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.

Competing Painting Philosophies

There are basically two different ways you can paint skeletons.  One is what I term the “black base” method and the other the “brown wash” or “brown dip” method.

Back when my friends and I started war-gaming, way back when Communists walked the earth, it was difficult to get information on how to paint, and we learned by a lot of trial and error.  You must remember, not only was the Soviet Union still in existence and Milli Vanilli were respected Grammy-winning artists, there was also no internet.  (Ok, there was internet, but no World Wide Web, and if you wanted to get a picture from USENET you had to download 5 files – which took 4 to 6 months.) 

So for a very long time, I really had no concept about inks or washes, much less how to use them.  I hit upon the “black base” method very early on.  Basically, you paint a basecoat of black onto the skeleton.  (Soon I graduated to black spray primer.)  After the base coat dries, you paint the ivory/bone color directly onto the bone sections of the figure.  If you wanted to save time, or certain parts were teeny-tiny, you could dry brush the ivory/bone onto the figure.  (Oh happy day when I found out about “dry brushing”).

The second method, which I started trying after I learned about washes, was the “brown wash” method.  Essentially, you do the reverse.  You undercoat the skeleton with an ivory/bone color, then apply a thin brown wash.  If the wash is the perfect consistency (not too thick to make the bones brown, but not too thin so enough brown remains in the cracks) you have a nice, natural looking decaying skeleton.

Although I learned how to use both, I have kept with the black base method for the most part through my painting career.  The reason is this; the direct bone to black contrast makes for a more “cartoony” looking figure.  It’s like the effect of a Halloween costume where you have a black shirt with white bones printed on it.  The brown wash gives a much more natural appearance that looks better overall, but here’s the catch; it only looks better up close.  Yes, skeletons painted with the brown wash look more real when you hold them up to your eyes.  But most of the time, when your figures are on the table top, they are not close.  They are 6 or 7 feet away.  It’s here that the black base method shines.  The high contrast that makes the model look cartoony up close allows for a better look (to my eyes) when they are on the table-top.  The naturalistic look of the brown wash method gets lost and just doesn’t look as good.

It’s a taste thing.  In any case, as I will show, I’ve recently been experimenting again with the brown wash method – both for reasons of speed (it’s faster) and maybe because I’m not actively playing anymore.  It’s fun to try everything!