Stocking the dungeon: Grenadier Fantasy Lords series 1 116 Golems

In Jewish folklore, a golem is an animated anthropomorphic being, magically created entirely from inanimate matter. The word was used to mean an amorphous, unformed material (usually out of stone and clay) in Psalms and medieval writing. 

Whilst digging through the Lead Mountain, I also came across two Grenadier golems looking glum and waiting to be painted, and thought that they would make two quick and easy additions to the dungeon stocking project. A quick Google search returned a consistent theme - golems are usually (but not always) made of clay, and that dictated the colour scheme. One was given a base coat of a dull gray linen colour to suggest base clay, whilst the other one was painted with a dull orange to suggest the other more common form of red clay. After that - a wash with Army Painter Soft Tone, and the dry brushing, which really brought up the detail of the sculpts. The final touch was to pick out the shem (one of the names of God, traditionally written on a piece of paper and inserted in the mouth or in the forehead of the golem) and the eyes with black - this gave the golems a suitably empty, soulless expression.

Again, really pleased with the way these turned out. I can see these two getting a lot of table top time as guardians for chaotic clerics.

Stocking the dungeon: Grenadier Ghouls

One of the on-going projects I have is to paint up miniatures that could be used for "everyday" dungeon trawling - low level creatures such as skeletons, goblins, zombie, rats and the like. Whilst digging through the Lead Mountain I found three Grenadier Ghouls, and decided to see how they'd turn out. The all-too obvious thing to do was to paint them with a base coat of GW Rotting Flesh, but instead I took the decision to spray them with white primer, then wash them with GW with Carroburgh Crimson wash, and then dry brush them with off-pink to suggest recently dead flesh that had just begun to turn. As with all Grenadier figures of the 80s, the dry brushing really brought out the detail, making it easy to pick out things like teeth, nail and bone. The final touch was to give them red eyes, purely to make them look more sinister. I'm very pleased with these - it was a quick and easy paint job, and they make a refreshing change from the usual hordes of grey-green flesh eaters that usually turn up when Ghouls are mentioned.

Citadel Fiend Factory FF5vs2 Winged Demon (Balrog)

I haven't posted in while, not because I haven't been painting, but because the weather has been so lousy that trying to spray varnish any figure has been completely impossible. Fortunately we got one clear, dry day this week - so out came the spray varnish, and cue me making multiple posts. Next out of the Lead Mountain was this fabulous sculpt from Citadel. It really is a terrific sculpt - brooding and definitely malevolent. Just look at the scowl on that face!  The paint job was easy - a base coat of red, then GW red wash, and lots of lots of dry brushing in various shades of orange, yellow and eventually a few touches of white to suggest heat. For once the base of the figure was substantial enough to stop it falling over, so all I did was to give the base a top coating of sand and then dry brush it to suggest hot coals.  As with most of the Citadel figures, it has real personality and presence - I can imagine the majority of dungeon delvers taking one look at this and immediately going the other way. Pleased with how this turned out!