Saturday 18 November 2017

Citadel C20 Troll Discipline Master with Whip, and Troll Attacking with Tree Trunk

And staying with Citadel... next out the Lead Mountain were these fine fellows. Now, my understanding is that these were sculpted by Tom Meier, and had a degree of notoriety due to their frank depiction of Troll genitalia. They don't leave much to the imagination, especially with the mild bondage elements of the Discipline Master! The series didn't sell well and was replaced fairly quickly by a second C20 series of trolls sculpted by Jes Goodwin, which were more in the traditional "cartoon" Citadel style... and also clothed! As a consequence the original Meier C20 trolls are comparatively rare to find (not surprisingly, one might say). They are actually lovely figures to paint - well detailed (a bit too much so maybe...!) and with little or no flash (fnar fnar). Base colours, ink wash, and dry brushing - job done. I think the Troll attacking with a Tree trunk is the better figure, and is more likely to see table top time as a generic "WTF is THAT" encounter - I think it still holds up really well against more recent figures, such as the latest addition to my Shadowforge Dark Temple/Amazon army - but the Discipline Master is probably a bit too specialised for use. It looks like an outtake from "300" to be honest. Potentially it could be used as a boss encounter, but in all likelihood it will be moved on to a certain auction site...

Sunday 5 November 2017

Citadel C34 Fire Elemental (rescued)

Due to a number of factors, it's been a while since I last posted - but I have been painting in that time, so I have a backlog of minis to share with you, starting with this one. Before they mutated into Games Workshop, Citadel did some cracking figures in the mid-80's, including this one. I acquired it as part of a job lot, and it had been broken to it 3 (count 'em!) pieces. So - out with the superglue and filler. Fortunately the later Citadel figures had really good solid bases, so this figure was unlikely to fall over and break like so many Asgard figures. After that - the paint job. Basically the idea was that source of the fire elemental would be the base, hence the lighter (hotter) colours being there, and moving up to darker colours until we ended up with a thick black cloud of smoke from its hands. This was more difficult than I imagined, and I think perhaps transition between colours was as successful as I hoped for. I also kept the initial gloss varnish on the figure as it makes it look more fluid on the table top, but it doesn't make it as attractive in photos. I may revisit this figure and apply matt varnish. I still think it's an imposing figure, especially next to the latest recruit for my Amazon army, and I can see it getting plenty of tabletop time. Not bad for a piece that was original destined for the bin!