Beast Man

Beast Man joins the ranks of Skeletor's Evil Warriors as my Masters of the Universe Project makes slow but fairly steady progress, and means I have painted two minis for He-Month so far. With two Evil Warriors now finished, I think Orko is due for some reinforcements soon!

In-keeping with many Masters of the Universe characters, Beast Man has a typically bonkers colour scheme, including an orange-blue discord and red side by side with orange - if, for example, I was painting a random generic superhero or space-farer mini they are not colour combinations I would consider!

I have tried to remain fairly faithful to colour scheme depicted in the 1980's Masters of the Universe cartoon as that is clearly the primary design inspiration for the sculpt (available from Qminis' Etsy store - click for link), although I tried to differentiate the two types areas of red a little (torso piece in contrast to the boots and arm bands), and the two areas of blue (fur trunks and the amulet thing-y).

While not my best painting, I did enjoy being able to finish the mini in an afternoon, and overall I am pleased with how it turned out.

The bottom image is Beast Man's game card for the personal set of Masters of the Universe skirmish rules. The first draft is complete and I hope to get some games in with the rules in the next few weeks.

Skeletor

Skeletor is the second painted mini for my Masters of the Universe Project (after Orko), and  my first for He-Month.

My order from Qminis (click for link to Qminis Etsy store) arrived mid-week, but then I was hit by a heavy cold, so I didn't feel up to prepping minis until yesterday. I put together Skeletor, Man-At-Arms, Beastman and my four Hover Robot proxies, then tackled painting Skeletor today.

The paint scheme is super-simple, mostly influenced by the original toy and the 1983 cartoon, although I painted the shaft of Skeletor's Havoc Staff in near black to break things up a little.

The Qminis sculpts are clearly based primarily on the 1980's Filmation He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon rather than the original figure line, and this keeps them mostly nice and straightforward to paint (not that the action figures were especially fussy in their designs).

I think Skeletor has a really visually distinctive design even over thirty five years on, stronger than his rivals Hordak and especially King Hiss. And I am glad the mini kept to the classic elements.

I have nearly finished my first draft rules for Masters of the Universe gaming, and the bottom is the game card I have done for Skeletor. He-Man will be a better warrior, while Skeletor is more crafty and cunning, and of course is a master sorcerer.

Finally, if you are looking for MotU minis and proxies, I did a post earlier in the week giving a list of options (click for link).

Miniature Masters of the Universe

While painting and writing continues for He-Month, I thought it an opportune moment to round up some useful links for anyone looking for suitable minis  - some of the examples may need a bit of conversion work to get them 'right'.

None of the pictures below are my painted minis, they are form the various manufacturers.

Qminis - (click for Etsy store link)

Producing: He-Man, Man-At-Arms, Teela, Skeletor, Evil Lyn and Beastman
Perfect for Masters of the Universe fans, Qminis have plans for more waves in the next couple of months onward, filling out the ranks of the classics first then moving on to other fan-favourites

Kaha Miniatures - (click for store link)

The Lord of Destruction (click for  link) looks like a good stand-in for Skeletor, and keep an eye on their store for future offerings

Heresy Miniatures - (click for store link)

This Norko miniature makes a good stand-in for Orko

RN Estudio - (click for store link)

This Fantasy Football player could be a He-Man proxy

Achtung Cthulhu - (click for store link)

(suggested by Kieron)
A potential stand-in for Mer-Man

Killer B Miniatures - (click for store link)

(suggested by White Knight)
This Mecha-Man miniature could stand in for Skeletor's Hover Robots from the Filmation cartoon

Grenadier

A fairly wide range of licensed Masters of the Universe minis from back in the 1980's, still to be found via Ebay, trading, and good fortune!

By the Power of Grayskull - He-Month!

Welcome to He-Month!

With thanks for the inspiration to Carrion Crow and Rantings from under the Wargames table (click for links), and apologies to both for nicking the He-Month tag, Kieron of Cheaphammer (click for link) and myself are launching into He-Month.

Each of us is tackling He-Month in a slightly different way, but safe to say there will be painted minis and there will be rules for gaming.

I started writing a rules draft for personal use last month when I had some days off, and made some good headway. That in turn spurred me to paint my Orko proxy and suffice it to say orders have been placed to fine purveyors of minis across the interwebz.

I hope to have both a rule-set and at least four more minis painted by month's end, so expect the blog to have a very Eternia-centric focus for the next few weeks. You can see a sample game card above for what I am working on.

Stay tuned to see how He-Month unfolds!