Citadel BC2 Monsters Starter Set!

I love painting old models. They're metal, for one thing, and they're characterful, for another. And these Citadel box sets that came out back in the day are primo for sure.

I posted my work on the BC1 "Adventurers Starter Set" over 4 1/2 years ago (!) and it took me awhile to find the Monsters Starter Set. It was released way back in 1985 but I gotta say, the quality of the sculpts (for the most part) is bang up to date and just as nice as pretty much anything you'll find nowadays.

Here's the whole set together. I picked up the box complete with 6 of the 8 models for a pretty good price, but of course I had to find the missing two models separately. They came from eBay too. Some of the models were painted but I did tune them up myself to a lesser or in most cases, greater extent.

First up - the Vicious Giant Wolf. 

This one was painted plain grey, but I spiffed it up a bit in the style of a painted one I saw on Stuff of Legends.

In fact I got a lot of inspiration for all of these models from Mike Curry's excellent work there. I find that a significant blocker to me finishing these fantasy models is figuring out a paint scheme...

Here's the Orc Champion. Green-skinned of course.

The bronze cuirass is cool eh!

Next up - Vile Goblin.

I like the kind of Mongol vibe this guy has with his cool lid.

Lesser Goblin.

He's just a li'l guy!!

This was one that was missing from the box - the Evil Dark Elf Captain.

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This one I painted from scratch, it came as bare metal from a different seller. A really cool model, I gave him white hair. Eternal Champion, anyone?

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Manic Hobgoblin Hero here. If the horns look a bit wonky, that's my own fault...

I had to strip the model as it was poorly painted. I used alcohol as usual. But when I was scrubbing it down, the left horn came off and went down the drain :-(  But I attached a piece of wire and sculpted a horn over that, I think it came out OK.

Ogre Champion here. I have to say that this is probably my least favourite of the set, it just seems a bit... meh. Not as cool or dynamic a sculpt as the rest.

The other annoyance was that (as you can see) I used round bases for the group rather than the square ones they would've come with. This is because all of my other fantasy "character" models are round-based. But the problem with this dude was that he wouldn't fit on a 25mm round... so I have to put him on a 32mm base, which doesn't fit as well into the box. Oh well.

Lastly, here's the Warrior of Chaos. He's OK but I'm not crazy about his helmet, it covers most (but not all) of his face, which made it pretty tricky to paint.

He's all right though, I hand-painted the planks on the shield, the model had a flat surface there. Also Mike Curry's idea.

Well that's it for the set, I'm glad to have them done but they were pretty fun to paint. And I love the style of these models, especially the goblins and hobgoblin. They're cool. But I think the next thing I'm going to be onto is the opposite of these fantasy models - it's back to some historical subjects!