Grenadier Action Art: Thief Assassin, Bug Bear, and Super Orc Fighter

Here are three more from the Grenadier Action Art – Monsters set.  For being a “monsters” set, I’d be disappointed in the quantity of non-monsters included.

The first is the “Thief Assassin.”  The sculpting of her face makes her look old.  In my mind that clashes with the clothes she’s wearing, which don’t strike me as the clothes of an old woman.  Maybe I’m being sexist.  Anyway, I painted her as though she were young, and hopefully on the tabletop no one will notice her hollowed out cheeks.

Next is the “Bug Bear.”  It should be “bugbear,” but the editor of the “how to paint” booklet must not have known that.  The suggested colors for this guy said to make the shield brown with blue design.  The design is a cow or bull head.  So I think this guy is a member of the Blue Cow clan, mortal enemy of the Red Bull clan.

The title of “Super Orc Fighter” can be interpreted so many ways.  Does he have super powers?  Is he great at fighting orcs?  Is he super because he found a suit of antique armor and now he’s acknowledged by his tribe as the coolest member even though he hasn’t figured out how to properly hold an ax?  Why is he still choosing to swing an ax instead of the sweet sword he found with the armor?  Does he have any idea how to activate the awesome powers of that shield?  So many open questions…

Half-Orc Female Barbarian

This is a Half-Orc Female Barbarian from Wiz Kids Deep Cuts range for Pathfinder.  This line of plastic minis comes pre-coated with Vallejo primer.  This is a nice touch, but it causes two issues for me. First, when something is bent and needs straightened, such as the pole she is holding, I dare not soak it in hot water to reshape it. Second, if you scrape off mold lines then you also scrape off the primer. The more I paint, the more mold lines bother me, so I had to reprime  several parts of the mini. The same applies if you modify the sculpt, like I did when I chopped off the original axe head from the pole.

An old friend messaged me and asked if I could paint up this mini for his sister for Christmas. His family has a game going in which she plays one of these. I said sure. I asked if she had any color scheme in mind. No. What is her favorite color? She has no favorite but she kinda likes indigo.  Oh and she uses a flail, not an axe. That’s all I had to go on.

The detail on her legs gave me some trouble.  It wasn’t clear to me what was supposed to be on her legs.  I finally decided that they were thigh armor plates with an array of throwing knives dangling from her belt.

The weapon was originally an axe.  I chopped the blade off and used some paperclip and contour putty to fashion three ball-and-chain type attachments which I superglued to the top of the pole.  Normally, I try to embed attachments like these into the existing material so that they are completely secure. In this case the pole was just too skinny.

Also, I don’t usually do blacklining, but I thought the pants and all their leather straps could use some extra definition. You see it best in the rear view photo below.

I finished it off with earth texture (Vallejo) on the base with some rocks,  field grass, bushes (Woodland Scenics) , and lowland shrubs (Army Painter).

 

Orcs by Tre Manor

These are Reaper minis sculpted by Tre Manor.  One orc is never enough.  Four orcs is never enough.  But I’ll never have the patience to paint 20 or 30, so this will be all I paint for the foreseeable future.  I like Tre Manor’s stuff a lot.  He has his own mini company now, Red Box Games, and all the stuff there is really nice.

77056: Orc Sniper, 77059: Orc Berserker, 77051: Orc Stalker, 77045: Orc Hunter