Some miniatures for Song of Blades and Heroes (Rust Monster face reveal)

[Schrumpfkopf]

Seriously - your pigfaced orcs are a work of a genius. I really love what you've done here.

[MachinaMandala]

What he said x20.

[swiftnick]

Not sure if has already been mentioned but Casting room miniatures have a small range of pig faced orcs. On sale at moment too.

[Hobgoblin]

Thanks, all!

Not sure if has already been mentioned but Casting room miniatures have a small range of pig faced orcs. On sale at moment too.

I like the first set of those (the ones with spears). I might pick them up at some point once I've got all the conversions painted up, as they'd fit in quite well with these, I think.

Here's a Reaper Bones basilisk - one of the quickest paint jobs I've ever done.

[DivisMal]

Oh my God! Those pig-faces are clever, no brilliant modifications that make some of the oldest models (I like especially the orc from Claymore saga) shine!

[Hobgoblin]

Oh my God! Those pig-faces are clever, no brilliant modifications that make some of the oldest models (I like especially the orc from Claymore saga) shine!

Thanks! I'm standing on the shoulders of giants (principally Spooktalker) when it comes to these, though!

Here's an Otherworld troll. I might do a bit more to him (further highlights on the nodules and perhaps a yellow glaze), as this was a really quick effort. But he's OK for the tabletop now, I think.

I really like D&D (or Poul Anderson) trolls. I have a Citadel version that's missing its head and had hoped to use the spare Otherworld head for it, but the Citadel one's much bigger. So I suspect I'll just have to model a head, perhaps using a GW space ork's head as the starting point and adding a carroty nose and some hair.

[Ethelred the Almost Ready]

Great work on the troll, looks amazing.  The basilisk is nice but a little small - evil but cute comes to mind 

[Hobgoblin]

Great work on the troll, looks amazing.  The basilisk is nice but a little small - evil but cute comes to mind 

Thanks!

Remember, though, that a basilisk is, etymologically, a "little king". In Pliny's account, it was "no more than 12 fingers in length". So you could argue that this one is quite a hefty specimen!

[Severian]

Nice troll!

I've always liked the look of D&D trolls, though I never really saw the reason for the regeneration thing. The Otherworld range is just splendid, isn't it. Looking forward to seeing how you remake your old Citadel guy...

[Hobgoblin]

Nice troll!

I've always liked the look of D&D trolls, though I never really saw the reason for the regeneration thing.

Have you read Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions? The regenerating troll, and much else in D&D besides, comes from that:

"The troll shambled closer. He was perhaps eight feet tall, perhaps more. His forward stoop, with arms dangling past thick claw-footed legs to the ground, made it hard to tell. The hairless green skin moved upon his body. His head was a gash of a mouth, a yard-long nose, and two eyes which were black pools, without pupil or white, eyes which drank the feeble torchlight and never gave back a gleam."

And:

"Like a huge green spider, the troll's severed hand ran on its fingers. Across the mounded floor, up onto a log with one taloned forefinger to hook it over the bark, down again it scrambled, until it found the cut wrist. And there it grew fast. The troll's smashed head seethed and knit together. He clambered back on his feet and grinned at them."\

And (best of all!):

"The torso remained. Worst was that task, when Holger and Carahue rolled a thing as heavy as the world toward the furnace heart of the cave, while it fought them with snakes of guts. Afterward he could not remember clearly what had happened. But they burned it."

At the very least, the regeneration makes for a great game challenge - especially if there's nothing flammable to hand ...

[Severian]

Oddly, that's one of his I missed. I read The Broken Sword some years ago and didn't really take to it, though it was enjoyable enough. Maybe I'll give Three Hearts a try though; I quite like source-hunting...

[Hobgoblin]

I preferred The Broken Sword (and Anderson's version of Hrolf Kraki's Saga) to Three Hearts - but that's where the D&D stuff's to be found. 

[Diablo Jon]

Nice troll and lovely paint job. I love the style of D&D trolls the best maybe because they were my first exposure to Trolls in a game sense. Not that easy to find in miniature form though OOP Ral Partha and Citadel aside, there are the plastic pre-paints, Otherworld's (probably the nicest) and Conqueror's new ones which are cool.

[Hobgoblin]

Thanks! Yes, D&D trolls are fairly thin on the ground. The Otherworld ones, with their separate arms and heads, do at least offer a few variants.

On to kobolds now. Here are the first couple - and with some brief thoughts on their use in RPGs on my blog.

I think the first kobold, from the old Citadel D&D boxed set, is the best kobold miniature ever made. I with more had been made precisely along these lines.

[Severian]

Sterling work on the kobolds. You've done the Citadel guy proud. And impressed by how well you've carried off the Reaper one - I gave up on mine...