This 28mm scale plastic model of a Hydra Infiltrator is produced by “Wizkids” and is miniature number 015a from their Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Marvel “Heroclix” range. Rather embarrassingly I discovered it buried away inside my basing grit box, having presumably been lost there for quite some time, and as I haven’t pigmented any of the company’s pre-painted super-hero figures for over a year, I thought I’d give it some much-needed attention.
Due to the miniature having already been popped off of its famous 'clicky base', the terrorist was quickly given a couple of coats of "Vallejo" Heavy Grey and washed with "Citadel" Biel-Tan Green. Disconcertingly, the sculpting on this figure was incredibly soft, predominantly due to the thick pre-paint I was working over-the-top of, so I settled upon a simple dry-brush of (more) "Vallejo" Heavy Grey so as to do the folds in the villain's costume some justice.
Sadly, I wasn’t so lucky with the figure’s face and hands, as there really wasn’t much detail left at all once I had applied a combination of "Vallejo" Heavy Skintone and "Citadel" Reikland Fleshshade to these areas. Resultantly, I painted in a few fingers on the chap's balled fists and blended them with a second, quite heavily watered-down application of “Citadel” Reikland Fleshshade. Somewhat confusingly, the model did seem to have at least one ear potentially poking out through its hair. However, having looked at all the ‘official’ pictures of the gaming piece, none appeared to have ever been ‘picked out’, so I left well enough alone.
Like so many wargamers currently, I have been paying quite a bit of attention to “Warlord Games” and the imminent release of their Epic Battles: Waterloo line in 15mm plastic. This really is an historical period I thoroughly enjoy, yet have repeatedly failed to successfully paint over the years despite many attempts across different scales. Hopefully that won’t be the case this time round.
Somewhat worryingly though, I have previously struggled to paint the Nottingham-based company’s figure strips in the past, with my attempt to get just a single stand of Alabama-grown Confederate soldiers finished taking almost a year. This has largely been because I find working on ten figures simultaneously, no matter how small, rather discouraging, and struggle to apply the heavily-disciplined ‘sausage factory’ mentality needed to make such a painting process work.
Luckily, I still have a little time left before my pre-order arrives and I’m somewhat swamped with British Infantrymen, so I thought I’d use the opportunity to identify and practice some ‘quick win’ approaches using a few of my previously-purchased spare American Civil War sprues. In the past, I’ve painted these figures over a “Citadel” Abaddon Black undercoat, so thought I’d start by seeing if it was less time consuming to use a lighter prime, in this case “Vallejo” Sombre Grey, and then block in the base colours before applying any black separation to the figures’ different areas/details…