Guards! Guards!

Human guards, foot soldiers, etc.

These are mostly from a couple different sets of "medieval knights" from Caesar Miniatures, with a few Accurate "English Men-at-Arms" in addition. I wanted these to be useful for either "good" or "bad" guys; blue is classic for good and red for bad, so I split the difference and went for purple, which sadly is barely perceptible here even after image enhancements. For some reason the pics here didn't turn out very well, so if you get a slightly queasy feeling looking at these, my apologies.

Dudes with polearms. The chap in the middle apparently drew the short stick, literally. These are three poses with headswaps and a few other mods for variety. The halberds on the left are a little bendy; the spears on the right were even more so (as you can see in this post), until I decided at the last minute to swap them for some more rigid Italeri barbarian spears. I was worried that this operation would be catastrophic, but the soft plastic Caesar uses was able to bend and not break. That softness of course was what made the original spears intolerably bendy in the first place; there's some sort of lesson here, but I can't put my finger on it.

Anyway, more guard fellows with livelier poses. The two captains in the middle are the Accurate figures. The one on the right got a headswap with the second crossbowman from the left, which I had actually forgotten about until I tried to find the original figure on PSR. What I'm saying is I think the Accurate and Caesar figures work great together here.

The guards of course complement the bandits from my last big painting project.

I'm sure this is a political metaphor of some kind.

As with the bandits, I tried to mix up my usually Caucasian humans with some duskier skintones. Not historically accurate, but as these aren't intended for historic gaming that's not an issue!

Stay tuned for more mini comparisons. I'm going to give the multi-figure projects a rest for a while and try my hand at some dragons, so look out for those as well!

Battlelore Minis for 1/72 scale

Interested in these figures? I'm selling a bunch on my sales page, along with other minis, including from the recently-fulfilled Bones 3 Kickstarter!

Battlelore is a tactical minis board game produced by Fantasy Flight games that's gone through a couple editions. The first edition was set in a generic fantasy world, while the current second edition is set in the slightly less generic world of Terrinoth, home to Fantasy Flight's Runebound, Rune Wars, and Descent games. The core game and its expansions were on sale at huge markdowns at Fantasy Flight's webstore and at Cool Stuff Inc. at the end of last year, leading to some speculation that Fantasy Flight intends to stop support if not production of these games. But it was an excellent opportunity to stock up on some very interesting fantasy minis.

Why the interest? Because I knew that the minis were sort-of-kind-of close to 1/72 scale, the preferred scale of this blog. How close? Let's take a look.

The core game comes with two factions, the first of which are the noble paladin-people, the Daqan. Shown here are minis from the core game and from the Daqan expansion, "Hernfar Guardians."

An Ironbound, Greyhaven mage, Citadel Guard, and Yeoman Archer. The core game comes with the guards and archers; the expansion has the Ironbound, mages, and extra guards. They seem close in size to Sven, with similarly proportioned features, but note that Sven the comparison viking is on a taller base, meaning the Battlelore minis are actually a bit larger. But they're close!

A Rune Golem, Riverwatch Rider, and Citadel Lancer, with an Eagle Games horse for comparison. The golem and rider are from the core set, the lancer from the expansion. The horses are noticeably bigger, though their human riders are actually about Sven-sized.

The large "Legend" figures: a Siege Golem from the expansion and a Roc Warrior from the core game. The riders are almost exactly 1/72 scale, and the large critters they ride look great next to Sven.

The other faction from the core game are the Uthuk, barbaric chaos-types who are into blood magic, demons, and other such ickiness. Shown here are figures from the core game and the Uthuk expansion, "Warband of Scorn."

A Viper Legion, Blood Sister, Berserker, and Blood Harvester. The core game includes the Legion and Harvesters, while the expansion includes the Berserkers, Blood Sisters, and extra Harvesters. Like the Daqan, these human figures are actually just a bit bigger than Sven, though perhaps they are close enough.

A Grotesque, Obscene, and Flesh Ripper Brute. The Grotesque is from the expansion; the Obscene and Brute are from the core game. These larger creatures look fine next to Sven. If anything the Obscene almost seems too small!

Legends: The Chaos Lord from the core game, and the beetley Doombringer from the expansion.

The third faction, the necromancy/undead themed Waiqar, is available in two expansion sets. The first was Heralds of Dreadfall, the second was Terrors of the Mists.

A Skeleton Archer, Reanimate, Necromancer, and Bone Horror. The first set includes the archers and Reanimates; the second has the Necromancers, Horrors, and more Reanimates. Included here for comparison are two painted skeletons from Caesar Miniatures undead set. The Caesar figures are just a bit shorter than Sven, but are noticeably shorter than the Battlelore figures. This perhaps shows why I'm hesitant to recommend these figures as complements to a 1/72 scale fantasy collection. On the other hand, the Bone Horror looks just fine as a 1/72 scale boney aberration.

A Wraith, Barghest (actually two figures per base), and Death Knight, with an Eagle Games horse for comparison. The Wraith and Knight are from the first set; the Barghests from the second. As with the Daqan cavalry, the Death Knight horse is much bigger than the 1/72 scale horse. The Wraith is huge! You could probably mod it so it isn't so big, though you'd probably lose the cool bands of tattered cloth in the process. Or it can just be a really big ghost.

Legends: A Banshee from the second set, and a Barrow Wyrm from the first. The Banshee is about as big as the Wraith, and its skeletal minders are closer to Sven-sized than the Reanimates. The Barrow Worm looks just as big as an undead dragon ought to.

Conclusions? These are some great-looking pieces, and the larger figures are for the most part unobjectionable. How you feel about the humanoid and cavalry figures for 1/72 scale is pretty much a matter of taste. They are just a bit too big for my taste, but I'm decidedly a pedant about scale. If you like the look of these, it's definitely worth picking up, especially if they go on sale again.

Bandits

I finally painted something this year!

Bandits, or peasant partisans, or village militia, etc. They're a mix of Zvezda peasants and Hat/Airfix Robin Hood figures with a few mods, as I first showed off back in August (ugh). They look pretty good as a group, but let's take a closer look.

Melee dudes. You can see that the Zvezda figures are similar in style but noticeably taller. My wife asked me one time if I ever tried painting non-Caucasian figures. I pointed out that most of my figures had green skin, but she had a point that all my humans so far were people of pallor, so I tried a darker skin tone on some of these.

The Lord of Loxley himself, plus a fiddler, converted from a sitting Imex pioneer figure with some legs pilfered from one of the Merry Men. I'm pretty pleased with how seamless it looks.

Ranged units. The Zvezda slinger and archer with the mondo longbow absolutely tower over their Airfix counterparts, alas.

I've got a few more post ideas lined up, plus the guards I started at the same time I started the bandit project to finish up. Stay tuned!

New Alliance minis!

We've been awaiting these sets for a while, but Redbox just recently put up previews of many of their new sets. Check out the new "Modern Amazons" and "Cimmerians."

The "Modern" part seems to simply mean the opposite of "Ancient" or "Hellenistic," as these have a more generic look that Alliance's previous Amazons. I had half a notion that "Modern" might mean something like "appealing to more modern, edified ideas about women in fantasy;" I think it's safe to say that's not the direction Red Box took the line. These are still pretty heavy on the cheesy, chainmail bikini side of things.

But let's look at the figures:

It's always hard to tell with the low-contrast red that Alliance uses for their preview shots, but the figures are certainly consistent with the battle-stripper look of the box art. They don't seem too egregious, though, and may be adaptable for more sanely dressed female fighters. And I can see that this previewed, super-sensible figure is in the middle of the bottom row of the first set, so maybe they won't be so bad. But I'm not really thinking too much about that now, because holy smoke, unicorns! That's right, the cool Amazon mounts that were previewed ages ago have materialized, and they're more bizarre and wonderful than I expected. Stags! Felines! A gorram dinosaur, for goodness sakes! Here's hoping Redbox puts out an "Amazon mounts" or "Exotic mounts" set, similar to their wargs set. It could see a lot of use for all kinds of modeling beyond fantasy mounts.

Let's move on to the "Cimmerians," Howard-inspired barbarians with a definite Chaos look to them:

The box are features a generous gamut of barbarian archetypes, from bare-chested Conans to horsey steppelords to the bundled-up Viking type in the middle. The figures are similarly variegated.

Two foot sets, unlike just one for the Amazons, presumably because they've already released an Amazon foot set. Again, a mix of shirts and skins here: I actually like this, since more variety means more use from a single set, but they'd certainly make a ragtag unit! Also, lots of horns, spikes, and oversized weapons, perfect for fantasy Chaos warriors. Note the shaman-guy in the bottom left of Set 2.

Cavalry:

Normal mounts this time, though unsaddled. Again, pointy bits and crazy arms galore.

So far I like these. The Cimmerians could see a lot of uses in fantasy gaming. The Amazons disappointingly seem once again to be a little heavy on the cheesecake, but the crazy mounts make up for it. I haven't seen them available on Hannants yet, but I look forward to it!

Guards and Bandits and Bondic

No I'm not dead, real life vs. hobby time, etc. Let's move on:

I finally got a chance to take some pics of my next project, these bandits and guards.

The bandits are a mix of Hat's reissued Airfix "Robin Hood" figures and Zvezda's medieval peasant levy. The guards are mostly Caesar medieval soldiers, with a couple Accurate knights (acquired in a trade with Mike) thrown in. Most are out of the box, but I indulged in a few mods.

Fantasy guards are often depicted with polearms and crossbows for some reason, so I tried to select the Caesar figures that were so armed. This only left a few available poses. The answer: headswaps, plus some knifework to remove scabbards and the like for variety.

The bandits didn't need as many mods, but some of them that would otherwise have been wielding scythes and similar peasant weapons got armswaps (a scythe-wielding bandit seemed very strange!). Here you can see my new fascination in use. Normally when doing mods like this, I'd use wood glue to fill any gaps. But lately I've been experimenting with a newish product called Bondic, and I'm pretty happy with it.

Bondic is a non-adhesive bonding agent that's sort of magical. It's a solution with various plastic elements as the solutes. These plastics tend to form a solid, except the solution prevents them from doing so almost indefinitely. Zap the liquid with a UV light (the orange device in the pic above) after applying it with the pen-like tip, though, and the solvent evaporates. [edit: I didn't have this exactly right. See my comment below] The result is a solid mass of plastic in about four seconds where there once was a liquid. Magic!

I've found all sorts of household applications for the stuff, but the relevant use is for filling gaps in modded figures.

I also made up this bard-type figure, using an Imex pioneer figure for the torso (Sean did something similar, but I can't find the post right now).

You can perhaps see that the gaps around the arms of the gray Zvezda figures have some clear plastic around them. The base of the tan Hat fig also has some to fill the visible part of the hole in the washer I used as a base. That's the cured Bondic in use. The big advantage Bondic has over glue for this sort of thing is ease of control: you can add as little as you need, it tends to flow into crevices, and you can always build up applications if you need more. It's also a lot more durable than glue, as it's solid plastic. Just remember that it can't be used to glue things together like adhesive, but for filling visible gaps it's hard to beat.

I also took some shots after priming, just so you can see how it looks painted. No gaps!

I'm still in the middle of a big freelance job, but hopefully I'll have more time to work on figures soon. Thanks for checking in!

Bones II minis for 1/72 scale

I'm still selling several Bones II minis. Pics are now available on my sales page. Also, in case you missed it, I updated my post on WarQuest with some new information.

I received my Bones II order a few months ago and was pleased to discover how many work with 1/72 scale. As I discovered with the first Bones Kickstarter, smaller minis look human-sized in 1/72, while large minis seem just a bit larger, in a more fantastic way. Let's take a look.

These small humanoids are about the size of 1/72 humans. On the left are Balazar the gnome summoner, Lini the gnome druid, and Woody the halfling ranger. Their heads look rather large, but they should be fine for 1/72 otherwise. On the right are a kobold champion and sorcerer, with a kobold spearman in between. These new minis are quite a bit larger than the old kobold Bones, despite having the same sculptor, but they should work for 1/72 lizardmen or dragonmen.

These are also close to human-sized in 1/72 scale. Two mushroom men (or "myconids" in D&D), a lesser demon, a kelpie, a demilich, and two "hordlings."

Animals: a wolf, bear, wildcat, wolverine, and hawk. These are all bigger than actual 1/72 versions of the same critters, but they are good for "dire" or monstrous beasts. Besides, that hawk is about as small as it can be and still be useful at the table.

Medium-sized beasts: a basilisk, barrow rat, chthon, mind eater, prairie tick queen, and spider from the first Kickstarter.

These monsters are close in size to Reaper humans, but I think they are nice as larger monsters in 1/72. A "Ti'ilk" fishman, lesser demon, two Egyptian avatars, Thoth and Sekhmet; and a crystal golem. The "lesser demons" are all about the same size, though the vulture demon is a lot bigger. Dig the blue plastic on that golem!

Some huge monsters: a chimera, water elemental, and "burrowing horror" (or "bullette" in D&D). Again, I love the clear blue plastic. The water elemental is about the same size as the clear red fire elemental Reaper made for their first Kickstarter.

Finally, some giants: a "swamp things" troll, stone giant, mountain troll, and ice troll. These are all much bigger than the ubiquitous cave trolls I painted last year. I still like how these big guys look compared to Sven.

Ask the CFM: Female characters

A pretty big installment of Ask the Cheap Fantasy Miniaturist today. Back in August 2013, Taylor Jordan writes:

I was wondering if you were going to sell any figures that could work for female warriors/cleric/paladin archetypes in the 1/72 scale. I'm finding that to be the most difficult thing to find, and of course my randomized Caeser set didn't come with any female fighters ><

This is an excellent question, and one that I've been wanting to explore more fully. I don't want to give the impression that female characters are like some sort of alien species, like elves or orcs, but female characters in general do present a challenge to the 1/72 fantasy miniaturist. 1/72 scale is principally a historic hobby, and the fact of the matter is that historically speaking, very nearly all soldiers have been male. So male figures are vastly over-represented in this scale as far as fantasy gaming is concerned. Luckily there are options if you know where to look. So let's see what's out there.

We'll start with 1/72 figures made specifically for fantasy. From left to right are a Caesar Miniatures Undead vampire, three Caesar Adventurers, two Caesar Elves, and an Alliance Orc (set 3) which could just as well be human. More Caesar Adventurers can be seen here. You'll see I'm missing the female warrior character that Nathan mentions; it hasn't been in either of the sets I've purchased (which seem to be missing the exact same figures, but that's another post maybe). A lot of these are on the mild, Larry-Elmore-esque cheesecake side, which may not be to everyone's taste. Other options abound, luckily.

Arcane Legions figures, for more 1/72 figures made for fantasy. Left to right: a Han hero, three Roman priestesses, and Egyptian lion rider and Han "jorogumo" (spider monster) with leg swaps from Caesar figures, and three Egyptian sorceress types.

Some historic 1/72 figures easily adapted to fantasy. Left to right: three Orion "English Pirates", two Hat figures from the "Gallic Chariot w Warrior Queen" (i.e. Boudica) set, a Hat druid from their "Gallic command" set (which seems female but also seems to have a mustache, so ??), a Caesar "Hebrew Warrior" (who could be Deborah or possibly Judith), a Caesar noble from their "Samurai w Ninja" set, and an Esci/Italeri barbarian.

Civilian figure sets offer many more female figures in 1/72 than military sets. These are just a sample of what I have, from sets made by Strelets, Linear-B, and Imex. The figures represent diverse eras from Rome to Renaissance England to Early American, but I think they actually hang together just fine for fantasy.

As I often mention, halflings and gnomes from larger-scale fantasy miniature lines—such as Dungeons and Dragons or Reaper Miniatures—may be easily adapted to 1/72 scale. This is a great, if relatively expensive, way to find female character minis. The painted minis are D&D figures; the unpainted are Reaper Bones. From left to right: a gnome fighter, Champion of Yondalla, halfling cleric, halfling archer, Lidda the halfling adventurer, halfing paladin, Elliwyn the gnome bard, and Cassie the gnome sorcerer. The D&D halflings can be a little on the small side for 1/72 humans but should work fine at the table. The Reaper figures are about the right height, though the large heads may be off-putting to some.

A special challenge is finding suitable female minis for gnomes, halflings, and dwarves in 1/72. Here's the best I've been able to find. From left to right: a D&D halfling tombseeker, D&D halfling veteran, Lidda the halfling rogue (repainted), a gnome rogue and dwarf cleric from the World of Warcraft board game, and Ingrid the gnome rogue from Reaper Miniatures. The last two are the best I've found for cheap 1/72 female dwarves, though the World of Warcraft figures may now be hard to find.

Here are the female figures I've painted myself. To the left of the Arcane Legions witch is the original bizarre "Modu Shanyu" figure for comparison.

These are perhaps not all the plastic female character minis available that will work for 1/72 fantasy gaming. Hopefully that gives an idea of what's available. As always, if you have any other questions for the Cheap Fantasy Miniaturist, please ask in the comments!

Lightbox upgrade

I've enjoyed the effect my cheap lightbox has had on my mini photography. The one thing I didn't like was the white backdrop. It seemed to either dampen the contrast in my photos or, if I adjusted the Brightness-Contrast levels in image editing, create a blasted, irradiated look. I had read in various places that the way to eliminate these effects is with a more neutral-colored backdrop, preferably with a bit of a pattern. I found a large sheet of artist's paper at Hobby Lobby the other day, so today I messed around with using it as a new background.

Here's the new setup. I just cut the paper to fit and taped it over the old white posterboard backdrop. Arguably this was a bit premature, but I was feeling confident. Note to self: Figure out a way to bolster the top dimensions of my lightbox. It's starting to look a little crushed.

I wanted to try some of the minis I recently took with the old lightbox setup. Here's Heinz and French, the condiment trolls, a few weeks ago.

And here they are now.

They no longer look like they are standing in a supernova. But the contrast is only a little better than before. Not the improvement I was hoping for, but wait: Notice the bleeding irradiated look on the right side. Maybe I need to adjust my lighting?

I tried again with some more brightly-colored lizardmen, just in case the problem was with the figures themselves.

Better, but still a little less contrast than I'd like. Lets move the right light and try again, this time with some goblins.

That's much better! Great contrast, and they're not overlit. I tried again just once more with the One Inch Guild. Here's how they looked a few weeks ago.

And here they are now.

I remember I had to oversaturate the first photo a bit just so it looked at all decent. I could have upped the saturation on the more recent shot as well, and it would have turned out a little better. Overall I like the second one more, though. They look more natural, and the eye is drawn to the figures, not the background.

I'm still learning a little bit about light placement and the like, but overall I think the new backdrop was a good investment.