This week we have a 3D printed plastic mini I got off of eBay.
The character is “Pyro” a Marvel supervillain from the “New Brotherhood of Evil Mutants”. He also appeared in some of the X-men movies. His mutant power lets him control and shape fire. His costume sports a flamethrower to help him generate the fire. He’s had a few costume changes over the years, but this was about the closest costume I found to the mini. Sometimes the tubes were black, silver, red, yellow…often changing color in the same comic!
I’d just like to say, as a superhero fan, it’s been really cool to see people paint up their Marvel Crisis Protocol minis. Argentbadger has painted so many, that I don’t know that even I can name a character he hasn’t painted! Azazel also tossed his hat into the ring and it’s been great seeing him get his game painted up! And last but not least, The Solo Meeple has also done a spectacular job as well! I can’t say how many times I’ve been tempted to buy the game after seeing their posts!
So when I saw a few of these 3D printed minis on eBay, I didn’t hesitate long!
I don’t remember the exact recipe I used to paint this guy but somewhere along the way I decided to use Iyanden Yellow contrast paint. It’s been a good long while since I’ve used them, but it gave me the orangish yellow shade I wanted on his costume. I then went back over most of it with more yellow. The fires were all Contrast paints.
I wanted his hair to be a really light blonde, but the undercoat apparently ended up darker than I intended. As you can see in the pic below I used for scale, the red on his costume isn’t quite as dark as how it appears in the other pics.
Overall it was fun painting up Pyro. I don’t have plans for using him in any games, so it was mainly just a fun collectible for me. I have a few more of these that I might tackle at some point. Though now I have to make sure that I can paint them all in a similar bright color scheme, which might be a challenge.
Next Time: Orc
Double Down Dice 
Excellent work on Pyro Brian, the colours tie in really well with the comic art and I like the dark roots on his hair, makes him look like a bleach blonde rather than a natural blonde. As for not having a use for him, I think it would easily fit in a game of Stargrave as a man with two flamethrowers.
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Thanks Dave! Oh yea, if he was the right scale he’d probably work well in Stargrave as well. I think the Marvel minis are 40mm, vs my 28mm Stargrave/Frostgrave minis.
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Could be a human from another world where they grow a lot taller than on Earth, or he is just really tall ! LOL
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Might work nicely if I painted his skin green, hehe! Then he could double as Skrull Pyro! 😀
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Great work Brian. The contrast work really well.
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Cheers GP! It was a bit of a mix of traditional and Contrast paints. I believe I used the Contrast paints more like a wash which is kinda a weird way to paint a mini, but whatever works!
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That is a very nice looking sculpt and I wouldn’t have known that it was (I assume) unlicensed if you hadn’t told me.
I like Pyro’s frosted tips there! 🙂 I may or may not have had that look in the 2000’s when it was popular for a brief time. For blonde hair, I often basecoat it with the mid-tone color like Karak Stone and then lightly shade the hair with a thinned wash like Seraphim Sepia. That seems to get the right tones for the darker blonde hair. Not sure if you’ve tried anything like that but thought I’d pass it along in the event that its useful!
Pyro’s classic suit design came out really well too. Will we be seeing more superhero sculpts from you in the future? 🙂
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Thanks Jeff! You must have been a surfer dude, haha! The interesting thing on these minis is that they are not a direct rip off of the MCP sculpts. Where they got them and licensed or no, is a mystery to me for sure.
Karak Stone would have been a good call for a blond base. I think I might have used Reapers Blond shadow color, but decided to darken it further with a wash. It didn’t turn out quite the way I wanted, but there is always next time and I can try out your trick too. Thanks!
I do have a few more of these superheroes from EBay, but they will probably be a long ways off as I focus on game minis. I imagine I’ll get the odd one in the tray now and then though.
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Haha, there was no place to surf in Cincinnati growing up but I suppose I did have a California look back then 🙂
One thing I should have mentioned is that I would recommend really watering down the wash. Probably 4 or 6 parts water to paint. You can go even thinner if you really want to be safe because there’s nothing wrong with applying two really thin washes. I do that quite often myself.
Sounds good! I get tempted to paint a Marvel mini but I have so much in my backlog and so many other projects that I want to do, that I don’t know if I’ll ever get around to it.
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Yea, it’s always better to go lighter on washes because you can always go darker later. The Army Painter washes I have also are pretty light, though I haven’t spent as much time with them as I’d like to. I’ve been meaning to pretty much cut out washes at some point and switch to lining. Though washes are still useful for the tint they can give lighter colors as well.
Oh yea, I’d love to see you do a Marvel mini! But I understand how that is. I’ve only been working on about three games and I feel like I don’t have enough time for even those most of the time.
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I only use Citadel washes but I thin them down to the point of being a glaze or halfway between a glaze and a wash when I use them and that generally works well. Washes are great for tabletop standard and there’s no shame in using them but they can be annoying when they don’t work the way you want. That is what put me off them in the first place.
What you said about the three games is where I am. I have three games to paint and display projects and its going to be tough to make progress on all three games and display projects I’m suspecting.
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Yea, I’m sure your display projects will take a ton of time in themselves, let alone 3 games. I wish I had more time all in all, but I also tend to float between hobbies too.
I got turned off of washes for awhile, not so much a shame thing but more looking at what other painters were doing. The GW method is really heavy on washes, but there are other methods out there too. Some people do really neat work with just lining and it does give the model a cleaner look than dumping shade over the mini. Though lining can be done with a shade too. I don’t know, something I’ve been thinking about and exploring in bits. I’ve used more washes recently than I have in a long while, so maybe I’m swinging back the other way.
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There’s never enough time to be sure.
GW likes their washes and I’d guess they substitute those for Contrast paints now instead though I could be wrong. I don’t watch many of their painting videos since most are focused on getting something painted up quickly. If I understand what you’re saying correctly, GW’s painting team does exactly that. They don’t use a lot of washes on their minis and do mostly edge highlighting and it looks pretty nice. Its definitely worth experimenting with as a way to get great results in a shorter amount of time.
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I might have confused the issue. Most all GW tutorials I learned from were basecoat, wash, basecoat, highlight and maybe another highlight. Though they sometimes mentioned a targeted wash, I don’t recall them ever actually doing that on a model. The method works pretty good except when the wash goes awry. The wash will help to cover most mistakes too.
That worked for me a good long time while painting GW minis. After all, they are supposed to be dark and dirty, right?! Then I noticed painters like Kevin Dallimore, etc. that have really clean looking minis. In an old book of his, the basic difference is that he skipped the wash. Though I noticed he often lines the minis too. Essentially painting a dark line where clothes meet flesh, etc. I’ve seen other painters do that too and really liked the clean look of their minis.
So that’s my anti-wash / paint-lining internal debate. Haha! I guess I’m aiming for cleaner looking minis overall, but that’s also from keeping the painting neat and tidying things up. I’m nowhere near those other painters, and I’m not entirely sure I want to do the exact same thing. But they’ve certainly inspired my work.
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The way you describe GW tutorials is the same way as I remember them being. They’re big on the “all-over wash” and that works well enough on mono-color space marines but not so well for minis like you’re painting.
What Kev does is similar to how I paint. Instead of painting a medium tone and using a wash to darken it, I start with the darkest tone and then layer up to the mid tones and highlights with thinned down paint. It is much easier to control how dark you want to go and where you want to apply the paint that way. If you haven’t tried it, I’d recommend it, especially if you’ve got a wet palette. I’ve used that technique quite often on gaming pieces and it can work really well without taking hours and hours. You don’t see layering shown as much in Youtube tutorials because it is a bit repetitive to watch as you someone works up from dark to light but the final results are better than what a lot of those tutorials provide too.
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Cheers Jeff. Yea, I’ve seen videos on layering like that. It’s a great technique and sort of how I sometimes to my highlights. I wonder if the lack of videos is also because it’s hard to describe the process. When I’m blending I really have to just go with the flow. I wouldn’t be able to explain the process of finding the right consistency of water to paint and the way to brush it on. I’m sure some people probably could, but it’s more of a matter of feel to me and not something I could easily quantify.
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I think you hit the nail on the head, Brian. Layering is something that is more intuitive and that you learn through practicing it. A Youtube video isn’t going to make it really easy or teach you everything you need to know. You just have to mix paints around on your wet palette and see what happens from there 🙂
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Very nice! 🙂 I think the whole colour scheme has come out really well indeed!
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Thanks John! 😃
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Fantastic painting, I love the way that the colours pop! Leaving aside that I obviously recommend that you give Crisis Protocol a try, I think that Pyro is sort of generic enough that he’d do well as any fire-themed character in a supers RPG setting.
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Thanks AB! As I said, it’s been a lot of fun seeing you paint so many of these characters for your games. Very inspiring! I don’t think I have the people to play MCP yet, but I’m still not ruling out buying it some day! 🙂
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This looks splendid, and the hair looks great to my eye a very light blond.
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Thanks buddy! 😃
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Ooo, great painting, especially that wonderfully bright yellow! The reds look amazing too, so well highlighted and shaded and they contrast with the yellow so well. The flames are awesome too!
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Thank you Matt! Glad you liked it! The yellow owes mostly to Contrast paints, since I’m not a master at yellow like yourself! 😀
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Hey nice work on Pyro (and nice mini, as well!) I’m now looking forward to you starting up a set of Crisis Protocol. …and, well, whichever other 3d prints you picked up as well! 😀
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Thanks mate! It’s been a blast watching you all paint your superheroes up. No plans for MCP yet, but who knows!?
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It’d probably be a game that suits your situation well – low model count, superheroes, kid-friendly, a large and diverse cast than can be picked up a la carte…
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It almost ticks all the boxes, except my daughter is not into competitive play. I can get by with a few boardgames that aren’t direct conflict, but she would rather play coop games (my bane!). Luckily with me dm’ing D&D, she gets to team up with someone else and that seems to work.
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That could be the angle (if you wanted to get the game) – co-op with a couple of heroes each against you as the villains in a narrative-type game/campaign!
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Yea, I guess I could run it as an rpg and use MCP’s rules when a fight breaks out. Though at that point, I think I would just go with a supers game I’m already familiar with like the old Marvel FASERIP system.
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