Grenadier Armoured Warrior

May was very busy for me and I missed my monthly post, but I hope to make up for it this month.

For some reason I had an itch to paint some sort of classic fantasy knight, and I ended up going with Grenadier's #8130 Armoured Warrior from Julie Guthrie's Fantasy Personalities II line. 

I'm fairly happy with him, although he is a bit dark.  This may be due to the fact that I primed him grey and not my usual white prime.  I really like Julie Guthrie's work for Grenadier.  Great line of figures in my opinion.

I struggled with the freehand on the shield.  I wanted it to look hand painted on wood, and I guess I achieved that, but it was tough painting on such a small surface.  I've always been impressed by other painters' ability to paint amazing little shields and banners, but I usually avoid it myself.

In my imagination he'll be part of an army with green, white, and brown heraldry, but in reality I am unlikely to fulfill that project, at least any time soon.  There are plenty of other things filling up my painting queue though, so stay tuned.

Heritage Gnome and Grenadier Dwarf Archer

I didn't manage to post anything last month, but this time I have, not one, but two vintage miniatures for you:  a Heritage Miniatures gnome and a Grenadier dwarf archer. 

This gnome is from Dungeon Dwellers set 1239, which apparently came with three of these figures and three with a spear.  They were sculpted by Steve Bissett. 

The Grenadier figure is from AD&D set 2003 "Dwarves," which came out around 1980, if I'm not mistaken.  I chose him for his gnome-like hat, as I intend to have him stand in for a gnome.

And finally here are both figures with my Ral Partha Gnome Illusionist, as the start of my mighty gnome army.

I'm pretty happy with both figures and hope to post again soon.  Stay tuned.

Grenadier Umber Ripper / Mirliton Tasmania Devil

For this update, I present Grenadier's Umber Ripper (MM87 from their Monster Manuscript line from the mid 80s,) which is currently still available from Mirliton Miniatures but is listed as "Tasmania Devil."  

I went with a mostly naturalistic color scheme, although his tongue was highlighted with a florescent  pink.  I somewhat regret this color scheme now though, as I think it might be interesting to see this figure painted in some really wild colors.  Maybe on flaming base.

Overall, a fun and relatively fast figure to paint.  Thanks for stopping by, and stay tuned for more.

Stone Giant from Grenadier Troll

One of the miniatures that I recently painted was a cockatrice.  One of my faithful blog readers, Jay, suggested that it would make a good pet for a giant.  I liked that idea and since a cockatrice has a gaze that can turn someone to stone, I figured a stone giant would be the best choice.   I wasn't able to pick up an ideal stone giant miniature, but I found this figure from Grenadier's second Fantasy Lords line, that was meant to be a troll.  I guess he might be small for a giant, but I thought he could make an interesting stone giant with some type of visor in case the cockatrice had any other gaze attacks.  He's not taking any chances. 

Here he is with his "pet."  Should make for a fun encounter.

Here's how he looked when I bought him.

And after soaking in Simple Green for a while:

I primed this figure in grey which I rarely do, and it reminded me of why I generally prefer a white primer.  It really has a dulling effect on colors, which I think worked fine here, but most of the time, it's not for me.

Thanks to Jay for reading and for the idea!

Grenadier Ruster Beast aka Rust Monster

My goal with this blog has been to post no less than once per calendar and month, and for the first time since I started it I failed by missing April.  The good news is I'm back!  This time I bring you Grenadier's Ruster Beast from their Monster Manuscript line (Vol.IX.) 

I think this is one of the better Rust Monster minis out there and I enjoyed painting this little bugger.  I really like the texturing that the sculptor, John Dennett, put on this mini. The rocks in particular have an excellent rock-like texture.  I'm not sure I'm satisfied with how I painted the eyes but I was going for some contrast.

I have a couple of small robots on my painting table now, and from the "Other Oddities" department, I went big on backing the Low Life Miniatures Kickstarter even though I have never played the RPG.  The minis are just so gonzo that I had to get some.  I just got the first wave in the mail, so expect to see those soon as well.

Artwork by Andy Hopp

Andy Hopp, the creator of Low Life has a current kickstarter going for a new addition of the Low Life game that I should probably mention as well: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1359565526/low-life-the-rise-of-the-lowly-core-rulebook?ref=live

Grenadier Troll and Reaper Hawk

Here is the classic monster promised in my last post: Grenadier's Troll from the Denizens of the Swamp box set.  I love the gnarly, thin, and long-nosed trolls from D&D's past and I had a good time painting this guy.  The limited palette meant that it painted up pretty quickly too despite the fact that I am an incredibly slow painter.  This is the third mini I've painted from the Swamp set and it may be a while before I get to them, but eventually I'll paint the rest.  

I also recently painted the hawk from Reaper's Animal Companions I pack.  One of the players in the D&D game I'm running has a hawk "animal minion" and this was for him.  It's fairly small.  To give a sense of scale: the base is 20mm. 

More vintage lead and other random minis to come...

Grenadier Shambling Mound

Here is the Grenadier Shambling Mound from the same "Denizens of the Swamp" set that I posted the basilisk from earlier.

I feel like the photo I took makes my brushstrokes look huge and a bit sloppy but overall I'm satisfied with this mini.  I've always loved plant-based monsters for some reason and I tried to paint him with the cover illustration of the box set in mind.

I tried to use a similar (but slightly duller) coloring under the eyes like you can see in the detail of the painting below.  I'm not sure if that's supposed to be source lighting from glowing eyes or just a coloration in the facial area of this beast, but I went with it.

 More monsters on the way...

Grenadier Basilisk

I recently picked up a complete Grenadier "Denizens of the Swamp" set of miniatures on eBay.  I wanted to paint the basilisk first because the players in a game I'm running were going to encounter one.  Unfortunately I didn't finish it in time and had to use something else but I can still share it with you, the fine readers of my blog.

The basilisk in this set has two of his eight feet propped up on a rock, so I decided to put him on top of a rocky base insert.

After sticking him down, I realized that his feet didn't match up with the base all that well and left a gap.  You can see this gap in the picture on the left.

So I used some green stuff to sculpt some
little rocks underneath him to make it a better fit.










I picked my colors based on his Monster Manual description, which indicates that he should be brown with glowing green eyes.  And here he is....