Things have been quite busy around the house and as usual lots of projects and things happening. Getting tons done but “posting” is way down on the list! Having put a few chores out of the way along with quite a few commission “build and paint” job’s I finally have a few moments to pound out an update.

The SAGA Age of Magic Undead army has been my main focus as far as figures for myself and the subject of the previous post The Secret is out, an UnDead Warband where I promised to post up the waband as I completed various units.

There are several more boxes and “sprues” that didn’t make it into the original picture. They are just so cool!

After purchasing nearly “all the skeletons in the world” the first units were built from the Warlord Games skeletons produced for their fantasy game “Warlords of Erehwon”. Starting with these was a deliberate choice based on their look and style. These were the skeletons that I remembered from my youth and the movie “Jason and the Argonauts”. They were also fairly simple allowing me to develop a painting and basing style for my army before tackling more intricate and complicated figures. Those readers who are paying attention might notice that in the picture there are not only a box of 30 of these figures but directly below it another of 90 more figures! WTF? Bill you said a SAGA warband? That’s way more figures than you need! Yep well I just don’t know when to stop in fact there are about 200+ figures in the collection but I plan to have lots of force options as well as use this army for other games where a larger figure count is needed. (Thanks for the commission work gents, see what it bought me!)

I’ve painted all 30 from the first box as well as completed my warlord and started on my “Sacred Ground” terrain piece that will appear in future post. I may use them as warriors or perhaps “mindless” in SAGA will see. For now, here’s the 30 “skeletons”

I have about 100 more of these to build and paint! It goes fairly quickly and you can see with some simple cutting, bending, and swapping bits and pieces around no two are alike!

They are a bit fiddly during assembly and a bit delicate in handling but in my opinion some of the nicest and most fun to build “skeletons” out there! Add that to the fairly inexpensive cost of around $25 for 30 of them makes it even better.

As I said before “posing” them was just a hoot and allowed me to capture those cool shots I remember from the movies. Rey Harryhausen was a master at this posing or positioning in his stop animation work and I tried to recreate some of those looks! These two and the ones in the “gallery” below are a few of my favorites so far.

I remember as a lad seeing the skeletons clawing their way out of the ground and thinking that was the coolest! This pose I created is a tribute to that memory!

Building the dirt up around the “hole” helps the impression. This was originally a standing figure.

Painting was done by starting with a white primer base using ACLAD II primer in my air brush and then going with GW/Citadel paints which is a change for me as I mostly go with Vallejo paints. After the primer comes a wash of Citadel AGRAX Earthshade (its a brown wash) straight out of the bottle, then a heavy dry brush (not too dry) of Citadel USHANTI BONE, and a finial highlighting of Vallejo OFF WHITE. I did not age these guys weapons/shields down much as I liked the brighter look off setting the bones and figured “hey they were magically restored” Most of the “coming out of the ground” poses where custom made just using parts with a little cutting and bending. Enjoy, I did!

In “Jason and the Argonauts” the Skeletons fought and moved in a way that truly made them look like they were undead and not as coordinated as the living. This was partially due to the stop-motion process but also deliberate by Harryhausen to give them a character unlike the living.

Ends of the arms and legs are ball socket-ed to allow easy posing and the other joints can be easily bent with a slight cut. Heads are the same way.

NEXT Post UP, a Warrior unit using Mantic Games Figures!