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!

Sprues and stuff for sale!

Once again I'm selling some of my excess minis. This time I'm offering loads of loose sprues and figures that I don't need, including figures from Caesar's Adventurers set and Dark Alliance's Orcs Set 3. See my sales page for more info.

Ask the CFM: Here fishy fishman!

Pic credit: Wookiepedia

Going out of town this week, so no time to paint! Instead, it's Ask the Cheap Fantasy Miniaturist, where I answer your questions about 1/72 fantasy minis. Back in October '13, David Thorpe asks:

Are you aware of any mermaid/mermen/sea people etc in 1/72? Would like some to create an army for a Poseidon I have. I already have large sea monsters and some 1/72 dolphins/sharks/rays for riders if I can make some, but actual mer type people seem to be hard to find or too large. Thanks

My original answer:

Depends on what you mean: these fishmen from Elhiem Miniatures are ostensibly 20mm, though they're apparently on the stumpy side. I also like the murloc figures (on the right) from the WoW board game, though you may have trouble finding them (I got lucky and found an incomplete set of the board game on eBay for cheap). 

For mermaids, there's this 15mm model from Rebel Miniatures, or these HO scale figures from Preiser. Both may be a little small, and either would be kind of an expensive way to make an army. I also think these snake women figures (discussed in this post) could make for good conversion possibilities.

You could go the other way: find some tails from some fish minis that are about the right size (these Safari Ltd. critters, possibly?) and swap them with the legs of some suitable 1/72 soldiers. Ironically, these "Sea Peoples" figures might fit the bill.

Further thoughts: The new Zombie Pirates set from Mars, which I recently discussed, has a 1/72 mermaid figure. Mars' original Zombie Pirates set has a few movie-inspired sea mutant figures that may also work for a marine army, depending on how grotesque you want to get.

Got a question about 1/72 fantasy? Feel free to leave a question in the comments.

Reaper Bones Minotaur

The baby slept enough this week to give me time to finish this guy.

Not an original look for this one, but I like it. It's my usual good-enough block-color approach, though I did try a little bit of wet-blending around the nose. I'm not sure it comes across, but it looks fine. I also tried free-handing some eyebrows, as he was looking a little too much like a friendly cartoon cow. Eyebrows make everything look meaner.

Here's the comparison shot with Sven. I swear, these large Bones minis seem like they're made to look down on 1/72 scale humans. The larger scale that Reaper uses for humans just isn't as dramatic with these large monsters.

Sven gets lost on the way to Crete and asks for directions.

Potpouri: Zombie Pirates, Uruk-hai, scale wonkery

Way too much to do this week to have free time for the hobby, but I thought I'd take what little time I have to share some interesting news and discussions related to 1/72 fantasy gaming.

1.) Plastic Soldier Review had a news item about new products from Mars miniatures that included a cryptic and snobbishly dismissive note that "one set is zombies." There was no other info, but I managed to track down this pic from a Russian minis forum.

If you didn't know, Mars made a previous Zombie pirates set, based on the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise. 1/72 Multiverse reviewed the set, which featured fewer actual zombie pirates and more unlicensed characters from the movie than you might imagine. This set seems to correct the issue by featuring more undead swashbucklers and fewer extravagant cinematically-inspired sea-mutants than its predecessor. I also dig the evil mermaid figure. I'm looking forward to this one!

2. Also from the same Russian website, this teaser image from Alliance miniatures.

They seem to be fleshing out their not-LOTR line with not-Uruk-hai half-orcs. With bonus evil-white-wizard anarchist, it appears!

3.) Finally some interesting discussions at TMP. I recently started a thread about adapting 15-18mm minis to 1/72 scale. Fellow 1/72 fantasy enthusiast TwinMirror started a similar thread from the other direction, discussing "true 25mm" figures and their adaption to the preferred scale of this blog. Both should have a lot of useful info for the cheap fantasy miniaturist.

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.

Well, well, well!

Well, well, well, well, well. Well.

Well. This post is about wells, continuing my recent theme of 1/72 fantasy terrain and scenery. Wells are great for fantasy terrain. They exist pretty much anywhere there are people, they are usually centrally located, they are distinctive, and they're central to all kinds of myths and tales. All that, and they're pretty small, so they have a lot of character for such a little item.

Here's a well I just painted up.

It's a kit found in Italeri's 1/72 scale "Desert Tents" set. I like it, as it's pretty close to my classic impression of what a well should look like. It being a desert well, it has a skin instead of a bucket, and it doesn't have the protective gable covering you might find in more wooded areas. But it's round, loose stone, with wood supports and a rope. That largely says "well" to me.

The kit was pretty easy to put together. Everything fit together very nicely, even the rope and waterskin, which could have been obnoxiously fiddly. As you can see, the base was originally quite a bit bigger, more so than I thought it needed to be. With no undue effort I was able to cut it down to what was barely essential, then glue it to a 1.5" washer, as is my wont. I had to do another simple mod when I was scrubbing the kit before painting and snapped the waterskin off by accident. With my pin vise, pin, and glue, I was able to reattach it. Yes, the rope that hangs the skin from the crosspost is a smidgeon of metal pushpin, with a bit of woodglue dribbled on. It's certainly a more durable model this way, so I'm actually glad my accident occurred when it did.

Here are some other wells I have.

To the right of the Italeri well are a Mines of Moria well from Games Workshop and a Bones "Chaos Well" from Reaper Miniatures. These larger scale bits actually compare favorably to the Italeri well in terms of scale. On the right is a sort of watering hole from Imex's "Southwestern Alamo Accessories" set, which has a great many interesting bits. This will be good for more hardscrabble or remote communities. Another in-scale well kit I'm aware of is made by Green Line. It's got the winch and gabled roof that are probably what most people expect from a well, but is fairly expensive for my taste.

I'm pleased with the little Italeri well. I'm sure I kind find a number of uses for it.

Sven gets more than he counted on when he seeks to quench his thirst