” like they’re from some old D&D splatbook like Oriental Adventures, but despite being very reasonable sculpts for D&D boardgame minis, I don’t care enough to look them up again. Evil Jokaero! Done!

3 more models for Ann’s “Paint the Crap You Already Own!” challenge, which I am no doubt spamming like mad with those pingbacks right now!

Marvel Crisis Protocol: Crossbones

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Marvel Crisis Protocol: Crossbones

Today I have a model from Marvel Crisis Protocol to share. This one is actually a queue jumper in terms of completed-paint-to-blog timing! After reading Justin’s post on Gamora and Nebula yesterday, I basically forced myself to work on Crossbones, who had been sitting on my desk since the start of this year, just barely started. Unfortunately, my usually-reliable black spray primer decided to go a bit fuzzy on old Not-Frank Grillo and so that caused some issues, with a bit of detail clog and just general grittiness, which really put me off working on him. Luckily(?), this is a model that can kind of absorb some of that kind of paint damage and still work, at least much more than a more spandex-clad, or metallic, or smooth-skin models. And besides, I really didn’t want to have to try and strip the spray primer off a MCP model, as I don’t entirely trust their plastic…

Marvel Crisis Protocol: Crossbones

Colour-wise, I decided to eschew strict adherance to the card art. I figure my angle with these Crisis Protocol characters will be to get the characters recognisable – and not go fully Comic Canon or MCU-Canon, and simply do something that works for me. After all, the number of subtle costume changes that all of these characters have had over the decades – whether between two different MCU films – or more to the point – simply the “same” costume, as drawn by different artists is going to be, well, rather numerous. So this, along with Crossbones being a “blink and you missed him” MCU character, and me being completely unfamiliar with him from my comic reading days – whether that’s because I didn’t read a lot of Cap, or because I completely forgot any of his appearances that I may have read elsewhere means I really don’t know or care about this character.

Marvel Crisis Protocol: Crossbones

This freedom allowed me to paint the model with fuzzy primer not twisting my psyche, and also to go a little “Wahammer” with the scheme. By that, I mean I drew direct inspiration from Burkhard, who gave him camo pants (based on the MCU film), as well as adding  metallic paint where there really would be black plastic, or black-painted metal instead in a more “realistic” combat gear/clothing situation.

Marvel Crisis Protocol: Crossbones

So that meant along with the camo pants and metallic buckles and webbing rings all over, we’ve got metal skinguards, bootguards, kneepads. The eyes of his mask hadn’t fared well with the fuzzy paint, so I was realistically unable to get any flesh visible in there. We’ll just say he over-applies makeup around his eyes like the Batman. 😉 I scraped away the worst of the fuzziness off his arms – at leas tthose being mostly-smooth parts of the sculpt I was able to do it. Missed the boots, unfortunately. I did add a little reddish flesh to the elbows as well as a touch of turquioise mixed with the flesh tones for the veins. This guy clearly follows Ann’s workout regime!

….and speaking of Ann – Crossbones also qualifies as a model painted for the second annual “Paint the Crap You Already Own!” challenge. It’s almost enough to make a low-level supervillain reform, ain’t it?