Back from the Dead…

The title reflects both the state of my computer and the undead I painted during October, while mostly not online.

It was a remarkable month for many reasons: my PC died, I had a Covid test & a day of working from home when one of the guys at work might have been exposed to Covid, the last of our three chickens got sick and died, and we had a windstorm that left lots of people in Melbourne without electricity, including us for 30 hours. Since we don’t have a gas connection, this meant no lights, hot water or cooking. Thankfully, the end of lock-down the week before meant we could go over to my Mum’s for dinner and a hot shower.

Being able to travel and visit people again is great, and with the fantastic assistance of a mate I now have my computer working (upgraded MB, CPU and RAM!) and everything on it working normally.

While I had no PC, I did a lot of reading and got back into some painting. Now I’ve got blogs to catch up on, and pictures to take and post myself. I was lucky enough to be able to bring a work laptop home to keep up on some of the forums I read. I’m determined to make more regular backups of stuff on my system, and not just to a secondary hard drive, but to a USB. An up-to-date printed page with logins, passwords and site references, etc is also a must.

The three undead today all came from the UK in a miniatures swap with Subedai of the Lost and the Damned. One had been painted before and needed a clean up first. All are metal.

The first is a Prince August figure (1984, SK6, Skeleton) This one is history revisited for me: There are seven figures in this range (SK1-7) and I bought a blister pack of three (SK5-7) in the late 80’s. I dug them out to make sure this guy was painted in the same style. I first thought I had a slightly different figure, then realized that he’s actually missing his right arm. After painting, he looks like he has an arm there. (Only a humerus, not a radius & ulna.) The last picture shows him on the far right with my original three.

The next two figures are Citadel (I think) – I did look at the slotta base before filing it down to fit a plastic base and all I recall about them now is that each said “Skeleton”. The internet suggests these two are both from GW Citadel: UN2 (20) Agog Deathblow (Skeleton Infantry) and C17 (CJ-07) Skeleton Gunner, both 1987.

These three figures were all fun to paint. I particularly enjoyed the “gunner”. I’m saving him for my Gamma World game, though he might fit into a fantasy game in the right circumstances. He has hints of fluoro green that the phone camera hasn’t really picked up. I’m particularly pleased with his left eye – I got a dot of fluoro green in that eye socket with one attempt that I couldn’t replicate in the other. (The right eye has some green, but its not a fine point, nor as bright.)

 

Painting – An “old” set of Adventurers

“Ten” Adventurers:

These miniatures are some of the first I ever purchased, all metal. The bulk of them can be easily dated to 1985 and most of them would have been painted in the following five years. Being done so long ago and not varnished, they have all required substantial repainting to bring them up to my current standard of figures. Most I have kept very close to the original colour scheme. The assassin still has a broken dagger that I’ll do some repair work with – I’m sure I can find a blade in my “bits” that can be reworked.

Ten Adventurers

• Citadel “Talisman” (1985)
• 1: Druid
• 2: Assassin
• Citadel “Lord of the Rings” (1985)
• 3: ME-1 Aragorn (Fellowship Heroes pack 1)
• 4: ME-1 Gandalf (Fellowship Heroes pack 1)
• 5: ME-2 Legolas (Fellowship Heroes pack 2)
• 6: ME-62 Saruman the White
• Prince August “Fantasy Armies – Characters”
• 7: CH4 Hooded Thief/Assassin
• 8: CH9 Armoured Cleric
• 9: CH12 Druid
• 10: CH26B Elf Girl

Citadel “Talisman figures” – Druid and Assassin

Druid and Assassin – rear view

My Lord of the Ring’s figures were never intended (or expected) to be used as LotR characters – so painting schemes went with whatever I felt like at the time. Aragorn and particularly Legolas (more than the other two), have seen regular use in my D&D games.

Aragorn and Legolas

Rear View

My “Saruman” is simply intended as a general wizard and the contrast between the black and yellow appealed to me. I did paint my “Gandalf” figure just as he is first described in The Hobbit (p15) – “He had a tall pointed blue hat, a long grey cloak … and immense black boots.” I wanted more variety than different shades of grey – so his robe is white, but “dirty” or travel worn. I continued the blue onto belt and under-tunic. I suppose I’ve got a transition between Gandalf the “Grey” and the “White”. I love the pipe tucked into the hat. Army Painter dark tone really picked out the beard/hair detail.

Gandalf (the Grey) and Saruman (the “White”)

The Wizards

I really like the sculpts for the Prince August figures. They have good poses and plenty of detail. They are well moulded too – almost no visible mould lines, and I don’t remember ever cleaning off flash or over-cast. They all came as a one-piece metal figure on an oval base, but have now been glued to 25mm rounds.

Thief in studded leather and Cleric in full plate mail.

Rear view

The “Elf Girl” came in a pack of 3 Poses – sleeping, standing, fighting. I had originally painted these as “Silvara” – the Silver Dragon/Kargonesti Elf from the Dragonlance Saga (insert from “Dragons of Mystery”, Larry Elmore) because the figure matched the images I’ve got in “The Art of the Dragonlance Saga”. (Although I did the fighting pose in blue, not red.) I gave the standing figure to a friend, and kept the others. I’ve repainted the hair this time, and the blue clothing to purple. Of the two figures I have, only the sleeping figure shows a pointed ear – otherwise there is nothing that distinguishes the figure as elven.

Druid and Silvara

I find great interest in this figure because I’m not aware that Prince August had a license for Dragonlance at any time. Ral Partha produced a large Dragonlance range for TSR, and it looks like TSR produced some themselves. I have two A4 colour reprints of Larry Elmores paintings (Art of the DL) as well as sketches. The only feature my figure shows that isn’t in the artwork are the dagger and sword!