The Dark Knight Rises, The fire rises.

A few weeks ago I took at look at the Brave, Bold and generally fine and upstanding models of the Batman side of the Dark Knight Rises range of models. Today, I'll be taking a look at the enigmatic Bane, and his team of Mercenaries, as well as the alternative version of him without his coat on. 

As before I'll not be discussing the rules, and just be discussing the models, and a few colour notes I used on painting them. All of the figures were primed with grey auto primer, and then pre shaded with black and white zenithal pre shading and highlighting applied vie air brush. All the paints used on these figures were thinned down to around the consistency of an ink. All the skin tones were painted in the same way as on the Brave and the Bold figures as well.

Bane

Bane is probably my favourite villain of Batman's Rogues Gallery, and although different to the comic book canon, Tom Hardy's portrayal of the character is brilliant, and has become an iconic screen villain.  

The Dark Knight Rises starter set includes a single piece casting of Bane in his long flying coat, and holding his body armour straps. Those who pre ordered the set through the Knight Models website, also received an alternative sculpt of the figure in the same pose, but without the coat. Both the sculpts I worked on were excellent quality casts, with only minimal clean up. Being one piece too meant there was very little clean up. 

To get the variety of tones on Banes jacket, I started off using a mix of the GW yellow ink, and agrax earth shade, in a roughly 50-50 mix, once that had dried, I applied alternative glazes of agrax and and yellow onto the figure without mixing, and used a few highlights of pale sand to help up the contrast.

The green parts of his clothing were painted with mixes of Coellia Greenshade and Athonian Camoshade, with the yellow glaze again over the webbing and straps. The black items of clothing on both figures were alternating glazes of black and Goellia Greenshade, with a few layers of highlighting as well to again bring up the level of 'pop' 

Talia

 Talia is another simple, single piece figure from the set, and again was very 

cleanly cast, though some of the detail on her tunic was a little faint, and hard to pick out. She stands with her foot on the obligatory tactical rock, something I'm not massively fond of but she  does look good, so I'll give it a pass! .

The black parts of her clothing were painted in the same way and at the same time as Banes, though the red was built up using heavily thinned Wild Rider Red and Evil Suns Scarlet from GW. This was mixed with water and flow improver, and had extra depth added to the colour using a glaze of Reikland Fleshshade mixed with Carrouberg Crimson. Highlights were Evil Suns Scarlett mixed with Lugganeth orange. The gold trim was both of the GW golds shaded with the same glaze as the rest of the tunic.

The Mercenaries

The three mercenaries all have separate weapons, and these were the only figures to have a little flash on them, especially around the weapons and fingers as the parts were so delicate, this made clean up somewhat time consuming, The details were good though, and the parts fitted together nicely, so it wasn't too painful in the end.  I particularly like the poses of these figures, they are better armed and armoured than the mercenaries in the movie, but the aesthetic fits well with Bane, and the existing Bane range too, which is handy. 

I decided to use dark green, olive green and brown for the bulk of the models clothing, and these were very simply achieved using layers of GW washes, Athonian camoshade for the olive, Coellea Greenshade mixed with Nuln Oil for the dark green, and then simply Agrax earth shade for the brown. Each of these was finished off with a layered highlight of very thin Vallejo pale sand.  Quick, easy but looked great. 

Bane Tumbler 

All the comments relating to the Batman Tumbler apply here too, although the paint job was far more intricate on this version. As with the rest of the models, it was pre shaded with black and white, to which I brush applied a glaze mixed with yellow ink, Agrax earthshade, and a touch of Athonian camoshade.

 It took a few layers to build up a nice rich base, but the modulation of the pre shading still provided plenty of variety to the finish.  For the brown disruptive scheme, I debated masking and spraying the model, however with the angles and shapes of the Tumbler, this seemed like it would be an exercise in frustration, so I decided to free hand it,using a good quality brush. The brown is just Vallejo skin wash, applied in two straight from the pot.  

To weather the Tumbler, I used a sponge to chip the edges lightly using Vallejo German camouflage Black Brown, before applying filters of MIG productions enamel brown for dark green. I decided the vehicle needed a little more contrast and streaking, and these were added using Abteilung 502 Bitume. 

 Next time in my quick over views I'll be rounding the Dark knight Rises releases, and looking at the Why so Serious? set, and Harvey Dent. If you're new to Batman the Miniatures Game, head over to the Facebook and join the Batman Miniatures Game and DC Universe Miniatures Game support group. And if you fancy getting your hands on of the these sets, you can over at Knight Models.