A Big Angry Red Guy

 Well, he is a giant, after all.

I wanted a BIG giant for various reasons, and it took me ages to find one who looked like the sort of giant that would work for me, seeing as I wanted one who would fit into various rulesets. I found this giant on the Miniature Heroes website, where he is described as Fire Giant (huge), which seems a pretty reasonable summary, seeing as he is around 7.5 cm tall.

He is a Reaper Bones DHL range plastic figure, which means that he is both reasonably-priced and not too heavy. He is made from a softish plastic but despite that is fairly detailed. 

The body comes in two parts that have to be joined at the waist and his arms, the two morning stars and a small chest that goes on his belt at the back are also separate. They glue together easily enough. I used Gorilla gel superglue, which I think is pretty good stuff. I also stuck him to a 5 cm square MDF base, which I gave a coating of ballast.

On the packaging it states that he doesn't need priming but that if you do prime him, avoid spray primers. I ignored that and gave him a good undercoat of Halford's grey plastic primer, which went on well with no bad side effects.

In the last picture, I have posed him with a Bad Squiddo 28mm Amazon, to give you some idea of how big he actually is. Impressive, I think, even though we all know that size doesn't really matter, does it.

As he is a Fire Giant, I wanted to use a predominantly red, bronze and brass palette, and I also wanted him to have a very red complexion too, to signify all that pent-up fiery anger and power inside him. He even has dark red eyes, to make them look blood-filled.

 Similarly, I wanted the ground he strides across to look hot and burnt, so the ballast was painted black and dry-brushed with red, yellow and orange, with some very pale grey to look like hot ashes. I think it just about works, even though the yellow hardly shows up.

I am planning to use him as Surtr in my planned Norse force for Of Gods and Mortals, which will mainly consist of my Bad Squiddo Shieldmaidens, led by the goddess Freyja.

The red colour palette might also make him suitable for my Saga; Age of Magic Otherworld band too, and I am sure that he will work for other things too, maybe a AoM Shieldmaiden Horde, and definitely in a Dragon Rampant setting.

Big uglies!

These three Big Ugly Chaps with clubs are 28mm plastic figures by Reaper Bones, from their "Black" range. They are sold as Garghuk, Ogre Chieftain but I see them as a variety of jötnar, the plural of jötunn, the Norse name for a range of creatures that are often just called "giants", although in Norse mythology many jötnar appear to be human-sized, the goddess Skaði is a jötunn for example, as is Gerðr, the wife of the Vanir god, Freyr. Odin, the king of the gods is descended from the jötnar too.

Anyway, as well as jötnar being giants, they might also be what we call trolls or ogres too. These figures are pretty imposing, being around 6cm tall, but not really big enough to be a Behemoth.

I am going to use these three as bipedal Creatures in a Saga: Age of Magic Horde warband based around my Bad Squiddo shieldmaidens.

I want to use some mounted figures for my Horde, so I have bought a number of mounted shieldmaidens who I need to get painted, ideally before the end of the year.

If you want to see my shieldmaidens, they can be found in a series of posts, here.

Of course, these could also come in handy in a Dragon Rampant force, too.

Four female wizards

I've just photographed my latest figures. I've been working on these over the last week, taking my time and gradually building up the shading. 

They are four female wizards by Reaper Miniatures from their Dark Heaven Legends range. I bought them, once again, from Bad Squiddo Games. Annie's customer service is excellent. Everything I've ordered always arrives really quickly.

These really are very nice castings, hardly any flash at all and loads of detail. I decided on a brighter colour scheme than my previous Frostgrave figures and I spent a lot of time trying to bring out the best that I could from the lovely details in the drapes and folds of the clothes on each wizard.

Here is a rear view;

These really were a lot of fun to paint.

I've already decided that the pair dressed in blue ought to form a Wizard/Apprentice relationship, with the one holding the book as the senior partner and therefore the two in red and green will be another pairing.

It somehow seems appropriate that the red and green pair should be Elementalists, although they don't have to be, and the blue couple could pretty much be anything, not necessarily Sigilists (because of the book).

I am thinking now that I should buy a box of plastic Frostgrave soldiers at some point, to create separate warbands for each wizard pair, ideally with a unifying colour scheme. Red and green would work nicely as the livery for one retinue of fighters and a predominantly blue scheme would be ideal for the other band.