Masters of the Universe, Fully Painted!

Bonus He-Man with BattleCat!

Oh boy was this more fun than I thought it was gonna be. I bought this starter set on a whim at Colours and it did not disappoint. (As my previous review post can attest.) There is a definite warm glow of nostalgia when it comes to these characters that wasn't even cooled off when recently I watched the old series again when they were added to Netflix. (I would also recommend the recent new animated series also on Netflix, Revelation, very good. Avoid the other one where Adam is a kid, not so good.) Yes the animation is ropey, including some sequences repeated multiple times to save money, but that is part of the charm. Even the blatant way the cartoon is there to serve the sale of toys as admitted by the people that made them in the excellent Netflix documentary The Toys That Made Us. There is something primal about a Hero that solves all issues by the application of a well placed punch towards the camera. (It's amazing how little he actually did with his sword.)

Everyones favourite moral learning Wizard, Orko

 

I have always thought that I have enjoyed painting fantasy/sci-fi more than historical as I had a choice of pallettes, but when I made the decision to paint these models strictly to their original colour schemes, I still really enjoyed it. I chose to go for a different style of shading/highlighting than normal, going for more distinct crisp lines and obvious highlights. This was really fun and I feel work well given the subject matter.

 

 

Ram-Man

The bases need a clear indicator of their front facing for the rules and so have a notch mark that I have painted white to make it really easy to spot.

He-Man and Skeletor facing off

 

Some colours I had to pallette mix to get a reasonable match to the original toys, although interestingly as they are toys, they would have re-used colours, so there are duplications.

 

Cyclops

 

 On the subject of repetition, I never noticed before but He-Man, Man-At-Arms and Cyclops all have the same waist and legs. Why waste a well sculpted waist?

 

 

Lockjaw

 

The sculpts from Archon Studios (that are different however) have just the right amount of detail to make the models not too difficult to paint, but also still look great. I sadly don't have a collection of the original toys to make a comparison myself (I did have an idea at one point of making a participation game for a wargame show of a skirmish involving the original models stuck to bases fighting over an original Castle Greyskull until I worked out how much it would set me back to Ebay them all) but I would hazard a guess that the level of detail has been raised a bit higher than the source material without straying too far.

 

Mer-man

 

It took me some time to get the Evil Lyn yellow right, especially important as basically she is just blue and yellow.

 

 

Evil Lyn

 

The models seem to have a mix of basing styles, some have rocks, some metallic, then for some reason just Orko has cobblestones. (I like painting cobblestones though, all those highlights and crack lines.)

 

Stratos

 

 Painting the characters was fun and simple, I am really pleased with how they all turned out.

 

Man-At-Arms

 

I then had to attack the job that was the large amount of terrain pieces that came in the box. I couldn't very well have these models fighting in front of plain grey plastic walls could I? So, after a lot of drybrushing I got all this done.

 

The mountain of terrain

Of course now I just need to get a game played. I'm looking forward immensely to it, the system looks good and as it has a hex board to play on I can definitely fit the game on the dining table. I'm looking forward to painting some more of the characters from this range when I get them. These include Teela, The Sorceress, Beastman and Scareglow. (I might need to investigate some glow in the dark paint.) If the range does expand into the She-Ra characters I think a winged unicorn or a sentient broom is definitely worth a go.

More Stargrave Plastics

The Stargrave Plastics continue. It seems like an endless pile of plastic for me to play about with various combinations. I decided to try and make some of them have matching uniforms so I could use them in a slightly larger skirmish like the forthcoming Xenos Rampant rules (can't wait till they arrive next year.) So I have gone for what looks like a budget knock off Empire Storm Trooper look. The wash on the white of their armour has a gloss look to it that makes then look nice and plasticky. They have a real 90's Rogue Trader look to them too, especially the two in cool shades. (Remember when all 28mm sci-fi and modern models wore shades?)

I had fun with this guy making a jetpack from my bits box. Shame in the photo he looks cross eyed!

It's been fun trying out some new random colours. There is a danger normally when I paint to stick to various shades of brown, especially in historical or fantasy models. I've been loving throwing some brighter colours on models, it's not all grimdark in my sci fi.

The chap on the left has a maul from my bits box (I think it is Frostgrave), the chap in the middle has stolen his gun arms from the Great Escape Games cowboys sprue. If you look at the weapons in a lot of early sci fi movies, a lot of them are basically disarmed real guns with tin foil and plumbing parts glued to them.

The guy on the left reminds me of Taserface from Guardians of the Galaxy, the guy on the right looks like he has stepped off the set of a seventies Doctor Who or Blakes Seven.

I found myself taking another brave leap in my online hobbying world and signed myself up to the analogue painting challenge. A group of hobbyists from around the world all sharing their progress in the hobby by a very clever point scoring system and league table created by a generous chap called Curt. It's all friendly competition and more about beating your own target than each other (unless you want it to be). I have set myself a (hopefully) achievable target of 500 points with no aim at all of getting the highest score. I think if I just don't get the lowest score at the end I'll be happy. The chaps from the Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy podcast take part which is where I first heard about the challenge, bemoaning about their progress each year. The challenge starts December 20th but you can have your models built and primed beforehand, so all my Salute purchases are being put together this month in preparation. (Completely against my normal instincts of only preparing a few models at a time before painting them, see previous post.)

Finally, one of my dear wargaming friends is off on an Antipodean adventure this month so I had to say goodbye. Not before he very generously gave me a case full of models he couldn't take with him, so my leadpile has no danger of running out any time soon! He shall be sorely missed (I wouldn't know the Illustrious Opponent if it were not for him) Not least because he has been an encouraging hobby buddy, but also a dear friend. However I'm sure the Internet will keep us in touch. 

Stargrave plastics

I must have been about eleven when I experienced my first multi part plastic kit from GW. I went to a friend's house after school, he was one of those kids that had every hobby indulged by his parents and he never kept at one for more than about five minutes. He had a box of Space Orks, there must of been enough parts to make at least 30 in that box. They had giant mohawks, shoulder missile launchers and the monster of all close combat weapons a power claw that looked pretty mean. That day we had great fun making all the combinations we could from those sprues, I remember my friend asking me to help him make them because he had got bored after about three of them. I have always since had a love of the putting together stage, clipping out parts, choosing which bits go together, swapping out other parts from the spare bitz box. (When I last moved house I condensed my bits box down to one 64 litre tub. Yep, condensed!) Don't get me wrong, I like painting, but the building is always my favourite bit. I think I would probably even offer to build for other people if they didn't want to do it themselves. The only issue is the toxic stench of poly cement, if someone could invent a more friendly product I think Mrs Lead would be happier.

So readers will know I had a giant pile of plastic sprues from the Stargrave Nickstarter just begging to be built. I have had to ration myself and not build the entire lot in one go, I would probably happily build the lot and fill my painting tray with them and then not paint them (bear in mind the same tray still has unpainted on it fully built plastic Zulu's and British.) Instead I would build around ten, then paint them before building more, much less intimidating. Combined with a box of Great Escape Games cowboys and the add on sprues from the kickstarter of cultists and gnolls I had great fun kitbashing.

First attempt was adding Stargrave guns to the Frostgrave cultists, simple paint job, done.

Next up Stargrave bodies with heads from the cowboys sprue on the left and Frostgrave barbarian on the right.

Then some made entirely of Stargrave bits.

These are mostly Stargrave parts, although I felt the medic needed a smaller gun from the cowboy sprue and the chap on the right has the body and legs of a cowboy.

I'm particularly proud of the chap on the left here. His backpack has as many pouches as I could squeeze on it plus a tiny missile launcher from my bits box. The chap on the right has a head from the cowboys sprue (in case you couldn't guess that.)

These two are both using gnoll heads but the one on the right has a gnoll body as well. For the chap on the left because the gnoll head connects from the rear normally I had to fuly construct the back of his head with green stuff. This inspired me to paint him with a green mohawk as well. The backpack on the right has an extra compartment on it made from green stuff and paperclip wire, just to make it not look like all the other backpacks. (Paperclips never survive long around my hobby desk.)

These two are from the cowboy sprue. I wanted to at least make a couple of them up for my Western town, although even the head on the left is an alternative. It is actually from the Warlord games Zulu British sprue that came free with Wargames Illustrated one month. 

Mainly here I wanted to paint something to not have the regular black boots that all models seem to have in my collection. Now I have a good wash from Coat D'arms I never fear painting white anymore.

Finally I had ordered some "Bounty Hunter" heads from Diehard Miniatures. I was under strict instructions from my youngest to paint them in different recognisable colour schemes. I'm thinking I'm gonna have to get myself another set of them to make it up to a squad of ten. Maybe try and use green stuff to give one a fur collar and arm her with a hammer and tongs. Plus I should really make an attempt at a graffiti style design on one set of armour.

My favourite currently is this one, complete with green stuff cloak over one shoulder which I have completely failed to get in the photo, guns and holsters taken from the cowboy sprue.

You can see I haven't fully flocked the base. It dawned on me that all my models lately I have been religiously putting down a textured layer of brown on the base and then covering it in flock and tufts. Noone will see that lovely textured base then, so for this one I decided to keep the flock minimal to see if I liked the style. I think it still works. I'm still refusing to stop giving bases a solid green trim around the edge. Deal with it.

 As a bonus dear reader for getting to the end, here is an image of those damned adorable Space Orks, enjoy the reminiscing. Now I wonder how hard it would be to find an untouched box of them now?