It’s June, which means it’s time for Forgotten Heroes. This year is a bit different from what has come before. This year, the theme is “Patriot Games”; all submissions must be “patriotically” themed, i.e. wearing a costume that reflects their country of origin.
With that in mind, I have decided to make a miniature for my favorite Street Fighter, Zangief.
From the Street Fighter Wiki: Zangief , also known as the “Red Cyclone”… is a national Russian hero who is always seen fighting for the glory of his country. Zangief is a massive fighter, weighing 400 lbs and standing slightly over 7 feet tall, placing him among…the tallest characters in the entire Street Fighter roster…Zangief has been portrayed with a beard and a mohawk, along with a uniquely-shaped formation of chest hair on his torso and on his shins. His massive frame is almost entirely covered in scars from his bouts with brown bears in the barren and remote area of Siberia.
Yeah, that’s right. When not utterly crushing his enemies, Zangief wrestles bears. For fun.
Zangief doesn’t have a patriotic costume, opting instead for wrestling tights. BUT, anyone with even a passing familiarity with Zangief knows he’s from Russia. Plus, his wrestling moves all have Russian names, like “Borscht Dynamite” and “Siberian Express”. I guess this is cheating a little, but I’m going for the spirit, if not the letter, of the rules.
Zangief’s first appearance was in the classic Capcom arcade game, Street Fighter II: The World Warriors (1991). Since then, he’s been a playable character in 14 other fighting games, and even showed up in the Street Fighter anime cartoons and movies, the (horrible) Van Damme Street Fighter movie, as well as a cameo in Wreck-It Ralph. He’s also made it into various Street Fighter comics (published by Malibu and Udon).
Zangief is a bit different than your typical fireball-throwing street fighter. For one thing, he’s slow. He likes to get up close and personal, grabbing his opponents and administering his signature move, the Spinning Pile-Driver (seen above). Once he gets close, you’ll wish he wasn’t. Zangief does the most damage of any fighter by far.
Zangief’s far from forgotten, and he’s technically not a “hero”. But he’ll always be my hero. The Red Cyclone taught me all I know about fighting. Just last week I head-butted a guy and gave him a spinning pile driver (again, see above) just because he fucking annoyed me. He’ll know better next time, once he gets out of traction.
There has been a miniature of Zangief issued already for the Heroclix Street Fighter line. But as you can see, it really sucks. So I decided to make my own.
I started with a Heroclix Blockbuster miniature, from the Uncanny X-Men series. He’s big, and he has wristbands and boots like Zangief. They’re not perfect swaps, but they’re certainly close enough.
After I removed him from his base dial, I did a quick application of some green stuff and magic sculpt. I was able to sculpt his mohawk, beard, chest hair and his (really fucking weird) shin hair. I’m no Dick Garrison, but I can handle sculpting messy body hair and a mohawk. (I still wish I could sculpt better.)
Here’s what he looks like. I’m mostly happy with him, but it’s easy to see his beard and chest hair and think it’s just a huge beard. I sculpted a square-ish beard rather than a pointy one (Zangief’s beard changes depending on who draws him). I think if I had sculpted a pointed beard (or just got a ‘Clix Zangief and did a head swap) it would make it easier to differentiate between beard and chest hair, but who cares? (I do.)
Here’s the Red Cyclone about to deliver a Soviet beatdown to E. Honda (Hasslefree’s Tetsuhara)…
…and here he is, about to ruin Ryu’s day (Heroclix Ryu).
MUSCLE POWER! Horosho!
I’m going to try to get another Forgotten Heroes submission in by the end of the month, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to pull it off as it requires much more sculpting. Other than that, I have decided that June is Superhero month here at Dead Dick’s Tavern. In addition to Forgotten Heroes, I’m going to paint my steadily-increasing collection of Knight Models and repaint more Heroclix!
There’s me thinking I’d be stealing a march on everyone by posting a day early and your first post is a COMPLETED figure…. I ask you. To be fair, I do still have to work out the most effective costume colour scheme for “El Aguila” – who will hopefully be a little cooler than the Marvel character whose name he shares. But I can live with you beating me to the punch – firstly, beacuse I don’t want to experience the ‘spinning piledriver’ and secondly…because Scott Pyle is taking part this year! How cool is that!!
As the author of Super Mission Force, my favorite miniatures game, I believe Scott Pyle is the tree of superhero coolness, Jez, and we should all seek his fruit. I’m psyched he’s in for this year, too! And fret not, my friend. in all honesty, I got a jump start on “slapping the shit” on my miniature, i.e. adding the green stuff, because I mixed a bit too much of it for another project a week ago, and I didn’t want to waste it. BUT…to be fair, I didn’t start PAINTING Zangief until June 1. That counts, right? I’m just glad Zangief meets the criteria for Forgotten Heroes, as he’s not (really) a comic book hero, although he has appeared in comics.
And yeah…the Marvel El Aguila just sucks out loud. He was a guest star in Power Man and Iron Fist a few times.
I like Power Man. I like Iron Fist. I do not like El Aguila.
Change my mind, Jez.
Absolutely awesome conversion!
Congrats.
Thanks! It was a lot of fun. Drop by again sometime!
Though never a great computer games fan, I could be tempted to play “Street Fighter 2” now and again (though I just hammered the buttons as fast as I could randomly and hoped for the best TBH) but Zangief was always my favourite “Street Fighter” Character too (followed by “Chun Lee” of course (cough cough)).
That is a great conversion of him, I wasn’t aware that Heroclix did a version but as you say he is cr*p!! Great paint work too, the finished fig looks superb.
I almost decided to take part myself once I heard the new rules, and I too was flirting with doing a wrestler (well two, to be exact), but I was thinking about “Liberty Bell” and “Stoya the Destroyer”” from the Netflix show “GLOW” (one of my guilty pleasures).
Best of luck with the other figure you’ve hinted at, and all your repaints too.
(oh and thanks for the mention).
Cheers Roger.
Thanks, Roger! GLOW is an awesome show. I was quite fond of the original…um…material as a youth, growing up in a pre-Internet world.
I’m sure I need say no more…