Saturday 28 May 2022

Breaking Bat

Bane broke the Bat.


The first graphic novel (or trade paperback, technically) that I ever bought was Knightfall.

It was around the time that Batman Forever was released I a truly began to embrace my inner Batfan.

The main antagonist, Bane, was new to me, but his looming presence throughout the storyline, not to mention the fact that he ultimately wins, cemented him as a major figure in the rogue's gallery of villains, and one of my favourites.


Sadly, Bane has been poorly treated in the media. I'm not knocking Tom Hardy in The Dark Knight Rises, but his version lacked the massive physical threat of Bane in Knightfall and also didn't look anything like a Mexican wrestler.

Similarly, in Batman: The Animated Series, Bane's introduction was limited to a single episode, and the less said about "Mr Bane" in Batman & Robin the better.

Likewise, in the Batman Miniatures Game, whilst I was involved, Bane was limited to just two sculpts: Tom Hardy Bane and a version from the Arkham Origins game that just never looked like Bane should.

It was only after I stopped playing that Bane got the sculpt he deserved and so became one of the few BMG resin sculpts I own (bought second hand, obviously).


It's actually a really impressive model and I can totally see why Knight Models moved away from metal to resin. The detail is crisp, the model goes together well and it's a model that could actually tempt me to buy more of their range.


In teens of painting, I went fir a blue costume rather than black. In the original comic the character is drawn in a combination of the two. It could be argued that the blue on the character is a highlight of a black costume, but you could equally say that the bkack is shading for dark blue.

In my head, he's always been dressed in blue, so that's what I went with.


The skin took a bit of work. I started with Gulliman Flesh contrast paint over Wraithbone, but I really didn't like pasty tone or the patchy effect. I revisited it with Kislev Flesh and Agrax Earthshade, but left it darker than usual to reflect Bane's Latino heritage.


I enjoyed painting Bane and after slating them in my last post I do have to give Knight Models credit for the step up in quality of their resin models. I have a few others to do and they seem consistently good.

I've also got a bunch mof metals to paint, which are as variable as ever.

Acquired: 85
Painted: 87

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