“Boots, bones and furry undies”

Painting He-man and Skeletor was the last job to be done on my “dynamic duo”, now I knew I was going to be particularly short of time this week (I know, I seem to be saying this every week at the moment!) because it was my silver wedding anniversary on Thursday and so myself and my lovely wife had some rather pleasant quality time away in Bath (three days to be exact) staying in a converted fortress, with the promise that I wouldn’t spend any time thinking about wargaming and blogs! (My suggestion that I take these two and some paint to finish then didn’t go down to well!). Anyway this meant that I needed to get a good old “chunk” of them done by Tuesday evening to have any hope of getting them done by the weekend, so read on to see how I got on with this…

Taking He-man first, after his spray coat of matt black I began by dry-brushing all the metallic bits of his harness, belt and sword blade with chainmail and then once dry applied the under coat of chocolate brown to his pants, boots and the rear of his harness (I left a ring of chain-mail at the mouth of his scabbard). Next the undercoat for his flesh was added in a mix of flesh tone seven and European flesh and after his eyes and teeth were sorted this was then highlighted with just European flesh. Next I highlighted the “furry” bits of his boots and pants with butternut and then the actual boots, scabbard and belt back I highlighted with leather brown. His famous “golden locks” were next citrus orange forming the base for these and highlighted with lemon yellow. Then taking some bronze paint I undercoated the hilt of his sword wristbands and the details of his belt, these were then highlighted with copper. This just left me to add the cross on his chest and the “gem” on his belt in bright red and he was effectively finished.

And so we come to Skeletor, once again he was worked up from a matt black undercoat and began with a dry-brushing of chainmail over his sword blade, then mixing some blue grey and light blue together I undercoated all the exposed flesh areas of his body, then I highlighted his belts, boots shoulder pads and belt “tassels” with dark grey straight over the black undercoat. Now Jez over at “Carrion Crows Buffet” had painted the skull on his “Skeletor” in the classic yellow of the TV series, and this looked so good that I decided to take the plunge and go for that look myself (I had been thinking of wimping out and going in classic wargames skull colours), so I mixed a bit of lemon yellow and citrus orange together to get the right shade and then once dry highlighted this with more lemon yellow mixed with a little coffee and cream (OK, I wimped out a bit here). Now I was going to highlight his cape and pants with royal blue but after another look at the pictures on the “net” of the television version I decided to mix some plum in with the royal blue and came up with a dark purple colour that I think works really well. Next I painted in the bones on his chest along with the goat’s skull atop his staff, these were undercoated with bleached bone (old GW colour) and then highlighted with a little cream, the horns on the goat were painted chocolate brown and lines of butternut were then added on the ridges. Then going back to his flesh I highlighted it over his muscles with light blue, before finally painting in the gold details with an undercoat of bronze highlighted with shinning gold.

Both of the above were then treated to my usual coat of Quickshade “strong tone” and then after being bases in my now familiar fashion were given a final coat of matt varnish. Well that is the first two figures down, it’s been a bit of fun turning out these two familiar faces (though He-man face is a bit of a bone of contention to be honest), I’m pretty pleased with how the have come out, though I have to say Skeletor is by far my favorite of the two! I hope to get a start on my next couple of “Eternia” denizen before the end of the month, and am working on the principle that “I’ve started so I’ll finish” as I’ll no doubt end up going wayyyyy’ past the end of the month deadline before they are finished.

If you want to see someone else’s take on He man and “chums” check out Jez’s progress over at his blog…. https://carrioncrowsbuffet.wordpress.com/ , he has lots more figures completed than I do! And finally this week’s morale, is….

“In today’s story Roger learnt that some time away from wargaming and figures with your loved one is a great way to recharge your batteries, and that eventually your hands do stop shaking!”.    

Cheers Roger.