This week, I are mostly been printing... Warduke
Back to regular scale printing this week with a character from the early days of D&D and a firm favourite with all the fantasy damsels.
Warduke - Cults 3D
Warduke is an iconic fighter and in this printable version we have him as seen across three stages of his metamorphosis from journeyman fighter to outright blasphemous bad guy. This totally reminds me of the Ral Partha 3 Level character minis for AD&D from back in the day. Last time I painted up a set of these it was the Illusionist and I think they came out really cool.
The Origins of Warduke
According to Dux Bellorum the first appearance of Warduke was on the cover of Dragon Magazine #17 (1978) before becoming the main protagonist in the LJN D&D action figure toy line. He is fully fleshed out in the XL-1 Quest for the Heartstone adventure module for Dungeons & Dragons BECMI.
Growing up in the UK in the 80s we never really had the LJN toys and I only occasionally managed to snag a copy of dungeon magazine as "official D&D" source material was fairly thin on the ground.
We had White Dwarf instead, which back when the hobby was in its infancy and Games Workshop sold other games, they would support those games with scenarios and new monsters. They did this for all the games they sold including Runequest, Call of Cthulhu, Paranoia, Car Wars to name just a few.
They didn't stop this practice until September 1987 (WD Issue 93) when they printed the last AD&D Scenario "Getting Away With Most of It" by James Wallis. This issue was the one where they previewed the classic art from the Rogue Trader cover and explained what Warhammer 40K was.
Painting Warduke
The coolest part of Warduke is of course his metallic blue armour and winged helmet. This is an undeniable throwback to his 70s disco roots. Back in the day, anything remotely sci-fi got painted in Humbrol (222) Moonlight Blue metallic paint. In fact everything in the 70s was a coloured metallic. The first car I ever owned, a 1975 4-door Mk2 Escort, came in a fantastic shade called Purple Velvet Metallic.
Recreating that shade was easy with a silver base and a coat of Army Painter's appropriately named Highlord Blue Speed Paint. His armour is deceptively weird being a mix of chain over bare skin and what look like an animal fur or leather loin cloth.
Equally bizarre are his boots, with one boot cuff in silver for some unknown reason and the other all black with two big silver studs. You cannot deny he has a pretty awesome skull shield which just gets the dry brush treatment along with his trusty and utilitarian sword.
A golden codpiece / underpants combo in the shape of some monstrous demonic visage and two red gems finish him off.
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