Greetings Terrans, I’ve been on a bit of a go-slow since my last post, but I did manage to paint up a couple of the character figures from the Monolith Conan set. First up we have this guy:

Apparently he is ‘Ageera the Witch-finder’ & was a really enjoyable paint. I used the opportunity to experiment a bit with the skin tone, working from Contrast Snakebite Leather, through to ‘Tau Light Ochre’ on the highlights. The remainder was pretty straight forward, but it all came together nicely I think.

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Secondly, I finished this lass:

Unfortunately I can’t find any reference to who she is – I’m almost certain she is from the Conan set, but I’m damned if I can find her! (If anyone knows, please educate me in the comments below).

**Edit – I found her – she’s called ‘Gitara’**

I approached the skin in the same way as for Ageera, but I went an extra level in the highlighting & included some Cadian Fleshtone on the extremes. She has a bit of duck-face going on, but she was fun to paint, with the blending on the skin being the biggest part of the job. Obviously she’s pretty scantily clad – a bit tone deaf these days but she represents a literary depiction from a much earlier time. I’m not getting caught up in all that, and am just enjoying the painting for what it is… fair warning, there will be a few more models like this in the coming weeks.

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And that’s it for this post – short but sweet! More characters to follow.

Greetings Terrans, I hope this finds you well. Happily, this will be my last post dealing with the unit-sized minis from the Monolith Conan game, and after those awful pirates last week, we’re definitely finishing on a high note! As an added bonus, this final lot are just 6 models in total – a welcome change to the 20+ strength units!

Ok, so first up, we have 5 of these guys:

They were nice minis to paint – a nice bit of detail & texture going on so Contrasts were effective. I don’t know what these guys are specifically, only that they are listed as ‘allies’.

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This next guy is ‘N’Gora’ – he’s a named right-hand man for another character, (Bêlit – to be revealed at a later date):

Again, he was nice to paint up, and very similar to his pals in design and execution. I suppose if I’m being hyper-critical, it’s annoying that N’Gora is facing right when all his droogs are facing left, but that is a minor peeve. Here they all are together:

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Finally, I had my gaming table set up over the weekend so I took advantage of the situation to set out all of my Conan mooks completed to date – what they lack in quality, they certainly make up for in quantity!

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I’m going to ease back on the hobby over the next couple of weeks – work is crazy, and I need to recharge the old painting batteries a bit. Thankfully, it’s all Conan characters from here on, so I can just dip in and out as and when. Disclaimer: Some of the characters are very much ‘of their time’ – anyone who has read Howard, (or his entry on Wikipedia), knows that some of his views would be problematic today. In terms of minis, this is most clearly expressed in how some of the female characters are dressed – or not dressed, as the case may be.  Still, it is what it is, and I’ll paint them just the same.

Catch you all soon – stay safe.

Greetings Terrans, and I apologise in advance for another mob of Conan minis – this time its Pirates… Sounds good right? Well strap in folks, these aren’t the finest minis the folks at Monolith have ever produced.

As usual for the Conan warband-sized minis, the group is built around a core of 15 identical models, with a number of groups of 5 added to the mob, plus a leader. Thankfully, there was only one ‘bonus’ unit of 5 for the Pirates. Anyway, here’s an example of the core 15:

Hmmm… yeah…

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If you thought that was bad, I also had 5 of these monstrosities:

Wow… ok.

Yup, that’s it folks. They are really poor mini if you ask me – little detail, even less texture, fucking miserable to paint… As with all the models so far, I used Contrasts, but the lack of texture and/or detail really show the limitations of this painting medium I think. Really, these should’ve been painted with layers to get the best out of them, but I just couldn’t be arsed to put that much effort into such poor models.

For all that, the most annoying thing about them is actually the terrible posing of the models. Packing them away in a normal mini case was fucking irritating, but having identical ‘dynamically posed’ minis is the real annoyance here… The guards from last week could get away with the duplication because ‘on guard’, the Undead could get away with it because ‘mindless automatons’, and the Picts jut about managed to carry it off because they were more broody & hulking rather than swashbuckling… These Pirates just fail in all respects.

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The only redemption for the pirate faction is that the leader mini isn’t too bad:

Not too shabby, perfect for Contrast paints, and I even tried to do his eyes to elevate him a bit, but to be honest, all my enthusiasm had buggered off by this point and I think it shows.

So here we are – a final group shot of these & then hopefully we can agree to collectively forget this ever happened:

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And that’s it for another week! I have one more mini-unit of underdogs to show you next time, and then we’re on to characters. Onward and upwards!