Greetings Terrans, how goes it? Just a quick post this week, and as you might’ve figured out from the title, it’s about more long-neglected & underdoggy minis. Again, this bunch are from the Conan KS from Monolith back in 2015ish, but this time, we’re looking at the less ‘alive’ & more bony corner of the mook stereotype… it’s skellybobs!

Now, as a few of you will know, I’ve painted many many skellies over the years. The quality of skellie model varies by quite a lot, but the Conan skellies are a whole new level of shite… the plastic is poor, the moulds are horrible, the detail is soft and the poses are janky… They are nowhere near as good as the skellies that came in Monolith’s ‘Mythic Battles: Pantheon’ KS for example, though MB:P was a couple of years after Conan, so maybe they fixed up the production issues.

Regardless, these are poor minis… but to be fair, even if you just count minis and ignore the broader game, the whole KS worked out at less than a dollar per model, so I’m really not worried at all. They look better for being painted, and that is the main thing.

So, we have 15 of this pose:

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And 5 each of the following:

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They all received identical paint job at about the level of care and attention that they deserved – the whole job took about 5 hours, so very fast and loose using contrast paints, metallics, shades and corrosions. I reckon they look ok en masse!

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So there we go, another batch of cheap, low-quality general purpose mooks to die (again?) ingloriously for my twisted entertainment… More to follow on the same theme!!

Greetings Terrans, I hope this finds you well. I have a bit of a ‘nowt special’ post for you today – as in the painted minis included are nothing spectacular… However, they are useful…

Most of the games that I like to play these days require a good Bestiary, and one staple of most bestiaries is the classic ‘Savage/Primitive’ type… Orcs, Goblins, Gnolls, Tribals, Troglodytes, Savages, Primatives, the Welsh… It’s a long old list, but basically we’re talking about all your bog-standard cannon fodder underdog… the living, breathing equivalent of skellies & zombies…. ‘not-undead mooks’ if you like… Most games need ‘em, but unless you are actually making a characterful force of these general purpose bad guys, they are usually waaaay down low down the painting queue.

Now, a couple of months back my eldest Son, (now a fully signed-up member of the Guild of Obnoxious Teenagers), briefly exited cyberspace & asked me to show him some painting techniques. I grabbed something quick, cheap and simple – a Pict from the Conan boardgame (by Monolith). We went for a crimson skin tone just for some visual interest – a bit Uruk-hai perhaps, or maybe it’s body paint, or perhaps they he’s a bit demonic? The main thing is that he stands out from the norm in much the same way as the green skin of Orcs make them clearly ‘other’. I think the axe handle is supposed to be bone & the axe heads stone, but I went for wood and bronze respectively:

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It was a quick & easy paint – the figure is somewhere between a mini and a boardgame piece & so the quality is very basic, but it’s not too bad for the pennies it cost me. Since then the poor wee fella has been lurking around the painting desk, looking lonely & sad… (well, actually, he looked like he wanted some pals to out fighting with, but you know what I mean). I had some time weekend before last, so I fished out all the Picts from the Conan box & got them undercoated & textured up the bases. In total there are 25 identical models like the one above, plus 5 identical models with bows and 5 more with big hammers. I took some time out last weekend & just powered through the lot of ‘em… here are examples of the latter two types:

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While I was rummaging around in the Conan box I also found this weird looking creature – a forest demon apparently, but I thought the skull adornment & general vibe was a nice fit with the Picts… I don’t know why, but to me it makes sense that they would hang out with a creature like this:

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So here is the entire group together – all painted to a similarly basic level, mostly with Contrast paints, but with some additional highlights on the flesh & bone. The overall effect is quite nice I think – the whole is definitely greater than the sum of its parts:

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It’s a tragic group really – doomed to die a hundred different ways as the speedbump mook-tier baddies in a dozen different game systems over the next x decades… and I kinda like them more because of it 😊