Doctor Doom--Repaint

"Doc Doom!"
"It's Doctor. I despise informality."
-Thing and Dr. Doom, Marvel Comics

And now for the baddest doctor of all the doctors, Victor VonDoom.

The figure is an absolutely stunning Doctor Doom Heroclix. This is on the par of the Ronan figure I had mentioned earlier... I feel like it's above and beyond fantastic as far as pre-painted Heroclix figs are!

This City shall belong to DOOM!

The folds of the cape are absolutely stunning; my paint work just doesn't quite do him justice. He looks absolutely menacing!

Look at how EVIL this cape is!

The figure and paint job were both very straight forward... I feel like the pics do all the talking.

Kneel before the might of Doom!

The card is--of course--a perfect copy of the original Doom from Marvelscape. While underwhelming, the old fashioned Hasbro design is actually rather underrated... Mind Swap can be horribly damaging if played just right.

Fear Von Doom!

And so here he stands! What do you think of the good Doctor?

-BG

Ronan--Repaint

"Xandar, you stand accused!"
-Ronan, Guardians of the Galaxy

Ronan is a major player in Marvel comics, from tangoing with the Guardians to battling with the Fantastic Four to politicking with the Inhumans.

Unfortunately, I've managed to only actually read one comic with him in it. XD

But here he stands! The accuser of Hala in all his Kree glory!

Ronan and his magic ban hammer

The figure is a Heroclix Ronan figure from the Hammer of Thor set. I painted him the same color scheme the figure was prepainted in, which was the dual shades of green and then the tan, which in my opinion looks worlds better than the garish metallic green and yellow the character normally wears. I'm not sure which artist drew this character this way, but he had nice taste.

Look at the detail in that cape!

And as for the figure itself, I can see why people like sculpts from the hammer of thor set so much. This guy literally has as much detail as a metal miniature, and his pose is as dynamic as the Kree's accuser should be. If you can find one, definitely get one of these figures: the repaint opportunities are A-MAZ-ING.

This Guy is a BALL to play!

As someone only otherwise lightly acquainted with the character from one comic and from his brief appearance in Earth's Mightiest Heroes, I naturally hugged the GoTG side of the character pretty tight, using other Heroscape designs and the Wiki page as reference to keep him sort of comic loyal. I really enjoyed how he played: he's simple and strong. His large attack and defense are just straight up hulk-breaking fun, and the rejection mechanic of his Universal Weapon is absolutely wonderful!

He's easy and fun to play, and definitely one of my favorite bad guy characters (even out of the official options)

Ronan tangoing with the FF

So what do you think? Is he a worthy opponent or does he stand accused? Sound off in the comments below!

-BG

The Penguin--Repaint

"Clip the bat's wings"
-Penguin, The Batman

And now for the slimey old bird himself: The Penguin!

I remember being mesmerized by the Penguin back when I watched the 1966 Batman show (I'm not nearly as old as that statement makes me sound) and fell in love with the character. Poison gas always was cool... poison gas out of your umbrella was straight up awesome!

Naturally then, Penguin needed to be one of the first DC supervillains we made.

Waaaaagh wagh wagh

The figure is a Heroclix figure of the Penguin. The original figure was in a white suit. I wanted our Penguin to be wearing more traditional garb: more like my Batman the Animated Series action figure (not a hoarder.)

The sculpted detail inside the umbrella surprised me. You can see even his gun!

One of my absolute favorite renditions of this character was that of the new 'Lego Batman Movie.' I love caricatures to begin with, so the moment I set my eyes on that slimy shortfig with the oversized top hat element, I knew I wanted to incorporate elements of that character into our heroscape figure. I feel I accomplished this by giving his skin a wash in yellows and greens instead of in my usual browns and reds, giving him a sickly look.

He's not quite as powerful as some Penguin models, but he's fun by our reckoning ;)

Our heroscape characters aren't always comic--accurate. As for me, I feel like making a superhero into heroscape isn't just translating a character's powers into a game, but rather translating the character's legend into the game. Superheros are larger than life, and good ones are larger than the panels they're contained in. So are our designs.

Thus, our card for Penguin--while trying to capture the comic counterpart--also smuggles in a little bit of that classic '66 appearance in there with the poison.

(How poison damage works in our rules is that when a character reveals an Order Marker, you roll one unblockable attack die against that character for each poison marker on that Army Card and remove them.)

Admiring the Bat's ride... maybe he should get his own >:D

So what do you think? How will our old bird fair? Sound off in the comments bellow.

-BG

Doctor Octopus--Repaint

"Now, watch me trap a spider in a web of my own -- a web made of my new-found arms! Your strength is merely that of a spider, but mine is the energy of an atom, born of a nuclear accident!"
                                                                              -Doctor Octopus, The Amazing Spider-Man #3

And now: to our tentacle-y, sinister doctor: Doc Ock!

Doctor Octopus has always been one of my favorite Spider-Man villains. The first live action super hero movie I ever saw (unless you count the '66 Batman film) was Spider-Man 2 and Doc Ock was as deadly and sinister then as he ever has been.

So onto the figure!

Time to Catch a Spider

The figure used was an Ultimates Doc Ock Heroclix. I left him in his silver and green color scheme rather than painting him yellow and green--the colors I remember him wearing--and opting for his ultimates costume (seeing that those seem to be the colors he's been wearing in these newer modern age comics.)

I'm very pleased with how the rubble looks, and I usually don't care for rubble on bases

I was particularly fond of how the tentacles turned out. The sculpt is so nice for a Heroclix!

And here he is tangoing with our wall crawler!

"You're no match for me, Spider."

And here is the good doctor's Army Card.

Docta Octa's Army Card

I was happy with the design, but he came out less powerful than I should have hoped. Nevertheless, he's fun to play: raw, smashing power until he loses arms. Plus, his coils can keep even the Amazing Spider-man from using Spidy Sense to escape, holding him down to be subjected to his four attacks!

And there you have it! What do you think of the good doctor? Sound off in the comments below!

-BG

The Thing--Repaint

"Sure, sure! I'm just a big, fat, handsome hero! Now outta the way--I got things to do!"
                                                                                       -The Thing, Marvel Comics

Now on to an actual custom of ours: the lovable blue eyed Benjy boy!

The Thing figure is a plastic Hasbro 'Handful of Heroes' figure. These were little plastic unpainted figurines back in the day, sort of like Army Guys but with super heroes. Here's a pic:

The Thing Handful of Heroes (not my photo)

IT'S CLOBBERIN' TIME!

And here he is all painted up nice and fancy like :P Not a perfect paint job, but it definitely brings out the definition in the sculpt.

IT'S CLOBBERIN' REAR!

He almost looks better from the backside than he does from the front... the wash was nicer :)

Hulk V. Thing!

I almost wish I had tried to get a bigger figure... but I already had this guy and he turned out so nicely, I won't complain :P

The Lovable Thing's Army Card

Our version of the Thing is much less powerful than many other fan versions. I wanted our thing to do more clobberin'... Less bruiser and more brawler. As a result, he's based more off of Captain America than he is off of the Hulk. Still, however, two attacks of 5 should make hulk hurt a bit :P His tough keeps him going for extended periods of time, and to give him one more super powered ability, we gave him a boulder throwing ability (inspired honestly by the Lego Marvel Super Heroes game :P)

So what do you think? Is our Thing ready to clobber? Sound off in the comments below!

-BG

The Incredible Hulk--Repaint

"Mr. McGee, Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."
                                                                          -David Bruce Banner, 'The Incredible Hulk,' 1977

And now onto everyone's favorite green rage machine, the Hulk!

The Hulk has always been a favorite character in Heroscape. He's strong, he's fast, he smashes everything. In the days of my youth, he was ALWAYS a first round pick... so much so that we made a double Hulk (a 'grey hulk') to alleviate arguments over him!

"I'm always angry."

However, I never felt like the Hulk figure in the game was big enough to cause the sort of damage that he did. I wanted something truly Incredible for a figure! So, for this figure I used an Age of Ultron heroclix of the character.

Incredible rear

Look at that guy! He's HUGE! The base plate I mounted him on is even a full 40mm in diameter to justify the guy's heft!

"Hulk feel small now."

Our Hulk has similar proportions to the Heroscape hulk, but he's very much taller! I personally really like the look.

"Hulk smash friends again in another arbitrary Hulk vs. friend fight!"

The design, again, is Hasbro's design on our new card. I've always liked what a monster this guy was. To save time, I use a shortcut in Super Leap stating that Hulk may use the 'standard rules for flying,' stating he may use the Flying special power. I now see that I should have noted he may use the standard rules for Stealth Flying, but that's a change that can be made to all of these in time.

Green Machine's Army Card

And there you have him! Is this Hulk any more incredible than the original!? Sound off in the comments below!

-BG

Spider-Man--Repaint

"I know I'm not good enough. I never will be. That's no excuse to stop fighting. No matter how much it scares me."
                                                                                  -Spider-Man, Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1

And now for a revisit of my absolute favorite Marvel hero: the Amazing Spider-Man himself!

Spider-Man is my favorite super hero arguably ever. Nobody likes Peter Parker no matter what he does, nobody likes Spider-Man no matter what he does, but he still picks himself up, laughs it off, and does the right thing even though he doesn't get a lick of accolades for it.

But onto the figure.

Thwip thwip

A simple repaint of a Marvel Spider-Man figure from heroscape. I went for a more muted red but a lighter blue, to increase the contrast of the character. He sort of reminds me of the costume from TASM 2!

Thwip thwip on the other side

I'm really pleased with how the spider on the back of his suit turned out.

Your Friendly neighborhood you-know-who

I'm pretty darn pleased with the repaint, but there's not too much to say about him really.

The card is the new border, but the same classic spidey sensing design! I now see that my shortcut for saying Spidey can use Standard Rules for Flying was not quite accurate with the original Swing Line 4. Stealth Flying would have been more accurate... but I think we all know how Swing Line 4 works :P

THWIPTHWIPTHWIP!!!!!

And there ya have it? What do you think of our repainted webslinger? Sound off in the comments below!
-BG

Captain America--Repaint

"When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world -- No, YOU move."

                                                                                         -Captain America, Civil War: The Amazing Spider-Man

Here is a Captain America figure I painted up for Heroscape. 

Captain America has always been a favorite of mine. His WWII roots make him all the cooler in my eyes, and his throwback stories are sometimes the best ones in that respect.

We have some big plans with Super Heroes here at the Fellowship, but I personally have found from a hobbyist's perspective it's just WAY too hard to copy Hasbro's machine paint jobs, baseplates, or cards. So, we're starting from scratch: new style, new methods, same Scaping ;)

Captain America from the front

The Figure is a straight repaint of the Horoscope original (and not a terribly complicated repaint.) The baseplate is cardboard with dollarstore gravel flocking over part of it to serve as the road.

Cap from the back

One thing I tried to do differently with the figure, however. For example, I shot for a more muted, 'Old Glory' color scheme rather than the popsicle red white and blue the original figure had. Additionally, as a nod to the movies/modern costumes, the white on the shield is replaced with metallic silver, and is covered in dings and scratches showing it's 75 some years of use.

'Murica

Pose for maximum patriotism (even if it is a blurry shot.)

The Good Captain's Card

We've developed a whole new Card for super heroes now as you can see. It's the same heroscape design on a new, more easily replicated square card. Cap looks about American as it gets... leaping right out of the panel with the constitution in the background. You can almost hear the eagles screaming... or at least those fake red hawk things we were all told were eagles.

So what do you think? Is our new Cap setting a good precedent for our more outlandish super customs? 

-BG

New Central Metropagotham City: A Superhero City Map!

Today, we're still looking at some custom Heroscape bits, but are doing something a little different. Some of us have been playing this game literally since it came out, and at least one of us has been trying to create a decent Super Hero city for almost a decade now (considering that individual's age, that's a substantial bit of his lifetime.)

But only now have we been satisfied.

Behold: New Central Metropagotham City!

*Cues theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey*

The map is a slab of pink insulation foam, carved into using pens, files, and even tin foil!

A Falcon's eye look at the streets

Now, the idea of a map does sort of go against the idea of heroscape terrain: namely that it is modular. However, a city is usually... well, a city! There's not a lot of complexity to it. Also, cities have sharp, hard angles that heroscape tiles just can't supply. So enter: city map!

Thanos shows off Earth's sewage system

The board will be complete with working manholes, but the manhole covers aren't complete. There are two manholes on the streets, and one in the park.

Ain't they 'grate'?!

There are two rain gutters on the streets.

BATMAN:Robin, wanna drag race?
ROBIN: Well, chicks do dig the car...

Here are two cars to see for scale. The road was designed to be a two lane. I may add a second lane in time to better demonstrate that.

'I do love nature' said Iron Man never

A small portion of the cement area is grass, representing a sort of park. It could also be the sight of a fountain or statue, or perhaps even a cemetery!

Just surveying my new world...

Here's a nifty shot of Thanos just chilling out on the pavement. You can see there are some minor imperfections, but for the most part we're pleased with the result.

*Finishes 2001 theme*

So what do you think!? A superhero adventure in store?

-BG

Flocked Hex Tiles--Custom Terrain for Heroscape

Another Heroscape terrain set. A couple years back, Heroscaper Grishnakh--a wellspring of infinite inspiration to me--created a Rise of the Valkyrie master set with flocked terrain instead of the green plastic tiles. Naturally, I couldn't help but take a crack at it myself, so without further ado I present to you our personal expanding set of Flocked Hex Tiles!

An Overview



Here's a closeup of the grass! It varies here and there due to irregularities in the glue. Just classic model train flock on elmers glue. Really gives it a more professional Table Top War-game feel to it and less of a Hasbro box game XD


Some rough terrain. I used some dead moss and crumbled leaves from a place we own up north to add some real-world dimension to the grassy areas. You can also sorta see the moss growing on the base of the ruins.


Here's a shot of the one sandy tile I completed. Definitely subject to change XD


A rocky tile. I was never a fan of Grishnakh's gravel field type of tile, so I created this one. There's gravel interspersed between the hexes, and the hexes themselves are just toilet paper and paper mache


Guilty McCreech takes pot-shots at some Marros


Drake gets mobbed by Marro swarms! I made a statue of Syvarris out of a spare Syvarris, a piece of pink insulation foam, and a spare glyph mounted on a single hex and appropriately painted. Not my favorite piece (made it a looooong time ago) but not terrible.



My two favorite squads line up and take aim at each other! ('murica)

And that's all! What do you think of the idea of flocked terrain? Does it hold up well against Grishnakh's original, or does it fall short?

-BG