Not a character I would have chosen had he been in a box all on his own, as I knew nothing about him and had no interest in finding out. However, he came with Drax, who is one of my favourites from the Guardians of the Galaxy, and so, here he is.
After a bit of research, which involved me opening my Marvel encyclopaedia and a quick scan of some images online, he most closely resembled the version used in the Fantastic Four comics of the late 90’s. He’s been around since the 60’s, though he wasn’t someone I’d come across before, if I had, I didn’t recall, which sort of sums him up. He was also in two MCU movies, Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain Marvel, and I still couldn’t bring him to mind!
Anyway, other than in the MCU version, he’s fitted out in green, which seems to be a trend if you’re a superhero these days. There wasn’t a lot of variation in his colour scheme on the net and in the end I just went with the version from the FF comics, which is what the box art seems to reflect too.
As usual, I zenithal primed, Black, Grey, White, and used this to guide me for the shading of his robe. This was done using Heavy Green (Vallejo) for the shade, Snot Green for the mid-tones, and Goblin Green for the highlights (both old GW paint), followed by a bit of blending using a mix of the two adjacent colours. I then pushed the highlights further by adding Escorpena Green to the Goblin Green. This was all brought together by a thin coat of Black Green Ink and re-highlighting with thinned Escorpena.
There wasn’t a lot of flesh on display and looking at various pictures he appeared to be wearing gloved gauntlets, so all I did was the tiny bit of his face. A shade of Imperial and a layer of Electric Blue, with a mix of the two used to add some interest. A final highlight with a bit of Dead White added to the Blue finished his face.
The only other interesting bits worth mentioning are the metallic areas – boots, gauntlets, pauldrons, and robe trimming. After a few wayward attempts at NMM (non-metallic metal) I much prefer using the following method for coloured metal, I’ll work on my NMM skills when I have the time and patience available (quite possibly never again!).
So, first a basecoat of Black, preferably gloss Black but I find the one I have isn’t the easiest paint to use, especially in small areas. Over this a coat of Vallejo’s excellent Metal Colour Steel (MCS). This reflects the light really well and reacts just like metal, but on small areas such as these it needs a little help to ‘pop,’ so I highlight it up. To do this, I used MCS mixed with Gunmetal, using the reflections of the metallic basecoat to guide where I put it. I did the same with MCS + Chainmail and finally MCS + Silver.
Now it was time to add the colour. First up a coat of Black Green Ink. This gave the darker tones a nice hint of green, but didn’t do anything over the lighter areas, so I added a coat of Green ink, which really caught the light. It’s the first time I’ve used two tones of Ink in this way, and I thought they worked really well to give some colour variation to the metal. Lastly, I edge highlighted where I thought it needed it with straight metallic Silver.
So, Ronan the Accuser wasn’t a character I would have chosen for my MCP roster, as I tend towards characters I know and like, characters I remember from my misspent youth where I spent far too much time reading comics. But I’ve now had chance to play him…
I hold my hand up and say, ‘I’ve changed my mind, Ronan is great!’ On the table he plays really thematically, judging those who cause damage to him or his allies, and he hits back bigtime. I had a fun time with him in my Guardians line up. He moves fairly quickly on that medium base with a medium move, and even though I didn’t take him with the power gem, I never found myself short of power, probably because he was always in the thick of things and gained enough by taking hits.
Well, Ronan done, time to move on to painting more green with Drax. I’ve then to assemble Kingpin, Sin, and Viper, all members of Yasmin’s roster, and I’m letting her decide on the colour schemes, that way I can’t be blamed, lol!
The Solo Meeple 
Fantastic work on the painting, Justin, the greens are just beautiful and the highlighting is spot on. The metallics pop really well too, and you’ve done a great job on the details. Awesome stuff!
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Thank you Matt, kind words indeed😀
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Excellent work on Ronan Justin, he’s turned out really well. Do remember in the movies, including killing one of Thanos’s lackies with a swift blast from his hammer, only vaguely remember seeing him in the comics. Great experimentation with the metals, it really paid off.
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Thanks Dave.
A very grey character, I just couldn’t bring him to mind from the movies at all and had to look it up… still didn’t ring any bells🤔
I enjoy doing metals this way, it’s a lot less stressful than NMM!
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Very nice, Justin! 🙂 The green really works well! I didn’t recognise this guy, but I’m a bit behind on Marvel stuff I’m afraid!
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Cheers John.
I have to admit, I’m getting a bit fed up with painting green. Drax is green and I have Viper to look forward to too. At least I’m getting better at it though😁
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Ronan looks great! I think that the cloak came out really well with the highlights and shading. That part of the mini looks really realistic. You might have done a bit of OSL glow on the hammer if you wanted to push this further but I think the mini is really nice and one of your best. I really like the green scheme and I think it is a nice contrast from how Ronan is in the movies which is a cold blue sort of palette. I actually think Ronan’s hammer could have been a decent place to try out NMM on a relatively simple surface, if you were up for it. NMM seems hard for a few minis and then it starts to click and you probably will be like me and have trouble going back! 🙂
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Thanks Jeff.
I did do OSL on the hammer, but wasn’t happy with it and so, as we were planning to play soon, I painted over it.
I do plan to revisit NMM over the summer. At the moment I’m only getting short sessions of painting in and I don’t want to approach something like that if I know I only have 40 minutes or so.
It’s nearly warm enough to return to painting at my desk in the garage, another couple of weeks maybe, then it’s just a case of when the opportunity arrives that shouts NMM at me😁
I do like painting metal in the method I used here though, especially coloured metal, something about it just appeals to me🙂
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OSL is a funny thing to paint because I find I’m not happy with the result until I am. On the flip side, if you overdo it, its a real pain to fix. You basically have to start over. So its an advanced technique in that sense.
That makes total sense on shorter sessions. I can get NMM on a small weapon done in an hour but when you’re learning, it will take longer than that so wait until you have a bit more time and patience to experiment. TMM is the faster method to use so if you need to get stuff done quick, I’d stick with it for at least some paint jobs like MoM!
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I know what you mean with OSL. I don’t mind painting it and I use the same technique every time, but I do tend to err on the side of caution and don’t push it far enough.
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I know what you mean on that. That is where getting a second opinion can be helpful. I did that frequently a couple of years ago when I wasn’t as confident or experienced at advanced techniques. Now I only do it sometimes when I’m really puzzled by something or am too close to what I’m working on and can’t judge it well.
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I should have reached out for a second opinion whilst painting Drax. I had no end of issues trying to get the colour choice right and repainted him several times. I saw an old version of him on the net wearing purple trousers with grey greaves and boots, and I wanted to copy that, but try as I might the colours just clashed. I’ve found a happy medium now, and feel better for the fact that when I look at the original source pictures the colours don’t really work on him there either🤔
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I’ve been there too and I know exactly what you mean. The main thing is finding a way to not beat your head against the wall for long or that’s my feeling anyway 🙂 Its good you found a solution in this case too.
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Super painting, well done. I really like the bright effect on the gem (?) on Ronan’s hammer, but the whole mini is just lovely.
While I do sometimes think it’s a bit cynical, I have to applaud the AMG marketing team’s approach of packaging a fan favourite with a fairly obscure character in some of their packs.
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Thank you.😊
It isn’t a gem on his hammer, it’s a magical force emanating from within… apparently!
Yeah, I’m quite happy with their approach too, especially as I don’t buy characters based on their strengths within the game but because I have an attachment in some way, such as I read the comics when I was young or even watched the cartoon. At least this way I get to experience some characters I wouldn’t have looked at if they were individually packaged and would have missed out on Ronan, who’s a blast to play.
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