Masterbox 1/24 Strange Company First Meeting

This is actually part of Dodgy’s “Go Figure” GB. This is taking enough twists and turns that I figured I do a separate showing some of the twists and turns.

Figures like this are still very new to me being mostly a sci-fi modeler. I’ve done several miniatures but nothing at this slightly larger scale. I chose this subject as it had human elements and I’m trying to learn how to paint skin. It’s still a WIP so more will come.

boxart

These things start in their usual way with removal from sprue trees and priming.

little guy

Some of the pieces had some pretty significant mold lines, but were thankfully in easyily addressed areas.

lined

But the fit in some placess needed some serious work. The shoulders will need some scribing to restore detail of the padding there.

gaps

With a little bit of time and effort initial assmebly and base colors begin. Since the four armed bartender has a lot of red and blue on him his color palette is made up of colors that include them. In this case read leather for the harness and belts.

bartender

Shoulders of the human have been rescribed and initial primer applied.

shoulders

Bartender gets his skin blocked in.

blue boy

Shadows get added with a slightly darker blue.

shading

Next up he gets his first highlight.

highlit.

Test fit with the rest of the leather fittings blocked in and some of the details picked out. All placed ontop of the completed bar segment. Starting to get an idea of how devilish this guy looks.

testfit

90% completed face of bartender. Beard, mouth brows and final highlights. Not gettting the feeling this is someone I’d want to buy a drink from.

beard

First attempt at the human.

human!

I considered it a fail and stripped him back to plastic.

The bartender will be holding a bottle and cup and I want to make it look like he’s pouring a drink so I try my hand stretching some sprue.

bottle

I’ll snip off a section of that and use CA to attach it to the wine bottle.

Hamming it up for the camera as I do some additional test fitting.

troublemaker

Final washes and highlights on the bartender’s clothing and restart the human.

posing

OMG, what happened to the human?!
allergic reaction

Honestly at this point I’d thought I’d gotten the shadows and highlights done correctly but the photo revealed otherwise. That was my 3rd or 4th attempt at painting him. Rather than starting all over again I decided to push on. I drybrushed I think a flesh tone on him and then did a wash with sepia. Then gave him some pupils.

Judge Doom

That’s better but now those exaggerated eyes make him look cartoonish. Slapping on more paint improved it last time so I do it again.

This time I drybrush a light grey and do a wash with burnt red mixed with some white. Oh, and I painted his hair.

whoa

Whoa! Not sure how he had such a massive transformation, but it almost looks like I meant to do that! I didn’t even touch the eyes. The wash somehow fixed them. Don’t ask me to repeat this feat of painting a human. Pretty sure I can’t.

Candid shot of the two.

its a trick

Now that the human’s skin is done, time to work on his outfit.

Attack of the blob!

its the blob

Coverd his face and hands with putty and poster tack so I can reprime the other areas.

That brings us to the present day. More to come.

Hmmm:

There;s two things here. The Bartender and what he is pouring .If it’s smoking Before it hits the glass what will it do to a human stomach? Maybe our human is an internal hybrid?

Takes some serious skill to make alien skin look like “skin” given that there are no real “rules” for how it ought look (other than human imagination).

Perhaps the liquid has a low vapor point and it’s for cosmetic effect?
If it’s caustic enough to create a reaction with the container it was being poured into I wouldn’t want to be handling it! [:|]
Or it could be the human is really a cyborg and that’s the fuel he runs on. [;)]

Human skin we have a great familiarity due to observing it our entire lives. Making all of us experts of sorts. There are cues we subonciously expect to see when looking at a fellow human. So when painting a figure if we don’t get it right enough they’ll feel off no matter how clean the paint job is.

Aliens being not part of our normal gives a bit more lattitude. So long as you follow the general pattern you can get away with quite a bit. Our subconcious expectations aren’t as strict due to the unfamiliar pattern.

However, the most convincing products are ones which find a way to mix the familiar in. Tying into our own inbuilt expectations can make the alien less alien and therefore more believable.

The latter is beyond my current abilities. Sticking with the good old fashioned basic values of painting works well enough. Shadows, midtones, and highlights.

A few months back picked up a book about representing light and shadow in painting. It’s a bit above me but I find the topic fascinating.

Quick progress pic. Continuing to block in the color of the outfit. There will be several dark washes applied so the brown of the clothing should become more subdued as the painting progresses.

blocked

The parts he’s surrounded by are the rest of his outfit. One thing I realized is that I should have waited to attach the arms and completed painting the shirt first and then assembled the jacket followed by attaching the arms and then painting the whole.

Live and learn.

Looks good to me!

I know what you mean about the arms though, been there, done that, got the T-shirt…

Things got a little crazy and had a pause on the build until this past week when things just sort of came together and before I knew it everything was done, and without any real in-between progress photos. :frowning:

I do have this one photo of just prior to completing. The jacket and pants were painted with a mix of chocolate brown and burnt brown. Then washed with a 50/50 of vallejo grey and black wash. Once dry then went back and did a highlight with just the chocolate brown.

pre

I thought it looked pretty sharp, but I wanted a more worn look of the leather and stronger indication of overhead light. So I did a final highlight composed of a mix of yellow ochre plus the chocolate brown. I attempted to do the highlights of the figures to emphasize a strong overhead light sourcecoming from the left of the figure.

old leather

I thought the human looked a little pale. To make them a little more flush with life, did a very light glaze of scarlet over all the exposed skin. Then posed them with a yellow white balance to further enhance the idea of a seedy bar.

1

1

3

4

There are several more figures that are part of this lineup. When done they should make for a rather fun bar scene.

I think that that human is rather young to be suffering from lumbar spinal stenosis! I hope that the alien drink will help him get back to modelling while he’s waiting, and waiting, and waiting for for an MRI.

boB

Were these sci-fi figures based on a movie, TV show or literature (comic book, novel, etc.), or are they just generic sci-fi figures to use in some sort of Mos Eisley cantina diorama?

They look very well done. I think they also did some of the Resident Evil movie figures with Alice on a motorcycle and some of the mutant creatures.

LOL. You’ve changed my world. Now when I look at him all I can see is someone trying to relieve backpain. [:D]

Makes me think of Yul Brynner in Westworld.

I don’t believe the Strange Company characters are based upon any existing shows or literature. I think it’s something of Master Box’s own creation.

They did do a figure inspired by the Resident Evil Movies character Alice.

https://www.mbltd.info/figures/1-35-scale/zombies/35175.html

They’ve got quite the variety of figure sets to choose from. I may try one of their other themed sets at some point in the future.