I don’t make up these names. I couldn’t make up these names. Anyway, this rather odd model is another from the Conan Kickstarter. Anyway, this particular character is from more of the Conan Stories that I’ve never had a chance to read. The Wiki suggests that he has grey, elephant-like skin (Elephants and The Predator seem to be two of the main design inspirations for the model here) but I followed the artwork and went with the different skin tone for the large, weird model.
As with other models in this range that I know little to nothing about, I took my general painting cues from the box art as well as a bit of googling. The Conan Wiki describes this fellow as having “topaz” eyes, and so I went with the yellow that you can see here rather than the box-art red. Yellow because I felt that an actual topaz-like green would blend in too much with the Terradon Turquoise paint that I used as the basis for his skin. I did drybrush over the skin to bring it up, and it seems to have worked pretty well.
You see, this model sat around with only the base done for months and months before the Contrast Paints combined with the Awesome August challenge got me motivated enough to work on the thing, because I was simply not feeling this model after cracking it out of the box. I have to say – the contrast paints worked pretty well on this model. I also use Apothecary White over the cloth parts, and it did end up a bit darker than I’d anticipated – finishing as a light grey, but it’s still decent looking. The gold parts were also painted in Vallejo Model Air Gold with Contrast Nazdreg Yellow added over the top, and then drybrushed again with the gold. Shame about the bendy staff. Sure, I could have replaced it with wire, but to be quite blunt: Fuck that noise.
Despite the plan being to finish this model for Awesome August, It didn’t happen and he was instead finished in Early September. There is still actuallyone more August model for me to post, but I need to make some space to properly photograph it, and I haven’t had the chance to sort all of that out yet, so I’ll just start to show my September models instead.
As I said in regard to Baal-Pteor: I’m still not especially keen on this figure, but what can I say? He’s done – and still looks decent for a boardgame model. Certainly good enough for me, once again. On to more and better models now!
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
This guy is awesome conceptually. Its like Egypt meets Cthulhu but unfortunately, the skin sculpting is not good for painters. It reminds me of some of the Mansions of Madness minis I did before I focused on LOTR. The skin on those is really hard to highlight because it isn’t well sculpted and things are not clearly defined. With that said, I love the colors you chose and you did a great job picking out the details. The mix of metallics and skin really makes this guy look good as well. I can see why he would have been a challenge to finish but I think you did a great job on this difficult mini.
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Thanks mate – I agree. I see what they were trying to do with the skin texture – the roughness of elephantine skin, plus layers of scars and damage over time. Not the sort of brief I’d love as a sculptor, quite frankly, but even with that, I wasn’t feeling it too much. Still, like many paind in the arse figures, I’m happy enough with it now that he’s finished. Even moreso since it took so long to get motivated to get it out of here!
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I can see why it would be hard to be motivated to finish this guy and I agree, not a highlight on the sculptor’s resume either. Congrats on getting another stubborn mini out of the backlog! 🙂
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Spot on
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Don’t know this model or it’s background, but I really like what you’ve done with it, your colour choices are bold and work well together, and it is hard to finish a model that doesn’t inspire you, so credit to you for pushing through
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Thanks Dave – this is very much another model where the inspiration credit has to go to the existence of Contrast Paints, and me wanting to play with them on low-care-factor figures. 🙂
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Yup, the concept is amazing, the name is terrible, the modelling could be a lot better but the paintjob rescues it at the last. Well done again!
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Yeah, it’s not an awesome model by any means, but it’s now perfectly servicable – and Alex has given me the Tzeentchian Daemon Prince idea now, too!
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Nice job, I particularly like the gold. The background you did was nice too.
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Thank you, Ann – the cloth needed *something* as it was too plain when left alone.
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The Tower of the Elephant is actually one of the better Conan stories, even if Howard was perhaps not at the top of his naming game. The sculptors have taken some major liberties here, and I didn’t actually recognize who it was supposed to be until you mentioned elephants. Your paint job looks really cool on it, but more like I’d expect some sort of Mind Flayer or something rather than Yogah of Yag.
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As far as the sculpt goes, I’ll just say to you what I say to people at work when they ask me why an odd thing or policy is the way that it is:
“I only work here.”
😉
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Yeah, it is inherently a cool sculpt, it’s just not what I would have expected for the character from the story.
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Well, I think this mini is just brilliant! That colour combination just does it for me! Spot on! (working on writing my own comment for a change, rather than just agreeing with Dave, which I do anyway)! 🙂
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Thank you, John. The artwork inspired me to go turquiose rather than greyish, and then the quasi-Egyptian feel meant gold and white. I may well recycle this scheme on some Thousand Sons in the future, as well.
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Looks good to me- not that I know much about Conan but I like the mini.
Cheers,
Pete.
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Thanks Pete – and I think I know about as much as you – 2 Arnie films, one Jason Momoa film, and the writer’s name. 😉
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He’s pretty darn cool mate! Hard to tell without a scale reference, but he looks like he’d make for a nice Daemon Prince
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I did realise I forgot to take scale shots once the post was almost done, but I didn’t want to go back out to take more photos. A good point on the Daemon Prince aspect, though – he’s definately large enough, and looks like he could do the Prince of Change’s bidding pretty easily…
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I have to say this one really pops. The skin and the gold rock!
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Thanks Mark – I’ve learned something useful here at least – when the sculpt fails, go hard with colour!
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Great painting Azazel ! Model is a bit weird sculpt but looks ok finally with your painting touch !
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Very kind of you, and it’ll work fine for the boardgame and maybe a Daemon Prince. Not every model can be my favourite, after all!
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Absolutely amazing Azazel
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Thanks mate! And good to see you back again!
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I think you made the right call not going with grey for this guy. He looks really cool with the colors you went with. 🙂
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Thanks you, Ms.Moth! I agree, the brighter colours really help this model in the end.
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