It’s time to put those finishing touches on this model that I have been working on so diligently. All of the Marvel: Crisis Protocol models come on sculpted city street bases (well, except Thanos and probably some other stuff in the future). These are pretty cool to include and I have decided to use them for all of my figures for this game.

Grey Stone Base Tone

For the basing, I am going to use the stone triad of colors from reaper to put down a dark base color and then dry brush the lighter shades on top. I find that this works very well for street basing. Starting with Reaper Paints 09085 Shadowed Stone I painted the base tone on both her base and the rock that she appears to be launching herself from. It did find it usually takes about two coats of this base color before I move onto the next stage.

Next I wash the base with Secret Weapon Soft Body Black Wash thinned with water. This just helps tone this grey down a little bit darker and really sets a nice depth in the cracks in the concrete and stone.

Grey base coat and wash complete

Once the wash has dried completely I drybrush the base area with Reaper Paints 09086 Stone Grey. Be very careful not to paint your carefully painted model, but with a little care this should complete pretty quickly. Then repeat with dry brushing Reaper Paints 09087 Weathered Stone. This sets the base for the stone color.

Grey paint on the base is completed

Street Paint

Depending on where you imagine your model standing in the street or on a sidewalk there may be painted markings that are on the ground. For my Captain Marvel the concrete below her looks more like sidewalk then street so I left it alone. On models that stand on the street or are near a curb I often paint in either some straight white lines or yellow center lines to help give the base more character. For the white lines I use Reaper Paints 09090 Misty Grey. Try to scale the lines so that the look visually appropriate for the model. For yellow center lines I use Reaper Paints 29808 Golden Yellow to paint those in. Don’t worry if the color looks to solid and not quite right at this point. In the following steps I am going to dirty this base up.

Dirtying the Base

For this step, I actually use pigments. You could dry brush a little brown color on the base if you prefer, but I like what the pigments do a bit better. Secret Weapon Green Earth Pigment and applied it generously on the stone. The weathered look that is added to the stone is really effective. While some of this pigment will blow off, when I spray it finally with a matte varnish it will really stay adhered to the model.

Pigment applied to the base

Finishing touches

First thing I wanted to do to finish this model up is paint the rim of the base. Normally I would do this with black, but I am also quite often painting models that are on display bases and these are more of a beveled base. With beveled bases I prefer to paint to flow more into the expected table top scene that is in my head. So in this case I want to use a grey to match up the street. I didn’t want to use the same tone as those that went into base itself, so I grabbed Reaper Paints 09088 Stormy Grey. A couple of coats of this and the rim of the base was complete.

These models typically come with some urban trash on the base sprues so I added a plastic bit that I think looks like a big fountain drink cup from a convenience store. A quick bit of paint and glued it in place to add a little color to the otherwise desolate looking street. I also felt that the base needed a little something more. I added a weathered and crumpled newspaper to the front of the base. These little addition of street trash really helps give the base some character.

Finished model!!!

Wrapping Up

Captain Marvel was a joy to paint with her bright primary colors and great natural contrast between the blues, reds and gold colors. While I am never a huge fan of the stone that is built into the model that she is using to give the look and feel of flight I think I did enough to add visual appeal to the model that you don’t really notice the rock. Focal point of the model I think was well achieved with the head and chest area which were points that I really wanted to have a wow factor.

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