Grenadier - Undead Minotaur

Undead Minotaur
Company: Grenadier
Part #: Fantasy Lords 529
Scultpor: ??
Released: 1980's

Continuing with our theme of monsters for my Ancient Greek brigade here is an example of a Grenadier Fantasy Lords Undead Minotaur.

I picked this up on ebay fairly recently.  I actually had no idea this piece existed.  I'm not sure how I missed it.  It's possibly in some of my old Grenadier catalogs, but you would think I would have remembered this one.  In any case, it's always nice to be surprised with a new find.  As you can see, it's an ogre sized piece, similar to the Minotaur Lord previously highlighted in yesterday's post.

It's not a great sculpt and suffers from the monoplane problem so common to larger Grenadier figures from that time.  Essentially, the sculptor crafted him in a pose that is aligned along only one plane.  That makes him easier to cast, but much less dynamic.  On the other hand, he is purely skeletal.  More points in my book.

I took on this one as another brown wash project.  I applied Aged Bone to all the skeletal areas and washed it with my standard Shield Brown wash.  It hasn't turned out as well as it has on other figures, mostly because the detail is lacking the sculpt.  I do like how the marble column turned out, painted with Pure White, washed with a black ink.  It gives it the proper Hellenistic ruins look.

So, there we have my two minotaurs for the Ancient Greek brigade.  Up next... more monsters!

Citadel - Minotaur Lord

Minotaur Lord

Company: Citadel

Part #: 074640/4, 074640/5, 074640/6B

Sculptor: ??

Released: 1980’s

This is an old, OOP Citadel Minotaur Lord from GW.  Some of the old Minotaur Lords, including this one, came with variable legs, torsos and heads.  In true Chaos fashion one of the heads was skeletal.

For a while I had been looking for some monsters to fill out my Ancient Greek brigade.  Yes, when you play against me, the question is not, “what figures will he field?” but rather “which brigades is he going to field?” 

I have a bunch of generic/medieval fantasy type of brigades, but I also have some that run to various themes; a 1^st A.D. Imperial Roman skeleton brigade (a quincunx of infantry and supporting cavalry/artillery), a medieval samurai skeleton brigade, a New Kingdom Egyptian skeleton brigade (natch), a chaos skeleton brigade (chaos warriors, beastmen, demons), etc. etc.

One thing I’ve been putting together is an Ancient Greek skeleton brigade.  But instead of sticking to 5^th century B.C. types, I’ve also wanted to flesh it out fantasy-wise using figures from Greek mythology (cyclopi, Cerberus, centaurs, etc.) 

What other Greek fantasy monsters do I need?  Why, minotaurs of course!

The problem is, there are not that many good examples of skeletal or otherwise undead minotaurs.  I have one AD&D skeleton minotaur from Wizards of the Coast that is pretty lame.  Another pre-painted AD&D plastic which is even worse.  And a smallish Chainmail zombie minotaur not much better.  I have a Ral Partha one that has an, of all things, Egyptian theme.  But really big, ogre size minotaurs, not so much.  And I figure a minotaur, even if not a giant, has to be at least ogre size.

I found this on ebay.  It’s a pretty big size mounted on a 40mm base.  Even though I had collected all the Citadel skeletons from this era, I had skipped this piece because, well, the skeleton part is kind of an afterthought.  It’s more a creature of chaos.  But, given I’m looking for such a minotaur to field with the Ancient Greeks, he’ll do.  He can definitely pass as an undead in any case.

He came already painted, rather badly at that.  The flesh was painted a horrendous orange and the bone was splashed on.  I immediately rebased all the relevant parts with black primer.  I decided to leave the clothing the way it was, but may in the future come back to it.

After I primed the flesh and bone black, I dry brushed the flesh bits with Ghoul Skin to give him that rotting zombie look.  This sculpt is not one of Citadel’s best, but there is some neat detail in the flesh around the eyes that the dry brushing picked up.  I then painted the bone directly onto the skull.  It’s naked with no wash.  I like how it looks, but I might revisit it later on.

Unfortunately the axe that he originally wielded is missing so I'll have to replace that later.  But for now, he is ready to roll with my skeleton hoplite phalanx.