Wednesday 15 December 2010

Greeks, Butterflies and Vampires!

So I got started on a few models today.

The Greeks:









These are from Spartan Games' "Heroes of Myths and Legends" range, which has been 'temporarily discontinued' as far as I'm aware. The only reason I've got them is because I happened to notice them at games night last Thursday, the owner had reduced them to half-price and just couldn't shift them (hence why he had them, even though they're no longer in production). Lacking any Dystopian Wars models to buy (my cousin bought the last rulebook, the git) I picked these up for something different to paint.

The top model is the one I'm planning on painting up for the Advent Challenge on Thursday. They're nice models; the pictures don't show it, but they've got a lot of good details. 40mm is a scale I've not toyed with before, so the Advent challenge will be an experiment in more ways than one.

Syl-Iriah:




Great model - as soon as I saw it, I knew I wanted it (plus I had a 25% discount on my next Raging Heroes purchase - i.e. this one - due to delays with the release of the Asharah and Eleriel & Alaniel models). Lovely detail, the model fits together beautifully and it's both lithe and delicate whilst imposing and powerful at the same time. The wingspan is pretty impressive as well - this is "only" the Heroic version, and it still stands at 50mm high and about the same wide. It will look great as a Spellweaver in my Asrai army, if I can do a decent job with the painting.

Asharah:








This model, compared to Syl-Iriah, is an absolute pain. It's fiddly, relatively poorly cast and a pain in the ass to put together; literally every part requires pinning because otherwise it would simply fall apart. Not that I wouldn't have pinned it anyway, but compared to this Syl-Iriah was an absolute breeze despite (at first glance) being the more 'complex' model. The poor casting is disappointing; it's still a very impressive looking model but, compared to the master renders that Raging Heroes show on their website, the model has lost so much detail and sharpness. It's most noticeable on the head; the facial features are ill-defined and almost "blurred". Not to mention that the mould lines are some of the worst I've had on a metal model...

I'm fairly sure the 'problems' with Asharah are due to the fact that this was the very first model Raging Heroes cast; it's clear from the differences between the Asharah model and Syl-Iriah that Raging Heroes have come on in leaps and bounds both in the way they design and cast their models. Clearly they have learnt some lessons from Asharah.

One thing that plays in Asharah's favour (and Syl-Iriah's, incidentally) is that she comes with a lot of options; there are three head variants (Vampire, Elf and Chaos-y helmet) and I think six different arms (two swords, whip, spellbook, shield, staff). I've assembled Asharah as a Vampiress complete with sword and shield (which are being kept seperate for painting).


Anyway, that's all for now. One of the Greeks (most likely) will get painted fully on Thursday, if everything goes to plan. As for the others, I'll hopefully get some time to work on them over the course of the next week, although work will unfortunately limit most of my time up until Christmas Eve, and then Christmas will of course be all I can think about!

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