Frost Giant Miniature (A Little Side Project Of Mine)

Okay, this one was completely random.  I did not intend to do this one, and indeed, I have no immediate use for a frost giant (but one day...)  It all started when I was walking through my local Big Lots, a markdown discount store that buys up 'big lots' of stuff other stores don't want taking up shelf space and slaps orange stickers on them to move them quickly.  I love this place.

Anyhoo, I saw a line of rather nice PVC figurines of Marvel's Avengers (along with Spidey and Wolverine, because that's in the contract somewhere.)  They were about the size of classic action figures, but done as prepainted, single pose statues.  I really didn't think much of them (I don't need superhero statues in my life right now.)  But then I saw this guy:

I noticed he was mounted on a perfect 3" black plastic base.  That was like a sign to me.  That makes him the right size for a size huge creature on grid for D&D.  I looked at him again, and I saw the tights, which could be bare legs.  I saw a winged helmet, and imagined a viking style face guard added to it.  I saw Mjolnir and thought that it could easily be replaced.  And I knew right then and there that this model must become a frost giant.

So I brought the guy home and deboxed him.

I ripped off the cape so I could effectively paint him, and cut off Mjolnir's head, replacing it with an axe from a dollar store figure. Then I got out my putty and began sculpting details.

Those high-waisted briefs of his might fly in the superhero set, but frost giants don't look menacing in Y fronts.  So I sculpted a suitably butch fur loincloth.  At first it only came to the bottom of his belt, but then I decided to have it come up to his abdomen, and obscure the lower of the disc-things on his torso. I added a second belt, sculpted from putty, and using a metal ring and tongue made from paper clip.  I intentionally had the two belts not match, which I feel fits the giantish theme.

To disguise the other two metal disks (nipple protectors?  I dunno, go ask Jack Kirby what he was thinking,) I made three more, to look like a wide necklace, similar to medieval chains of office (clearly he is an important figure in Jotunheim.)  I painted his arm bands gold (a rich giant as well,) and picked out the bindings on his boots.

For the helm, I sculpted the face guard, and added a dragon head on top, which came from a GW Imperial knight.  I then sculpted his manly beard (beards being a requisite for frost giants, and indeed for manliness in general, if I do say so my facially hirsute self.)  I kept the hair as it was, but it was not very detailed, and looked awkward next to the beard.  So I broke out the putty again and gave the hair the same treatment as the beard.

Then I painted him.  This is actually pretty big for me, because in all my years of painting, I have never bothered to learn shading, layering or blending (I know, right?)  I've gotten by with just washes and dry brushing, so I decided this was the mini I was going to learn on.  So his blue skin and the brown of his chest armor have been layered (to the best of my newfound ability.)

And the final result?  Take a look:

I am very pleased over all.  Unfortunately, my memory was faulty: frost giants are size large, not huge.  So this guy is an exceptional giant.  So there.

I went back to Big Lots yesterday.  Now what could I make out of this guy?