Sorry, very sorry. I know I was tagged for Dragon Metal back in May by Whiskey Priest after his gorgeous (and cute) Dragon Rider. I had an idea that I was going to shift the focus a bit and do a dragon themed jetbike using the Warzone Mishima Dragon Bike. So I bought one second hand, stripped off the old paint job, broke some bits, and then saw Agis Neugebauer's gorgeous version. I decided to give up there and then!
So I hesitated. I pondered. I thought about doing a classic fantasy dragon - why not? But I wanted to do something a little less predictable. Eventually, I rummaged around, and pulled together these parts; namely 1) tail of a lictor, 2) Colony 87 Cameleoid, 3) Wings of a Colony 87 Gargouille.
Grigor Flangegrinder see's a world of blood. Preferring to bludgeon his victims into submission with his bronze skull flail he opens up his victims arteries and revels in the spray of arterial blood.
Milton Bradley: "So guys, everyone knows about orcs, goblins and mummies and stuff, but what about these 'fimirs' we're putting in the game? Tell me all about them!"
Games Workshop: "Uhhhhhhhhhhh...."
Woooooooooooooooo! Look at me playing with the big boys! Hello to everyone, this is Rochie from Buried Under Lead, and thanks to the lads for taking the fence down and letting me in for a bit!
The best thing about HeroQuest is the Barbarian's hair boots
Buffdar the Huge, Warrior of the North, Bearer of the Biggest Guns, Five Time Champion of the Frozen Lake Loincloth Vigil, swung his broadsword into the bony face of a skeleton, smashing it to powder, before hacking a zombie in twain with the backswing. He hummed a crude little undead-slaying tune as he turned and smashed his sword pommel into the face of an advancing mummy, causing it to stagger backwards. As it did so, the hulking barbarian stomped down on a trailing rag and watched with amusement as the ancient creature comically unravelled, spinning helplessly across the rough dungeon tiles before tumbling into a yawning stake-pit, it's dessicated husk becoming impaled on multiple rusty iron spikes. The mummy continued to groan and twitch, each motion causing it to slide a little further down the shaft, where it would remain until it finally crumbled to dust.
Brave readers, airbornegrove26
here...or for this Quest you may call me Mentor... If you have made it
this far you must have conquered Barak Tor, recovered the Spirit Blade
and slain the cruel Witch Lord. But alas what we feared most has
occurred. The Witch Lord has returned and with him the minions of
undeath creep across the land.
I was really excited when Scale Creep invited me to take part in their Heroquest challenge.
My love for Heroquest is well known among the Oldhammer community.
I
can still remember opening that sweet box on Christmas. Ripping the
shrink wrap away and accidentally trimming off the gargoyles horns in my
haste. I swear it looked like sprues to my young eyes!!!! That was it. I was hooked on
fantasy miniatures from then on. BROOOOOADSWORD!
I played for hours with this game, and still do on occasion. I know,
I need to make a new Heroquest comic report. Don't worry I have been
thinking on doing that. Maybe after the Oldhammer weekend. When things slow
down a bit.
So the challenge:
Paint one of the models from Heroquest.
Dont muck around with it too much, a reinterpretation isnt what is desired, just a new paint job on an old model.
Rebasing is allowed.
After pondering which hero or monster to choose. I decided on the skeleton.
Boooooooooring! But wait!
Notice the scythe head? In the monster cards that
came with the game the scythe is the opposite way. I'm sure this was
either an artists mistake/interpretation or with the printing some how mirroring it
backwards. Anyway I decided to give it a try, because how else are you
going to spice up a boring old bag of bones.
I painted him using foundry colors. Trying to match him as close as
possible to the monster card photo. I've left him on his Heroquest
base, as I will actually game with him. With his scythe different from
the others he might work into a character of some sort.
Following on from our last installment of The HeroQuest Hero Quest
HeroQuest Chaos Warior
When the idea to paint the HQ models was discussed I was keen to paint one up but I immediately knew that a "Hero" or murderhobo as I tend to view them is not exactly something that is in my general oeuvre. Once the murderhobos were claimed by the various Creeps I was quick to stake my claim for the Chaos Warrior.
Chaos Warrior Stats from HeroQuest - Of course I did, the UK one is $%&+.
The chaos warrior, an iconic symbol of GW. This is one of the most excellent images or our HeroQuest style chaos warrior (art from Advanced HeroQuest, by Adrian Smith), it expresses their raw power and menace beautifully.
Slambo lives up to his name by hitting henchmen hard enough to embed them in dungeon walls.
Designing the Chaos Warior
With the technology of the time there were serious design constraints to contend with
The Chaos Warrior model was developed from a Chaos Warrior prototype. I assume this was made by Jes Goodwin, but I don't know for sure.
HeroQuest Chaos Warrior prototype featured in White Dwarf painted by Mike McVey
The prototype is very reminiscent of the classic Slambo Chaos Warrior mini, this one is the best example of which I have found painted.
The final design is more stylized and graphical, created with organic curves that improve the overall aesthetic balance. The design has also become a bit statue like with some weird overlong overhangs as a result of positioning the elements in a tolerance to the manufacturing process.
There is also this variant of the production HeroQuest plastics who could be the brother of our warrior..but he is a project for another day :).
Separated at birth?
Painting the Chaos Warior
Overall I feel that our chaos warrior is a pretty decent realisation of the prototype design. So let's prove it with some painting!
When painting this antique I duly adhered to the constraints:
Paint one of the models from Heroquest
Dont muck around with it too much, a reinterpretation isnt what is desired, just a new paint job on an old model
Rebasing is allowed
HeroQuest Chaos Warrior
I opted to liberate this fellow from his base, I am not a fan of those myself but they can be made to look groovy in the right hands. I wanted to give the model a bit more dynamism by changing the centre line on the model to the right by having him standing on a sloped base. He is a wide stanced lad so I stuck him on a 30mm diameter base.
Mushrooms made from GS
I figure on using this old boy as my avatar in future games of Silver Tower, I wanted him to be as vaingloriously attention mongering as the best murderhobo. I gave him a soapbox level of height for that purpose. I sculpted in some mushrooms as I imagine him posing on rocks in dungeons/caves/orphanages looking to pwn noobz for lewt and XP's.
Single handedly bringing the chainmail mini skirt back into fashion.
One unusual feature of the sculpt is that the helmet is actually directly connected to the shoulder pads in a feature reminiscent of an M.C. Escher artwork. The result of this is that our chap would not be able to turn his head. To help him out I have painted an eyeball on to the middle part of his helmet which also contributes to the general chaosicity and adds some vital comedy value for group games.
I chose a classic colour scheme with a simple animal print. The animal print is alluding to a history crusading (AKA organised murderhoboing).
So to finish up, I am tagging in our buddy AirborneGrove from http://givemlead.blogspot.ie/in as he has kindly agreed to paint up one of the HeroQuest models in his wonderfully unique style. We look forward to seeing what he comes up with.
One of the Citadel Chaos Thugs from the 1980s, this goofy looking guy was my first choice for Gorechosen duty. I have a few other also-rans, but this character, with limited vision, restricted breathing, single trouser leg and spiked ball on a rope showed the perfect disregard for more or less any sensible behaviour.
Few names resonate harmoniously through geeks of a certain age like HeroQuest does.
Even geeks that did not embrace the hobby for life - known as “dropouts” or "fly-by-nights" at Scale Creep Mountain - have fondness for the game, due to it being one of the few GW properties that truly became mainstream.
The enthusiasm that this game generated in kids also means that there are likely more naively painted HeroQuest models in existence than likely any other miniatures. They usually look balls.
So we have decided to redress this balance a little.
THE CHALLENGE:
Paint one of the models from Heroquest.
Dont muck around with it too much, a reinterpretation isnt what is desired, just a new paint job on an old model.
Rebasing is allowed.
HQHQ #1: The Dwarf
White Dwarf magazine was relaunched this weekend. I enjoyed the first issue a lot.
One of the features in the magazine was about using Grombrindal - the legendary character in the Old World/Mortal Realms - in games of Silver Tower. I like Silver Tower. I decided that I wanted a Grombrindal to use in that game, so I painted it this weekend.
WD #90 from the late 1980s features a pretty definitive "White Dwarf" on the cover. The John Sibbick illustration was reused for the character card in HeroQuest and the design was used for the HeroQuest dwarf miniature, so I decided to paint a version of that.
As might be expected from a plastic model design from almost thirty years ago, the sculpt is a bit iffy in places. All the same, it was undeniably fun to paint something n the to-do list since 1989, even if a few bits are pretty fudged.
I kept the colours largely based on the White Dwarf magazine cover image above, but with a few tweaks here and there to add a little more variety as the colour reproduction in the cover image is a bit dodgy I expect, everything is brownish-grey. I kept the palette close to the classic Tolkien dwarf definition as i remember it though, earthy.
I think that the final result worked out pretty well.
Either Just John or TheOttoVonBismark will post up the next HeroQuest fig. Or maybe Captain Crooks. There is some jostling currently.
