Had a bit of time on my hands, so I’ve been able to finish
off another nugget extracted from the Lead Mountain.
Next up was this overlooked morsel from Asgard; as any followers of the blog
will know, I am partial to Asgard sculpts ;)
No two ways about it; this is an odd looking sculpt. Bugbears
are generally viewed as larger, more intelligent goblins – hence the green
skinned paint job – and the actual sculpt of the head, arms and torso is fine,
lots of detail there, whilst the club is suitably menacing. But what is it wearing??!
It looks like a boiler suit! And as for those boots… very dapper, and totally
incongruous! The clothes are just totally out of keeping with the rest of the
figure. However, I understand that in later editions of D&D, bugbears
could be player characters, and I’m guessing that the figure was designed for
that purpose – otherwise, if you put this figure amongst a horde of goblins
(even Asgard goblins) it’s just going to look right out of place.
A pleasure to paint though – standard goblin green for the
skin, blood red for the hair (just for contrast) and then a light khaki colour
for the boiler suit, with leather for the boots. Apply washes, then dry brush.
Simples!
I’m fairly pleased with the end product, although I can’t
see it getting much table top time. From what I can make out, it’s a fairly
rare piece (although I understand that Viking Forge still produce it, along
with a lot of the old Asgard range) – I suspect it didn’t sell well because it
is such an odd looking critter.
The sun is shining, which means that I get to spray the
varnish on the latest nugget extracted from the Lead Mountain
- a rather odd but rather well sculpted piece from Grenadier. The figure comes
in two parts – the rider and horse are one piece, whilst the hands and scythe
are another, more flimsy piece, secured in place with superglue. Once primed,
it was actually a very simple piece to paint; a base coat of matt black, dark
gray dry brushing for the cloak and the horse, then white to pick out the bones
for the Reaper, with deep red leather for the barding. Simples!
I like the sculpt – it’s a dramatic pose, and it painted up
nicely – but I’m not sure it will get much table top time, or even who it was
aimed at. It’s not a standout figure IMHO, so I don’t think it would serve as
the centre piece of an Undead army – and opportunities for the appearance of
the Grim Reaper on horseback in D&D sessions are frankly limited. In addition, it sits somewhat uneasily with a lot of other Grenadier figures - as it is mid-period Grenadier, it is more finely detailed than the early ones, and smaller than the later ones. These are
probably the reasons why it didn’t sell that well, and why it appears to be a
fairly rare piece – I’ve never seen another one, other than the versions
still in blister packs on Lost Minis.
