Despite this being a Reaper miniature, it was originally produced and sculpted by Heritage, so the figure actually dates to the late 1970s-early 1980s (Heritage went bust in 1982). Originally it was from the Heritage Dungeon Dwellers 1200 ranges line, but Reaper re-released resculpts (new bases) of some Heritage Dungeon Dwellers figures as their inaugural first fantasy line, as listed in their 1993 Catalog. This figure is actually marked as Reaper on its base. As a consequence... it's not a great sculpt. Heritage figures were on a par with early Grenadier, the occasional gem and definitely not as good as Ral Partha, Citadel or late Grenadier - but they do have a certain naive charm. The actual metal base of the figure was meant to represent a stone slab, but as with so many early figures it wasn't big enough to support the figure for any extended period of time - so, on to a plastic base, and then Milliput to create additional slabs. As for the paint job, I took the same approach as I do with all early figures - keep it simple. That meant a base coat of red, followed by washes, then dry brushing to bring up highlights - orange on the torso and the hair on the back of the figure, plus gray for the base. To my surprise the figure actually looked quite good, and I decided I would pick out the "ridges" on the wings to look like bone, the same as the horns on the head. The colour scheme actually came out far better than I expected, although I was underwhelmed by the decision by the sculptor to add spiked knee protectors to the figure - what is that all about? I'm fairly pleased with the paint job, but I'm not too sure about the figure itself - it's fun, but it looks out of proportion, tiny legs and the weird knee pads - and there are better sculpts from Grenadier that meet the needs of my campaign, so this one might get moved on.
Next out of the Lead Mountain was this fine fellow from Ral Partha. Now, I have a lot of time for Ral Partha sculpts, especially the larger ones - whilst I like the smaller figures, they always looked too slight and out of place against "heroic" scale figures from Citadel, Games Workshop and Grenader, but this one holds up really well. As with all Ral Partha figures, beautifully sculpted, lots of detail, and I love the pose - how many other manufacturers would even consider producing a figure in that pose? The figure itself was a pleasue to paint - base colours, then let Army Painter washes do their magic, followed by dry brushing and high lighting. Even the base is good - solid enough and big enough to keep the figure upright, and it actually paints up well as a one big stone slab. I think this is a terrific figure - I especially love the pose, as you can imagine the big guy bending over to smack some unfortunate adventurer with that iron headed club! How many other giant sculpts have you seen where the figure is just standing around, or just brandishing a weapon? I can see this figure getting a LOT of table top time.
