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Minotaur

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This is a Plastic Citadel Minotaur from the Mid-90's. Although I got this mini from my 3rd edition Talisman set it is also the same model you used to get in the Warhammer Quest boxed game. You may have seen this model unpainted (bottom right) in my old 'On the work bench' thread more than a year back. http://the-lost-and-the-damned.664610.n2.nabble.com/On-the-work-bench-td1132626.html#a1132626

I didn't do any conversion to the model itself but I decided it should be mounted on a proper gaming base rather than the integral base it was moulded with, I used a razor-saw to carefully cut the integral base away from the Minotaur's feet in exactly the same way as I do when re-basing HeroQuest miniatures.
I then took a 40mm round base and decorated it with some spare floor tiles from a plastic 40k ruined building, before mounting the Minotaur on top. From the beginning I had decided to paint the tiles in a black and white chequered pattern to make it look like the floor of the Guard Room from WHQ (centre).

With the model itself before started I was worried about it coming out all brown (if I were to paint it like a bull it would end up with brown skin, brown fur, brown gloves, brown belt and a brown wooden club) so I made the decision to avoid brown on the creature itself. To this end I painted the skin a mixture of Dwarf Flesh and Bronzed Flesh highlighted up to a mixture of Bronzed Flesh and Elf Flesh with a wash of the new Citadel Flesh Wash and a final highlight of Bronzed Flesh mixed with more Elf Flesh, I then used watered down Delvian Mud in the recesses to define the muscles further.
The fur was painted Adeptus Battle Grey, washed with a mixture of Delvian Mud and Badab Black and then given highlights of Codex Grey and Bubonic Brown mixtures followed by a wash of Delvian Mud. The gloves were painted with Bestial Brown, highlighted with Snake Bite Leather and then given several different brown washes with a mixture of Devlian Mud and Badab Black worked into the recesses. The belt and (yuk) jock-strap got pretty much the same treatment but starting with Dark Flesh and Vermin Brown. The Club got my normal wood technique plus a quick wash of Delvian Mud.
Various reds (Scab Red, Red Gore, Blood Red, Ruby Red) were used in different combinations for the loin cloth, tongue and eyes, with the tongue and eyes getting a glaze of Red Ink.
The Spikes on the Club and the band round the Minotaur's right arm were painted Tinbitz highlighted with Boltgun Metal, while the metal 'jewellery' was painted Tinbitz followed by Dwarf Bronze, a Brown Wash and a further highlight of Dwarf Bronze and Burnished Gold.
The Horns Teeth and Toe Nails (I've always thought Minotaurs should have hooves and not feet though!) got my usual bone and horn technique.
The White tiles were built up from Bubonic Brown through several layers to a mixture of Skull White and Bleached Bone. While the Black ones started with the black undercoat and were highlighted with a 50/50 mixture of Adeptus Battle Grey and then pure Adeptus Battle Grey followed by 2 Glazes of Badab Black. The loose rocks (in case you care) are Adeptus Battle Grey, Codex Grey and Fortress Grey in successive highlights.

Over all I'm rather pleased with the Minotaur and I've also got the Axe-armed variant to paint up and a whole bunch of Beastmen too.

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Marchomer

Re: Minotaur

Me too have this minotaur and I've painted it with your identical colour scheme! (except for the gloves and the base). So i must like your style choise!
Aehm... actually there's another differece... your work is much better and more accurate than mine!
Imprssive model in all the aspects!

+ Other planes lie beyond the reach Of normal sense and common roads But they are no less real Than what we see or touch or feel. +

Billiam Babble

Re: Minotaur

In reply to this post by MortiS-the-Lost

Very nicely done!

I'm always interested to see what colour skin or hide minotaurs are given. I like the idea that the skin is part of the "human" aspect of the minotaur. The hair is more barbaric that beastial.

Ace work with the base. A nice homage to WHQ.

A friend insisted on painting most of my WHQ figures, including the minotaurs because he didn't feel that my skills were up to the job.

One afternoon I left him painting some figures in his own special way and had to explain to my other friends that he'd be late because he was still "buffing his minotaur". :D

You mention that you'd prefer hooves to feet, I think in Warlock of Firetop Mountain, Russ Nicholson depicts the minotaur with hooves. That picture represents to the my first major "boss monster" encounter in a fantasy gaming. In Basic D&D, a single minotaur can be significant, semi-intelligent and brutish adversary which can hold its own with a first level party. So as a beginning player, the Minotaur, along with its mythological links and natural associations with mazes meant that it was the perfect dungeon monster archetype (along with the fact that they weren't very magical and I used to stumble with magic rules!).

Ace.

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MortiS-the-Lost

Re: Minotaur

This post was updated on .

Thanks guys

Billiam Babble wrote

I'm always interested to see what colour skin or hide minotaurs are given. I like the idea that the skin is part of the "human" aspect of the minotaur. The hair is more barbaric that beastial.

Yea I think it's important to have an over all constancy between the bovine and humanoid features of a Minotaur, it's not just a bull's head on a man's body nor is it an anthropomorphic bull. All of a Minotaur's anatomy is a mixture of the bovine and humanoid with it's own anatomical logic I think my colour scheme reflects this.

Billiam Babble wrote

You mention that you'd prefer hooves to feet, I think in Warlock of Firetop Mountain, Russ Nicholson depicts the minotaur with hooves.

Actually I couldn't remember so I went to my book case and looked. The illustration in WoFTM seems to depict something in between humanoid feet and cloven-hooves. (sorry no picture at the moment the computer that works with my scanner had it's hard-drive die in the week and I couldn't find a copy on the illustration online) the 4 smaller toes are fused together while the 'big toe' remains separate forming a sort of hoof shape while still remaining distinctly human. (Citadel recently did something similar with their new plastic Minotaur's feet, it's a shame the rest of the sculpting was terrible)
Personally I think hooves just look cooler and more bestial, it seems most models or illustrations of Minotaurs depict them with either feet or hooves and there is no majority either way, most written descriptions of Minotaurs don't mention whether they have humanoid feet or hooves and it seems to be left up to the artist or sculptor whether they want to do hooves or feet (interestingly there is an old Blood Bowl Minotaur character from around the same time as WHQ called 'Grashnak Blackhoof', the model for which has humanoid feet despite having the word 'hoof' in it's name!) I think that as creatures of chaos Minotaur's can have feet or hooves and a mixture of the 2 is a very interesting take on the subject. Broo (Beastmen) should always have hooves though!

Billiam Babble wrote

In Basic D&D, a single minotaur can be significant, semi-intelligent and brutish adversary which can hold its own with a first level party. So as a beginning player, the Minotaur, along with its mythological links and natural associations with mazes meant that it was the perfect dungeon monster archetype (along with the fact that they weren't very magical and I used to stumble with magic rules!).

Totally agreed! The Minotaur is a dungeoneering classic and all good GM/DMs should have at least one at their disposal. For the first game I used this model in once I had it painted, I generated a dungeon mostly consisting of poorly lit corridors and a few small chambers and had the Minotaur turn up as a wandering monster in the corridors, I also wrote in a random encounter with a Snotling carrying a pair of scissors in case the players thought to try the old trick of using a ball of string, but the encounter never got used. Any encounter with a Minotaur in an enclosed space is always going to be brutal, the sheer size of the creature plus it's habit of charging horns first into battle makes it the perfect boss creature vs lower level characters and when you reach the objective room in a game of WHQ and you find 3 of them are guarding the quest item you know your in for an epic battle!

-----------------------------------
~The ravings of a single mad Goblin is bad enough, but such a power-hungry, malice-filled creature as Mortis can never hope to be understood~

MortiS-the-Lost

Re: Minotaur

In reply to this post by Marchomer

Marchomer wrote

Me too have this minotaur and I've painted it with your identical colour scheme! (except for the gloves and the base).

cool I'd be interested in seeing yours

Actually that goes for Billiam Babble too, we've only seen a few tantalising glimpses of your miniature collection being using with your dungeon sections so far Mr Babble!

... and SamuelF too for that matter ... lets see some miniatures guys!

-----------------------------------
~The ravings of a single mad Goblin is bad enough, but such a power-hungry, malice-filled creature as Mortis can never hope to be understood~

Scumdog47

Re: Minotaur

In reply to this post by MortiS-the-Lost

I concur, hooves are preferable, but when I got 3 minotaurs in Warhammer Quest I didn't feel like complaining since it brought my number up to 7 minotaurs in total which made for a decent unit for my chaos army. :D

I like your choice of colours.
Mine are a whole lot darker (Khorne and all that, you know...) and admittedly far less expertly painted.

SamuelF

Re: Minotaur

In reply to this post by MortiS-the-Lost

Really great painting Mortis. Got me wishing that I could get to grips with ink washes etc..

It's a nice sculpt. I'd quite like him to lose the gloves though. It seems a bit more brutish to grip a club with bare hands to me (a big chap like him surely wouldn't be scared of a few splinters!) The colour scheme really emphesises the half-beast half-man with his fleshy face. Love the details like the toe-nails, and the base is a nice addition

MortiS-the-Lost wrote

Actually that goes for Billiam Babble too, we've only seen a few tantalising glimpses of your miniature collection being using with your dungeon sections so far Mr Babble!

... and SamuelF too for that matter ... lets see some miniatures guys!

Oookay. Not posted any pics of my painting before. Soooo.. You asked for it!

MortiS-the-Lost

Re: Minotaur

In reply to this post by Scumdog47

SamuelF wrote

Really great painting Mortis. Got me wishing that I could get to grips with ink washes etc..

Thanks

all you need do is practice a little, the current range of Citadel washes make it very easy to achieve good results

Scumdog47 wrote

I like your choice of colours.
Mine are a whole lot darker (Khorne and all that, you know...)

Thanks dude

You saying that has got me thinking about buying a Heresy Minotaur and doing it in Khornate colours: red flesh, bronze weapons, add some skulls to the base ect
Nothing screams Khorne quite like a 10ft axe-wielding monster with horns and hooves!

SamuelF wrote

I'd quite like him to lose the gloves though. It seems a bit more brutish to grip a club with bare hands to me (a big chap like him surely wouldn't be scared of a few splinters!)

Yea I've always thought it was kinda odd that the WHQ Minotaurs have gloves on while wearing little else, on a human that sort of thing would seem like fetish-wear LMAO. Still despite this and the lack of hooves I like model and it's certainly a lot nicer than the new Citadel plastic Minotaurs.

-----------------------------------
~The ravings of a single mad Goblin is bad enough, but such a power-hungry, malice-filled creature as Mortis can never hope to be understood~

SamuelF

Re: Minotaur

In reply to this post by MortiS-the-Lost

This thread has got me really interested in doing my own Minotaur.

Do people have any tips for nice sculpts to check out?

Whilst hunting around for a suitable model I stumbled across an interesting sculpt by a Spanish company named Avatars of War:

My first crit is that it is a bit over muscled, my second is that it is pricey. GW pricey.

Apart from a few quibbles, it seems to tick quite a few of my boxes though. I love the axe. Does anyone have experience with this company?

MortiS-the-Lost

Re: Minotaur

IMHO the best (and certainly best value) Minotaur currently available is this awesome piece from Heresy Miniatures .

HM001 MANBANE, MINOTAUR LORD

http://www.heresyminiatures.com/hm001.htm

-----------------------------------
~The ravings of a single mad Goblin is bad enough, but such a power-hungry, malice-filled creature as Mortis can never hope to be understood~

SamuelF

Re: Minotaur

MortiS-the-Lost wrote

IMHO the best (and certainly best value) Minotaur currently available is this awesome piece from Heresy Miniatures .

Yeaah! That model is sweet, and it's definitely the right price

I was looking for alternative model sites yesterday and I found cool sculpt by MSB Toys

It's good value, and with a bit of conversion it could look nice (an axe in the left hand and a shield on the right I'm thinking..)

I also found an even better value sculpt by Spartan Games

This one definitely has an authentic Greek feel to it, and it comes with the base.

Hmmm.. decisions decisions...

Umboman

Re: Minotaur

In reply to this post by MortiS-the-Lost

Lovely colours/painting............the flesh looks so real ....& as usual full & frank details of the paint choices.

The Prodigal son

MortiS-the-Lost

Re: Minotaur

In reply to this post by MortiS-the-Lost

A while back I got hold the Axe armed variant of the WHQ Minotaur second hand. Unfortunately it had been undercoated in black and then given a second rather thick white undercoat. It's been soaking in Dettol for a week or so and now after a bit of scrubbing has come out 99% clear of paint. The next step will be to re-base it to match the first Minotaur ... so with this one I'm going to model and paint the base look like the floor of a different WHQ room.
I've narrowed it down to the 3 you see above, which I thought had the most interesting floors, but not requiring such a level of detail as to be distracting from the miniature.

So which do you think guys? the choices are: The Well of Doom Chamber (top right), The Monster Layer (bottom left) or The Torture Room (bottom right)

-----------------------------------
~The ravings of a single mad Goblin is bad enough, but such a power-hungry, malice-filled creature as Mortis can never hope to be understood~

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