Gladiators and Gripping Beasts

A nice little parcel arrived yesterday containing three miniatures from the awesomely titled Gripping Beast Jugula range. A Scissor, a Retiarius, and a Hoplomachus.

I’ve always been quite fascinated by gladiators but so far the only miniatures I’ve had have been the ones from the Spartacus board game by Gale Force Nine. Those were somewhere between 28 and 32mm and were very much truescale, having pretty much correctly proportioned bodies/heads/weapons.

These new miniatures are much less realistically proportioned, in the ‘heroic’ style. In fact they’re quite chunky but I rather like that aesthetic. In terms of scale they look to be more like 35mm.

I assembled the Scissor and gave him a quick black wash to better show the details. There was little cleanup needed and the model slotted together well, but I wish they didn’t have the integrated bases (in sort of green army man style). I’ve actually removed the metal integral base from this one but it was a lot of work snipping and filing.

Here he is on the left, with the smaller miniature from the Spartacus game as a comparison. He’s such a chunky boy!

A view from the rear. Overally the mini has a lot of charm and I’m very happy with it. I appreciate that the hands and head came separately and were quite posable.

Rising Sun boardgame – Komainu painted

Hello all

A long while ago my duck brother and I backed the Cool Mini or Not Rising Sun Kickstarter and a not so long time ago all the lovely minis etc arrived. Until now I’d been holding off on painting anything, but my bro inspired me to get cracking so I picked the Komainu, which is pretty much the same as the Chinese Shishi, a sight I was rather fond of when I lived in Shijiazhuang.

Here he is, pictures taken in my newly bought lightbox:

In game he’s a fairly cheap Monster, but can act as a priest to help gain favour from the Kami, so he’s versatile and useful throughout the game.

This week’s loot

Hey all

Just wanted to show off some bits that arrived in the post today.

One order from Russian site Klukva Miniatures, which has really impressed me. I went with the Demon Warrior, Bloody Vampire, and Soul Vampire all in 35mm scale. You may recognise them from their respective games Kingdom Under Fire, Legacy of Kain, and Soul Reaver.

They came packed in a lovely little lasercut box and nicely padded with cotton wool. The detail on the miniatures is superb and they’ve gone through some seriously good QA too – virtually no mold lines or defects of any kind, which is rare for resin miniatures, especially of this level of detail.

Pics and more after the jump.