D&D Monster Manual 10: Castle Ravenloft Wraiths and Blazing Skeletons

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More Dungeons and Dragons Boardgame models today. The Wraiths and Blazing Skeletons. Both of these sculpts come in transparent blue plastic, so painting them is a little different.

Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft – “Flaming Skeletons”

You really don’t want to be undercoating these if you want to retain the semi-transparent look. I gave both of them a bit of a wash with dark blue ink in order to deepen the shadows, which has worked in one way and not been so great in another, as they have lost a certain amount of their transparency by doing so. The Blazing Skeletons are pretty nice models, actually – the only really “difficult” part being how the fireball is indistinct from the rest of the flames happening on the model.

Dungeons and Dragons: Castle Ravenloft – “Wraith”

The Wraiths aren’t bad models either. A little ham-handed perhaps, but that’s hardly a new thing to miniatures. Simple enough, but overall quite effective.

Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft - "Flaming Skeletons" "Wraith"

Size Comparison with The Usual Suspect

Obviously, the place for these figures to get more use would be in the Undead Army. What to use them for on the other hand is a little trickier. The wraiths would obviously see most approrriate use as Wraiths, but that role is more than competently taken care of both by the reams of Army of the Dead models from LotR as well as the old Citadel Spirit Host (Ghost Swarm) models that I repainted last year. Smaller numbers have any number of very nice models in LotR Barrow-Wights, Otherworld Miniatures’ Wights and the like. Perhaps if the AotD get split off into a separate Army of the Necromancer or something. I dunno. Suggestions on near-term use for those models would always be welcome.

The Blazing Skeletons have a similar problem – what to use them for? If I were really lazy or creative, I could try suggesting that they’re stand-ins for War Machines. What with the huge blue fireballs they’re about to Ha-dou-ken at their enemies. Thing is of course, that I already have some Undead Warmachines (and two more Skull Chuckers to sort out, and a TK Screaming Skull on the radar.)

So, I dunno. Smush them in with Undead Archers since they’re all ranged? Seems a bit ill-fitting somehow. Use them as Undead Characters/casters? While that could work ont he surface, these models don’t look like interesting characters, and Undead Characters seems to be one of the most heavily-populated subgenres of miniatures available – both from older metal collections like my Citadel stuff as well as endless newer models from Reaper, Bones, etc.

Citadel Night Goblin Fanatics (Plastics)

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As part of my continuing push to clear off my painting desk via actually finishing off models, I gathered together these three Goblin Fanatics a couple of weekends ago. I got them either from eBay, or WAU, or something like that at least a couple of years ago. I can’t even remember, to tell the truth. It was certainly before we bought this house and moved in. They had been assembled, sprayed black, had their bases painted goblin green, and parts of their skin had also been painted goblin green. Unless that last part was me. Anyway, they’d just kind of floated around since I got here, and had been separated, and one of them had suffered a fall from the shelf due to Leonard the Cat going “fishing” from the top of the bookshelf – snapping the chain, which was hanging by a thin thread of plastic.

Citadel Night Goblin Fanatics

Citadel’s latest version of Night Goblin Fanatics

So anyway. I saw a couple of them taking up space and decided to finish them as a quick weekend project. The plan was to get them entirely done in the one weekend. It ended up taking two, but close enough. Glued the chain back together and off I went. It took a bit to decide what to do with their clothing. I feel that while Night Goblins can be dark as you like, it’s nice to make their “special” models pop in some way. I also hate checked patterns on goblinoids, so I went with flames. Initially using an off-white, I decided they’d look better with a bit more colour, so I went with the brighter flames.

Citadel Night Goblin Fanatics

Rear View of the Night Goblin Fanatics

Yes, I know that the base of the flames “should be” yellow as it’s the hottest part, and the red at the edges. These flames, of course, are made of paint representing a pattern on cloth rather than actual flames, so I’m fine with the red being adjacent to the green of their faces, and the yellow against the black of their hoods. It’s all about contrast and “pop” here, but without over highlighting black cloth or green skin up to white, which always bothers me a little. I also experimented a little with the balls and chains. I wanted them to look like worn and rusted metal.

While they took a little longer than I’d planned, I’m quite happy with the final outcome. Now, on to the next models.