Grenadier AD&D Small Figure Set 2010 Denizens Of The Swamp Giant Snake

Next out of the lead mountain was this little gem - one of the early Grenadier figures from the early 1980's, from the Denizens Of The Swamp box set. I'm a big fan of the early Grenadier figures - I know that they can look somewhat childish and naive compared to the more sophisticated sculpts of today - but to my mind they have a wonderful fun element that seems to be lacking in a lot of modern figures. They also seemed to mirror the drawing style of the illustrations in the early AD&D manuals! 

I think this is a terrific figure, with a definite sinister air to it. My only concern it whether I've done it justice with the paint job.I am sure every miniature painter has at least one figure in their collection that they look at and think, "why did I paint it that way". 

To be honest, that is where I am with this figure - I looked at it, and instead of going with inks and drybrushing, I decided to give it a black base coat and then pick out each of the scales with green or yellow. Yes, really. It seemed like a good idea at the time... but it took forever, and I'm still not sure that it was the right decision. 

The base is just standard green flock, with some shards of bark from the garden serving as "reeds". I also applied a single gloss varnish, to think and convey the smooth sheen on the snake scales.

The figure itself is great, although if you wanted to be picky you could point out that the head is maybe a bit too large, and those fangs are just comical... but it looks the part, and that is the main thing. I'm not too sure about the paint job though. Still, its perfectly good for terrorising lost adventurers who make the fatal error of crossing a swamp!