Grenadier Wizzards And Warriors W53 Giant Tick (variant?)

Next up, a bit of an oddity. I got this miniature as part of a job lot from a certain auction site. It was quite badly painted - an entire tin of black gloss seemingly applied with a decorating brush! Once I'd got the paint off, there were no manufacturers mark to help identify it. After a lot of searching and some help from the guys at RalParthaMinis: Collecting Ral Partha Miniatures, I think that this is a variant Giant Tick from the very early Grenadier Wizzards And Warriors range:

It's a very simple, quite naive figure, in keeping with the rest of the early Grenadier sculpting. For the paint job, I wanted a combination that would automatically make you think "yeucck", hence the lurid pink and brown. I was actually very pleased with the way the brown came out - a suitably mottled effect!

The only base that the figure would comfortably fit on it left several "gaps" on the corners, which I've got around by adding the skull and bits of pieces of broken weaponry. I've also sprayed it with a gloss finish, rather than the usual Dullcote varnish; somehow the sheen gave the figure a more sinister look!

I had quite low expectations of this figure, and I'm actually very pleased with the way it came out. I can imagine it would have quite a lot of use in DnD games as a generic dungeon beastie to terrorise low level characters!

Asgard Fantasy Monsters FM91 Knight Of Chaos On Foot

The accompanying figure is the Chaos Knight on foot. Whilst the mounted figure was OK - the photo really didn't do it justice, and I'll probably put up another pic soon - I wanted a slightly more "grubby" look, which I attempted here: 

 

I was a little bit happier with the paint job this time - primarily Citadel Tin Bitz, highlighted with dull gold, and with a green motif for the trimmings on the figure. Not too happy with the shield, though;  not one of my better efforts, and the flash on the camera did it no favours! As with so many of the Asgard range, the figure suffers from real proportion issues - the head and upper body are far too big for those skinny legs! I think it has got real presence though - you could imagine the figure being regularly utilised as the guardian of some dungeon treasure.

Asgard Fantasy Monsters FM92 Mounted Knight Of Chaos

Next from the lead mountain was an old Asgard figure from the early 80's, although I vaguely remember getting mine in recent years from Viking Forge  (http://vikingforge.datasquire.net/). As with a lot of the Asgard figures, it is very coarsely sculptured, especially when compared to equivalent figures of the era from Ral Partha and Grenadier:

The paint scheme was fairly simple - predominantly red, green and silver, then lots of washes and highlighting - and the base is just simple flock. As with so many figures from the Asgard range, it is weirdly out of proportion - the head of the Knight is far too big for the rest of the figure, and the entire Knight figure itself looks far too big for the horse! It's difficult to see who would have bought this particular figure - it's not really suitable for role play, and there were far better Chaos cavalry sculpts from Citadel/Games Workshop at the time. Combine that with the coarse sculpting and you can see why it wasn't a huge seller. The paint job didn't turn out quite how I wanted, either - in hindsight I should have perhaps gone for a darker, dingier effect. There is an accompanying  Knight of Chaos on foot figure, so I'll try that style with that figure next.

Grenadier Fantasy Lords 500 Series 504 Pet Dragon

First up out of the lead mountain for the new painting technique was this beastie from mid-80's Grenadier:

The paint job was a base coat of black, then a highlighting coat of sand primer, then another highlighting coat of white primer. I have to be honest and say that I didn't care for the effect that the sand primer gave, and in future I'll just stick to a base black coat plus white primer for highlights. After that - base colours of red and yellow, and then lots of washes followed by highlighting.

As with many Grenadier sculpts of the era, it is a slightly strange figure - obviously aimed at the role-playing contingent, as it is a "Pet Dragon", presumably for a sinister necromancer who wanted something more exotic than a chihuahua or a white cat ("I've been expecting you, Mister... Conan...?"). As such it could probably be regarded more as dungeon dressing, though I can imagine it getting a limited amount of play use for selected scenarios where you absolutely need a pet dragon. No wings on the sculpt - is it really a dragon? - and I do like the pot belly on it... it suggests it is a very well fed creature ;)

On the whole, quite pleased with the way the first figure using the new technique turned out - it's slightly "grubbier" than my usual paint jobs, especially on the yellows, which is always a sod of a colour to paint  anyhow - but on the other hand it does have greater depth in shading. Definitely something I will experiment with on future figures!

Minifigs Aureola Rococo Spirits And Wizard ARW5 Wizard Of Goodness

Bonus post this time round! I stumbled across a posting featuring some fantastic figure painting here:

http://www.reapermini.com/forum/index.php?/topic/42789-figures-from-the-stone-age/

- and I thought I would try the same technique with an old Minifigs sculpt I had lying around waiting to be passed on to a certain auction site:

Minifigs were one of the earliest fantasy miniature manufacturers, and they weren't very well sculpted or detailed. However, I was very pleased with the way that the figure turned out using the same technique - black primer, then a light sand coloured spray at approx 60 degrees angle, then a white spray from the same angle, followed by base colours thinly applied, washes and highlights. And it is quick - the figure you can see took about 45 mins to apply!

I'm going to be experimenting with the same technique for future posts to the blog; if they don't work out, then back to the tried and trusted approach...

Grenadier Fantasy Lords 1st Series 106 Skeleton Cavalry

The next nugget to be mined from the the mountain of lead was... another Grenadier. I remember reading somewhere that Grenadier was the largest producer of fantasy miniatures during its time, and may well still hold the record for amount of fantasy miniatures produced.Judging by the number of Grenadier pieces still hiding in the lead mountain, I'd have to agree!

The miniature is a two piece sculpture - a skeleton warrior, brandishing an axe, mounted on a skeletal horse:

It's a good sculpture I think - a very dramatic pose for the horse, though you could argue that the warrior is a little stiff in his posture. The figure was fairly easy to paint - black undercoat, then white drybrushing, then brown and dark red for the shield and barding, followed by the usual washes and highlighting, and I'm quite pleased with the way it turned out.

As with many of the Grenadier figures of the era, it is actually a very strange figure. When you consider that  fantasy wargaming was still in its infancy in the mid-80's, and that very few people would have had the money to buy a complete Skeleton cavalry unit, and that the majority of fantasy figures produced were for use in RPG's... it's difficult to know exactly who it was targetted at. I suspect it would have had limited value as a figure for RPG's, which may be why it was swiftly replaced by a single one piece sculpt for the Fantasy Lords 2nd series. Fun figure though!

Grenadier Fantasy Lords 1st Series 124 Dwarf Hydra

I haven't posted for a while - a combination of holidays and a new job have taken up a lot of painting time - but I've finally picked up the brushes again. Out of the box this time was a splendid but rather strange creature from the Grenadier Fantasy Lords 1st series: 

It's a strange figure in lots of ways - for starters, it is long, almost the length of two 45mm Games Workshop cavalry bases. In fact, that's what the base is, two plastic 45mm bases glued together and filled in with Milliput! After doing this there was a gap on the base at the front of the figure,  hence the addition of a couple of plastic skulls. Another thing that's not visible from the picture is that it is a very lopside figure - it originally came in two parts, and the necks+heads on the left hand side had to be attached to the main body, giving the impression it might just be ready to topple over.

The figure was fairly simply to paint - green base, then a green wash, then multiple highlights. The yellow scales were the worst bit; they had to be picked out and then highlighted without touching the green scales of the main figure. The base is just gray gravel from a model railway set! 

I'm quite pleased with the way the figure turned out, though I am still puzzled as to why it is a Dwarf Hydra. Does this mean that Grenadier meant to produce a bigger, "normal sized" Hydra? Or that the figure only attacks Dwarves? We shall never know...