Ice Age mammals - A wasted opportunity...

Horrible!

As I carry on working on my Lucid Eye Neanderthals I have been thinking about some appropriate Ice Age period creatures to go with them.  I have already painted a Reaper Smilodon but would really like some more mammals.  I'm more thinking about a Lost World scenario than anything (pre) historic.

The key animal, of course would be the woolly mammoth but no-one makes a good one scaled for 28mm figures.  There is a new kickstarter for Ice-Age mammals but unfortunately the models are horrible Disneyfied caricatures deigned for a fantasy game called Doggerland.  What a shame.  If they had been accurate I would have bought them all!

Quick comparison: Copplestone Castings cavemen and Lucid Eye Miniatures Neanderthals

I started work on my Lucid Eye Neanderthals (part painted figures above) today.  As you can see they are a bit bigger than the Copplestone cavemen (painted figures above).

The leader, in particular is a massive figure; 33mm foot to eye. Interestingly the two Copplestone figures are also slightly different sizes with the red head a bit larger so that he matches the smaller Lucid Eye figure.

The key thing is that the styles, head sizes and weapon size are a very similar.  I would (will) happily mix them together and I am very fussy about non-matching sized figures.

Cavegirls by Reaper Miniatures

Reaper Miniatures have recently brought out a couple of cavegirl models. They aren't exactly up to Copplestone standards but the one on the right is quite Raquel-like and might be worth getting if I see them. The one on the left looks like it was done by a different sculptor and has rather fat legs! They sell Reaper Miniatures in Orc's Nest so they might get them, I suppose. They are usually a bit bigger than 28mm but the Copplestone figures are quite large so it shouldn't matter too much.

http://www.reapermini.com/store/customer/product.php?productid=5327&cat=0&page=1

Smilodon

Here is the Reaper Miniatures Smilodon painted up with Copplestone Cavegirl.

Now, of course, most of the Smilodon fossils have been from North and South America where it lived from about 3 million years ago until about 10,000 years ago. So our cavegirl would have been from some time between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago. Sabre tooth cats in Europe died out much earlier, so a blonde with a Sabre tooth would be historically very inaccurate unless she had managed somehow to cross to the Americas 9,000 years before Leif Ericsson.

Our cavegirls are probably from a Lost World, somewhere in South America, where they interact with Dinosaurs and other species preserved on an inaccessible mountain plateau.

Although they used to be called sabre tooth tigers Smilodon was, in reality, related to true cats and mongooses (mongeese?). They probably weren't as big as this, as they were slightly smaller than a modern lion, although they weighed twice as much. But then girls were no doubt a lot smaller and in our Lost World plateau who knows?

I have gone for a patterned coat, like many modern big cats, based on the Smilodon from the BBC series Walking with Beasts.

Grrrr!

Reaper Miniatures Sabre Tooth

When I was in Orc's Nest on Friday buying my cavegirls I just happened to see this Reaper Miniatures Sabertooth Tiger (American Spelling).
I have looked at Reapers figures quite often and some of them are very nice but they are big 30mm figures and so not much use to me in the normal course of things. For a creature, however, of course, it doesn't matter. This is from their Dark Heaven Legends range and is number 2480.

It's actually a pretty good representation of a Smilodon, although rather on the large side.

There was a lot of heavy moulding attached to two of the legs which I had to carve and file away but now it's ready to paint.

More Copplestone cavegirls and some conversions

I bought another pack of Copplestone Cavegirls as a Christmas present to myself and bent their arms and legs a bit to make them look a little different from the ones I have already painted.

Then I went mad and gave one longer hair using greenstuff which I have just started to use for the first time.

I then took a Foundry Valkyrie (a nice figure by Mark Sims-but useless for gaming) and worked on her a bit more to make her more cavegirl like. I'm just hoping my painting can disguise my horrible sculpting. We will see as I am going to put up a stage by stage set of pictures up. Next, I might get some of the Foundry nymphs as they have some nice naked warriors who I might be able to cavegirlise!

Copplestone Caveman range

Here is their complete range. It's small but I like them better than any other manufacturers. These are very much based on the look of One Million Years BC's cavepeople. For games like Prehistoric Settlement it would be nice to have some more civilian types.

Cavewomen C25

Cavemen C26

More Cavemen C29

Cavemen characters C47

Giant Flightless Bird K24