More Dungeon Saga figures (and a Ral Partha classic)

Dwarf fighter from Dungeon Saga

On request from my son I painted up the dwarf fighter from Dungeon Saga as that is the character he is playing.  Nothing too fancy here with the emphasis on quick over quality.  The figure has some ugly sink holes and miscast bits so I didn’t get too concerned with making it a master piece.  Every time I see the figure I just think “Hammer time!”

Next off will be the female elf ranger figure as she is part of the standard adventurer group in the game.  With the male dwarf fighter and the female dwarf fighter (the Reaper Bones figure) that is the main party all painted (my wife is substituting the female dwarf fighter for the human barbarian).  My daughter is using her own figure which makes up the fourth figure.  I’ll probably do the human wizard and the human barbarian from completeness in the quick bake method.  After all there will be many grubby hands grabbing these and the figures are nice, but have the usual downsides of soft plastic mass produced figures with bad mould lines, missing details and sink holes.

Female Elf Ranger from Dungeon Saga

However I’m loving doing these figures quickly rather than the usual spending three weeks to paint a shield like I do on 54mm figures.  I’m also noticing that even doing these quickly how much better they are than all the older figures I painted for RPGs.  Zenithal lighting really makes a difference.  Also my brush control is much better.  I’m able to do the faces way better than before, and without needing a 10/0 brush.

I’ve found most of the figures with Dungeon Saga were bent in some way.  The recommended way to fix this is to put the figure in hot water to make it soft.  I found a better way was to use the heat of a cigarette lighter to make the plastic very soft, reposition and then put the figure under cold water to set.  However you have to be very careful as the heat can burn off some fine details and the plastic gets very soft very fast.

Finally I cracked open a figure I’ve had for 15 odd years.  This is the Ral Partha “Superhero” figure.  Sculpted by Tom Meier it is pretty much a direct take on the Frank Frazetta picture “Death Dealer”.  There have been a few pictures of larger scale Death Dealer figures going around recently so I got all inspired.

Ral Partha Superhero - aka Death Dealer

The figure does show it’s 40 year old vintage (made 1976).  The horse figure is one piece so there were some compromises needed for the mould, like the riders feet not hanging below the belly of the horse.  Also being a very old figure the mould has degraded a bit and some of the details are pretty soft.  That all said still a great figure.  To be honest the horse is really the highlight.  The sculpt totally captures the menace of the original painting.

Ral Partha Superhero - aka Death Dealer

I rebased the horse and rider on a plastic base and built up the ground with some milliput and rocks.  It will probably sit around for awhile while I consider how I’m going to do it.  Not sure if I will paint the foot figure.  The axe is all wrong and the legs aren’t that good.  Plus I’m having too much fun painting Dungeon Saga figures.