Unreleased Heroquest Knight Number 1

I painted the 3rd figure in this series over the weekend...probably goes by the name of Sir Orange l'orange...

I went for an overall warm tone and a limited palette. Base coat of Vallejo Hull Red followed by Foundry Orange shade and GW Troll Slayer Orange.

He's the first of two knights in this set. The second one will be making an appearance once I've decided on a colour scheme for him.

Here's a group shot so far:

In other news I've decided on a colour scheme for my Sons of Horus 30k Heresy figures, and I'll be tackling a Leviathan Dreadnought once I've worked up the courage!

Painting progress: first quarter 2018

Blimey, I can't believe it's been 4 months since my last post. Being the hobby butterfly that I am, I'm currently back in the fantasy/scifi vibe with my historicals taking a bit of a break...go with the flow, eh?

So here's a roundup of what I've been upto so far this year.

Unreleased HQ

Back in 2014 I reported (here and here) on some unreleased figures that I'd found in Bryan Ansell's collection, which we believe may have been unreleased prototypes for Heroquest. I've been very lucky to acquire a set of these, which I've started to paint. So far I've completed the wizard and the elf:

Update on unreleased unseen Heroquest prototype figures (Bryan Ansell's collection)

Back in May I posted about some fascinating figures I found in Bryan Ansell's collection that appear to be unreleased and previously unseen Heroquest prototypes. Well I recently had the pleasure of discussing these figures with none other than Jes Goodwin, and he appears to have solved the mystery.

Firstly, Jes confirmed that of the seven mystery figures, he sculpted the following five:

 

 

He suspects that the remaining two were sculpted by the Perry twins:

 

Now, with regards to why these prototypes do not resemble the known prototypes, Jes' theory is as follows:

Jes seems to recall that the seven prototypes above were the very first prototypes created for Heroquest when the game was in development. He suspects that the two knight figures were dropped and didn't make it into the final game. The known Heroquest prototypes (seen here) were later created to be painted and used in the box art. So the known Heroquest prototypes are in fact a second incarnation of prototypes. The neat thing about this theory is that it explains why the known metal prototypes closely resemble the plastic production figures (for example, here), but most of these previously unseen prototypes do not!

Thanks Jes!

Unreleased unseen Heroquest (?) prototype figures (Bryan Ansell's collection)

This is potentially something a bit special. I say "potentially" because there's a bit of a mystery surrounding the origin of these figures. They were all found in a zip-lock bag in Bryan Ansell's collection with "HEROQUEST" written on the bag in marker pen. Although I can say for sure these are unreleased sculpts, I cannot be certain on their link with Heroquest. First the figures, then the reasons for why they are a mystery:

Barbarian

The Dave Perry collection: unreleased Heroquest Wizards of Morcar figures

I'm sure that many of you will have played Heroquest at one time or another, and possibly one of its many expansions such as Wizards of Morcar. Part of the appeal of Heroquest and its expansions was that they came with a set of plastic figures based on characters and races from the scenarios covered, and therefore it was unnecessary to purchase additional figures. What you may not know is that many of these plastic figures had metal prototypes which did not see general release. There are always subtle differences between the plastic production figures and their equivalent metal prototypes.

I am planning a future post dedicated to the topic of metal prototypes of plastic Citadel Miniatures, but the focus of this particular post are the unreleased metal prototypes of the Heroquest: Wizards of Morcar figures painted by Dave Perry. Dave has done a grand job of painting these figures using a subtle yet beautiful colour palette.

These figures are very rare, and I would love to acquire some. If you know of any please get in touch - excellent reward offered!