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| Six Gnolls from the Frostgrave plastic kit from North Star -- picked up by the sprue from Firelands |
I bought three of the sprues from the
North Star Frostgrave Gnolls from my friends at
Firelands Games last year. That gives me 15 of them, along with the usual extra heads, weapons, and such they include in these plastic, multipart kits. My original thinking (besides buying something to support my friends' store at a convention), was 15 would give me enough for a
Dragon Rampant unit, which are typically 12 figures. Now I'm thinking that I'm more likely to use them in
Four Delvers,
Sellswords & Spellslingers, or some other smaller skirmish game.
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| I've always liked Gnolls -- I guess the idea of crazed, tribal Hyena Men appeals to me...ha, ha! |
I've always liked gnolls. I guess it is the hyena-men appearance, their crazed, bloodthirsty look, and weird, hunched posture. The kit does a nice job of reproducing that in plastic. The torso and legs come together as one piece for four of the five minis on each sprue -- not sure why the fifth one has to be glued together. Needless to say, I didn't use any of those poses for these first six! The less assembling that I have to do, the better. Anyway, there is a longer neck projection coming out from between the shoulder blades that you glue the head onto. I think it is to specifically give that hunched over look. So, the head glues on almost perpendicularly to the torso. This is fine -- it just means you have to hold the head in place until the bond of your glue takes hold.
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| Confession to make: I really don't like 'assemble & customize your own' plastic kits - I prefer metal |
There are weapons for gnoll archers, but I chose all of mine to be melee weapons. As with any Frostgrave kit, I really struggle when a weapon calls for both hand to be on it. Assembling is a challenge for me, for some reason, and getting the arm to line up with the long spear AND sit flush with the shoulder is bewildering to me. What's more, I would not be surprised if I was supposed to do the same with the two-handed sword. I punted on that, though, and didn't even try. Give me a one-piece metal casting over these "Build a Bear" kits any day...ha, ha! Yes, yes, I now -- the variety! Customization!! Not for me. I can instead just make sure I purchase a bunch of different poses and weapons types, right?
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| I tried to use a variety, but really struggle with figs where both arms are gripping the same weapon |
Once the six figures were all glued together, I based them up on one of my usual thin, plywood round bases with a heavy duty magnetic base bottom. Then I primed them with Liquitex White Gesso. Once they were dry, I remembered another thing that I am not particularly crazy about plastic kits. The detail is relatively shallow, and once you prime the figure, it becomes even more so. I think it becomes most noticeable, though, when you are dry brushing fur or clothing or something that would normally have a bit of depth to it on a metal figure. You certainly don't get the same effect with dry brushing that you would on a well-cast metal figure.
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| Crazed hyena faces and a subtle variety of fur shades which I'm not sure anyone will notice! |
I looked up some images of African hyenas online, and then at my paints for potential matches. Since I saw various fur tones in the pictures, I'd felt I'd be justified in using a handful of tones for the base coat. So, I picked out and used a half dozen beige, khaki, light brown, etc., colors, with each being slightly different. My favorite one was a craft paint called "Khaki." It had a very nice yellowish tint to it that looked perfect for gnolls. That said, I'm not sure after dry brushing and washing that the differences between the various shades stand out much. I also used the images to paint the dark brown around the muzzle, as well as the bottom of their legs and spots on their fur. I used a relatively thin craft paint called "Walnut." It is almost semi-transparent, which gives a shading effect. I also painted the black for the eyes and their nose, while I was focusing on their faces.
After that came the difficult part. I looked at their torsos, arms, and legs to figure out what was clothing, what was leather armor, and what was something else entirely. It wasn't easy, which is another reason I'm not a plastic kit fanboy. For their tattered clothing, I chose pale or darker colors -- similar how I painted the orcs of my Bonefish Band. Next, I dry brushed a lighter shade on the clothing. I used a variety of leathers or browns for the leather armor or the skins they appeared to be wearing on top of their clothes. Some also had cloth wraps on their legs and leather bracers on their forearms. So, lots of different leather tones!
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| Last look at these North Star plastic Gnolls (or at least until they make onto the table for a game...!) |
I decided to do their shields in a wicker pattern, with a dark brown and Camo Brown dry brush, along with bronze and steel for a metal strip that appeared bolted on for reinforcement. I did the leather straps on the inside of the shields in my lightest leather color. Somewhere along the way, while waiting for a base coat to dry, I also finished their faces. I did a pale yellow for the "whites" of their eyes, and a dark brown pupil/iris. Their mouths were painted blood red. Once dry, I picked out tehir teeth in pale yellow. I felt the faces looked great, and they are probably my favorite part of the figures. They definitely have that crazed gnoll look in their eyes!
I considered doing some sort of primitive tribal designs on their wicker shields, but chose not to in the end. The shields themselves are kind of small, but wouldn't you know it? That's the deepest incised detail on the figures, which would make straight lines more difficult to do. So, after a brown wash on most of the figure and black wash on selected parts, this batch of gnolls was mostly complete! I flocked them so they would match most of my figures and finally spray dull coated them. Done!
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| It's April and I've kept my promise to intermix batches of figs bought this year with older ones |
What else is on my painting desk? Well, since these are "old" figures, I can do a batch of new miniatures for new projects next. So, it is finally time to finish off those big alien monsters that I bought at
Cincycon! Two of them are complete and two are about halfway done. I can't imagine they will take too long to polish off, but we'll see. Also on tmy painting desk is both the next "old" batch of figures AND the next new one of elves. So, as I was finishing these gnolls, I had four different batches of miniatures in various states of progress. It's getting crowded on there! I leave for vacation on Monday, though, so there will be a week-plus hiatus with no progress or updates. Maybe THAT is why I have so many projects going on at the moment -- I'm trying to make up in advance for that!
MINIATURES Acquired vs. Painted Tally for 2026
- Miniatures acquired in 2026: 159
- Miniatures painted in 2026: 79
TERRAIN Acquired vs. Painted Tally for 2026
- Terrain acquired in 2026: 3
- Terrain painted in 2026: 22
SCATTER Acquired vs. Painted Tally for 2026
- Scatter acquired in 2026: 16
- Scatter painted in 2026: 48
