Spidermen, spidermen!

Check out my sales page, now full of cheap 1/72 scale sprues suitable for fantasy, in addition to Reaper Bones figures and other goodies.

Spidermen! No not that kind, this kind:

Driders, or "drow-spiders," or spider-centaurs. Dark elves punished (or rewarded, depending on edition) by their spider-goddess Lolth with an aspect of her spidery form. One of those curiosities from D&D that's somehow stuck with fantasy gamers. Recall that these are mostly Alliance elves patched onto "jorogumo" figures from Arcane Legions.

Melee guys above. Archers and sorceress below; the sorceress bod is a Caesar elf. I worry that she looks either like Mrs. Santa Claus via the Brothers Grimm, or else a Star Trek bridge officer after a teleportation accident.

Side views, showing off the spidery livery this crew is wearing for some reason. Not the greatest freehand you'll ever see, but looks okay on the table.

Let's check out the larger drider figure, maybe an alpha drider, or possibly an avatar of Lolth herself. It's a Reaper Bones "Spider Centaur" archer figure. I swapped her bow arm with a Skink bit—should have either swapped both arms or else just trimmed the bow from her original hand. Looks kind of wonky. I also regret that her face is a bit obscure. Should have put more black around the mouth. I think it's not too bad overall, though. It's actually a smaller figure than you might expect, pretty close in body size to Sven the 1/72 comparison viking.

The spotted pattern on the back is loosely inspired by actual black widow spiders, which also inspired the general red-white-black colors of this squad.

This was a fun project. I'm really pleased how the mods turned out on the 1/72 figures. Painting was a quick and dirty affair for the most part, but I like the overall look. They'll be a nice addition, or counterpoint to, the drow figures I painted a month ago.

Coming soon: demon legions, and other hellish beings!

Drow! You stabbed me!

An extraordinarily busy March and April meant that I put off painting the dark elf figures I put together months ago. But they're done now!

Pretty simple painting; a lot of grays with some purple, which looks more washed-out in these photos than in person. Because of the dark color scheme, I did a lot more drybrushing than I usually do, with light gray on the clothes and pure white on the face and hair. These are pretty typical drow colors, though I suppose the blue hair might be a bit unusual. I think it works though; with the heavy drybrushing, the blue almost looks like a wash, so it's more of an accent color.

Below are the sword guys. The figure on the left is an unmodified Caesar elf. The rest are Alliance elf heads on various bods, mostly Caesar. The female fighter has an Arcane Legions body, while the one in the middle has one from a Hat Celt leader.

Next are the archers. These are mostly unmodified Caesar elves, though I swapped the "conehead" elf head with an Alliance head for the figure on the left. The running archer has a bod from a Hat "Robin Hood" figure.

A couple spellcasters. On the left, a Caesar elf head with a Caesar "Adventurer" body. On the right, an Alliance elf head with a Twilight Creations cultist bod.

Here's Sven the 1/72 comparison viking with Salogel of the One Inch Guild, with his counterpart from the Realm of Lolth.

But which one is the real you?!

I decided to finish these guys first before working on the driders, also featured in the first drow post. They're next!

10-figure endrowment (drow and drider mods)

For my gnoll project, a bunch of Alliance elf figures donated their bodies, leaving me with a small pile of elf heads. So it seemed natural that my next project make use of them. Hence, dark elves, or drow as they are known in D&D.

The orange heads are from the Alliance elves. The gray bodies are either Caesar "conehead" elves or Caesar adventurers. The sorceress was originally human, but I borrowed an elf head from the Caesar set.

Some more mods with the Alliance elf heads. The bodies here are a Hat "Robin Hood" figure, a Twilight Creations cultist, a Hat Gallic commander, and an Arcane Legions warrior priestess. The cultist figure got a bit of a height reduction just by cutting off the base and part of the robes.

Figures from the back, mostly to show off how I kept the hair on the elf heads mostly intact. Note the yellow bits of Milliput that fill in the gaps.

While making the drow, I decided to make some driders as well. In D&D, these are drow that have been punished—or rewarded, depending on the edition—with the spidery form of their spider goddess Lolth. The "jorogumo" figures from the Arcane Legions Han booster provide the spidery body.

The drider sorceress' torso is from a Caesar elf. The others are Alliance elves. Without their gangly legs, they actually look pretty good as elfy creatures.

With the Caesar elves seemingly OOP, the Alliance elves are the only choice for 1/72 plastic, but they are awfully tall. As a source for headswaps, though, I hope you'll agree that they can be worthwhile.

I'm hoping to get these primed this weekend, then we'll see about painting. Stay tuned!