Asgard Fantasy Monsters FM58 Wyvern attacking

A wyvern is a legendary winged creature with a dragon's head, which may be said to breathe fire or possess a venomous bite, a reptilian body, two legs (sometimes none), and a barbed tail. 

Next up from the lead mountain was this early release from Asgard. Now, I'm not a fan of winged creatures in metal - there is usually an overhead in securing the wings to the body, followed by the liberal use of Milliput to fill in any gaps, and even when the wings are on there is always the risk that a tabletop accident will cause them to break off. Plus they attract dust like there is no tomorrow. Still, onwards and upwards…

The sculpt came in four pieces – the body, two wings, and the tail. The actual sculpting is pretty good – lots of fine detail, not too many flash lines to remove – and the securing pins/slots for the wings were surprisingly well moulded, with only a minimum of Milliput needed around the joint for the tail. Interestingly, the original catalogue line drawing from Asgard shows the figure with the tail down – but it is fairly obvious from the sculpt that the tail is supposed to curve upwards, a bit like a scorpion’s tail. Once assembled it became apparent that the sculpt was very unstable, hence the need for two 40x40mm bases glued together to support it.

The paint job was comparatively easy – light yellow for the belly and underside of the neck, then green for the main body, head, wings and tail, with just a splash of red for the barb at the end of the tail. Washes and dry brushing then brought up the fine detail of the scales and on the wings. The base is simply flock plus some stones and twigs from the garden - my reasoning is that the Wyvern is most likely to be encountered in the wilderness, rather than in a dungeon!

I’m quite pleased with the way it turned out – not bad for a figure that’s nearly 30 years old! I suspect it is a fairly rare piece, as it’s the only one I’ve ever seen in the wild, although I understand that Viking Forge still produce the model. I’m guessing it was never that popular due to the cost of it in the early 70’s – it is a fair sized lump of metal – and also I suspect it would get limited table time, as opposed to something like a dragon which would be brought out again and again. Shame really, because I think it’s a lovely piece of early sculpting.