Winner’s Circle with the Winner of The Path of the Worthy 2023 – featuring Johnathan Ho

For the uninitiated, The Path of the Worthy is our Marvel: Crisis Protocol Painting competition. After the awards ceremony was over last year, we had a chance to catch up with Johnathan Ho, fresh from learning that he had not only made gold in every category, but had won each as “The Mighty” and thusly claimed our inaugural Odin Trophy for his piece from the “dual” category. Here’s what our talented champion had to say…

How does it feel to be both Mighty and Worthy?!

Pretty great! I didn’t expect to sweep all the categories, but I was pushing myself for gold. There’s a lot of great painters out there and especially with all of the talent that comes to Adepticon, I knew I was coming to compete. Especially the way the podium judging is done in Path of the Worthy – where anyone who competes at a certain level will medal that way – I was absolutely holding myself to a gold standard. I’m not expecting to get it, but that is the bar that I’m holding for myself. From there it’s a lot of questioning what other people might enter. It’s also about the judges – I feel. I thought about how these judges are going to look at things. They each come in with their own expectations for narrative, style, and technique. From there, it’s about playing to your strengths in conjunction with what you think the judges will look for – and hoping for the best.

How did you decide on which pieces you would submit for each of the categories?

The dual entry was what I considered my “main” entry. For me, Marvel, and comics in general, are about the narrative. Telling a great story was what I wanted to focus onI spent almost all of my time on that one. As far as what characters to choose, I put thought into finding pieces that would work together. There were other ideas. Hulkbuster vs. Hulk would have been great, but judging by how long my first Hulkbuster took, I didn’t want to do it again within the timeframe. Other ideas I had really required other characters that hadn’t been released by the game yet, so I ended up settling on the Rivals Panel.

I remembered Sam Raimi’s second Spider-Man film. It had this cool duel between Doc Ock and Spider-Man where there was a lot of tumbling and moving around as the camera angle kept changing our sense of what was up and what was down. It wasn’t just a straight forward perspective. I wanted to incorporate that and to create that shift in dynamic to elevate my piece and divert from your traditional, straight-on diorama set against a backdrop.

Could you estimate how many hours you spent on each piece and how you planned the project?

The easiest ones were the Hulkbuster and my Sentinels. Those were painted for my tabletop collection. The Hulkbuster took me about 100 hours. Each of the Sentinels was between 45-55 hours. For each one of those pieces, it was a matter of locking down my color recipes on the palette and then managing painting sessions to keep from letting the quality slip. After 4-6 hours of painting, if I couldn’t manage a smooth blend or a precise highlight, I would take a break. If I needed to do more painting that day, I would make sure to get a meal, shower, walk the dog, or get a work out in. It was essential to be able to come back with fresh eyes. If I was done for the night I would end my session and just make myself ready to come back to it the next day.

Building in breaks is just as important as the painting itself. I feel it’s very easy to get on autopilot and stop thinking. Especially when I’m painting a piece that’s non-metal metal, I have to consider not just my highlights, but my reflective highlights or other features that are interacting with each other. Light is so dynamic. You have to think through every brush stroke and once you start to go on auto-pilot, the quality slips. Consistency is key and you have to put in 110% every time you’re putting your brush on the miniature.

For the game pieces I did my best at that, but it was super essential for the dual entry. I took a bit more time because there were multiple pieces, plus posing to serve the narrative I was going for. I probably spent two weeks of brainstorming where I ended up settling on Doc Ock vs. Spider-Man, buying the pieces I needed, and making sure I had everything else – like plasticard and materials to sculpt the metal tentacles and stuff. Then I spend about a week to a week and a half actually building and painting the piece. I’d estimate about 150 hours. I really stayed on top of my quality control, giving myself breaks by moving to something easier like the brick pattern or explosion. Then I’d come back to the more challenging stuff. The decision making was less pressured because I had already painted these characters before so I had my recipe and plan. It was just a matter of executing it all at the highest level possible.

So you had already painted Doc Ock and Spider-Man for the table before? 

I had painted the Rivals Panel twice before – once for myself and once for a client. I knew going in what I wanted – but had to adapt to the changes in lighting. I changed the angle of how we’re viewing this confrontation, so the way the light would hit these characters changed from how I’ve painted them previously. Plus there’s light to consider from the laser beam, from the explosion – reflections for the window and tentacles.

Do you have any advice to future challengers of your clean sweep?

It’s hard to give blanket advice. Painters are at different stages and have different goals. You want to make sure that you’re not constantly comparing yourself to “the best painters in the world.” Everything we see on social media is a highlight reel. You’re not seeing the challenges, the struggles, or the journey it took them to get here. For example, I’ve been painting since I was 12. That’s 25 years of practice. I have an art degree and a background. I have a lot of experience and learning that contributes to my success in this hobby but it’s taken me a long time to get where I am – and where I’ll go! As long as you are constantly pushing yourself to grow and every piece is better than your last, you will get where you’re going.

Thanks for celebrating Johanathan’s outstanding achievement with us. We cannot wait to see what everyone brings to The Path of the Worthy at Adepticon in 2024. See the Path of the Worth Event page for rules and details for the competition.