The Club of Herakles & Other Oddities

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends...
(As ELP once sung)

Another day and another bunch of weird and wonderful figures. I'm getting these figures painted at a pretty good pace and really enjoying it. My new painting routine (listening to audio books) is working well. I've finished listening to Imajica and moved onto another Clive Barker tale: The Great and Secret Show - an old favorite.

Anyway, before you go on I should issue a WARNING!!!
One of the figures on display is displaying something a little bit naughty and may not be suitable for work or in the vicinity of kiddies. I'll give you another warning before he comes in to view.

Today's figures are a bit of a mixed bag. The majority are, once again, from Eureka Miniatures with a Bones figure, a conversion, and a the inclusion of an original sculpted figure.

First are these little creatures: I don't know what they're called on the Eureka website but I'm calling the Sidhe (pronounced "she" - As in: "She has a funny shaped head."). These look great. They are about 18mm and they're pretty delicate. I like them and I think I'll get a few more.

This is another figure from Reaper Bones. It's some sort of demon or devil, I don't know which and I don't know it's exact name. It looks nice, was easy to paint and it will be versatile so that's 3 points in it's favour! It's a little taller than an average 28mm, but it is a supernatural entity to that's okay.

This pair are from Eureka's Chaos Army range. I don't know what either of them are supposed to be but their sheer weirdness is good enough for me. I don't know what they're called - They could be named Stumpy Joe and Slug Head as far as I'm concerned.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ WARNING! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ WARNING! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Club Of Herakles is a mighty symbol. It is a weapon of legend and is the emblem of the Greek city of Thebes. It is a symbol of great power. He who bares the Club of Herakles must be mighty in battle and mighty in deed for the Club of Herakles is the weapon of a demi-god! 

The family friendly version.

And there it is - Clearly visible: The mighty Club of Herakles.

.

The Not family friendly version.

And a mighty club it is.

The figure was a conversion of a naked 18mm Spartan hoplite from AB Figures. He has a Warlord Miniatures plastic Gaul head and a cloak from a plastic viking set. His "club" was painted by me. And I made his massive knob too. I am the guilty party. Mea culpa.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And finally, something sculpted long ago.

I made this tree guy a long time ago out of copper wire, putty and greenstuff. He was originally made for a treeman kit, so he was made, cut into sections, put into molds and cast in resin. I sold a few of him over several years. He has been sitting in a box in several pieces for the past 10 years or more. But now his time has come and he's getting ready to stomp onto the wargaming table sometime in the future. 

And that's January. I've made quite a lot of posts this month and, with one day left, I don't think I'll be posting anymore before February comes along. Painting individual figures is very different to painting massed battalions or other military formations. For me painting these type of detailed individual figures is a much quicker process and it's easier to get things painted and ready for the world to see.

A Little Bit Weird & Wonderful.

This post is a bit of a mixed bag: A few more figures for Frostgrave/Rangers of Shadowdeep and a few more additions to my growing Army of Faerie. I don't know what set of rules I'm making this army for because I haven't yet found a set of rules that is flexible enough to allow me to field an army of anything sort of faeriefolk that I want to.

I'll start today with a group shot:

Okay everybody. Say Cheese!

Most of these figures are from Eureka and every single one of them is really nice. Well sculpted, well cast and easy to paint. The only exception is the Beastman. He's another Reaper Bones figure. 

This archer will work equally well for Frostgrave of RoSD. I can see him being used as either a main character in RoSD or a soldier/captain in Frostgrave. Have to wait and see who he ends up being.

The dwarf will also fit with just about anything. I really like this figure. It has great detail and looks just as I expect a dwarf character to look. Initially the figure looked pretty boring but when painted it really came to life.

Mr Beastman from Reaper ~ I got him because he looks like a good generic beastly monster. I wouldn't say the figure is exciting but it came up okay with a very basic paint job. Nothing to write home about but I'm sure he'll prove to be versatile.

Mr Beaky ~ This figure is from Eureka's Chaos Army range. An unusul figure (it has no eyes) and I don't know what it's supposed to be. That doesn't matter. He'll fit in as a foot soldier for the Army of Faerie. I may get a couple more of him to fill out the ranks. I painted him in monkish brown because of the Brugel/Bosche influence.

Notice his spike is bronze... Faerie folk don't like iron!

Ms Moonface ~ Is she a giantess or an orgress? Hard to say. 

I've wanted this figure for a while but I had no real use for it, but I'm glad I did find a place for it and a reason to buy it. The figure has great detail and really looks as if it comes from some strange twilight world just a morning mist away from our own. She comes with a little imp that you can sit on her head. I chose not to include it. I'll use it elsewhere.

From the Depths of the Past

Get ready... This is a big one!

A while back, long before I started this blog, I use to make Warhammer Fantasy armies. I never played a single game of Warhammer, I just made the armies because I liked to paint the figures. I would keep them for a while and then I would sell them.

I did take pics of the things I made and they were put on the Lead Adventure Forum and other places. Unfortunately, all the images were stored on Photobucket when it was free. I had no intention of paying for storage when the service changed so those pics will be lost forever and won't appear where I first posted them. Fortunately I did manage to save the majority of the photo's and those ones are now saved in my dropbox.

So, just for the sake of it, here are some of my old, not published here previously, pics. Many of the troops are very much kit-bashed and converted. In some cases I completely made the models from scratch because I couldn't find what I wanted.

Wood Elves

 These ones were my first & favorite Warhammer army. I sold them because I was out of work and waiting for my Vet Affairs payments to start (following the financial horrors of a divorce!). I would have liked to keep these guys and considering my current fantasy project it's a shame, because I'd really like to get many of these figures back. Oh well...

I made this tree guy from scratch because I couldn't find a huge and intimidating treeman at the time. 

This guy stood about 10" tall.

I lost all of the pics of the rank and file troops, as well as all the pics of the Forest Dragon. It's a shame because they were really very nice.

Dark Elves

I made these just because I could. I wanted to try something with more significant conversions. They look nice and I saved a lot more pics of these. The dragon is the GW forest dragon. I actually used a different dragon for the Wood Elves. Lots of kit-bashing here.

The only figure I have left over out of all of these pics is that little red imp thing. And I don't know why.

I wish I could get another of these dragons. Does GW still make them?

Chaos

I wanted to make something outrageous. So I decided to make this army. I wanted to make something that no one had ever seen before. I checked out many, many models and they just didn't look the way I wanted them to look because they all looked too tame. Things are different now but back when I made this army the figures just weren't available so I made a lot of these myself.

I wanted this army to look nasty and vile. I based it on the cenobites from Clive Barker's Hellraiser, but staying within the restrictions placed by the Warhammer game world. This army disturbed some people and it was while I made it that I discovered I had a knack for sculpting. You can see the components of many of the different kits I used to make these guys.

 I only have "in-progress" photo's of some of the things I made.

"The Box. You opened it and we came..."

This thing was big. It was my pregnant Nurgle Soul Grinder. The stomach was made using clear resin with a little deformed baby toy stuck into it. The rest of the model was built around this. It took a long lime to make and took a lot of greenstuff. I hope somebody still has it.

Dave the Dire Avenger for for scale.

Thank you for my indulgence. Soon I'll dig up the 40K things that I did long ago and post them too.

Cheers.,

IanKH