and Beastmen, and Dwarfs, and Ogre, sigh!

And here are some more newly painted figures for the up-coming Red Sun Black Moon for fantasy gladiator-ing from Two Hour Wargames.  As always, click on the pics for larger ones.

Beastmen, all plastic.  I believe the big fellow in the center is from GW Talisman.  I don't know about the smaller ones.  I tried to keep the shield designs crudely done.  I don't see them as having a great deal of artistic talent.

And dwarfs (thank you, autocorrect. I really thought that the plural was "dwarves")  The guy in the blue armor on the left took a LOT of detail work, but the end result was worth it!  The little cutie in the center is in various shades of purple because that my wife's favorite color, and she is a little shortie herself.  Both of these are from Reaper.  The cartoony fellow on the right is also GW Talisman, I believe.

And the last ogre I believe I have, also from Reaper.

Females, and Orcs, and Giants, oh my!

The up-coming Two Hour Wargames fantasy gladiator rules have had me at the painting table, finishing up figures that have been lying around for a while, buying a few Reaper minis, and digging out some painted oldies!  As always, click on the pic for a larger photo.

So here are pics and comments.

Here a a couple of Reaper minis that I started a couple of months ago, always adding to my caveman collection.  The girl on the left had a mold line through her face and down her abdomen that was in too prominent a position to do much about, so it dawned on me to paint it as scars.  Hey, these are warrior women, aren't they?  Looks like I forgot to paint the irises on Raquel Welch.  I also forgot to put a gloss coat on her obsidian spear blade.

Thong girl is a Reaper mini, and also had a non-removeable mold line on her left cheek, so she also has a scar.  I'm not sure who made the hero on the right, but he was a pretty easy paint job.  He's been around for awhile, primed and based, but not a lick of paint.

Two new orcs from Reaper.  I go more for the Lord of the Rings skin tones, rather than the GW green.  (Yeah, I know.  The orc head above is green, but at least it is Reaper Pro-Paint ghoul grey.)  The metal is painted with Reaper steel plate, and the sword with Iron Wind Metals steel.  I'm about at the end of that bottle.  

Two more Reapers.  The one on the left is the plastic one that comes prepainted, but you can buy it unpainted on Reaper's site for about $1.99.  Of course, it's made of the same material as all of the 1/72 plastic figure, and can't be sanded.  By the by, Walmart's cheap grey primer remains sticky, but acrylics on top stop that, and I was able to dull coat it with a spray paint, Tree House Acrylic Matte Coat, available from Hobby Lobby for $5.99 for 11 oz.  All the figures here were coated with it, with no fogging problems.

This giant is a GW product got at a yard sale, and painted when Warrior Heroes-Armies and Adventures came out.

The miniature on the left was included as a gift in a Bronze Age Miniatures order, and appears never to have been released.  I got it a few years ago, the front of the shield has a large eagle on it.  I'm guessing the other figure was Reaper.

Very old Grenadier orcs, painted a long time ago!

Lots of skeleton warriors form Mega Minis.  I have 24 painted, and 24 still in the pack.  I painted all metal as rusted. Duh!

One of my favorite groups (of course!), painted as harem guards when Legends of Araby arrived on the scene.  An experiment to see how many skin tones and hair colors I could come up with.  I have no idea who made them.  I'd like to have a unit of 20 (wouldn't we all)!  I believe the commander is Ral Partha.

I don' remember who made the girl, or the enormous mandril.  I thought they were both from Black Orc Games, but I don't see them on their site.

Games Workshop mounted deamonette(?). They came 4 to a pack, and are my evil cav, also acquired when WH:A&A came out.

The cuthulu horror is still available from Black Orc Games, for $1.80.  The cave orc(?) troll(?).  Don't have any idea who made him.

And now to whining.  My IWM steel and bronze metallic are just about gone.  Has anyone picked up their paint line?  All they have now is mixing bottles.  GW's yellow metallics are actually pearlized, and not metallic.  With the exception of bolt gun metal and mithral mail, which they haven't screwed up yet.  Reaper metallics were acceptable, though a little thin, but now have gone to the dropper bottle.  I'm just becoming acquainted with P3, but their washes, which you need a full brush of, are in dropper bottles.  They do seem to cover a little better than GW.  Vallejo, in addition to being in dropper bottles, were a big disappointment.  Way too thin.

Suggestions?

Amazons, and Ogre, and Juggers, oh my!

It's been a while since my last post, so, inspired by Two Hour Wargames, I'm posting my latest painted figures.
First up are Amazons, from Black Raven.  This is my first army created specifically for Rally Round the King, and follows the 199 point Valkae army.

I decided to paint the veterans in red, the sword maidens in orange, the warriors in green, the marines in blue and the archers in pale green.

Here's 54 more points in mounted.

These are ENORMOUS figures for 15mm.  They are 18mm bottom of foot to eyes, and to make them even larger, they are cast with 2mm thick bases.  They are a bit cartoony with huge heads and feet that would make a hobbit proud!  They are so large you have to paint their eyes and lips.
Here's a pic of a base with a Drew's Militia 20mm Russian artilleryman on the left and Essex Han Chinese spearmen on the right.

Actually, I'm pretty happy with them, though they are way too well-dressed for my low-brow taste.  The cav are all mounted on (shudder) unicorns, so I chopped their horns off!  I'm way too schooled in the classics to let unicorns be war horses.

I bought the infantry from Bobe's Hobby at Bayou Wars a few years ago.  They are now packaged differently.  The pack I got has command, foot, and bows.  They are now packaged as foot with command and bows with command.  The great thing is that I only have one bow left over.  The cavalry is packed 8 to a bag including command, so I also only have one of them left over.
And here's showing off!  Since I normally play with people who have never seen the rules before, I tagged the back of each base.

For those not familiar with the system, the MM is "mounted melee" shock cavalry, Rep, Armor Class, normal move and retire move, and the points cost of the base.

OGRE!
Here's an enormous ogre I picked up at a yard sale a couple of years ago.  He's a GW ogre banner man, but since I have only one ogre, I modified the banner to a spear.  The up-coming fantasy gladiator rules from Two Hour Wargames made me dust him off.

And last, but not least, I finally saw the movie "Blood of Heroes", bought the Qwik rules from Two Hour Wargames, and acquired Splintered Lights Juggers.

These are the two teams with the mandatory Carol Lee figure off to the right on the bottom photo.  The detail is so good on these, it's like painting 28mm figures.