The Hero Quest Hero Quest: The Fifth Orc

Hi all,

I'd like to start with a quick word of thanks to the ScaleCreepers for the invite to participate in this "event" and to guest author on this august Blog!  Cheers boys!

I guess there is supposed to be where I wax philosophical about HeroQuest and about how great it is, or was, and how discovering it changed my life and lead me down the path to proper wargamming enlightenment.

...Well I'm sorry to disappoint...but, I'm actually not that fond of HQ and had managed to avoid  playing a game of if until the summer of 2015 when AirborneGrove introduced it to me at the OHNW event in Allentoen PA...this was followed by one other notable game in the fall of 2016 that was GMed by Crooksy from the other side of the world...sadly I think I slept through the second half of that game....I got tired of watching Lopez's character fall into pit trap...after pit trap...after pit trap...zzzzzz

The Hero Quest Hero Quest: The Fourth Orc

He's Mean and GREEN!!

Thoughts on Orcs by BulldogLopez

Orcs are green things that live in holes and eat humans for fun. They like working for bad guys with loads of treasure because humans like treasure and Orcs like to eat humans for fun.

Did I mention that orcs like to eat humans for fun? They do.

Here is a picture of a cleaver.

One time a silly human was wandering around the forest (probably looking for treasure) when he ran into this orc. The human took out some white dice and threw them at the orc. He laughed a silly human laugh when the dice showed three silly shields.

The orc cut off the human's arms and laughed. His joke was better.

The human didn't scream for long because he ran out of blood. Humans are so silly.

This orc was painted with green paint because green is the best color. His tunic is blue because this orc sometimes like the color blue. Did I mention green is the best color? The cleaver is covered in human blood.

Humans are silly.

The HeroQuest Hero Quest: The Wizard

Last to the party, but still with monsters following behind him, comes The Wizard!

Fistion the Fabulous (The name given to him by his parents was Reginald, but seriously who's going to be in awe of 'The Mighty Reginald'!?!) jogged through the dimly lit corridors. A drip of something cold fell from the ceiling and ran down inside his tunic.

Buffdar the Buffoon (something that Reggie promised himself to say out loud one day) had gone into the next room and Fistion could hear the clash of steal. It was probably more orcs; Buffdumn always roared that way when fighting the greeskins.

Fristion heard a grunt from his cerebrally challenged companion and immediately reached into his pockets for his spell cards.  Looks like the big fellow was going to get the healing spell again. Fristion really hoped that the diminutive grumpy one managed to release Mydicyn... er..... Medicanyc...  er..... The Elf from the lat trap. He hated having to use his staff on orcs - it wasn't fair! They had more dice than him!!

I volunteered to paint the wizard almost straight away. I have long planned to paint my heroquest set and what better way to start than as part of a Creep project. I started him only shortly after Cheetor started his dwarf and almost immediately stalled. This has been the most difficult model that I have ever painted! He has no details other than the ripples on his cloak. I have been told to avoid free-handing a 28mm face and I now know why - it destroys your soul!

However, after getting an awesome Secret WIPster present of Mongrol, I set myself the restriction of not being allowed to paint anything else, until the wizard was done.

So, here he is (he's not perfect, but I'm reasonably pleased with how he came out):

I really hope we get the chance to put all these HQ models together for a game one day.

The Heroquest Hero Quest: The Second Goblin

When I got invited to participate in The Heroquest Hero Quest, I was courteously informed that the pickings were fairly slim in what was left to paint. I recalled the HQ goblins being decent miniatures, and had a vague recollection of one residing in one of my shoeboxes of old WHFB miniatures. Some digging followed, and I was on board with this little fellow:

"Decent" status debatable

As you can see from the photo, I had done a wonderfully clean job back in the 90s of removing him from both his integral base and his right foot. I had then cleverly circumvented the problem by simply ignoring it and gluing his stump of a leg to the base - a 20mm square to befit a goblin in WHFB.

The basing provided me with a bit of a problem, and I wondered whether I should try to rebuild the foot out of putty and if I should give the poor goblin a more prestigious base. The 20mm slotted square, after all, combined several poor elements: it had a huge slot in the middle, it was small and cramped and due to its size I hadn't even been able to glue the poor gobbo facing directly forward.

I decided against changing the base, however. I felt a weird sense of obligation to an 17 or so years distant version of me, who had decided that this was the way to go with this particular goblin. Who was I to argue with teenage me, full of enthusiasm for a newly started hobby, after all. So the 20mm square stayed on. This left just the problem of the foot. I decided to follow the same principle, and not rebuild the foot.

I left the stump as it was, but designed the base to suggest that the goblin was wading in mud and the foot was just submerged. I had long wanted to try out Citadel's Stirland Mud texture paint, so this was a good chance for that as well.

Instead of painting the goblin as a greenskin, I went for a mustard yellow/brown skintone. I had tried this earlier on some goblins and liked the result a lot. This combined with my aversion to painting green skin (after years of painting orcs and goblins for WHFB) sealed the deal. This would be a pale and pasty creepy little murderous underground dweller - or in a word, a goblin.

I kept the paintjob simple, with a basic brown robe, grey boots and a worn, rusted axe blade. I painted the axe haft red as a nod to that 90s orc and goblin aesthetic, but kept the red dark and toned down to fit the mini.

I puttied over the slot in the base, slapped a lot of Stirland mud around, slapped a lot of brown wash around and slapped a lot of gloss varnish around. Add in a few tufts, and voilá! Goblin standing in deep, icky mud it is. So rather than working on a teenage mistake, I had just literally ended up burying and glossing it over as an adult. Art imitates life and all that...

Anyway, here's the finished product, hope you like it! It makes me happy to finally see this mini painted. After all those years and that chopped off foot, he deserved it.

The Heroquest Hero Quest: The Gargoyle

The big lad of Heroquest ladies and gentlemen. The guy you call in when you've just had enough of adventurers messing up your gaff and killing your minions. I mean, who wants to interview another batch of orcs for entry level dungeon lurking after the barbarian has butchered your entire staff? This lad is the very fellow for re-establishing dungeon harmony. I give you the gargoyle.

A certain amount of confusion surrounds this plastic fiend. Is it a statue? Is it the smallest bloodthirster ever created? Was Khorne having a laugh after too many craft ales on a Friday night? "Ha ha, make him smaller, but angrier!" Tzeentch giggled, spilling his gin while looking over Khorne's shoulder as he brought the smallest greater daemon ever into existence.

The HeroQuest Hero Quest: The first Orc

Hi everyone! Suber here reporting for duty! I'm coming on board of this sweet, crazy HeroQuest Hero Quest project. So let me take my hat off to all of you and get down to work.

When I was approached for this, I thought 'fuck, I've already painted all my HeroQuest minis!'. No sweat. I'm ready to strip and repaint whatever you throw at my face. Ha!

Yes, I know. The most obvious answer would have been buying more stuff. Under general circumstances I would have done so. But I was so excited I couldn't wait!

I'm in charge of an Orc. The reliable backbone of any self respected Evil Army. The quintessence of dungeoneering. The... well, you get the idea. I chose this mini as starting point:

Huh? What's wrong with me?

The HeroQuest Hero Quest: The Chaos Sorcerer

Best thing about Heroquest is the CHAOS SORCERER. 

First of all, he's a cracking figure to begin with, the details are sublime and just sharp enough to be visible without being too obvious to let the painter some freedom of judgement about what is what.

Best thing about the sorcerer is clearly his evocative Y shaped pose making anyone think about whether he's doing aerobics, preparing a genkidama, giving a hand for airport traffic or simply showing his dad how big a fish he's caught.

Best thing about this guy is that he has big muscles for a sorcerer, that's just how badass he is really. Instead of spending all his time in the library reading, whining about how heavy the books are, this one is doing one-armed pushups and squats while reading unholy tomes.

The HeroQuest Quest : The First Goblin

'Allo Creepers -  Littleleadperson here!

In the latest instalment of the HeroQuest Hero Quest we have the most fearsome creature of all! Behold and despair for he will tear down your towns and eat your daughters - it is the horrific, the earth-shaking.....

Goblin

Let's be honest this little grunt would be lucky if he got to scrape the Barbarian before having his green arse flattened like a pancake.

To paint this little punk I followed some techniques I unearthed from the White Dwarf number 97. 

I've been poring over the 'Eavy Metal and Blanchitsu articles from those early days and the work of Richard Wright struck me with his very clean but subtle work. 

Following his methods as described by John Blanche in this edition of Blanchitsu I undercoated him white and mixed Goblin Green with Citadel Yellow Ink to give him his skin colour.

Then with a very thin brush tip I built up the colour and highlights by mixing in white layer by layer. I added blue ink to the mix to shade down in the crevices. Adding some black Nuln Oil to the mix i then shaded between the goblin flesh and other surfaces.

For his belt, boots and tunic I did much of the same with paint mixed with inks to create the light and shade. For the sword I also followed Wright's M.O. and this time covered it in a diluted layer of blue ink and adding more and more grey to the mix I applied a progressively lighter drybrushes.

I really enjoyed this technique - it brings out the detail early on and so the character of the figure is easily and quickly apparent.

Now on to the entry of everyone's favourite Frenchman JB !

The HeroQuest Hero Quest: The Third Fimir

Unlike the lovely chaps who are running and participating in this HeroQuest painting challenge, I have never actually played HeroQuest. Or any of the quest-y type games. I'll just let that sink in for a moment while you pick yourselves up from the floor...

Nor have I ever painted any of the plastic figures that came with the quest-y games, having previously viewed them with an abhorrence that is usually reserved for the dubious brown mush you find under your shoes after a stroll through a park popular with dog walkers.

But I was wrong. Well, at least in this case. I chose to paint one of the Fimir because I had picked up a bunch of them in bare plastic a little while ago because I saw them for sale on the cheap. The first figure I pulled out of the group had appalling mould slippage on the plastic, and I nearly decided to call it a day at that point. But on the off-chance I thought I'd check out another figure in the group, and it was fine. I had no idea that mould slippage variation like this was a feature of the plastic figures. Live and learn....

So, after small amount of mould line cleaning and a bit of green stuff filling of a hole in the small of the Fimir's back (some sort of plastic injection side effect?) it was time to think of a colour scheme. Well, actually, I'd already had one in mind. I was going to go full 1980s on this one:

I went with Foundry's Bright Green triad mixed with a little of their yellow for the main body colour, with a bit of a yellow glaze at the end. I was pleasantly surprised how much I liked this sculpt, and it was a complete joy to paint.

I decided to keep the base very simple because I didn't want it to detract from the rather fetching layout I've put him on. I don't think it's a piece of HeroQuest board, but I found it in my stash of scenery boards and I rather liked it.

Thanks for stopping by!

Next in line : Ashley

The HeroQuest Hero Quest: The Second Skeleton

Don't you love it when stuff coincides? Back in the summer I painted a load (over 200, not that I'm bragging or anything...) of miniatures, mostly for the big Morcar-themed battle at BOYL. That meant loads of HeroQuest minis. So last month, when a certain Asslessman asked me to contribute a figure for the HeroQuest Hero Quest I had already painted all my orcs, goblins and fimir... that meant I was turning to the forces of undeath... but wait! Aren't I just about to start a skeleton army? Why yes I am. Sounds like a good opportunity to decide how I'm going to paint all these bones.

I do owe quite a lot to the HeroQuest skellibob with his big scythe (and big bones!). HQ got me into Citadel Miniatures in the first place and I was always more keen on the forces of undeath than on the greenskins. My first army (at least 50% of which was HQ miniatures from the main box and Witch Lord expansion) was undead (4th ed, although we used the 3rd ed book, 4th ed "get started guide" and I actually had the 4th ed undead armies book- a Christmas present from my parents). Sadly that army was given away along with most of my miniatures collection when I went through a brief spell of adulthood. With the Fimir done (for now) I have decided it is time to set myself a new army and want to recreate my first undead horde- recreate it as I would have liked it to have been back then that is!

The HeroQuest Hero Quest: The Second Chaos Warrior

Time for a guest spot from someone half-human, half-warhead, all idiot.  It's Curis.

Let's do a dungeon-bash quickie between big projects!  To recap, the three Scale Creep commandments of the project are:

• Paint a charmingly basic model from HeroQuest
• nO cRaZy CoNvErSiOnS
• Replacing the sausagey rectangle base is encouraged.

I picked a Chaos Warrior. To the 7-year-old boy learning words from game components, but not pronunciations: a "Chouse" Warrior.

"Hoots mon!  There's a chouse louse about this house!"

Theottovonbismark has already shown off Slambo and the 4E plastic Chouse … ahem … Chaos Warrior.  Here's the HeroQuest dude alongside Battlemasters and Legend of Zagor Chaos dudes, for no reason other than to showcase the breadth of my vintage Chaos.

Prejudiced against gorefs, means he's a gorefist.

Otto's updating of this old plastic has freehand and a jazzy base.  My version is painted so tamely in comparison. I've gone for the red-and-metal scheme which you might think is a homage to the original HeroQuest art, but is really so he ties into my 1980s Chaos Warband. Being a 1989er *I think* he is actually the newest miniature.   Everything is relative.

"Oi HeroQuest! Bet you're so young you don't remember POGs!"

After modern-style crisp highlighting you start to realise the limitations of the miniature – a combination of 1989 plastic technology and 27 years of man-handling ("manchild-handling"?).  So to hide the dalrymples I painted some textures: sponge-chipping the armour; fluting on the horns; notching the axe blade; and blood-spatter over the finished piece.  I've recently become aware that competition painters like different textures on a miniature to provide interest and contrast, and to showcase their skills.

He's left many a nasty axe wound.

The texture I'm fondest of at the moment is the blood-spats.  After a lot of trial and error with a Blood Bowl team recently I've hit upon the following method: load up a tiny brush with your blood-effect paint of choice, put it right in front of your lips, and blow.  You instantly get realistic spines, satellite spatters, cast-off patterns and other terms I'm just regurgitating from a CSI episode.

Guess this means he's the Herald of the ApocaLIPS.
(•_•) ( •_•)>⌐■-■ (⌐■_■)

That's all for now!  Next in the chain we have a man who goes where no ordinary rabbit would dare – Geoff Solomon-Sims.

The HeroQuest Hero Quest: The Second Fimir

Today, the Creeps are happy to let our friend Phreedh present his own addition :

When the handsome fellows on the Scale Creep blog invited me to join their HeroQuest Hero Quest, I could hardly turn them down. After all, I had already embarked on this journey myself and could use an incitement to revisit the project. A week later, I can offer up a rough looking bog cyclops for your viewing pleasure!

I chose to submit a fimir, because it was… already a work in progress. For me, the hobby is all about cutting corners and reaching results with the least level of effort. 

I’m a firm believer in “80/20″. Applied to the modelling hobby, one can say a model reaches 80% of the potential result when you’ve spent 20% of the total effort on it. 

For me, that’s a pretty good spot to stop in. Could I do another level of highlights? A few more glazes? Maybe a free hand pattern? Sure. Would it matter, in the long run? Nope. 

Instead I can spend the same time finishing another few models to an acceptable level… or browse interwebz forums. At least, it’s better than my old paint jobs from the early 90s.

There’s not much to say about the finished fimir. Gretchin Green base coat, washed with Devlan Mud and highlighted with Gretchin Green mixed with Vallejo Pale Flesh and Bronzed Flesh, and another wash of Gryphonne Sepia. The basing used is the same as on all my fantasy models. A 25 mm metal washer, with painted sand and static grass. Simple things!

It’s a bit more traditional in colour scheme than what the godfathers of Fimir (Mr Saturday and Fimm) have used, but I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. I spent some unnecessary effort on the eye. A yellow eye ball with a black pupil would’ve sufficed. Instead I did a white eye ball, black dot, yellow iris and then a black pupil. Doesn’t even show in the photo. Nuts!

Coming up next, Curis – master of elbow painting and sphincter trumpeting! Knock it out the box, Curis!

The HeroQuest Hero Quest: The Elf

Cheetor said: "No-one will want to do the elf, it's a pile of plastic crap*."

I said: "I'll do it, I quite like it actually..."

*paraphrased

So I volunteered to paint up the Elf, happily one of the few HQ figures I happened to have lying around in a box. Something about Elves has always pressed my buttons anyway - I don't like buffoonish Orcs or gruff, humourless Dwarves. I do like long-haired folk wearing tight trousers dancing around with rapier-sharp blades though...

Anyway, here is the classic red plastic of the HQ Elf post stripping of the previous paint job. Note the added dagger in his right hand. This was an addition by a previous owner and I decided to keep it, because it may very well have been a contemporary addition (so kind of doesn't break the "no messing" rule too much). Plus it looks cool.

The Elf. Unmodified (nearly).

 

The HeroQuest Hero Quest: The Fimir

Milton Bradley: "So guys, everyone knows about orcs, goblins and mummies and stuff, but what about these
 'fimirs' we're putting in the game? Tell me all about them!"

Games Workshop: "Uhhhhhhhhhhh...." 

Woooooooooooooooo! Look at me playing with the big boys! Hello to everyone, this is Rochie from Buried Under Lead, and thanks to the lads for taking the fence down and letting me in for a bit!

The HeroQuest Hero Quest: The Skeleton

Brave readers, airbornegrove26 here...or for this Quest you may call me Mentor... If you have made it this far you must have conquered Barak Tor, recovered the Spirit Blade and slain the cruel Witch Lord.   But alas what we feared most has occurred.  The Witch Lord has returned and with him the minions of undeath creep across the land. 

I was really excited when Scale Creep invited me to take part in their Heroquest challenge.
My love for Heroquest is well known among the Oldhammer community.

I can still remember opening that sweet box on Christmas.  Ripping the shrink wrap away and accidentally trimming off the gargoyles horns in my haste.  I swear it looked like sprues to my young eyes!!!! That was it.  I was hooked on fantasy miniatures from then on.  BROOOOOADSWORD!

I played for hours with this game, and still do on occasion.  I know, I need to make a new Heroquest comic report.  Don't worry I have been thinking on doing that.  Maybe after the Oldhammer weekend. When things slow down a bit.

So the challenge:

• Paint one of the models from Heroquest.  
• Dont muck around with it too much, a reinterpretation isnt what is desired, just a new paint job on an old model.  
• Rebasing is allowed. 

After pondering which hero or monster to choose.  I decided on the skeleton.
Boooooooooring!  But wait!

Notice the scythe head?  In the monster cards that came with the game the scythe is the opposite way.  I'm sure this was either an artists mistake/interpretation or with the printing some how mirroring it backwards.  Anyway I decided to give it a try, because how else are you going to spice up a boring old bag of bones.

             

  I painted him using foundry colors.  Trying to match him as close as possible to the monster card photo.  I've left him on his Heroquest base, as I will actually game with him.  With his scythe different from the others he might work into a character of some sort.

Next up I'm tagging in our man Captain Crooks.

                  

The HeroQuest Hero Quest: The Chaos Warrior

Following on from our last installment of The HeroQuest Hero Quest

HeroQuest Chaos Warior

When the idea to paint the HQ models was discussed I was keen to paint one up but I immediately knew that a "Hero" or murderhobo as I tend to view them is not exactly something that is in my general oeuvre.   Once the murderhobos were claimed by the various Creeps I was quick to stake my claim for the Chaos Warrior.

Chaos Warrior Stats from HeroQuest - Of course I did, the UK one is $%&+.

The chaos warrior, an iconic symbol of GW.  This is one of the most excellent images or our HeroQuest style chaos warrior (art from Advanced HeroQuest, by Adrian Smith), it expresses their raw power and menace beautifully. 

Slambo lives up to his name by hitting henchmen hard enough to embed them in dungeon walls.

Designing the Chaos Warior

With the technology of the time there were serious design constraints to contend with

The Chaos Warrior model was developed from a Chaos Warrior prototype.  I assume this was made by Jes Goodwin, but I don't know for sure.

HeroQuest Chaos Warrior prototype featured in White Dwarf painted by Mike McVey

The prototype is very reminiscent of the classic Slambo Chaos Warrior mini, this one is the best example of which I have found painted.

Slambo painted by JiNNai

  

The final design is more stylized and graphical, created with organic curves that improve the overall aesthetic balance.  The design has also become a bit statue like with some weird overlong overhangs as a result of positioning the elements in a tolerance to the manufacturing process.


There is also this variant of the production HeroQuest plastics who could be the brother of our warrior..but he is a project for another day :).

Separated at birth?

 

Painting the Chaos Warior

Overall I feel that our chaos warrior is a pretty decent realisation of the prototype design.  So let's prove it with some painting!

When painting this antique I duly adhered to the constraints: 

• Paint one of the models from Heroquest  
• Dont muck around with it too much, a reinterpretation isnt what is desired, just a new paint job on an old model  
• Rebasing is allowed 

HeroQuest Chaos Warrior

I opted to liberate this fellow from his base, I am not a fan of those myself but they can be made to look groovy in the right hands.  I wanted to give the model a bit more dynamism by changing the centre line on the model to the right by having him standing on a sloped base.  He is a wide stanced lad so I stuck him on a 30mm diameter base.

Mushrooms made from GS

I figure on using this old boy as my avatar in future games of Silver Tower, I wanted him to be as vaingloriously attention mongering as the best murderhobo.  I gave him a soapbox level of height for that purpose.  

I sculpted in some mushrooms as I imagine him posing on rocks in dungeons/caves/orphanages looking to pwn noobz for lewt and XP's.

Single handedly bringing the chainmail mini skirt back into fashion.

One unusual feature of the sculpt is that the helmet is actually directly connected to the shoulder pads in a feature reminiscent of an M.C. Escher artwork.  The result of this is that our chap would not be able to turn his head.  To help him out I have painted an eyeball on to the middle part of his helmet which also contributes to the general chaosicity and adds some vital comedy value for group games. 

I chose a classic colour scheme with a simple animal print.  The animal print is alluding to a history crusading (AKA organised murderhoboing).

So to finish up, I am tagging in our buddy AirborneGrove from http://givemlead.blogspot.ie/ in as he has kindly agreed to paint up one of the HeroQuest models in his wonderfully unique style.  We look forward to seeing what he comes up with.

The HeroQuest Hero Quest: The Dwarf

Few names resonate harmoniously through geeks of a certain age like HeroQuest does.

Even geeks that did not embrace the hobby for life - known as “dropouts” or "fly-by-nights" at Scale Creep Mountain - have fondness for the game, due to it being one of the few GW properties that truly became mainstream.

The enthusiasm that this game generated in kids also means that there are likely more naively painted HeroQuest models in existence than likely any other miniatures.  They usually look balls.

So we have decided to redress this balance a little.

THE CHALLENGE:

• Paint one of the models from Heroquest.  
• Dont muck around with it too much, a reinterpretation isnt what is desired, just a new paint job on an old model.  
• Rebasing is allowed. 

HQHQ #1: The Dwarf

White Dwarf magazine was relaunched this weekend.  I enjoyed the first issue a lot.  

One of the features in the magazine was about using Grombrindal - the legendary character in the Old World/Mortal Realms - in games of Silver Tower.  I like Silver Tower.  I decided that I wanted a Grombrindal to use in that game, so I painted it this weekend.

WD #90 from the late 1980s features a pretty definitive "White Dwarf" on the cover.  The John Sibbick illustration was reused for the character card in HeroQuest and the design was used for the HeroQuest dwarf miniature, so I decided to paint a version of that.

As might be expected from a plastic model design from almost thirty years ago, the sculpt is a bit iffy in places. All the same, it was undeniably fun to paint something n the to-do list since 1989, even if a few bits are pretty fudged.

I kept the colours largely based on the White Dwarf magazine cover image above, but with a few tweaks here and there to add a little more variety as the colour reproduction in the cover image is a bit dodgy I expect, everything is brownish-grey.  I kept the palette close to the classic Tolkien dwarf definition as i remember it though, earthy.

I think that the final result worked out pretty well.

Either Just John or TheOttoVonBismark will post up the next HeroQuest fig.  Or maybe Captain Crooks.  There is some jostling currently.