Stocking the dungeon: Citadel and Asgard Undead

As part of the ongoing dungeon stocking exercise, I turned my attention to the subject of Undead, particularly wights, wraiths, spectres and vampires. These are key components of most Undead based adventures, so they'll see plenty of tabletop time. I rummaged through the mountain and junk box, and found various figures that fitted the bill - mostly from Citadel, though the figure on the far left is an Asgard vampire - and repaired where necessary. For example, the figure second from the left was missing a lantern, and now brandishes a plastic sword. After that, a very simple, very basic paint job - base coat of white, then a wash of either GW Draaken Nightshade or GW Beltain Green, followed by dry brushing of the relevant colour. Really, really simple, and it brought up the detail beautifully, whilst the red eyes were added to make the figures look more sinister. The final touch was to do my usual trick of adding cotton wool wisps to suggest mist, and I think it works really well here. I think it goes to show just how good the early Citadel and some of the Asgard sculpts were - they still hold up after 30 years. Very pleased with the way these turned out!

Minifigs Valley Of The Four Winds VFW24 Tree with arms and face

And from Grenadier, to Minifigs, who were one of the earliest manufacturers of fantasy figures in the UK. As a consequence a lot of their sculpts are very basic, and whilst they sold well at first, they soon lost ground to Ral Partha, Citadel and Grenadier. The VFW range of figures was produced to supplement the Games Workshop game of the same name, and whilst a lot of the smaller figures are very basic, the larger ones - like this tree - look well detailed. To be honest, when this figure was extracted from the Lead Mountain, my immediate thought was that it would be ideal as an Ent or Treeman for a Fae/Sylvian Horde Of The Things army I am building, so it was painted with that in mind. The actual paint job was really simple - base coat of dark gray, then a dark Army Painter wash, then dry brushing with light gray and silver to bring out the details. Simples! The final touches were to use PVA glue on the base and on some of the upper branches to suggest moss and/or leaves, and I think that really worked well. Very pleased with the result from this one!

Grenadier Fantasy Lords 500 series Cloud Giant

And staying with Grenadier... this was next out of the Mountain. I obtained it as part of a job lot, and it was broken - the long scarf flying over the shoulder was snapped off and missing - so it was out with the Milliput to try and sculpt a replacement, which didn't come out too badly I think. However, it did flag why the scarf broke off in the first place, because with the scarf the figure had an annoying tendency to fall over, so it was glued on to a base for stability. Even with the missing scarf restored, it is still a very odd figure - what on earth is it holding/stroking? A dragon? A lion? A demonic cat? I worked on the theory that whatever it is, it was supposed to be some kind of familiar or pet for the Cloud Giant, and would therefore be made of the same elements as its owner. Again, we're dealing with large Grenadier sculpts, so keep it simple - a base coat of white primer, then a very thin wash of GW Draaken Nightshade, then lots of dry brushing with white. Much to my surprise this worked really well - it really brought out the detail, and gave the figure a definite ethereal look. I still thought the figure lacked something, so I did my usual trick of adding wisps of cotton wool to both the base and to the end of the scarf to suggest cloud and mist, and whilst I think it works on the base, I'm not too sure about it on the scarf - that may get removed later on. I actually like this figure a lot more than I was expecting to - it has a slightly sinister presence, a bit like a fantasy Blofeld stroking a cloud white cat. Now there is a hook line for a set of adventures...

Grenadier Fantasy Warriors 909 Ogre Mercenary

Well, it's been a while since I posted. I could list a number of reasons, but the truth is that I have been in hibernation. However, I have been painting in that period so - a catch-up set of posts. Next out of the Lead Mountain was this beastie from Grenadier from the Fantasy Warrior range. As with a lot of the later larger Grenadier sculpts, it is quite coarse sculpting (though not as bad as some of the Asgard minis), so I tried to keep the colour scheme as simple as possible - gray for the skin, dull brown for the furs, silver for most of the armour. After that, Army Painter soft tone wash on all non-skin areas, and GW Draaken Nightshade wash on the skin, followed up by highlighting on the skin areas. The base, as always, is just fine sand painted gray and then ink washed. It's an OK job - to be honest, I had great expectations for it, but oddly enough the washes brought out the coarseness of the sculpt - but I can see it getting plenty of table top time as a general boss guardian for treasure. 

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!