Marvel Zombies: Mariko Yashida and Cosmo the Spacedog

Marvel Zombies: Mariko Yashida and Cosmo the Spacedog

The next… fair few posts will be a bit out of paint sequence as I try to sort out as best I can all of the stuff that’s been painted over my most recent period of blog-inactivity. As such, we might also have daily posts in certain stretches. So today we’ll start with a pair of models painted months ago and months apart. Both from the Marvel Zombies games by CMON, we have Mariko Yashida, who is a character who was at one point Logan/Wolverine’s fiancée but died, got resurrected and a bunch of other ridiculous stuff because superhero comic writers seem obsessed with just bringing dead characters back to life in alternative forms. (waves at Jean Grey, Gwenpool, Spider-Gwen ad infinitum)

Marvel Zombies: Mariko Yashida and Cosmo the Spacedog

I hate to see Mariko go, but I love to watch her leave!

With this in mind, it’s just easier to paint the models, be like “oh yeah, that’s Mariko at some indeterminite point in time” and not worry about the rest. I really do like the sense of motion that the sculptor has captured here as well. Our second character today is Cosmo the Spacedog. Seen in the Guardians’ corner of the MCU, Cosmo was created by Dan Abnett – yes, the very same Dan Abnett of Gaunt’s Ghosts. Cosmo is a a psychic dog of Soviet origin, based on the historical Soviet Space Dogs. Cosmo is apparently also a member of something called the “Pet Avengers”. John of Justneedsvarnish spotted Cosmo’s cameo in March’s Round-Up, but I was waiting for an appropriate figure to post alongside him.

Marvel Zombies: Mariko Yashida and Cosmo the Spacedog

Both of these figures are counted as “bystanders” in Marvel Zombies – so not all that much more than tokens – but I guess you can say the same about any board game model if we’re being realistic. At some stage I’ll attempt to make character cards for them so we can use them in Zombicide proper, as with most of my other bystanders.

Marvel Zombies: Beast

Marvel Zombies: X-Men Beast Blue Fur

I mean, you knew this one was coming next – surely! Yep, that’s right – we have the blue X-rated version of Chewbacca in both his Survivor and Zombie version from the Marvel Zombies X-Men and Kickstarter Extras sets.

Marvel Zombies: X-Men Beast Blue Fur

The fur on these sculpts is certainly more accentated when compared to the Crisis protocol version – this allows for both easier painting but unfortunately makes the model look more “noisy” and less visually clear in these photos. This isn’t helped by the sculptor’s (or designer’s) choice of giving us the bespectacled version of Beast – so more crap interfering the readability of his face.

Marvel Zombies: X-Men Beast Blue Fur

There was a bit of extra messing around on the bases, since there are a number of sculpted books, pages and flasks scattered about, so it took a little more care than the usual rubble.

Marvel Zombies: X-Men Beast Blue Fur

For the books and pages, I just used some text-strip decals that I got from a KS ages ago. While they’re obviously set up to be useful in 40k, they’re a pretty handy thing to have in your back pocket for this sort of occasion. Trying to add in text lines would of course be doable, but more time than I’d like to spend – and getting row after row of them to be straight would be a nightmare.

Marvel Zombies: X-Men Beast Blue Fur

That aside, they’re really a pretty solid pair of sculpts that weren’t too bad at all to get painted. I may go back to both beasts and darken just the front of their Wolverine-style hairline to be more in line with the comics (as noted by Faust in the last post) but otherwise, they’re done and I’m good with ’em!