MONSTER MANUAL MONDAY 4

I'm just about managing to finish a couple of figures a week at the moment and had a dose of some nasty sickness bug last Wednesday and Thurdsay which hung about putting me of my grub until today . Nothing too monstrous today, but these chaps were often a staple wandering monster in my early dungeoneering days, although why beserkers should be wandering around an underground maze was never asked. These are Grenadier figures by Mark Copplestone who seems to have a penchant for barbarians and the like (he's recently released some nice 15mm barbarians).

MONSTER MANUAL MONDAY 3

Just getting used to the new camera, and I have managed to find a black cloth to use as the background to my old floorplans. Today's offering is the Minotaur. I have had this figure since the very early 1980's, and he is a Perry sculpt from the Fiend Factory range, again from Forever People in Bristol. He differs a lot from modern minotaurs as he resembles a large man with a bulls head rather than a walking bull with attitude. I do possess a Grenadier minotaur who is more animal like with hooves which I will paint up soon. I stripped this figure down from my original paint job of gloss pink skin, humbrol silver fox axe and a purple tunic...

I tend to paint the flesh on fantasy figures in a very defined way, as indeed I do all the shading. I'm not entirely happy with the result on this chap.... but at least it's distinctive.

MONSTER MANUAL MONDAY 2

Where did that week go? Today I am presenting some Lizardmen. I picked these guys up at a convention recently for £1 , I assume they are Games Workshop figures as they are plastic, but they have loads of character without being too over the top like a lot of GW figures. After painting and then drybrushing a lighter shade, I gave these chaps a wash with the GW washes Athonian Camo and Agrax Earthshade (for the green and brown ones respectively), which despite their outlandish names worked really well.

As you can see, my camera is giving up the ghost, and the pictures are getting a "mist" over them. I have invested in a new one but am awaiting instructions from Mrs. Broadsword who can be bothered to read the instructions, unlike me.

MONSTER MANUAL MONDAY 1

The plan is every Monday I will post up a picture of a creature from the Monster Manual that I have painted that week. I was hoping to run the beasties alphabetically but my Aerial Servant is still waiting to be undercoated so we will kick off with the OWLBEAR

I have seen a few Owlbear figures since getting back into D & D , but this old chap remains my favourite. He is by Asgard Miniatures, and I bought him in 1981 from a shop in Bristol called Forever People. He was painted gloss brown and yellow, but an application of Mr. Muscle Oven cleaner stripped him nicely ready for repainting. I was going to hold fire with this post until I had got a black cloth and made some new dungeon floorplans, but that could have taken ages, so I dug out my old GW  floorplans which will have to suffice for the moment.

If all goes well by the end of the year, I should have at least 52 Monster figures painted (unless I am distracted by other projects!)

A LATE (OR VERY EARLY) CHRISTMAS PRESENT

A couple of weeks ago I bought , via ebay, a batch of figures I used to have back in the very early 1980's, Grenadiers Tomb of Spells boxed set. These were the first official Dungeons and Dragons figures I had heard of then (not realising Minifigs and Heritage had both produced Dungeon ranges) and I was very excited to read in White Dwarf that they were about to be released. On my twelfth or thirteenth birthday I duly recieved the set from my folks, and it has to be said I was profoundly disappointed with the figures. To my young eyes they were static poses, fuzzy detail and really bizarre armour on the skeletons. I suppose I kept them for a while, but then had a great clear out of fantasy figures (to my everlasting regret) in the late 1980's in which they must have gone to some Bring and Buy stall at a convention.

Looking at the early Grenadier figures now, with rheumy bespectacled eyes, I think they are absolutely  charming. They were certainly behind their time when compared to some of the figures Citadel were producing at the time and more so Ral Partha's finely detailed sculpts from Tom Meier but they simply ooze character, and I am planning on collecting all the early boxed sets.

The figures duly arrived this morning from The States courtesy of Silverhawk Miniatures, who provided excellent friendly service. Apparently there were 3 versions of this set released with a few variations, and it seems I had the rarest as a youth (not that I knew it then) which contained a rather nice Minotaur. Greg at Silverhawk kindly provided all the basic figures contained in all the sets, and also some of the variants, including the particular Efreet I had originally with folded arms. I had already purchased the Djinn elsewhere (which has yet to arrive) and am still seeking the Minotaur, but I am really looking forward to painting these up, although I will be pushed to match the standard displayed on Belched from The Depths blogspot.
http://belchedfromthedepths.blogspot.co.uk/

From top left, Nighthag, Lamia, Mind Flayer, Necromancer, Larvae, Efreet, Skrieker, Skeletons 1-5, Skeleton archer and casualty, Skeleton transfixed by spear, Wight, Lich, Giant Spider, Dragon, Cockatrice, Ettin and Wraith.

Happy New Year!!

SEASONS GREETINGS

I'll be signing off for a day or two I expect, so can I take this opportunity to wish my blogging friends old and new a Very Merry Christmas/Good Yule/Bright Solstice blessings (insert appropriate to your beliefs) .

Here is a very old figure I painted up today (it's great having a few days off I can tell you) issued by Citadel as a freebie back in the mid 80's. On the base it says "Merry Xmas from Citadel" but I can't make the date out.

cheers.

MINIFIGS ELVES

Foraging around in my figure boxes a few months ago a managed to assemble enough of these old Minifigs elves to make a unit for Oldhammer. I have a vague dream of building the armies for what I believe was the first ever Warhammer scenario published in White Dwarf 45, where 2 armies, evil and good (life was so simple in those days) battle it out over a village called Thistlewood. I will try and scan the map and details of the scenario in a future post. Back in 1982 I spent hours poring over the grainy black and white photos in the article, and dreaming how I could get enough cash to buy 20 man units at 30p a figure....it makes one weep to think about it now. 

Here are the Loyal Half Elves in the good army. I like these figures because they have a slightly sneaky air, which is how I feel Elves should look (I was very impressed by the look of Thranduil in The Hobbit film, a shifty looking cove if ever I saw one). They carry their own banner of the Green Man, but the sun shows their allegiance to the mainly human army. I have not finished the bases, partly because I am dithering on how to do them, but also because I like to do an army or battallion en masse so the bases are all the same

On the subject of the Oldhammer movement, is is interesting to see different perceptions of Old. For me Citadel began to go tits up when they amalgamated all their codes into the C series and then changed to slotta bases....( I was furious at the time, but of course slotta bases are quite handy for conversion purposes),  

but looking about at some of the fantastically painted Oldhammer armies I simply don't recognise the figures because they date from the later 80's, by which time I had immersed myself in ECW wargaming (oh, and drinking and chasing skirt).