Swamp Thing
Cost: 20.66€ ($23.38 USD)
Release Date: February 2015
Get it Her: KnightModels.com
“The swamp is my world. It is WHO I am. It is WHAT I am. I was once a man. I KNOW the evil men do. Do not bring your evil here. I warn you. Beware the wrath of…Swamp Thing!”
I remember watching the live action version of Swamp Thing‘s TV show on USA every Friday night. I never missed an episode. Even now I own the entire series on DVD and my wife and I both enjoy it. (Well, not Season One so much – stupid kid.) Swamp Thing has always been one of my favorite DC comic book characters, even before Charles Soule’s soon to be ending series was one of the high points of the “New 52.” Even before he was moved to Vertigo. Even before Alan Moore got ahold of everyone’s favorite earth elemental – Swamp Thing was up there as a character that completely captivated me. I still own House of Secrets #92 – his first appearance and a very dog-eared copy of the first edition of the first TPB containing Len Wein’s early tales of the Dr. Alec Holland. Hell, my Swampert in Pokémon Omega Ruby is named after him! So as a recent convert to the Batman Miniature Game in December of 2014, you can bet the January announcement of this model was a guaranteed day one pre-order for me.
Last week I reviewed on of the other figures released with Swamp Thing – The Stephen Amell version of Arrow. I did a great job on the body and a terrible job on the face. I was determined that Swamp Thing would not meet the same fate. Of course, Swamp Thing is also a LOT bigger than your average figure. His leg is about the size of a 28-30mm figure so he was going to take a lot of time even without the extra care and caution I knew I’d be giving this figure. Unlike Arrow though, I feel I did a really good job overall with Swamp Thing and he’s not only the best sculpt of any miniature line to come out this year so far, but I think he was the most fun I’ve had painting something since Reaper’s Bones Great Cthulhu and Games Workshop’s Garden of Morr. What follows are seventeen pictures (click on each for a bigger view) and commentary as Swampy comes out of the box and gets a lot of Green and Brown slapped on him.
Swamp Thing in his packaging. Straight from Spanish casting to my doorstep here in Washington, D.C.
The back of the box, complete with a professional paint job. Spoiler alert: I am NOT a professional.
Swamp Thing’s card for the game with all his stats and powers. His 2+ strength is the lowest I’ve seen on any figures and it makes no sense. I mean, this is a guy who can go toe to toe with Superman and will usually win (Magic and all that). I do love that 11 Toughness with Regeneration though. That guarantees he’ll be an annoying blocker or damage soaker. His size will make people gun for him (along with his point cost – he’s the most expensive figure I’ve seen yet.) but it’s going to be damn hard to knock him out of the game. Notice he’s also a Sidekick to Poison Ivy. That’s in-game terms. It just means you can field him with Poison Ivy or Batman team. I picked up Poison Ivy and her palnt bundle Knights Models has on their website just for that reason.
Out of the box and into my heart. You can’t tell from the photos but each of these pieces is HEAVY. Well, for a miniature I mean.
All the pieces glued together. He really didn’t want to stay together. His arms were so heavy the glue didn’t want to take the first few times. In the end, the aggravation was worth it.
Swamp Thing gets his first coat of paint! In this case, it’s Chaos Black spray paint from Games Workshop. In fact, all of the paints used on Swamp Thing are from GW.
Here we are with the first real coat of paint on him. I’ve painted the core “skin” Loren Forest. Even with just this layer and the leaves/roots still black, he looks fantastic to me. You’ll also notice his eyes are painted red. This was Blood for the Blood God. It’s hard to get a good shot of the eyes, so enjoy this one before me move on. I’m really happy with how these turned out, especially after how spectacularly bad I did with Arrow’s face and eyes. I also filled in Swamp Thing’s face crevasses at this point with some Nuln Oil (Black Wash) and the end result was terrific. He does look like he is smiling though. Maybe he’s happy to get some color.
Here we go starting on the legs. AT this point I’m using Mournfang Brown for the roots and WAAAGH! Flesh for the leaves, moss and lichen on the legs. Again, looking pretty good.
Here is Swamp Thing with everything most painted in its first layer. Notice that the tree trunk Swamp Thing is standing on is the same color as the roots. That won’t last. This photo is also taken with a flash so that I can highlight those tiny mm size areas that didn’t get paint and are still showing black undercoating. Some of them are too small to see with the eye, especially with brown on black or dark green on black, but the flash and the fact this picture is so much larger than the actual figure lets me see I have a lot of touch ups to do at this point in addition to the other coats and shading.
Here’s Swamp Thing getting close to done. At this point I’ve added some Agrax Earthshade wash to the roots to make them less mud coloured brown and more plant brown. I’ve also used WAAGH Flesh and Skarsnik Green to shade between the body and plant greens and make it more of a natural looking color change rather than two stark different dark greens.
EXTREME BLURRY FACE CLOSEUP. Actually this photo was to show the log. It received three different washes. First some Agrax Earthshade to darken the brown and then some Seaphim Sepia wash to give it some light yellow highlights. Finally I used Nuln oil to really darken the over all piece and actually make it look like an old rotting log. The end result in the flesh is much better than the photo but even with my crappy iPhone picture taking skills, you can see it’s a noticeably different brown than the roots and that’s what matters,
The finished Swamp Thing from the front.
The finished product from the back.
Swamp Thing’s profile from either side.
Here is Swamp Thing along with all the figures form the Batman Miniature Game I have painted. There’s Arrow, Frank Miller’s Batman, Nightwing and Harley Quinn. This picture is primarily to show you how massive Swamp Thing is when finished. That’s a lot of metal in this one figure and he is an absolute steal for only twenty euros. Most guys of this size and quality cost twice as much and they aren’t even metal! Seriously though, the other guys are the size of his LEG. Imagine how huge he would be if he wasn’t crouched over!
Next up is Poison Ivy, three plant monsters, Nyssa Al Ghul, Lobo and Alfred. Not a bad first dozen guys.
Finally, I’ll leave you with a close up of Swamp Thing and tow of his contemporaries for an even better size comparison. Again, I’m super happy with how Swamp Thing turned out. He looks great and will definitely be one of the highlights of this year no matter what line you tend to paint. I couldn’t be happier with the big guy and I’m excited to see Dr. Alec Holland make his way into the Batman Miniature Game. Now here’s hoping we will see Beetle and Booster in 2015.
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