Marvel: Crisis Protocol – Star Lord

After painting a bunch of Mansions of Madness minis it was nice to get back to something a little more detailed, something I could get my teeth into, and I really enjoyed painting this one.

I did a little research through the comic images of this Guardian of the Galaxy leader and found that the character’s card reflected him as found in the Legendary Star Lord series, which, released in 2014, re-images him as we see him in the movie of the same year; so that’s what I went with.

There are a few bits worth talking about. For his trousers, I used the same technique as I did on the Deep One Hybrids – a Blue Ink glaze straight over the Zenithal Highlighting – but it has a cleaner look here, as I’d spent more time on the Zenithal Prime and got the glaze to a better consistency.

I spent quite some time on his jacket, wanting to replicate a leather look. I started by coating it with Agrax Earthshade followed by a couple of coats of a Red Ink Glaze. I then did some wet blending using various concoctions of the Red Glaze, Agrax Earthshade, and Bonewhite. I still wasn’t fully happy so reinforced the shadows again with the Agrax. I spent longer on this than the rest of the mini put together!

The smoke coming from his rocket boots gave me something to think about, as I wasn’t keen how Atomic Mass had painted theirs; it looked a bit like a rock. I basecoated it Ghost White and then used Vallejo’s Pale Grey Wash – finally, found a use for it! Highlighted it up with Ghost White and Dead White, added a little wet blending of red and yellow for the flames, and that was job done… almost!

As much as I liked the sculpt of Star Lord, I really didn’t like the way he looked on the base, especially after I’d painted it as per the rest of my M:CP characters. Here he was, taking to the air in his Rocket Boots, and yet it just looked so static.

Now, bases just aren’t my thing, I’m not creative in that way, and I had an image in my head of dust blowing out in a circle from the jet wash and all that, but had no idea how to replicate it. But no pain no gain, as they say, so I had a go, adding some fine sand (overdid it a bit) and then painting it up similar to how I did the smoke.

It’s… okay, I suppose. Not quite what I imagined, but we all have to start somewhere and from gaming distance it doesn’t look too bad at all.

Overall though, I’m really pleased with how he came out, possibly my best work to date. I used a lot of what I’d discovered through painting the Mansions figures, especially in regard to inks, and because I’d kept them quick and simple, I had a lot of enthusiasm to be painting something a little more demanding again. That’s another thing I’ve learnt, it’s good to mix things up!