Knight Models Iron Man [Completed]

Crawling over the finish line just about sums up the completion of my attempt at painting the Knight Models Iron Man Special Edition white metal model kit. After finishing the main parts comprising the red and gold armour, I had procrastinated on putting the finishing touches to the miniature namely the arc reactor, hand repulsors, eyes and base - partly but not entirely due to laziness.

Knight Models Iron Man Special Edition [Completed]

Perhaps at the back of my mind I felt that I could have done much better painting the non-metallic metal (NMM) effects - especially the gold portion of the armour. But I eventually let it go and moved on as it was my first try at painting NMM. There will be plenty more NMM projects in the future.

Pure white highlights helped to enhance the NMM effect

For Iron Man's eyes, hand repulsors and arc reactor, I decided to use pure white with some light greyish blue as the shadows. Object source lighting (OSL) effects were kept to a minimum because most photos of Iron Man showed that the light from the eyes, hand repulsors and arc reactor did not really affect the armour around them. Majority of the OSL effects were on the ground which isn't very clear from the photos due to the angle of the shots.

Gold armour on the back thigh came off grittier than I had intended

To me, the colour transitions on the red armour turned out better than for the gold armour. One reason could be that I have had more practice painting red than yellow. Moreover I was trying out a new colour combination for the gold armour - comprising of yellows and browns -  and my inexperience with the colour mixture contributed towards a less than satisfactory result on the gold armour.

Back view of the Knight Models Iron Man Special Edition

One of the things that I like about this miniature is the pose that Iron Man has. It reminds me of a fight scene between Iron Man and Thor in the Avengers movie, specifically of Iron Man being pegged back after he was on the receiving end of a head-butt by Thor.

From this angle, the red armour makes Iron Man look like a lobster

Meanwhile, I used muted colours comprising varying shades of grey for the ground so that one's focus is directed towards Iron Man without being too distracted by the base. Though I flirted briefly with using brownish hues for the ground, I felt it would have been too similar to Iron Man's colours.

Side view of the Knight Models Iron Man Special Edition miniature

Other than letting me practice NMM, the Knight Models Iron Man miniature also gave me the opportunity to try a variety of painting techniques such as wet blending and layering with the help of a wet palette. In fact, I now no longer use a dry palette as I find it to be extremely limiting, especially in the warm weather I paint in which results in the acrylic paints drying up very fast.    

Arc reactor was predominantly white with some light greyish blue for the shadows

All in all this miniature was a pleasure to paint and put together. Although assembly of some small parts made this miniature a bit of a challenge, it also made the feeling of achievement more palpable. 

I love the pose adopted by this special edition Knight Models Iron Man miniature

360 view of Knight Models Iron Man Special Edition
For a 360 degree view of the Knight Models Iron Man Special Edition, please check out the video of the miniature below. For other videos, check out my YouTube channel FourEyedMonster Miniatures.

So my first superhero is now completed. It has certainly wet my appetite to work on other characters from the Marvel Universe. Up next in my Marvel project will be Logan and The Hulk. I can't wait to get started. With so many stuff in my to-do-list, it is indeed a great time to be a miniature hobbyist.