The Secrets of Castle Grayskull

In these febrile times, a child of the 80s like myself has always been able to cling to a number of unassailable certainties in life when trouble comes knocking: Auto-bots will roll out; the Teenage Mutant 'Hero' Turtles are the world's most fearsome fighting team; and He-Man will defend the secrets of Castle Grayskull.

Unfortunately, it turns out that we can no longer hold on to these truths:

 - every time the Auto-bots roll out, the next movie is even worse;

 - any close analysis shows that the Turtles get their asses handed to them regularly;

 - the major secret of Castle Grayskull turns out to be that it's 3d printed.

I stumbled across this model whilst messing around on the Bambu Handy app. It's made by a creator who designs pieces to put in reptile terrariums. This explains why the model is in ruins as it allows the given reptile to move about more.

Seeing this, I ignore the ruined state of the Castle as I have been after a piece of He-Man themed terrain (specifically Castle Grayskull) for some time, and all it needs to do is set off the concept that a generic fantasy table is in Eternia.

The castle printed in just just three pieces: the front facade, the top turret and roof, and the side wall, and took the best part of a full day to print.

Painting was done quickly and with spray paints. A full undercoat of black, a zenithal highlight of a military green and then an all over wash of Biel-Tan Green (which actually used less of the pot than I was expecting).

I finished it all off by sticking some lichen into corners and up walls to simultaneously capture the idea that the ruins are overgrown, whilst also covering the visible joins and uglier parts of the print. Finally I scattered some debris on surfaces where it might have gathered.

All in all, I am really pleased with the outcome as I was aiming at something reminiscent of the toy one I never owned. Although small for an actual castle the scale ratio between this castle and the 32mm miniatures I own is similar enough to that of the original toyline.

I've not done much with my Masters of the Universe project for a while. I had done all the important characters and the release of an official line of miniatures at exactly that point really irritated me. However, 3d printing does open up the opportunity of adding some vehicles to the project, and I do still have a couple of models to paint.

Acquired: -76

Painted: 457

Lead Mountain: 308