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Blog Aginor's Painting Blog

Not fully finished but almost. I might apply a bit more shade and/or color still.

I also put them on bases. And since I kinda dislike the eyes I am thinking of putting bright blue dots into them after all, Game of Thrones style.

...and since I mentioned GoT: some of those shields still bear the heraldry of the Lord the troops belonged to. I used one from GoT, can you tell which one? I will be very impressed if you can.
20170713_232805.jpg
 
Short update:
Primed all my Skeletons and Knights in the sprues. This time the primer worked smoothly.
I also assembled the first 10 GW Skeletons and started painting them.
Also primed my first citadel wood. My black primer was empty though so I used white. Not a problem because I am used to white primer, I use it on most of my models.

20170716_125532.jpg 20170716_125454.jpg 20170716_125603.jpg
 
Comparing Skeletons:
Now that built both Mantic and GW Skeletons I think I can make a bit of a comparison here, from my point of view:

Mantic Skeletons are much quicker to assemble. Like, a quarter of the time.

GW Skellies have more options (there are more heads, spears, shields, and swords included than there are Skeletons) so you can customize them more

The GW ones wear less armor/clothes, which I aesthetically prefer. The rags they wear have needlessly complex shapes though. They do look OK but they take longer to paint than they look. I like the armor better on the Mantic ones and it is easier to paint. I just wish they had a bit less of it.

Mantic ones are realistic scale, while GW ones are heroic scale. Both have their advantages. The Mantic ones have such small details that you can hardly paint some of them, at least not at my painting skill level. The details on GW Skellies are bigger. Both have lots of details so you can paint both kinds pretty detailed if you should choose to do so. Heroic scale makes the weapons on the GW ones look more interesting though, I give them that.

The art style is more consistent on the Mantic ones, they look like soldiers from the same army. The GW Skellies have a weird mix of Viking style shields and other ones for example, some don't fit well to each other. Same for the helmets. It makes them look mire diverse though. So that's both good and bad.

The GW Skelton banner looks cooler, but it is kinda weird if think about it: why should a Skeleton army have a Skeleton on the banner? Did they make it after they were dead? The Mantic ones look they were dead, resurrected, and then just took what they had and marched on. The GW ones look more...engineered to look cool? Which to me is kinda strange.

The Horn blowers of both armies look cool, and in both armies you can decide to build them or not, there are enough optional pieces in the kits for that. It is a bit easier for the GW ones though.

Mantic Skeletons contain an undead dog and two skeletons coming out of the ground, that you can use either as troops or as objective markers, which is very cool.
GW does leave you with some spare parts as well. Lots of them actually. There are 24 heads included for 10 Skeletons for example.

GW Skellies are more than double the price compared to the Mantic ones. Both have square bases included so you will need to buy round ones. I assume that will change with the upcoming repackaging if GW Skeletons though.

All in all I'll say I like both. If you want to play in GW stores or on GW tournaments you will have to choose GW ones, and they do look a tad better and more customizable.
However if you just want to build 120 of them for games with your friends you will save 70€ or so and a LOT of time if you choose Mantic.

I will post more thoughts and pictures of both of them once I have finished a decent amount of both.
 
Aginor said:
Comparing Skeletons:
Now that built both Mantic and GW Skeletons I think I can make a bit of a comparison here, from my point of view:

Mantic Skeletons are much quicker to assemble. Like, a quarter of the time.

GW Skellies have more options (there are more heads, spears, shields, and swords included than there are Skeletons) so you can customize them more

The GW ones wear less armor/clothes, which I aesthetically prefer. The rags they wear have needlessly complex shapes though. They do look OK but they take longer to paint than they look. I like the armor better on the Mantic ones and it is easier to paint. I just wish they had a bit less of it.

Mantic ones are realistic scale, while GW ones are heroic scale. Both have their advantages. The Mantic ones have such small details that you can hardly paint some of them, at least not at my painting skill level. The details on GW Skellies are bigger. Both have lots of details so you can paint both kinds pretty detailed if you should choose to do so. Heroic scale makes the weapons on the GW ones look more interesting though, I give them that.

The art style is more consistent on the Mantic ones, they look like soldiers from the same army. The GW Skellies have a weird mix of Viking style shields and other ones for example, some don't fit well to each other. Same for the helmets. It makes them look mire diverse though. So that's both good and bad.

The GW Skelton banner looks cooler, but it is kinda weird if think about it: why should a Skeleton army have a Skeleton on the banner? Did they make it after they were dead? The Mantic ones look they were dead, resurrected, and then just took what they had and marched on. The GW ones look more...engineered to look cool? Which to me is kinda strange.

The Horn blowers of both armies look cool, and in both armies you can decide to build them or not, there are enough optional pieces in the kits for that. It is a bit easier for the GW ones though.

Mantic Skeletons contain an undead dog and two skeletons coming out of the ground, that you can use either as troops or as objective markers, which is very cool.
GW does leave you with some spare parts as well. Lots of them actually. There are 24 heads included for 10 Skeletons for example.

GW Skellies are more than double the price compared to the Mantic ones. Both have square bases included so you will need to buy round ones. I assume that will change with the upcoming repackaging if GW Skeletons though.

All in all I'll say I like both. If you want to play in GW stores or on GW tournaments you will have to choose GW ones, and they do look a tad better and more customizable.
However if you just want to build 120 of them for games with your friends you will save 70€ or so and a LOT of time if you choose Mantic.

I will post more thoughts and pictures of both of them once I have finished a decent amount of both.
Click to expand...

These are well put together comments, thanks for posting them. I have been considering for some time to start a small undead force, and GW/Mantic were the two choices I was looking at. I will most likely wind up getting both, because as much as I love the look of the GW skeletons you just can't beat the Mantic prices.

Also nice trees, I really love that sculpt.
 
Aginor said:
Comparing Skeletons:
Now that built both Mantic and GW Skeletons I think I can make a bit of a comparison here, from my point of view:

Mantic Skeletons are much quicker to assemble. Like, a quarter of the time.

GW Skellies have more options (there are more heads, spears, shields, and swords included than there are Skeletons) so you can customize them more

The GW ones wear less armor/clothes, which I aesthetically prefer. The rags they wear have needlessly complex shapes though. They do look OK but they take longer to paint than they look. I like the armor better on the Mantic ones and it is easier to paint. I just wish they had a bit less of it.

Mantic ones are realistic scale, while GW ones are heroic scale. Both have their advantages. The Mantic ones have such small details that you can hardly paint some of them, at least not at my painting skill level. The details on GW Skellies are bigger. Both have lots of details so you can paint both kinds pretty detailed if you should choose to do so. Heroic scale makes the weapons on the GW ones look more interesting though, I give them that.

The art style is more consistent on the Mantic ones, they look like soldiers from the same army. The GW Skellies have a weird mix of Viking style shields and other ones for example, some don't fit well to each other. Same for the helmets. It makes them look mire diverse though. So that's both good and bad.

The GW Skelton banner looks cooler, but it is kinda weird if think about it: why should a Skeleton army have a Skeleton on the banner? Did they make it after they were dead? The Mantic ones look they were dead, resurrected, and then just took what they had and marched on. The GW ones look more...engineered to look cool? Which to me is kinda strange.

The Horn blowers of both armies look cool, and in both armies you can decide to build them or not, there are enough optional pieces in the kits for that. It is a bit easier for the GW ones though.

Mantic Skeletons contain an undead dog and two skeletons coming out of the ground, that you can use either as troops or as objective markers, which is very cool.
GW does leave you with some spare parts as well. Lots of them actually. There are 24 heads included for 10 Skeletons for example.

GW Skellies are more than double the price compared to the Mantic ones. Both have square bases included so you will need to buy round ones. I assume that will change with the upcoming repackaging if GW Skeletons though.

All in all I'll say I like both. If you want to play in GW stores or on GW tournaments you will have to choose GW ones, and they do look a tad better and more customizable.
However if you just want to build 120 of them for games with your friends you will save 70€ or so and a LOT of time if you choose Mantic.

I will post more thoughts and pictures of both of them once I have finished a decent amount of both.
Click to expand...

A really useful analysis indeed, maybe we should pinpoint it to a info section of our forum !
 
Here are some pics of my first ten GW Skellies. They only miss their base decorations.
Turned out pretty good I think.
I had to glue a two cents coin to one of the bases though, to make the banner bearer stand.
20170718_212952.jpg 20170718_213153.jpg 20170718_213230.jpg 20170718_213247.jpg 20170718_213316.jpg
 
Worked a bit on the pond for the terrain challenge today, and the rest of the Skeletons will probably get finished today or tomorrow as well.
Pics soon.
 
Haven't finished the last 10 Skellies yet.
Something got in the way. Something big:
20170723_192604.jpg

But here are a few WIPs from the pond project:
20170722_151134.jpg 20170722_231215.jpg 20170722_235720.jpg
As you can see I first built a basic structure from foam, then I put some toilet paper and PVA glue over it to smoothen it a bit.
Then I applied the first sand.
In parallel I also worked on a few bits of decoration for it (not pictured).
 
Aginor said:
Haven't finished the last 10 Skellies yet.
Something got in the way. Something big:
View attachment 33641
Click to expand...

Who doesn't love Lego? I know I myself am a larger or at least sort of luckier (it's complicated) fan than most, but I don't know about you guys. I'm really surprised though that it doesn't have much of a presence on a site in which the main topic of which all conversations are derived from is one third building. Is there a reason for that?
 
Fun fact: I haven't built something out of Lego for....15 years or more. I used to love it but somehow I lost interest a bit. It will probably come back though, once my kids are old enough for it.

The Saturn V... I just HAD to. I am a big fan of space exploration and rockets, and so is my brother, so when we saw it we both said "Hell yeah!" and I managed to buy one a bit later (hard to come by and more expensive than I'd like because of that scarceness.
 
Nice! I still have a box of the knights kicking around somewhere I should either sell or paint...
 
Well, the way points and warscrolls look like right now (pre-GHB2017) I would rather recommend to build Hexwraiths from the kit. They are just better.
I am building the Black Knights mainly because I like how they look and to play a Deathrattle Horde bataillon one day.
But I am not aiming for competitive play anyway, my Skellies are more meant as enemies for a story campaign.
 
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