Recreating the Monster and Creature Paint Sets

Hello and welcome back to RoC80s... 'The Blog that Died' and has returned. I've spent much of the last week or so closing a few deals, hunting through a few retro shops and having my lessons disturbed by the arrival of more packages. 

I had a long chat with my old mate Stuart, who informed me of GW trend of reproducing old, primarily Marauder figures, for their Old World Range... with prices to match eBay's worst. At least if you do take the plunge you don't need to fear a recast of which I have seen a huge number, especially for Rogue Trader and Chaos ranges. He also recommended an Optivisor to help deal with the eyesight problems I've mentioned as I get back into painting. 

Stuart... I salute you...

I'll be trying that out properly tomorrow on Monday painting night... fingers crossed.  

Thanks to a couple of generous folks I am now in possession of the Monster and Creature paint sets, well the half empty boxes mostly.  Both of the boxes are in fairly decent condition though they are more than a little faded. Not really unexpected considering the passing of time.

Neither were complete paint wise though TimG has been kind enough to send me some of his spare 'old school' colours. Tim I salute you too! Which along with Ian's life changing contribution are being put to work rebuilding these two classic sets.

The best preserved was the Creature Paint set and if memory serves it was the second of the original boxes that I received way back in 1988/9. I am guessing that the previous owner liked Hobgoblin Orange, Elf Grey and Bestial Brown enough to go out and buy the later replacements. If I remember correctly, these sets would often come unlabelled and the sticker on the front of the pots were only present of bought singularly in a store. But I have a vague memory of this not always being consistent. 

Can you guess at my proxies here?

Yes, Worm Purple, Goblin Green and Swamp Brown are all from Ian's Foundry donations. Swamp Brown is way off while Worm Purple and especially Goblin Green are not there yet. Trouble is, my memories and comparative materials online are influenced by the '90s version of Goblin Green which is the famous shade everyone recalls so fondly.

I pretty sure the original colour was slightly different. The Creature Paint Set was much more mute and pastel in its shades with what come later. 

                                                       

                    

The Monster Paint Set had more vivid colours as can be seen here. Imperial Purple, Bestial Brown, Titillating Pink and Billious Green are all original paints. Brazen Bronze is Magic Metal from the Coat d'Arms range. Not sure that this colour is quite right but I bought it on a whim to test out how reliable a website was and wish I'd gone for a lighter tone. The two blues are place holders from Ian's wonderful gift. They are suppose to reference Moody Blue and Electric Blue but look too similar under a light to be suitable in the long run. Ghoul grey on reflection looks too dark, and as this too is a placeholder it may well be a back to the drawing board job there too. Red Gore too is also too bright and looks to me to perhaps be a Blood Red.

Oh, and Billious Green is totally dried out. The only casualty after 35 plus years. But the paint pot gives me an idea of what needs mixing up in future to get a colour close to it. 

The trouble is I haven't found a huge amount of quality reference. There is the famous advert from White Dwarf circa 1989...

There is this fantastic website to go on. GAW paint collecting. Which contains many of the paints in these sets as well as loads I never even heard of back then. I owned Colour, Creature, Monster and Space Marine sets and those 36 paints were all a young enthusiast would ever require, so I never dipped into anything else - no pun intended. 

               

Here are the reference shots from GAW. The Creature paint set is looking fairly consistent with what I now have. What do you fellow enthusiasts think? The Monster paint set needs work, though one of the blues I have chosen in a good match. From what I recall Electric Blue was a popular bright shade but Moody Blue is going to be harder to acquire. I don't think I have anything in my collection to match to that. Swamp Brown I'm more confident on finding something similar amongst what I have been given/bought so far. 

I may need to mix a couple of shades together to create a closer tie with these colours.

That is certainly true of Billious Green which is a lovely radioactive shade. Of course, if you know anywhere decent online to get any colours similar to these lost classics please let me know. I don't intend on using any of these paints until I am happy that the colour match as closely as I can. So its likely that the Creature set will see action before the Monster one does. As I still relearning how to paint, keeping things simple is only going to help. 

I hope at least. 

My next job is to work on my technique so I can reach a level to tackle through four skeletons from the Horde without my eyes crossing permanently. After that Gnome warrior I've got a taste for the stunties. Among the models donated to me is Bandit model from the C06 Dwarfs... so I am off to base and undercoat him ready to test out that Optivisor thing tomorrow.

Orlygg

Indomitable Gnome Fighter: Adventurers Starter Set

 

Monday night has become a 'painting' night now. I get home, get the dinner on and paint up some figures. My favourite miniature watches a movie with her son after school and I am left, for one night only, to my own devices for a couple of hours. Tonight, I started work again on my four skeleton horde figures. Battling changing eyesight, poor light and wonky brushes. 

I made some progress layering paint over three models reflecting on the time I used to do this regularly, with confidence and speed. But its was a struggle. I found myself wanting to let rip on something a little different than bare bone. 

So I went back to my little box on donated lead and found this little gnome. I've always had a fondness for gnomes (as does my favourite miniature who has placed two characterful chaps in our garden) so the chance to paint one up struck a chord with me. At first I thought this little chap was a member of the famous C11 range of Gnomes but after a little bit of research I found out that he is a member of a boxset -  the Adventures Starter Set... not a release I was familiar with at all!

With a release date of 1985 it was certainly before my entry into Warhammer and sits firmly with second edition. I'm not sure who sculpted this figs so if any of you know please pass it along. Looking at the selection below you can see that they were a pretty mixed bunch of chaps. A knight in armour (who I had in my original leadpile, if rather broken and missing a tab) caught my eye as did the Young Fighter who was also part of my old collection. 

With this figure I used the nine paints from my 'Citadel Colour set' I talked about a few posts back. Using a limited set of colours is a fun way to solve problems and mix up different shades. It also gives me a link to that far younger version of myself who went everywhere with couple of brushes and the very same set in 1989. I based the gnome in white, applied the base colours and just washed the lot with browns and blacks. I felt I was a little bit more painterly this time, though my eyes still went crazy a few times trying to focus but things seemed a little easier with this model. 

Once he was dry I just highlighted up like I always did. Much of the muscle memory is still there but the technique is very rusty. But I feel like there has been a bit of progress after last week's effort. 

What do you think?

In the end it wasn't just me that got interested in the paint set. My partner's son picked out an old plastic elf from a useful collection of items donated by Michael from https://angelbarracks.co.uk/. I was very appreciative to Michael for sending a couple of bags of flock and some static grass as it will allow me in the coming weeks to put together a scenic board to actually photographs these models slightly more sympathetically. Thank you for your generosity. 

My partner's son had painted a few figures with friends before and had a some experience with the more modern washes (which he had in his possession) and here is his first model. His mum and dad were very impressed with his efforts, as was I as getting the initial model in any collection complete is a challenge. Michael's static grass helped finish off the base here in a more modern style than mine. 

Michael, we salute you! 

In other news, we have appointed an architect to begin drawing up plans to modernise the house. As I have said before, there is some irony that a man that spent many years writing about the '80s now lives in a house unchanged from that time, and a fair few years before. So who knows, I might end up with amore permanent set up again one day? At the moment I just get everything out on the kitchen table...

My M.O.T also went well. The car passed which means, fingers crossed, I might have a tiny bit of budget next week to spend of figures that catch my eye. I've seen that obscure bargains can still be found on eBay and there are a number of retro shops around here in Essex that may well contain a stray metal figure from our time period... so who knows...

Orlygg

The Skeleton Horde: My first painted figure in nearly 5 years!

 

Well, I came home from school and had a go at painting one of Bree's plastic skellies. Sticking with my homemade palette of 'Citadel Colours' I had a whale of a time painting up an axe wielder. Trying to ape the more flesh and red colour scheme of the original Skeleton Horde was great fun too, and I mostly used my Bronzed Flesh paint with increasingly large measures of white.  

Previous skeletons I've painted in the long past were always too bright for my liking (probably even then I was subconsciously trying to 'be the horde') so I held off using pure white, save for the stones on the base of the miniature. I am very pleased with the colour tones of the bone but not the execution of the finer detail.

Oh, look at those terrible blobby ribs! Here's hoping that with the remaining figures still to do I'll sharpen up and I can come back and tweak the finish of this example later on. I plan to have a go at some freehand shields too when all four models are complete.  

I am happier with the back of the model. I was loosing up a bit when it came to my brushwork but even so my technique is awful. I used to be able to fine line tiny details back in the glory days of the blog and I hope I can achieve a similar level of skill. My lighting is poor, with that borrowed school lamp so perhaps some more natural light in spring and summer with ease the old eyes. 

Without a suitable back drop, I used my battered Citadel Colour box as a quick background. It looks suitably '80s to me. 

Looking at the finished model, I will probably need a final highlight around the skull, hands and ribs to make things 'pop' but I'll get the other models finished before experimenting with that. 

Orlygg

The Skeleton Horde: First (shambling) steps... and thank yous...

 

This post has been a while coming... Its been an interesting few weeks here largely due to the freezing weather in this part of the world. A water main burst under the road some way from our property and the water company diverted the spill towards the large pond situated to the front of our house. By the time we got back from school the water level of said pond had risen to an extent that it burst its banks across our driveway and flooded the lane behind us. Of course, as night fell this water froze solid creating spectacular but slippery views. Thankfully, we had decided to move one of our cars and could escape the village the following day but we had to wait for a thaw to escape the worst of the ice.

Then the heating gave up. Our boiler probably predates WHFB Third Edition and we had a series of increasingly cold nights while we waited for an engineer to fix it. 

Obviously, getting out a new (to my fine lady) hobby during this time would have been a no-no....

Which was rather difficult because of the previous week lots of little packages started arriving for me. Packages sent generously by '80s Citadel enthusiasts. It became a bemusement for my colleagues as they built up in the corner of the room. The kids in my class became very curious to what they contained so eventually relented and showed them. I have promised to bring some of the finished pieces in to show them. 

To say I was overwhelmed by the contents of these packages is an understatement and I write these words in thanks to all of you who have sent me things to help get this blog going again. I cannot express how grateful I am to all of you who took the time to send me things big and small... last weekend I had the chance to look at some of them in more detail and that I when I snapped the picture that opens this post.

A huge thanks to Ian Stuart who sent me all the Foundry paints you can see above. His generosity is life changing as I was struggling to find a way to build up a decent range of colours with no budget at all. It would have taken me years to achieve even half a selection like this. Ian is a living example of what makes this hobby so remarkable and he even threw in a few old figures and bits for me too.

I salute you Ian! Thank you...

Andrew the Sleepysod sent some lovely old White Dwarfs my way as well as a collection of figures. Again, this really made a difference to me as I could once again flick through the old pages of the magazine and ponder my hobby future. Included in this stash was issue 109 (which I had left upstairs when I took the snap) which was the second ever issue of White Dwarf I ever bought. For some bizarre reason I chopped it up - I think I saw a ring binder or something and had designs on filling it- so most of my original issue was missing.

I salute you Sleepysod! I thank you...

Bree sent me a sprue of skeleton horde figures which has allowed me to begin my 'Realm of Chaos 80s 2.0' journey in exactly the same way I began my love of old school Citadel back in the 1980s. Also included, was a single plastic skeleton horse to do something with in the future. To hold that classic grey sprue was really something and it was a wrench to cut it up today when I began work on my Skeleton Horde but these figures were made to be assembled and painted and not to simply sit in a cupboard.

Bree, I salute you too... Thank you so much for these skellies.

Jono sent some skeleton horse bits and bobs my way. A few shields and spare weapon arms that were unused from his undead army. As I said to him, a few simple bits of plastic can make a real difference to a project like this as I can stick with just hand weapons for the first few figures. I never really liked the look of the spears or scythes on foot and hope to get my hands on some more plastic skellies in future to mount up on Bree's horse. A spear makes a perfect javelin or lance after all.

Jono, I'm saluting you too. 

Pete D posted me a selection of metallic paints from the Coat d'Arms range. Silver, bronze and gold among some other bits that I haven't had a chance to bring home yet as well as some rather mutilated old Rogue Trader figures. I've seen some pretty dodgy paint jobs in my time but these are bad... but they could present a future restoration project once I've finished with my horde. 

Pete, you too get a salute.

A HUGE thank you to all and everyone else who commented and emailed me since Christmas. 

Getting going again was rather overwhelming. I'd had a couple of weeks to just examine my small but precious pile of treasure but when I came to actually beginning again it took a few false starts. In the end I decided to stick with the theme of going right back to the start of my love of this stuff. So I whittled the paints I had been given down to a limited palette based on the old Citadel Colour paintset. 

Rummaging through some old boxes in the loft I found a sadly empty old box of the first '80s paint set - it had been used to dump old keys, batteries and other junk and some long distant past but I did still have the plastic internal. Using the reference material from the back of the box, I used the colours I had at my disposal to match them all as closely as I could. So I now have a Chaos Black, Skull White, Blood Red, Bronzed Flesh, Sunburst Yellow, Electric Blue, Mithril Silver, Woodland Green and whatever the gold was called.

I washed the labels off and gave each pot a bit of a clean up and I held in my hands for the first time in nearly 40 years the very first paint set I ever own. If memory serves that actual shades weren't actually consistent back then... one man's Woodland Green didn't necessarily match another's but this is as close as an enthusiast can get to the original 'Citadel Colours' not that the 'Eavy Metal team of the '80s actually used these paints all that much... it felt right to me after five long years away from the hobby.

With a desk lamp borrowed from school I had a lovely afternoon today putting Bree's sprue together. I had forgotten how much pleasure there was in prepping a new set of figures. Thanks to Jono and his spare arms I had a little bit of choice so went for two longswords. With only superglue to fix these shamblers together I missed the evocative smell of poly-cement in the air but got the figures together quite quickly. 

Looking at the artwork released for the Skeleton Horde online I could see that there was red in the original mix and what looked like flesh coloured bones. So I used my new Bronzed Flesh as a base coat and then washed over the models with a mix of Blood Red and Chaos Black. 

I know these are not the best photos. The lighting is very poor in the kitchen where I was working but you can see the progress I have made so far. My lady love quipped I looked like Geppetto crouched under my light, apron covering my clothes... but I was happy.

I plan on having a go at highlighting these models tomorrow after work so hopefully you will see more from me later on in the week. I've set myself a goal this year of posting one more blog each month. So I managed two last month so January has to have at least three updates from me. 

See you soon,

Orlygg