Saturday, September 26, 2015

Reaper Dark Heaven: Garzuhl, Mantis Man Ranger

On a whim, I decided to pull out one of the newer metal figures I purchased from Reaper and get it painted up:  03580 Garzuhl, Mantis Man Ranger from the Dark Heaven Legends line.







First Look:  Back in the days of AD&D 2nd Ed., I briefly played in a Dark Sun campaign with a thri-kreen (or "mantis man") character.  When I came across this figure in the Reaper catalog, I knew I had to get it simply as a tribute to my character from times past (also, it was the best representative of a thri-kreen I've seen).  The figure takes advantage of the fact that "mantis men" have four arms; it is wielding a bow and two one-hand weapons.  It's a two-part figure, which lets it avoid the somewhat "one-dimensional" pose that metal molds often tend toward.

Painting:  I wanted to stick with desert-appropriate colors, as well as "natural" colors befitting the somewhat rough equipment the figure was carrying.  The figure's carapace was painted a light tan with yellow-green undersides (VGC Khaki, Desert Yellow, AP Soft Tone Ink).  I decided to avoid metal, so the armor, straps, quiver, and pouches were all painted as reddish-brown leather (VGC Tan, Terracota, AP Strong Tone Ink).  The bow was painted a medium brown (VGC Leather Brown, AP Soft Tone Ink), and the arrow fletching and bedroll were painted a yellow-brown (VGC Plague Brown, AP Soft Tone Ink).  The hand weapons and various bone bits were painted off-white (VGC Bonewhite, AP Soft Tone Ink).  Finally, the base was painted medium brown (VGC Earth) and covered with sand.

Conclusion:  The figure turned out nicely, and was fairly quick to paint.  I thought about painting the eyes black (to make them stand out), but actual praying mantis eyes tend to be the same color as their body.  I like the way the figure turned out; it makes me wish I had him way back when I played a matching character!

- M:M

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