I've Got a Fever!

[the_gneech]

And the only cure is to run around, shootin' stuff!

Which is simply my very oblique way of saying we played more of jamesbarrett's D&D game last night, and Celedras was firing off that bow like there was no tomorrow. Good thing, too, 'cause every monster in the place seemed to be under the impression that I was the meatshield! Laurie's barbarian hasn't taken a hit yet, but poor Celedras has been chewed up and spit out by wights, mohrgs, and the occasional trap. At the risk of engaging in schadenfreude, when the blackguard showed up and started wailing on camstone's paladin, I wanted to cheer. "Yay! Somebody finally took more damage than me!"

Baylor gave back to the blackguard as good as he got, tho, so it's all good. Let those melee types wail on each other! I'll keep standing back here and plinking away with my bow.

Last night was also the premiere of the new Baylor fig, including the infamous flaming bastard sword!



As I mentioned before, this figure is "Isildur" from the Games Workshop Lord of the Rings line, with a minimum of customization. I painted the armor pretty much to match the standard Isildur design, but I figured that a paladin of Pelor should have a white topcoat instead of Isildur's red-brown. The flames, for those who are curious, are made of masking tape. I just folded it over, took a pair of clippers and mangled it so it had the right shape for flames, and then painted it. It's "Firehawk Red" with a drybrush of "Bright Yellow" and then a very light drybrush of "Dragon White". By the time it had two coats of matte finish and two coats of glossy finish on it, the tape was pretty darn durable.



Baylor's paladin mount Drezraelen is actually an asperi (a wind-walking, telepathic magical horse) -- nice deal if you can get it! Whenever I look at this figure, I think "Sure, Shadowfax is the lord of all horses, but Drezraelen can fly, mofo! Beat that!" ;)

The Monster Manual II description says, "An individual asperi can be white, gray, or dun-colored, with a graceful flowing mane of silver, white, or light gray." So for Drezraelen, I gave the mane a base of light gray, and then drybrushed silver highlights. Similarly for the body I went with a basecoat of the same light gray, layered white over it, and then went back and drybrushed gray "socks" onto the legs. All I can say is that it's a good thing Drezraelen's mane is Holy-Flame-Retardant.

This figure is front-heavy, in case you can't tell from looking at it, so I had to glue bits of sprue into the back of the base to keep him from tipping over onto his nose constantly. I did toy with the idea of painting the base light blue and gluing bits of cotton to it so it would look like they were up in the sky, but I eventually decided that would probably look cheesy -- especially since he's already got that big ol' flaming sword.

While I'm at it, I'm going to show off a few other miniatures I've painted lately!



This figure is "Helena, Female Gladiator" from Reaper's Dark Heaven line, who is now the figure for lythandra's barbarian, Kory. Unfortunately, this photo kinda loses the aspect I'm most proud of on this paint job, which is the lips. (I actually managed to paint lips! It ain't easy!) The shield emblem is a combination of two historical Viking shield designs, drawn freehand with fine-point Sharpies and then mangled with a sculpting tool to give it that "battle-damaged" look. Unfortunately, I've discovered that Sharpies aren't that great for drawing onto paint with -- they have a tendency to stop flowing after about two penstrokes and have to be restarted on paper.

The figure also isn't mustard-colored in real life, that's just wonky photo color due to the bad light at our house. She's more of a "bronzed by the sun" kind of color. I didn't use flocking on the base of this figure, because I thought the stippled base looked like the stones of a fighting arena, which suited the figure better than "grass."



This figure is "Henrik, Evil Fighter," also from Reaper's Dark Heaven line, who I bought specifically for the role of Gazeddor, my own yet-to-be-played barbarian. Of course, Gazeddor isn't evil, he's just cranky. ;) Unfortunately, this figure has suffered a bit from the "OMG shelf-lining eats the paint!" problem I mentioned a while back -- you can see a big blank spot on the lower part of his shield where the paint just came right off. I actually painted this figure about a year ago, IIRC ... I've improved in skill somewhat since then. So if I actually do get to play Gazeddor sometime, I might give this guy a touch-up.



This is actually a plastic figure, a zombie from the old (and out-of-print) "HeroQuest" board game. HQ, for those who don't know, was basically GW trying to create a "gateway product" to get kids into Warhammer, so what they did was take a bunch of Warhammer scuplts, mold them in plastic, and manufacture a boardgame to go with it. :) It was basically dungeon crawling without any of that pesky roleplaying stuff. ;) You could get expansion packs and so on, but basically at the time it was a great way to get a ton of minis on the cheap (this was long before Mage Knight, DDM, and so on) -- so it got bought up by already-existing gamers instead!

Anyway, this zombie is one of many HeroQuest figures belonging to jamesbarrett that I offered to paint many long years ago. I only have a few of them left, including a half-finished balrog "demon with whip and sword" -- most of the rest were done long ago. This guy was a guinea pig for me to learn about washing techniques. It actually looks better IRL than it does in this picture, particularly the face. This is one of the rare times when I could actually pick out the eyes ... but of course being a zombie he only has blank yellow orbs. Oh, the irony!

Fun, fun, fun. :)

-The Gneech

Comments

[the-lizard-rat.livejournal.com]

I remember Heroquest; I used to have so many figurines I didn't know what to do with them all (eventually they ended up a Bloodbowl team).

How did you wind up with an asperi? Lucky roll? I thought the best you could get was a unicorn or pegasus or something.

I really like that flaming bastard.

Erm, sword. Yeah, sword ;) That's a really nice job. Ain't nothing going to stand in his way :) Except maybe s'more undead as he wades in to save Celedras ;)

Lizard Rat out.
Overcaffinated in Albany NY

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Thanks. :)

-TG

[jamesbarrett.livejournal.com]

I like having unusual creatures as companions, personally, so when it came time to give the paladin his mount, as the DM, I looked around for a suitable "neat" one, spotted the Asperi and went "Kewl, that's gonna be it!" -Frisk

[the-lizard-rat.livejournal.com]

I woulda gone "reformed and redeemed nightmare" myself.

I bet you give Pseudodragons to wizard/sorcerers then too eh ;)

As to HOW it became reformed... hell if I know, but it would be suitably unusual. If they can have half-dragon taurs or something, then there can be redeemed nightmares :P

Lizard Rat out.
Unusual in the Head in Albany NY

[galadrion.livejournal.com]

Just a quick suggestion for the mounted figure: use a thin strip of wood or perhaps some heavy cardstock/cardboard to extend the base forward. That will hopefully get the base out a bit farther forward of the center of gravity and improve the balance. Personally, I'd use balsa and doll it up to match the rest of the base.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Thanks! The counter-weight in the back seems to have done the job, tho.

-TG

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

I use ink around the edges to separate colors -- most visible on and around Baylor's scabbard and the edge of his belt, for instance.

Is that the kind of thing you had in mind, or are you referring to something else?

-The Gneech

[hossblacksilver.livejournal.com]

Looks great. Though I can understand what you're saying about the mounted figure, the picture from the right looks like it's in the process of tipping over. Good work on the flames improvisation.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Thanks! :) I was pleased.

-TG

[hossblacksilver.livejournal.com]

You should be. n_n

[rowyn]

THe flames look great! I think the tape gives a "lighter" effect than putty would, which is overall an improvement. Very nice. :)

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Thanks! :) One nice side-effect of the tape is that it's -almost- two-dimensional, which suits flames rising up from the blade of a sword nicely. :)

-The Gneech