Zealot Miniatures Fantasy Adventurers and Undead from Litchmyre Dungeon

Some time ago, I supported a Kickstarter campaign launched by Zealot Miniatures out of the UK, for their Litchmyre Dungeon range of fantasy figures. I really liked the aesthetic of the models, sculpted by the very talented Boris Woloszyn. I picked out the five I liked best (specifying that they be cast in white metal - no resin for this Conscript!) and they arrived in June of this year. I painted them in the last couple days. I find that fantasy single models paint up really fast.

This is "Melran, Elf Warrior". She's a multipart metal casting and is just beautiful.

I really like the detail on the (obviously) wooden shield. I couldn't think of a better way to paint it, so I just left it in a wood finish.

A superb little model!

This is "Mercenary with Torch" - will be great as a retainer for an adventuring party.

This is "Skeleton" - does what it says on the tin.

I really dig the aesthetic of this model as well. Note the shackles on his wrists and ankles. Very cool model.

This is "Undead Dwarf King". I like the idea of undead versions of races other than human - I seem to recall that GW got into this a little bit in their Warhammer Fantasy Battle range, centuries ago. It was pretty cool having undead Skaven and the like to paint up.

Now this guy is cool - "Spirit Warrior". With that mail coif he looks like something out of a Monty Python/Holy Grail nightmare.

Just a super-nice model.

The Zealot stuff is a little on the larger side of 28mm, but they have a LOT of models on offer in their webstore, including monsters and other adventurers. Worth a look if you're into the genre, but all of their product is in resin now - metal was only for Kickstarter backers. Too bad. And they're not cheap either - for example, the Spirit Warrior is 7.90GBP. Maybe Santa might chuck some in your stocking if you've been good this year :-)

Anyway that's the update, stay safe everybody! 
 

Painting After Midnight: Midlam Miniatures and Warlord Dredd Lawmaster Bike

I had a medical test last week that required me to be "sleep-deprived". And while I consider myself to be generally sleep-deprived most of the time anyway, this had some very specific parameters. So I ended up staying up all night the day before the test.

I figured that I might as well put the time to use, so in addition to watching some PVR'd TV and DVDs that had been languishing, I pulled out some miniatures to paint.

These two are from Midlam Miniatures and date back to the old Metal Magic range sculpted by Josef Ochmann and others back in the late-'80s and early '90s. I really like these models as they are well-detailed, characterful, and importantly, represent many of the fantasy tropes from the time that I'm really fond of.

This is Ochmann's C1038F "Minotaur Lord". It's a one-piece casting and is HUGE - you see how it he towers over the skeleton (C1036K "Skeleton with Great Sword"). Great detail on these as well.

Yesterday afternoon I had some painting time, so I tackled the Lawmaster bike from Warlord's new Judge Dredd: I am the Law! miniatures game. (The Judge is one from the old Mongoose range that I painted some years ago).

The model comes in four pieces - chassis front, chassis rear, and the two handlebars. Quality of the cast was very good, except for the handlebars. They came on a sprue that was heavily flashed, and the unusual soft resin in which they're cast is a bit difficult to clean.

The bike comes in a clamshell blister with Judge Dredd models, foot and mounted. Unfortunately my blister pack was missing the legs from the mounted Dredd, so I couldn't paint those along with the bike. I have a bunch of Judges already from the old Mongoose line and they are comparable in size to Warlord's, albeit cast in (superior) white metal. I really dig the new Lawmaster bike (it is autonomous as well, in the new ruleset) and am looking forward to getting it out in a game.

Boarak, Death Rider of Chaos!

Just a couple short posts in the queue here... trying desperately to get back in the painting groove after some time away from it. I find that rather than bite off a 20-model unit it sometimes makes sense to paint a couple quick figures just to get the juices flowing again.

So it is with this fellow - Boarak, Death Rider of Chaos - from the old old OLD Ral Partha fantasy range.

This model is the mounted version of one of Ral Partha's excellent Chaos warriors. Blog readers may recall that I painted that model some time ago - it was actually part of the collection I assembled for RPG gaming in the early '80s.

So I happened to be surfing eBay a month or two back and spotted this model offered at a BIN of $1.99 from a seller in Quebec... score! However, shipping was noted as an absolutely extortionate $14 USD... no way, Jose.

After some negotiation, I got the seller to agree to $8 shipping from Quebec to my USA post box, where some other stuff was awaiting pickup. So it ended up being cheaper to drive down to the USA to pick up this parcel from Quebec, than to have it send in Canada by Canada Post. Go figure...

Anyway, here is Boarak "mounted and dismounted". Pretty quick paintjob on the mounted version, and I wonder whether the same sculptor actually did both models... while the mounted one is cool, the dismounted Boarak is really the superior sculpt. His armoured running shoes, for example, are much cooler than the mounted Boarak's slippers. But still awesome to have a mounted and dismounted version of this cool figure.

Nearly 40 Years in the Making - Grenadier Orc

Well... how to explain this post! This Grenadier Orc has been in my box of fantasy figures for almost 40 years, unpainted till last week. It was one of the couple-dozen figures I bought when I first started playing D&D in the late '70s/early '80s and it's really a corker innit?
 

Sculpted by Grenadier founder Andrew Chernak and bearing a copyright date of 1980, this model was one of my favourites as a kid. Unfortunately the axe hadn't entirely withstood the test of time, but I wisely retained the broken bit and was able to drill and pin it.

The model was available both as part of the "Orc's Lair" AD&D figure set and also by itself in a blister pack (or as I recall, a small header carded bag). It was in the latter packaging that I purchased it, likely at the Hobby Hut on 10th Street in Brandon :-)

Good stuff eh???

One of the best things about this model is how it stands up in size against today's scale-crept specimens. The old Grenadier Orc really looks like he could stick it to that Otherworld fighter!

Once I had this figure painted I went on a webcrawl to try and find some more similar sculpts. Unfortunately, though, I found that this appears to be the high point of Chernak's Orc sculpts as in my opinion the rest don't nearly measure up to the awesomeness of this one.

Perhaps I'll go back to the bin for more old stuff to paint! And stay tuned for more fantasy models from the old school...

Random Painting: Citadel Horned Dragon and Forge World 40K Apostate Preachers of Nurgle

Some more fantasy painting to post today - a vintage Citadel Horned Dragon picked up recently on eBay. The MDF base was supplied by Conscript Byron's Northern Lights Terrain - cheers Byron!

Just look at the character in that face! This model was sculpted by Nick Bibby, my favorite dragon sculptor of the vintage era. In case you're wondering what he's up to nowadays, I can tell you that Mr. Bibby is a prolific fine art sculptor.

He's created some amazing pieces, including a series of sculptures of England's champion animals (blackface sheep, shire horses, Angus bulls and the like) and an amazing 15-ft tall Kodiak bear commissioned by Brown University.
  

Bibby's bronzes sell for thousands of pounds nowadays, which makes the $40 or so I had to give for this wonderful vintage dragon seem something of a relative bargain.

For those who aren't familiar with the Horned Dragon, here's a couple pics with human-sized models to give a better idea of scale. Above, the knight from the Citadel Adventurers box I painted recently.

Here's the Dragon with an Otherworld adventurer. 

Finally, some WIP pictures. As was noted by one of the Conscripts the other night, with today's amazingly detailed injection-plastic kits, we tend to forget how much work these old metal kits take...

Wow - you could nearly drive a truck through those gaps! I ended up pinning the two halves of the body together, but the rest of the parts are held just with superglue and greenstuff (fingers crossed).

Lots of greenstuff!

I used a new primer on this model - Rustoleum Painter's Touch "2X Ultra Cover Paint and Primer". Well, I can say that it does what it says on the tin. It was shocking how well the paint covered with just one pass. Recommended.

Lastly, here are some models I pulled out and painted on Saturday afternoon - these are the Forge World "Apostate Preachers of Nurgle" that I've had in my "to paint" Plano case for a year or two. Whilst browsing TMP on Friday I saw someone's excellent work on these models posted on coolminiornot, and decided to just get off my arse and paint mine.

Pretty straightforward paintjobs, these - mostly Catachan Green/Death World Forest highlighted a bit with a lighter mix of DWF, and washed with Agrax Earthshade. I think they turned out fine for a couple hours' work and they'll fit in well with the Renegades.

Fantasy Flight: Citadel Adventurers and Nolzur's Giant Spiders

It's great to get back into the fantasy painting thing after taking a bit of a break. The impetus is a new game that's just come out - Rangers of Shadow Deep. This is a cooperative tabletop miniatures game that's essentially "role-playing lite." And since I've been trying to work up my nerve to run an RPG game for some friends who are anxious to try it, I thought that Rangers would be a great way to get back into the DM mindset.

ANYWAY... first up on the painting desk was this amazing set of Citadel Adventurers. I found the box on eBay from a seller in Vancouver, complete except for the "stout Dwarf warrior." Said Dwarf warrior was duly procured from an eBayer in the UK, and I set about painting the set.

This fighter was really the model that sold me on this set. I just love this figure! While I painted most of the models in the colours shown on the box illustration, I already have a bunch of blue-and-yellow liveried fighters, so I opted for red and white. The gryphon decals are from a sheet I got for my Howling Griffons. 





How's this for a magic user? Just a great sculpt, down to the snake-headed staff.





What's an adventuring party without  gnome fighter? Nothing, that's what.











One class of PC that's often hard to find a model for is the good old reliable cleric. Citadel's come through nicely here with a southpaw clergyperson wielding an unfeasibly large war club.

 









The box set even includes a pack mule, laden with all sorts of adventuring supplies.

There's a starting-out fighter included in the set, too.

Stout dwarf warrior checking in. The fact that some of these models come carrying packs and pouches is great, and underlines that these are adventurers, dammit!

Lastly we have the Dwarf thief, another great figure.

While these Citadel models were released nearly 35 years ago (!) I think that the sculpting has really held up to the test of time. What hasn't, unfortunately, is their scale... these are much more "true 25s" and are somewhat smaller than modern fantasy models like those produced by the likes of Otherworld. A shame, but these are definitely still useable when segregated in a party of like-sized figures. 

Also in preparation for Rangers of Shadow Deep, I picked up two packs of giant spiders. These are the pre-primed models from Wizkids' "Nolzur's" range. They're inexpensive (a pack of three spiders goes for $6.49 CAD) but the material they're made from is not the best... it's a semi-bendy plastic which gave some hassle on these spiders...



The sculpts are quite nice and scary, but some of the legs were all over the place and bendy. Fortunately these responded well to running under hot water, rebending, and immediately soaking in cold water to set the plastic.



Each blister of three spiders came with a "victims" piece which is pretty cool also.



All in all the spiders are nice and represent good value - a must for the discriminating dungeon designer!