Animated Skeleton Guards (4)

 

These skeletons from One Gold Piece are a great intermediate build for RPGs - no armor or shields, but armed. They are formally titled "Undead General Guards" because they are intended to be fantasy shifted Magna Guard droids for their awesome (and sadly no longer available) Sky Wars line. I couldn't figure out how to stick to the original SW color palate for them, so I went in a different direction stylistically. I love the design, but my support game was weak, and it took a few attempts to successfully print and no break 'em. A few bits here and there were repaired by myself. Not my best work, but they compliment nicely with my other skeletons and will be great on the game table.

I haven't posted many undead here, which is odd because they are heavily represented in my collection. A lot of my early batch painting were of mobs of skeletons; every novice necromancer knows the fastest way to pad your ranks is with the dead. And here I am again, years later, working the same strategy! I noticed my painting goal numbers for the year are low, so I've decided I need to focus on groups of models for a bit to bump my productivity. My major project right now is grinding through The Lost Mine of Phandelver, and this low level module is stacked with the undead. Since most of my skeleton models are older, it is a nice opportunity to have a fresh take.

Night's Cult Leader / Spyron “Moonface”

 

 

This is my evil cult middle-management leader, to go along with the previously posted Night's Cult models. This guy is simple, anonymous, and effective as a cult leader stand-in for most of my needs. Like my other Nights cult models, he was a speed-paint for the table a few years ago.

Ithorian / Hammerhead / Momaw Nadon

 

 I have been enjoying the latest Star Wars drop, so I thought I'd ride that nostalgia and post another of my WEG Star wars models. This is SW36 from the Grenadier Models / West End Games "A New Hope" box set. He is a minor character appearing in the iconic cantina scene in that movie, and was an unnamed character at the time ("scum and villainy"). Of course, all of those vagabonds have since earned well developed backstories. He is sometimes portrayed as having a golden or brass staff, but I chose to go with black at the time  (not sure if it is canon - he never appears with a staff on film) because...I liked it. The character is obscure enough that he would stand in well for any Ithorian; I did my best to make him an accurate depiction of the species.  The cantina is well represented the miniatures line, and I hope to one day have a complete set at some point.

On a 25mm base (inverted).

Night's Cult Swordsman (3)

 

 These cultists are the muscle for the captain I posted previously. These guys really shine as groups of mobs -  it makes them much more impressive and formidable on the table. Only some minor stylistic differences, and a slightly better picture, but this post is much more satisfying than the captain.

Scion of Ehecatl / Kobold Coatl-Born (2)

 

These Colorful heroes are my entry for this months Printed Encounter paint club. The modular packs are a fun concept, and I was keen on requesting a new part for the kobold kit, so I charged it. 

For a concept I really wanted something that would leverage the unique modularity of these kits, something very different from my normal subjects or from the kobolds already in my collection. I'm not exactly sure how the inspiration struck, but somehow my brain connected the dots that this style of kobold head had an uncanny resemblance to the Aztec god Ehecatl:

 

Notably, the toothy snout  was a good fit. plus an neckbeard, and a brow that looked a bit like a horn! Perfect. Ehecatl is a god of the winds and an aspect of Quetzalcoatl - It doesn't get much cooler than that! In D&D lore the Kobold is often associated with dragons, and they manefest their characteristics from time to time. Following that logic, why not a Coatl? It seemed like an amazing convergence of concept, inspiration, art, and opportunity. I dug around on the web and found some good coatl art, as well as as many images of Ehecatl as I could. A full body image is below:

A few themes were clear: A dark body, either blue or green, a red face (and often hands and feet), here he is shown with a warclub and a round shield. Great reference material.

PE has a very nice set of modular wings that were perfect for the concept, so those were an easy choice. I had the idea early on that I would use the D&D coatl color palate for the wings to join the modern gaming interpretation with the mythology. The gear was tougher, as the current offerings were far more western in theme. Fortunately, I have a Mesoamerican frogfolk pack from PE and I am pretty handy in Meshmixer and Blender. A pair of quick weapon swaps onto the hand bits and I was in business with a macuahuitl and chimalli. The bases were also kitbashed from various free bits and bobs I had in my collection. Easter-egg: the statue on the base of the model on the right is none other than Ehecatl himself! It is a scan of an actual statue (in his human form, it would seem). All of the parts were assembled virtually, and they were printed, bases and all, in a single piece. (note to self: next time use at least two points of contact to the base!).

For the colors I wanted to keep it very colorful, and dang, those wings came out bright! They really pop. For the full buy in, I decided to freehand the chimalli (round shields) using known shield patterns (from codex Mendoza): 

  

I took some liberties with the designs, but I really enjoyed it. I almost never do freehand these days because of the time consuming nature of it, but it was really satisfying.

The bold palate was such a fun change from my normal subjects that I'm tempted to paint a coatl next time I need a palate cleanser.

In summary, a great project! I was able to flex my modeling printing and painting skill, all under a deadline, and I really had fun with it. Heck, I learned a bunch! the research was really interesting, and I'm eager to do more. I hope Ehecatl approves.

 

Night's Cult Captain / Cultist Duelist

 

 A quick speed-paint that fills a critical role: an elite cultist. Legend Builds cultists are perfect models to fill the shoes of most of my cultist needs -  they come in tons of flavors and they are properly anonymous without any overly specific iconography. This guy acts as a champion type for a small squad of these guys I have already completed. My thinking was that they could be stand-ins for the dragon cultists in LMoP, as well as play part of the Cult of the Reptile God for module N1, among other things.

 I printed them slightly enlarged to scale with the rest of my collection. The paint palate was kept very simple so that I could easily reproduce it (or something similar) quickly as I add to the ranks - I expect I'll need quite a few! I used muted grey-purple and green-purple to play off the inherent contrast of that palate (as well as with a touch of green on the base,) to add some visual interest to an otherwise very dark and monotone approach. Simple can be good!