Flying Dutchman Crew - Hadras

Today, let me introduce you Hadras, a damned pirate from Davy Jones' crew. If you have seen Pirates of the Carribean movies, you certainly have noticed a guy whose head is in a shell. The head was replaced by a coconut during a fight on an island, and the body began to move and eventually forgot his head on the beach.

Mars has produced a couple of sets representing the movie characters, mainly pirates of course, and Hadras is one of them, here:

Here are the pictures I found on the net to get some inspiration.

I've already painted other pirates from the same set a few years ago, here is another picture gathering the crewmen:

Not the best figures in the world, but interesting to paint - what do you think ?

Maya warriors

As promised yesterday, I've begun to paint some more Mayas. Yes, this time I've painted something historical that was already on my desk, and in 1/72!

Let's have a look:

You've already seen the slingers on this blog, which means that only the two lancers have been painted today - they were on yesterday's last picture.

Let's show more pictures of these men:

It's not that easy to paint Mayas from the Classical period (250 AD to 900 AD). First of all, there is not a lot of documentation on the web, and if you appreciate to work with original sources (as I do), you arrive very quickly to the reproductions of the Bonampak fresco, such as these:

This one is a reproduction

These walls were painted in 790 AD. They represent court scenes, and a ritual celebration for victory in battle. We can see mainly nobles, prisoners, and warriors - but should we suppose that they wear special ritual outfits ? Anyway, we see that the clothes are mainly white, yellow, red, sometimes green or black. Most feathers are green, but you can find many colorful birds in the tropical forest, so I assume that red, white and black feathers are rather common, and blue feathers are also accurate.

Many nobles also wear leopard skin, which I will paint later - remember, I'm starting again, so easy painting first :)

Another typical feature of these warriors are the stone necklaces, and probably gold for the richest among them.

A few more pictures of the figures:

Hope you like them :)

... A Deep One Hybrid !

Hello dear fellow painters and gamers. I really thank you for your comments and contributions in the previous post, it helped me to find some strength and inspiration, although the result is a bit... unexpected.

At the last rank of the minis on my desk, there was a figure from a boardgame, Mansions of Madness, a cooperation game in the universe of HP Lovecraft. I was looking for something easy to paint, and I think I found a good way.

Let's have a look:

Ok, he looks like a fat, ordinary man, but this dark creature is a Deep One hybrid, the result of the union of a Deep One (an ocean-dwelling creature, half fish and half humanoid, described in HPL's novella "The Shadow over Innsmouth ) and a Human. Look at this fishy face:

This is the game this mini comes from:

In this game, a team of 1 to 5 players have to investigate in a manor, a strange village or a deep jungle to solve a mystery and/or repell horrible creatures from this world before getting insane, and believe me, it is very easy in this game :). The game is app-driven, which means that all players have to cooperate to succeed...

The Deep One hybrid comes from the core set, and is one of the "ordinary" monsters (not the boss of the level).

Profond hybride is the french for Deep One Hybrid

I've glued this mini on a transparent base, so that you can always see the nicely painted board elements.

This guy was painted this afternoon, while my daughter Hatshepjuju put her own brushes on a chaotic creature.

Hum, the picture is chaotic too...

For those of you who look forward to new 1/72 historical minis, do not despair! I carefully read your proposals, and the second winners after the Deep One Hybrid are the Mayas! Work in progress.

Hope you will want to know more about Deep Ones and Lovecraftian adventures :)

What shall I begin with... ?

Hi everybody, I hope you're all well in these times of pandemic and, unfortunately, sorrow.

Some news at last, regarding figures I mean :)


I didn't paint a single figure since last post, because of several factors: LOTS of work during the first months of the year, then four days of vacation at the beginning of march, then confinement here in France, which gave me some MORE urgent work and many many things to organize and think of. Now that it becomes slightly quieter, I think of painting again.

Yesterday, I used a brush for the first time in days, because I had to put some oily treatment to the wooden table in the garden - useful, but nothing regarding figures :) And this morning, I went to the cellar to have a look at my painting place. So many figs, I don't know where to begin.

I took a picture to show you:

Any piece of advice ? I would need something easy to start with, but everything seems difficult. The sort of moment when you realize that painting 1/72 minis requires a lot of skill and a lot of patience.

All suggestions are warmly welcome.