WK's Masters of the Universe in 30mm scale (1 Viewer)

[villagehorse]

Terrific pose. The paint job looks good to me WK. You do nice work. Robin.

 

[White Knight]

Thank you , Robin. I must say, the eyes are a bit easier to paint on 60mm models than on these halfsized cousins.

 

[White Knight]

Having painted a second, improved version of Teela, the earlier version became obsolete. I could of strip her, but most of the paintjob was perfectly serviceable and since I learned about there being a Snakemen version of Teela in the MOTU 200x continuity, I wanted to do a Snake Teela as she could have appeared if done in Filmation style. So I went about repainting her skin in a green tone, and her eyes yellow. That the earlier, flawed skintone had left some rough patches here and there didn't really matter, as it all worked with the Snakemen theme. I painted her sword green, after the 200X Snake Teela toy figure accessory, though I left the shield as it was. Her base was repainted in my Snakemen base colours. A relatively quick job that meant I could keep using the figure without having to repaint a complete figure. Result!

She-Hul... I mean, Snake Teela!

... in all her green glory

The concept is inspired by the MOTU 200x episode "Second Skin", where King Hiss used an artifact that could turn regular people into Snakemen. In the story, Man-At-Arms, Mekanek and Teela were temporarily turned into Snakemen and battled He-Man. They were returned back to their human selves after He-Man destroyed the Serpents Ring and the Ophidian Spire. There was a toy version made of Snake Teela after the cartoon that looked like this:

The 200x Teela design isn't quite the same as the Filmation Teela we know and love, so I tried to reimagine what Snake Teela would have looked like in a Filmation episode. With their love for reusing recoloured footage, just like the toys loved to reuse recoloured characters, a simple green repaint seemed a likely interpretation.

I will stop your evil, Remcor, I....... will....... join you!

You have to fight it, Teela! - I can't... and I don't want to!

Teela vs Snake Teela

 

[villagehorse]

Like it. One thing is for sure WK, no one else has these figures, they are one of a kind. Robin.

 

[White Knight]

It's becoming obvious that I'm really not very good at doing female faces. She doesn't look too bad in the flesh and the bad pictures aren't helping, but I botched the eyes several times which ended up messing up the face a bit. But at least now I've painted at least1 of each unique sculpt in the Quest Miniatures first wave of MOTU figures.

Evil-Lyn is the only female member of the Evil Warriors, at least in Filmation continuity, and she is an evil witch who aids Skeletor as his second-in-command with her powers of darkness. She is vastly more intelligent than Skeletor's other minions, and while she admits that she is not as powerful as Skeletor, she readily confesses that she hopes to seize her master's powers and lord it over Eternia herself one day. Her background has changed a bit depending which continuity you look at. In recent years she has been both said to have been Prince Keldor's lover, before he took the grievous wounds that made him turn to the dark magic that made him into the Skeletor he is today. Other stories claim she was a crew member of the same Earth spaceship that brought Queen Marlena to Eternia.

The figure is another Boris Woloszyn sculpt from Quest Miniatures and the last unique sculpt of the first wave. The pictures don't show her off to her best, but that doesn't detract from the fact that I somewhat botched the face on this one (redoing the eyes several times will do that). Otherwise, she is straight up with no conversions other than the homesculpted base.

An Evil Witch and her wand...

With Teela:

Though we come from the same mould, we are nothing alike!

The full complement of painted Heroic and Evil Warriors so far.

The Evil Warriors: Beastman, Skeletor, Evil-Lyn

The Heroic Warriors: Man-At-Arms, He-Man, The Goddess, Teela

And a bonus picture of the completed first wave of Quest Miniatures MOTU miniatures:

Quest Miniatures Wave 1

 

[tdubel]

Awesome work and neat thread, thanks for sharing!
Tom

 

[White Knight]

Now for an all new faction, the first of the Anti-Eternians!

Hailing from the Antiverse, a mirror dimension in which good and evil have traded places, Anti-He-Man is the most ruthless tyrant that Anti-Eternia has ever known, and the arch-nemesis for the heroic Prince Keldor. The character was originally exclusive to a German audiobook story, though a popular character among collectors for custom action figures, given that he's a straight repaint. Eventually, his story came full circle when an official MOTU Classics figure was released by Mattel a few years ago, cementing his position in MOTU canon.

When Skeletor utilized the Elixir of Schneidor to open doorways into other dimensions, he inadvertently created a pathway to the Antiverse, allowing Anti-He-Man to cross over into Eternia. His evil powers unstoppable, He-Man and Skeletor had to unite to fight him. Since such an uneasy alliance can only end in betrayal, Skeletor sent both He-Men to the Antiverse. The story didn't end there of course and He-Man helped Prince Keldor overthrow Anti-He-Man in Castle Hellskull. He-Man was finally returned home by Gwildor and Zodak using the Cosmic Key.

Filmation fans should check out this gorgeous fanmade tribute by Grimbot that looks just like the real thing: https://vimeo.com/104823202

The model is of course the standard He-Man sculpt by Boris Woloszyn for Quest Miniatures, converted to remove the empty sword scabbard and with a custom base. The black skin didn't turn out the way I wanted, but it looks fine in person, so I'll leave it. I looked at a lot of images of Anti-He-Man art and customs for the best colour combination and pretty much ended up with the one from the fanmade video, which is appropriate since I'm trying to stick to a Filmation theme with these figures. Some versions online only use black and red, but I feel the grey bracers add a much needed flash of contrasting colour to keep the figure interesting. Unlike the video version, I did keep the glowing red eyes seen on most incarnations. Some people paint the sword black, which, while cool, can't beat the awesome vintage toy feel of a bright red version of the powersword.

Anti-Eternia He-Man in all his glory.

Duel of the He-Man:

 

[White Knight]

Anti-Eternians - Anti-Man-At-Arms
Another character from the German audio plays, Anti-Man-At-Arms is, as you will have guessed, the evil mirror identity of Man-At-Arms from the Anti-Eternia universe. Like Anti-He-Man, the main colours are black, red and grey. This one has no official figure, so there is some artistic freedom to represent him.

The figure is of course another copy of the Quest Miniatures Man-At-Arms figure, with custom base.

Eternians fighting their Anti-Eternian counterparts:

A side by side of good and evil Man-At-Arms (Men-At-Arms?):

The Anti-Eternians so far:

 

[White Knight]

To complete (for now) the round of Anti-Eternian counterparts, Anti-Eternia Teela is as cruel as she is beautiful, in a cold, dark way. This one was a bit of a rush job and it doesn't take well to pictures as the black paint and highlights are slightly glossy. Having no clear example of what she should look like, I sort of made it up going by what I figured would look good. I also decided to change the bases on my Anti-Eternians (though you don't see it very well in the pictures) by adding red in the recesses between the tiles, which gives an impression of heat and fits well with the Anti-Eternian theme. This one was painted as part of He-Month 2 (over on the Cheaphammer blog) and will likely be my only entry this month.

The deadly Anti-Teela

The complete set of Anti-Eternians (so far), with touched up bases:

My three versions of Teela so far: Anti-Teela, Teela and Snake Teela.

 

[villagehorse]

Can see the Red in the bases, nice touch WK. Good work. Robin.

 

[White Knight]

Heroic Warriors: Battlecat

Battlecat is one of the top tier characters that should be present in any MOTU collection. A huge armoured tiger, with a humanlike intelligence that can be ridden in battle by He-Man is no foe to trifle with. Like He-Man's alter ego Prince Adam, Battlecat is the empowered version of the Prince's tiger, Cringer. Once He-Man calls upon the power of Castle Grayskull, the cowardly Cringer is transformed into the fearless Battlecat.

This model is the 1980s Grenadier Miniatures sculpt and it holds up surprisingly well for it's age. There are a few minor rough spots, but those are more due to the casting techniques of the day than any flaws of the sculpt itself. The size is also spot on, and makes for a really imposing model. The base is a Fenris Games resin base, to which I've added the usual flagtile texture. These are the only bases I've found that are big enough to accommodate this mighty beast.

Supposedly at 25mm scale, the old Grenadier model is just about the right size for the newer 30mm sculpts:

He-Man and Battlecat

Easy now, big cat, we're not looking for any trouble.

 

[villagehorse]

I can see why you have been quiet for awhile WK, you have been battling with this big cat. You mentioned flaws, none are an obstacle for you. You have the ability to remedy any that exist. Robin.

 

[White Knight]

Thank you, Robin! I managed to squeeze in another quick one, thanks to a helpful limited palette.

Evil Horde - Slime Pit He-Man

Slime Pit He-Man (sometimes also referred to as Slime Monster He-Man) featured in one of the mini-comics that came with the toys. Hordak managed to trap He-Man in the slime pit, and had a toxic green slime poured over him that turned him into a mindless killing machine. Hordak then proceeded to send He-Man after Skeletor to eliminate his erstwhile apprentice. The mind controlled He-Man almost succeeded in this task, but with the telepathic help of the Sorceress, He-Man was able to shake off the effects of the slime right before delivering the killing blow.

The model is a converted Quest Miniatures He-Man, with the weapons removed and some slime sculpted over in places to suggest a thicker coat of it clinging to his body. The flagstone base was painted with a reddish tone this time, as that is the colour I reserved for the Evil Horde faction, and it adds some colour other than green to the figure.

Slime Pit He-Man about to crush Skeletor once and for all...

A page from the mini-comic featuring the event:

 

[villagehorse]

Another interesting character WK. Robin.

 

[White Knight]

Heroic Warriors - Gender-swapped He-Man

To the best of my knowledge, there has never been a gender-swapped He-Man in any of the MOTU canon. Still, there is no reason it could not have happened (temporarily) through the use of an ancient artefact or a magical spell. I'm sure there could have been an interesting moral in that story somewhere. So to make up my own fluff: while fighting over a mysterious artefact, Skeletor and He-Man inadvertently unleashed it's energies with unexpected results. Temporarily finding himself in female form, He-Man's ability to lead the good fight was in no way diminished.

She has the Power!

The model is Hasslefree Miniatures' Delphine, with some conversions. I added fur to her panties and boots and swapped the original sword for a spare powersword from a previous conversion, for a closer match to the male He-Man figure.

Male and female He-Man side by side:

They have the Power...?

A different take on the origin story perhaps, where Evil-Lyn enacts a spell of her own to turn He-Man into someone more... well... her own size:

* Sniff * * Sniff * - Yes, Battlecat, it's still me!

I'll be honest, He-Man, I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand I still find you attractive, but on the other hand, your breasts are bigger than mine...

 

[villagehorse]

One sexy little warrior. Robin.

 

[White Knight]

Heroic Warriors - Man-At-Arms on Sky-Sled

One of the Heroic Warriors' preferred means of transportation is the Sky-Sled, the detachable front half of the Battleram vehicle. The Evil Warriors had their own version of course, but more on that some other time. Seen here is Man-At-Arms flying one of the flyers in stylish Filmation colours.

The model is a conversion of one of the old 1980's Grenadier Battleram models. I cut off the front half and added some detail that was missing from the back. For the rider, I removed the tab from a Quest Miniatures Man-At-Arms figure and the pose was practically a perfect fit. Some minor bending of the ankles to adjust it and a spare plastic hand from the same Fireforge soldier box previous bits were sourced from made it complete. The light was bad, so pictures aren't the best. And his eyes could have been better, but now that he's glued in place, I'm not touching him anymore.

Man-At-Arms, foot and flying. I tried to make the eyes a bit smaller on this second version, but that doesn't seem to have been an improvement.

Now, now, using that laser in your wrist to shoot from above is a bit unsporting, old chap.

 

[White Knight]

Managed to finish another one, fun to paint too!

Anti-Eternians - Anti-Battlecat

Now that He-Man received his trusty companion, we couldn't very well let Anti-He-Man be at a disadvantage when facing them. Like when Prince Adam calls on the power of Grayskull, Anti-He-Man draws from the power of Castle Hellskull to infuse himself and his pet with great power. Anti-Battlecat is every bit as strong as the regular Battlecat, but twice as vicious!

Anti He-Man and his Anti-Battlecat

The model is of course another Grenadier Miniatures Battlecat, with a blank lipped base from Fenris Games, to which I added the flagstone texture. I went back and forth a long time on the colours on this one. Most action figure customs for this creature use black armour and black body, with red stripes. I wanted a bit more contrast than that. Initially I planned to do red armour and light grey stripes, but the light grey on black didn't seem to offer enough contrast, so instead I went with red stipes and grey armour, but since I didn't want the light grey to dominate the model, I just used the shading colour and then washed it a couple times with thinned black, for a darker grey, leatherlike finish. Finally, I decided to paint the teeth red and the tongue grey, in keeping with the reversed colour palette these have going.

Battlecats face off:

A side by side comparison of the two variant colour schemes:

Man-At-Arms is clever enough to keep a safe distance while battling these foes:

 

[villagehorse]

The well thought out paint scheme has paid off. I think the colours look terrific WK. Robin.

 

[White Knight]

Thank you, Robin, I'm happy with how it came out too. Did another set real quick as they were very simple models:

Evil Horde - Slime Monsters

Both the Filmation cartoon and the mini-comics featured Slime Monsters. While their affiliation could vary, I decided to give mine the colour for my Horde bases, on account that since Hordak has a Slime Pit, it made the most sense. The models are Otherworld Miniatures mud monsters, which were perfect for the part. These were very quick to paint up, nothing fancy here.

With Slime Monster He-Man:

Get back, you slimy freaks!