From the Wizards box set, I envisioned this guy as a court wizard, rather than an adventuring wizard. His staff has a skull on the top end, and I couldn’t resist adding a cobra, a-la Jafar, coming out of the eye socket. The robes fade from purple to orange, top to bottom.
This is the Cleric from the Grenadier Wizards Box Set 2001. (The box insert showing what each mini is in the set was changed several times throughout the time this box set was sold new. Each update of the insert altered the names of some of the minis. The mini called “illusionist” in one insert might be called “necromancer” in another. So what they are called shouldn’t be taken seriously, as it wasn’t by Grenadier at the time. Would be nice to know what the sculptors thought they were making when they sculpted the originals!)
Clerics, in D&D, don’t usually get familiars, the way wizards do. So this guy must be special. The snake is clearly a cobra, given its flared out neck.
I painted him in the manner of a Catholic Cardinal. His beanie and robes fit that theme to a T, I think. I think a priest with at pet cobra is a bit on-the-nose in the priest-as-predator way.
This was one of my favorites as a teenager. I did not like the snake motif way back then, so I cut the snake off his helm and painted him all black with some silver trim. This time around, I recreated the snake with a paperclip and Testor’s Contour Putty to re-sculpt it. I used hot glue to make flames on the sword. The shield is stuck to his fist by a round knob on his hand and circular hole in the shield. I incorporated that hole by painting an eye motif on the shield.
