"Cheap and easy skeletons (Caesar Miniatures)" Topic

Part of my ongoing project to make good, not great, fantasy minis on a budget:

More here: link

Thanks. I think about picking some up every now and again but I've got so much stuff stockpiled already…

If I finally organize my evils, this will flesh out an nice army.

Cool fun. Great skellies from Caesar.
Love the blog as well. -TV

Where does Sven come from? What manufacturer?

Excellent work.

Thanks guys!

Sven the comparison viking is from Eagle Games' Age of Mythology set. They have a lot of great fantasy figures, and you can buy them without the game from the manufacturer for crazy cheap, so they were among the first minis I bought.

Yes, you can. On the Eagle games site, go to the boxed minatures or the components section.

Caesar's, and Dark Alliance, both make excellent 1/72 scale, plastic fantasy mini's, for minimal prices. They paint up easily, quickly, and they're very good sculpts. If I were just starting out, I would concentrate on 1/72 fantasy due to the low cost of figures. I am also a big fan of Prince August fantasy molds, true 25mm figures, which will blend well with these figures since they're very close in sizes.

Skeletons are kind of a good thing to have on hand, at your painting table. They paint up sooo fast (pretty much one color for 90% of the figure, then some detailing of armor and weapons), then use Magic Wash/The Dip, and matte coat to finish. They can really help you feel good having painted an entire unit/army to completion, in very little time. I like to do a batch up, once in a great while, just to keep myself motivated to continue painting the rest of my hoard of bare plastic/metal figures…

123Mac, I see you painted the bases entirely black -- you're the only other person I know of who shares my attitude towards bases: keep them simple, quick, and easy; the black can be justified as showing the figure's zone of control, or space occupied; it works no matter what the terrain is that they are standing on top of. Cheers!

Yep, I figure if they are used for RPGs, you want a base that will work for any possible terrain. I don't want to have flocked bases for a dungeoncrawl, or painted cobblestones for a woodland adventure. If I were wargaming, I might have a different attitude.

I had the same experience with painting skeletons quickly. Another great thing about having skeletons on hand is harvesting them for skulls for making bits for other figures. I'm working on a 1/72 scale-appropriate talisman for my lizardman spellcaster using Caesar Miniatures skulls and an Italeri barbarian spear.