God, was I ever glad to have this project done. In the years that I’ve had my Marvel Crisis Protocol stuff I’ve only ever played one game, and part of the obstacle there is that I have very limited terrain to use that isn’t 40k stuff or that looks like it belongs in that universe. The starter set comes with a bunch, but it was the biggest piece of it, the Daily Bugle stand, that gave me the most trouble and that I put off the longest. I’d also put off painting a lot of the miniatures from the starter box because I didn’t see a use for them – but, discovering that “Ultimate Encounters” are a thing and that there’s a way to play MCP co-op, I came back to this, tackled this, and think I’m ready to team up with a friend or two and pummel Ultron.

This project was me, in part, deciding that I wasn’t going to let this stay on the pile of shame any longer, but was also a little bit of serendipity – I had a batch of models that were heavy on “fire” colors and on fire-like glow effects and as I got that started it occurred to me that Ultron with glowy bits under his metal surface would be a perfect fit. As for why Doctor Octopus is there, well, frankly I just really wanted to paint Doctor Octopus.

I used a lot of texture and sponge effects to make painting large swaths of the terrain piece easier but tried to keep up the same level of highlighting and glow effects on things like lights that I have on all of my other models in this line. Ultron and Doctor Octopus came together well too – the models are solid, easy to put together, and just like with all of the MCP stuff I found these really didn’t give me any trouble.

Oh boy, am I ever glad that this is finally out of the pile of shame. It feels like this terrain piece was a mental hurdle for the longest time and now that it’s done I feel like I’m much more free to tackle other new projects or builds, and to get a little more silly with some of that. I feel like I’ll definitely come back to MCP especially if I can get my hands on a couple of the PvE encounter sets, though – I think for me and my fellow filthy casuals it will be a more fulfilling style of play than fighting each other in skirmishes.