Manticores and minotaur

A few things from my painting desk.

These two manticores are from the first edition Descent game. For variety, I painted one in a tiger pattern and the other as a lion. They were very quick to paint — I primed them one night and did everything else the next while half-watching SNL on TV.

Wizard for scale, though in hindsight he’s a bit nearer the camera.

The theory I’ve read is that manticores were based on accounts of tigers, so the tiger striped version might be more authentic.

Next up a minotaur of unknown (to me) provenance. Comment if you recognize her. The hands and spear are wire, putty, and assorted spare bits because I got this model without the intended hands.

The minotaur is female. I would have gone with udders rather than human breasts, and given it a tail, given the cow hoofs etc. The furry butt cracks me up. But it’s the last of my unpainted minotaurs! (No counting a few pre-painted MageKnight figures I might redo someday.)

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Nagas, mushroom men, hell hounds, and a thingthing

Am I still painting a lot? Oh hell yeah. As usual, quantity takes primacy over quality.

First up, two nagas from the Descent board game.

They follow the old Monster Manual illustration pretty spot-on. Though I didn’t apply the mascara.

For scale, here’s a Grenadier wizard I probably didn’t post already. He should have had a skull on his staff but the one I traded for was broken. The round orb is just the end of a stickpin.

Interestingly, Way back in the early 1980s when Dimensions for Children released a series of fantasy playsets and action figures (Dragonriders of the Styx), one of their designs was based on the Monster Manual illustration too. TSR sent a cease & desist letter (I’m not clear on how a sculpture can violate a copyright on drawing; it certainly wasn’t a patented image, but then again who wants to go to court?) and soon the toy naga was appearing with the face completely removed. Original on left, later version on right!

I managed to score a later naga in a trade some time ago, and painted him (her? it?) up thus:

Anyway I also finished the last three Descent hell hounds I have:

Here they are with the same wizard and the three I painted earlier:

I was really on a roll with the plastic monsters; here are three Reaper Bones fungoids/mushroommen/myconids or whatever they’re called:

I already had a metal version of the big guy, and I’d say he’s an almost exact replica. Maybe a slight loss of detail on the staff and cap.

Finally, I painted the last of the demons from the MegaMinis monster box I bought some time back. It’s a weird insect-like thing, and while he looks ok from the side, he suffers from the same flatness of other demons originally made by Metal Magic.

They call it a demon, but I’m not really convinced. I’d call it more of an alien. Or a thing. Or a thingthing.

Morlocks and wights

I painted the “Beastmen” from Descent as Morlocks, as there are many Morlocks running around Telengard.  Maybe their underground city is connected to the dungeon somewhere.

The pose is a little exaggerated but they look OK.

You can see that they have little rag dolls on their belts.  I like that detail but who knows what it means?  Are the Morlocks child-like in some way, perhaps dim-witted and prone to tantrums?

They look a lot like my old school wights, with crazy hair after the Trampier illustration in the original Monster Manual.

The one in the center is Grenadier; the other two are Heritage. Ol’ Red Eyes on the left was one of the figures Scottsz sent me in exchange for for some 4e books.

In my Telengard setting, I’m changing Morlocks a bit from what the LL rules have.  They are more in line with AD&D Grimlocks — sightless, but with acute hearing and smell, 2HD, and very primitive… (well, these Morlocks are; they might have more advanced leaders).  2d6 will be the standard number encountered, so I’ll have to draft the wights if I roll a 10-12; there are only 9 Descent minis.