The Zoidyssey - Adventures with Warriors of Athena

The game needs three cyclopses for the first quest.  I prefer the style of the Harryhausen cyclops from the Sinbad movie and found some from Alternative Armies and Reaper.  They will have to wait though.  Today I have painted a “chonky” miniature for the March PaintComp on the forums here.  I was aware that X-Plus does an occasional run of 1/35th scale Harryhausen plastic kits.  Last week an ad appeared on my Insta telling me that there is a new run available and they were cheap, less than £50 including postage.  I ordered it immediately and this is what I got:

As you can see assembly was pretty straightforward.  The only thing to watch is the legs fitting onto the groin piece – I found it was better to do the back half of the leg first then slide the front of the leg on afterwards.

It comes with a plastic scenic base.  I won’t use that and when we take it away the model is 240mm tall foot to top of horn.  That definitely qualifies as “chonky” as far as I’m concerned as it’s the biggest miniature I’ve made for a wargame.  I was a bit concerned he might be too big but I looked up the giants that GW sell and they are 180mm tall.  They also cost £135.  You can buy three of these kits for the same money.

I painted it using a fairly loose technique of wet blended speedpaints over a zenithed undercoat.  The primer was applied which helped highlight any mould lines or gaps from the build.  These were addressed with green stuff and then the model re-primed.

Technique

I work from the darkest part of the miniature to the lightest.  On this model that means starting with his hooves and then working up his legs before blending into his skintone at his midriff and probably using a couple of skintones, one for the darker areas and one for the lighter.

The mixes were made up in advance in plastic blisters as follows:

• Darkest tone – For the hooves and then the very bottom of the legs and up the inside of the lower legs.  I started with neat Noble Skin on the hooves and then added Dark Wood for the deepest fur tone.
• Lower fur tone – for the front of the lower legs and inside of the upper legs and in the creases in the groin.  A drop of Dark Wood and then 60/40 Sachel Brown and Burnished Red.
• Midtone fur – Front of upper legs except the areas hit by the highest zenith.  About 2/3 Ruddy Fur with the other 1/3 made from the previous mix.
• Highlight areas and along the transition to the upper torso – Straight Ruddy Fur with a drop or two of medium in.

Skintone

• Darker tone – undersides of arms and in shaded areas of zenith.  A 50/50 mix of Goddess Glow and Howling Sand.  The transition between fur and skin was wet blended with this as well.
• Lighter tone – 75:25 Howling Sand to Goddess Glow which goes over everything else.  Some small patches of the darker tone were dabbed onto some of the lighter areas, where the tone looked a bit plain or samey and blended as looked best.

The wet blend is great for use with Speedpaint because of its longer drying time compared to regular acrylics.  The key is not to work too much between the different colours or you will lose the distinction and worse might deepen the tone enough to cover up the zenith underneath.  Coats of paint need to be thin enough to allow the zenith to continue to show through.

Finally the club was Dark Wood underneath and Bony Matter on top and then again blended along the transition.

As I was going along I was comparing with a still from the film.  The skintone on mine is lighter and gives a more lizardlike look which I was happy with so decided to keep.  If I’d wanted it to look screen exact I would have added some Pastel Salmon to the light tone mix.

Details were enhanced with some Strong Tone wash into the creases of the neck, face and eye.  Nails painted with Sand Golem and then Bonewhite acrylic over that and I sketched the eyeball in with some white.  The horn was neat Bony Matter with Bonewhite highlights.  As you can see I had a go to see if it could be photographed against my background book.  It can, just, if I tweak my shot angle up a bit 😀

The next day I came back to it having given the Speedpaint plenty of time to dry.  It can rub off if you aren’t careful with a plastic model and work on it too soon.  You always see some spots that got missed.  I’m not sure why this happens but I see it regularly on large areas that have been speedpainted.  Retouched with the appropriate blend.

Spent some time detailing the face.  Murder Scene Speedpaint inside the mouth and very heavily thinned with water for the lips.  The eyeball was repainted white, keeping an outer edge with the darker wash.  Then a circle of dark brown acrylic for the iris and inside that the pupil was painted black.  When this dried a couple of tiny white reflection dots went at the top.  Teeth were blended highlights from the base colour up to an ivory white.

Quick check against the screen close-up.  Happy, so done 🙂

I based the model on a 120mm fronted mdf base.  It will also be used as a monstrosity in Midgard. Soil of Sparta Krautcover enhanced with some cork rocks and tufts.

Finally posed with the current completed adventuring party.  It feels like I might need to roll-up some new companions shortly 😀

As a final point I counted this model as the equivalent of 8 regular 28mm miniatures for my tally of painted things.  I am definitely not in the Gimli school of “that still only counts as one” when keeping the count of my annual output.  That reasoning is also why one 6mm/10mm/15mm man does not count as ‘one’ for the tally Ben 😀