Monday 31 August 2015

Ral Partha Personalities and Things 01-69a Djinn

I like Ral Partha sculpts, especially the larger creatures - quality of sculpting and level of detail was light years ahead of the competition in the late 70s and early 80's. If I had a minor quibble it was that their smaller figures (e.g. the adventurers) always looked a bit too small, especially when placed against their contemporaries from Citadel and Grenadier. This figure is a great example of a larger RP figure - stylish, good detail, great pose - what's not to like? Well, now that you mention it - it is prone to falling over, so the first thing was to attach it to a plastic base to give some stability. After that, on with the paint job. Good quality sculpting = easy paint job - base colours, GW washes, and then highlighting, especially for the white areas on the figure. The base is just cotton wool to try and give the impression of the djinn appearing in a cloud of smoke.

I like this figure a lot - unfortunately I can't see it getting a lot of tabletop time, purely because the D&D campaign I run has a definite Nordic/British Dark Ages slant, and the figure is definitely Arabic in appearance. Might need some lateral thinking to bring him in to the campaign...

Asgard Fantasy Monsters FM66 Large Troll with club

A combination of holidays, work and ferrying kids to see universities has meant that I haven't had time to post recently. That doesn't mean I haven't had time to paint though. Next up from the Lead Mountain was this chappie from Asgard. My guess is that he was sculpted by the same person who did the Silent Shambler, as there are definite similarities between the two figures, and this probably influenced the paint job.
The actual figure is one of the better Asgard efforts - quite detailed, no flash marking - although it does suffer from a common issue of Asgard minis, in that the haft of the club is very thin, and prone to snapping. It is fairly rare to find this figure in one piece. The actual figure was pretty easy to paint, just muted colours, then Army Painter Soft tone to bring out the detail, then highlighting. The base is just flock. I like this figure - as a generic, brooding, bad tempered troll (presumably set to guard treasure) I can see this getting a lot of table top time. Not bad for a figure that is nearly 40 years old!