Female Wizard Hero (custom sculpt)

I've always wished for a female wizard to join my party of heroes. One project of mine was to completely re-write the Wizards of Morcar expansion turning it into my own Wizard Quest Pack (since the original pack was never released) and featuring a female hero as it happened with the released Barbarian and Elf Quest Packs. This project was then shelved (but not abandoned) as the real drafts for the two unreleased Wizard Quest Pack and Dwarf Quest Pack came to light recently thanks to one of the original designers who shared them with LucaPaschi (which is one of the greatest HeroQuest collectors I know) and Luca involved me with the process of "restoring" them.

 

 

So, let's go back in topic! This miniature was originally inspired by a drawing from Luis Octavio NB - link here but modified a lot of times during the sculpting process.
Then I was sitting together with my friend Valentina Conte aka Valevidart and she started to sculpt the miniature, at first following the sketch, but then we tried to include elements to recall the male wizard too. The intent was to have a mini which could immediately remind to the official HeroQuest wizard and looking as a model coming from the 90's. I have to say I am not easy on liking something so this mini was subjected to several revisions and the whole process was quite long but in the end I am very satisfied with the achieved result.
Instead of using a solid base, I preferred the miniature to feature a slotta base, removable, so it could be used both as a HeroQuest mini and as a Warhammer mini. Valentina sculpted a classic lipped, rectangular, HeroQuest base which is removable and the slotta tab under the wizard's feet allows the miniature to be mounted on its original base or over any standard base (squared or rounded).

More Villains

Took a picture of three classic Citadel Chaos Warriors, with a HeroQuest base.
The first one is Azoth the Faceless (Heroes for Dungeonquest), I just had another layer of paint on him. Looking much better with his robe that was brown and is now turned purple, while his helm is now golden. I am preparing a mini questpack featuring this sorcerer as the main character, with new spells.
The figure is not an original, it is a resin recast that was made and gently gifted by Granpasso (RIP) years ago.
The one in the centre is a Chaos Warrior (another resin recast). He had some bubbles and some missing parts were resculpted with green stuff.
The third one is a Chaos Champion. and is one of my favourite miniatures. The Chaos Champion was made and painted many years ago and one of my first attempt at making resin recasts. A big thank you to Woreno from the Italian HeroQuest forum for providing this and other miniatures to let me have the chance to make my hands on them. Unfortunately you can see part of his pouch missing and the bottom of the sword is also missing a part (it was a skull knob).

Painted minis on eBay - gone!

Closed right now some auctions on eBay featuring some Heroquest figures from Germany painted very nice. I also tried to bid on them but they reached prices to high for my tastes. Here are some photos and the prices they were sold (for a grand total of 347,50!!!). So I am thinking to sell separate pieces is way more profitable!

The 4 heroes, sold for 52,00 EUR

6 Ogres (2 unpainted) at 71,00 EUR

 

 

The Wizards (x4)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More updates with my painting, this time is the Wizards post. again I can see lot of defects.
As told before, I like the classic colors but I like to experiment with alternate color schemes.
I tried a dark version of the wizard outfit, with purple trousers and dark blue shirt.
The other two are completely different, the one with the skull I wanted to applya heart on the chest with a snake and a second snake around his leg, but it was too much for my skills. The first three photos below show the work in progress while the last four represent the design I had in mind for the alternate outfits.

The Barbarians (x4)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally some updates with my painting, I worked on four Wizards and four Barbarians (this is the Barbarian post). I'm still experimenting and improving my paint skill so there are still some defects. The four barbarians were painted several times over the previous skin until I found a decent skintone; at the beginning I tried to mix some colors to obtain different skintones, pink, bronze and pale, but at the end I was not satisfied and used a standard brown/orange skintone. Also some fur pants turned from green to grey, boots from violet to white and hair from brown to red. I like the classic colors but I like to use very colorful schemes too.
You can check the photos below to check the work in progress.

More heroes!

Here are some miniature that I own in my collection but that are not painted by me. I bought an extra Heroquest about one year ago on eBay and these minis were included in the box. I like the precision used by the painter on the small details but in my opinion it would be better if he used more shades too. In particular, I like the wizard's cloak and the barbarian's boots and the dwarf is also very well painted, while the elf looks to be a little poor if confrontated with the rest of the team.

Elf, Elf, Elf and... Elf

Now that my first heroes set is gone, I have to begin a new one. But I decided to save on time (and colors) by painting more of the same type and took four elfs. As told before, I like to go out of the classic schemes, so, except the one painted red/brown, I had fun painting the other three with uncommon color schemes. Unfortunately I was not smart enough to think to made at least one drow (but I'll fix this missing in the following days). I like to imagine Heroquest like a game in wich you can select alternate outfits for your character as you can do in Street Fighter, Tekken and other similar games. This also allow us to play a quest with two players using the same character avoiding confusion or even to add a 5th player to the standard team (years ago we even experienced an 8 players game by using two Heroquest sets and custom quests featuring two tabletops). So, here is the result, wich one is your favourite?

the alternate outfits for the elf!

 

Hulkster Barbarian

My four years old nephew also wanted a hero for himself to bring at home, so I (sadly) decided to gift him a barbarian and paint it with the scheme colours he preferred. For this one I didn't use an original miniature bur a resin recast instead (so you can notice some air bubbles on the model). After seeing some photos on my pc he sayd that he wanted his character as strong as Hulk, so I decided to paint the barbarian skin in green and he totally agreed. I wanted to paint his pant in violet but my nephews insisted to make it brown.
In the end, he looks like Blanka from Street Fighter 2.

earlier his eyes were yellow/red

Heroes... part 2

Well.. few days ago I finished to paint my heroes!!
So the Elf and the Dwarf are finally ready to join their friends.
While I used classic colors for the elf, I decided to try to give a blue armour to the dwarf.
I used a generic metallic paint on the elf sword that was looking good at the beginning, but I actually don't like anymore. Next time I'll try to use NMM (Non-Metal-Metal) style for a better result. Also, the barbarian at this point got a new face and looks a lot better than before. Some slight retouches were added to his sword and to the wizard's eyes too.

Heroes... part 1

Now that I felt more comforable with the brushes, I decided to start to paint the heroes. I've seen a lot of Heroquest heroes painted all over the net and for sure many of them are painted way better than what I can do, so the only chance I have to let them stand out of the masses is by using some unusual color schemes... or at least this is what I tried.
As for the wizard, usually I've seen him painted like the one on the side of the game box, where he is wearing a white suit instead of the yellow/blue used on the top cover of the box and on the character's sheet (and also on the new wizard's spell from Wizards of Morcar pack); so the first approach was to use the Les Edwards color scheme as reference.
Instead for the barbarian I tried to go out of the schemes and so his hair were painted red! I mixed some red to the skin tone too to give him more color and create some contrast beetween the skin and his pant. I also tried to paint the sword in blue but without good results (I will re-take it later).

he still had cat eyes here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

my first attempt with this barbarian