12 December 2016

The Heroquest Hero Quest: The Gargoyle


The big lad of Heroquest ladies and gentlemen. The guy you call in when you've just had enough of adventurers messing up your gaff and killing your minions. I mean, who wants to interview another batch of orcs for entry level dungeon lurking after the barbarian has butchered your entire staff? This lad is the very fellow for re-establishing dungeon harmony. I give you the gargoyle.

A certain amount of confusion surrounds this plastic fiend. Is it a statue? Is it the smallest bloodthirster ever created? Was Khorne having a laugh after too many craft ales on a Friday night? "Ha ha, make him smaller, but angrier!" Tzeentch giggled, spilling his gin while looking over Khorne's shoulder as he brought the smallest greater daemon ever into existence.



There's no point referring to the artwork for help. He's portrayed as both massive statue and angry tiny-thirster.

ARGH! Khorne made me so TINNYYY!!!

See? Flesh and blood, well, magic and ichor beastie. I guess that's pretty definitive. But no. Here below, we see our big friend again.


Clearly a statue. A proper giant one here too. This is probably how the gargoyle fantasises about himself. "Yeah, I'm massive, look at me smash through that wall, I'm so scary." You do have to feel for the dwarf here. It's a complete FFS moment.

So, with all this contradictory info, I decided statue. it's a gargoyle. That means statue, dammit. I had also just painted a ton of terracotta warriors, so I had a recipe I was happy with. If you fancy using it, the tutorial is here.

As he'd be pretty monotone, I wanted to make his weapons stand out some. I painted his sword coppery, with some green glazes to liven up the golds. The whip I painted as a red hot daemon whip. I used sponge to get the gradient. I wanted the gradient spotty, to try to emulate the sparks of heat you get along heated metal. I was quite happy with it, so I might try that technique for weathering and see how it works. Finally I added some SKULLZ to his base, as you have to, Khorne and that. A few tufts and rotting wood and done!

For an old plastic boardgame guy, I found painting this lad very satisfying. Suck on that, adventurers.

Skulls for the base God.

18 comments:

  1. Wonderful Fave! I totally forgot about that painting of the dwarf battling through the orcs to get to the big brown statue. That's a spoiler from the end of the expansion pack, Kellar's Keep. Shhh don't tell anyone but the gargoyle is actually your father.

    You did a brilliant job on this guy, I bet he could cop a genie to the face and barely break a sweat. Stones can totally sweat. It's a thing.

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  2. I loved the Terracota guys but I adore this one. He's one of the best I know.
    At this point, noone cares if he's a mock Bloodthirster or a statue, he's simply bad ass.

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    1. Cheers my dear, that's a fine compliment. He's like an rage-filled terrier.

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  3. Looks great! I've not seen him painted with brown tones before (usually grey tones as a statue). Excellent work!

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  4. I like the fact that his arms are spread wide...just like the elf. Perhaps he's not angry, just smiling uncontrollably as he goes in to give the elf a bear hug? Perhaps the elf has been away on business and they had a tiff before he left? But all is forgiven now.

    You know how to paint silcon-based animated statuary to a tee! Excellent stuff :)

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    1. That's what the big sword is for. Big sword hugs.

      Cheers!

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  5. Who's Khornes widdle lapdog then? Yes you are! Yes you are! Literally in this case!

    Neato Mr. S. You did that paranormal, pumice pomeranian proud.

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  6. Lovely stuff Dave. The whip looks really great, I will be nicking that technique in future, yessir.

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    1. The highest compliment possible! By all means. I fancy trying that approach on a vehicle or robot for weathering, see how it goes.

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  7. Brilliant! Nice way of breaking up the miniature with the weapons out of different materials. I think with his incredibly static pose he suits statue-scheme best.

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    1. Thanks a lot! I think so too, he's not the most dynamic dude.

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  8. Really cool interpretation of the big guy, I love the palette and your choices here :)

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    1. Thanks Suber, I carried much of it over from my terracotta warriors. If it ain't broke...

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  9. Properly fearsome! It's made me want to fish mine out and paint him up so I can torment my D&D players with him! :)

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