Doppelgangers

As per usual I've decided to bestow names on these plastic people, so meet Poopy and Lanky.

These doppelgangers are the first WizKids Deep Cuts figures I've bought. They're a lot frailer than I would expect from plastic minis, and they took some cleaning up with the X-Acto knife. Poopy wasn't too bad — just a few bits of flash on his legs — but Lanky had a mold line running down the left side of his ribs, which provided literally minutes of fun when trying to carve it off without hacking away the details, as well as one down his back which I didn't notice until I started painting him.

Lanky's on the left. In an ongoing theme, I was yet again stuck for colours to paint these. A quick google image search brought up next to no painted examples, so unfortunately I had to rely on my imagination. Dammit. I went with blue because why not?

After a couple of coats of Vallejo Dark Prussian Blue (that'll teach me to prime white instead of black) they were hit with layers and drybrushes of Magic Blue and Verdigris to bring out the highlights, which also had the side effect of bringing out the mold line down Lanky's back. As the Prussian Blue is so dark I used it as the shade tone and didn't bother with washes until after highlighting, when I used it to tone down errant bits of lighter blue. With the usual hindsight, I should have started with black and then put the blues on. Oh well.

The flimsiness of the models was evident when drybrushing them; I had to brace Lanky with my fingers to stop him wobbling.

Get a load of that awesome mould line. They come on small integral bases, so I stuck them to a couple of 30mm ones and used modelling paste to build up some texture. I did have an idea for their bases but then realised I'd end up spending longer doing them than the WizKids quality control department spends checking its products, so I just painted them in shades of grey and blue-grey.

As I said, these are the first WizKids minis I've bought, and they're probably the last WizKids minis I'll buy. I couldn't get over the amount of flash on them, the flimsy plastic (I'll never complain about Reaper Bones again) and the general meh feeling I have about them. Anyway, as well all know, the best doppelganger is this one: