The Thing (MUMG)

The Thing is added to the 'done' list! Although I had not really planned on painting any more MUMG in 2016, when I bought the The Thing I assembled him pretty quickly in readiness for possible painting. My thinking was that with a simple colour scheme, he would be quite quick to do despite his large surface area (he is 65mm from the bottom of his base to the top of his head!). Then I found myself focusing on other stuff.

When I decided it was time to tackle the mini, the painting stages were: an orange-brown base layer; Devlan Mud wash (with some extra spot washes of AP Soft Tone); dry-brush the same brown; dry brush a lighter brown; then pick out top edges of  'rocks' with successively lighter highlights (4 passes on the highlights).

Because it was quite methodical work, the bulk of the painting felt pretty straightforward - even if he did get dropped on the floor at one point...

Finishing The Thing gives me 17 Levels of Superhuman Heroes (with Black Widow and Black Panther), or 16 Levels of Cosmic Heroes  (with Groot). I am most likely to play an Avengers style team I think so will be mostly adding to the Superhumans as things progress next year.

MUMG Painting Summary
MUMG characters owned: 24
Percentage of owned characters painted: 16.7% (4 models)

Groot

Groot is the first MUMG mini I have painted, and something I tackled as I felt I could finish it pretty quickly, once I decided to use a similar approach to the one I used for Father Oak for my own Pulp City collection (click for link).

The technique involved painting a grey-brown base coat, and then two lighter quick dry brush coats, with some olive green dry brushed to bark edges. This was followed by painting some but not all vines olive green. Then I applied a very thinned down wash of Gryphonne Sepia, followed by Soft Tone, then Devlan Mud. Finally I picked out some edge highlights with VMC Stone Grey, and painted the eyes and mouth. All told, maybe an hour and a half over 3 sittings. It is no award winner, and maybe a little lighter in colour than is preferable, but I am happy with how it turned out, especially to get it finished so quickly with recently losing my painting momentum.

I really enjoyed the Guardians of the Galaxy movie, but have no desire to tackle them for MUMG in the near future as a faction since a couple of sculpts leave me a little cold. They are not bad, I am just not grabbed by them. However, I do foresee me getting to grips with Avengers as I love the team and prefer their sculpts, which is my way of saying that Groot won't be joined by other GotG minis any time soon!