Evil Warriors - Copycat

He-Man has Battlecat and Skeletor has Panthor. It stands to reason that Faker, with his whole He-Man impersonation obsession would get his own mount. Copycat, sometimes referred to as Bogus Cat, is another fanmade creation, subject of a lot of custom action figures. A robotic duplicate of Battlecat, it sports Faker's colour scheme, so that no confusion is possible.

The fearless robot called Copycat...

The model is another of the old Grenadier Battlecat models, with a blank resin base from Fenris Games and texture added with putty.

I assume Copycat was created by Skeletor or Triclops, but as I haven't painted my Triclops yet...

Come forward, my glorious creation! Nyaaaah!

By the Sorceress' beak! What is this freakshow?

 And a quick side by side of my three interpretations of Battlecat: regular, copy and anti-Eternia.

Anti-Eternians - Anti-Goddess

If Anti-Eternia is the opposite of regular Eternia, then it stands to reason that its Goddess has also been tainted by the same evil. Being more brutal in nature, she fights with a mace, ready to bash in skulls, rather than to carry the snake staff.

Anti-Eternia Goddess

 There isn't really any precedent for this character (that I'm aware of), so her colour scheme was made up, using the usual Anti-Eternia palette and trying to go by what makes sense and gives the best contrast. As the regular version already wears a (dark) red snake collar, I decided to do the collar in the grey colour and work out the rest from there. I think the end result is pretty good.



The model is another old Grenadier mini from the 1980s. It's interesting that Grenadier made multiple poses of the same characters and it helps to further differentiate between the good and bad Goddess, although having duplicate models in different colour schemes doesn't bother me in this project, since it's a nod to the heavy reuse of parts and recoloured characters in the MOTU universe and toy line.

Anti-Eternia and Eternia Goddess

What sorcery is this? You are not the Goddess!

The Anti-Eternians so far (not including Man-At-Arms in Windraider)

Anti-Eternians - Anti-Man-At-Arms in Windraider

One of the elements in the original Anti-Eternia audioplay is that Anti-Man-At-Arms comes flying in in a windraider. Now I had converted a Quest Miniatures Man-At-Arms to fit into the old Grenadier windraider, but I didn't feel like doing yet another flying Man-At-Arms so soon after the skysled version. So in an unexpected turn of event, I ended up painting an Anti-Eternia windraider before doing a regular one. The Grenadier model is based on the toy version, so it's a one-person aircraft, unlike the Filmation cartoon 4-seater. All in all, the Quest Miniatures models work well enough with the much older model. I cut off about 3/4 of the legs for this one. There is no official colour design for the Anti-Eternia windraider, so I went with what seemed to make sense to carry on the theme.

Anti-Eternia Windraider

With the foot version of the same character

He-Man tries to use his shield to deflect Anti-Man-At-Arms' laserbeam

Death from above! Castle Grayskull under attack. Man-At-Arms takes to the skies in his skysled.

Men-At-Arms's battling in  the sky!

Heroic Warriors - Gender-swapped He-Man on Battlecat

A while ago I converted a Hasslefree Daphne figure into a gender-swapped version of He-Man. The idea being that He-Man (or Prince Adam) was temporarily turned into a young girl through some ancient artefact or magic spell (possibly one of Orko's spells gone wrong). This is the mounted version of that character. I'll leave it up to you to imagine whether Battlecat also had a sex change or not if you're into that kind of thing.

Mounted and Unmounted version

I used the same base figure for the mounted version, with reposed legs and the addition of fur panties and boots and a swap for another spare Quest Miniatures power sword. Battlecat is yet another of the Grenadier OOP Battlecats, which I've collected over the years. The base is a blank lipped base from Fenris (the closest match I could find to the large Battlecat mini), with added tile texture with putty.

Fighting Skeletor's minions

All my (good) He-Man versions so far...

Battlecat(s)

Heroic Warriors - He-Man on Battlecat

As if He-Man and Battlecat weren't impressive enough on their own, the sight of He-Man riding on Battlecat's back is enough to strike terror in the hearts of the denizens of evil. The riding he-Man is a conversion of the Quest Miniatures He-Man, I cut off and reposed one leg and bent the other one slightly, some putty to cover the gap. Battlecat is of course another copy of the OOP Grenadier model. The base is a lipped base blank by Fenris Games and the tile texture was added with putty.

Foot and mounted version together

Anti-Eternians - Anti-Battlecat

Now that He-Man received his trusty companion, we couldn't very well let Anti-He-Man be at a disadvantage when facing them. Like when Prince Adam calls on the power of Grayskull, Anti-He-Man draws from the power of Castle Hellskull to infuse himself and his pet with great power. Anti-Battlecat is every bit as strong as the regular Battlecat, but twice as vicious!

Anti He-Man and his Anti-Battlecat

The model is of course another Grenadier Miniatures Battlecat, with a blank lipped base from Fenris Games, to which I added the flagstone texture. I went back and forth a long time on the colours on this one. Most action figure customs for this creature use black armour and black body, with red stripes. I wanted a bit more contrast than that. Initially I planned to do red armour and light grey stripes, but the light grey on black didn't seem to offer enough contrast, so instead I went with red stipes and grey armour, but since I didn't want the light grey to dominate the model, I just used the shading colour and then washed it a couple times with thinned black, for a darker grey, leatherlike finish. Finally, I decided to paint the teeth red and the tongue grey, in keeping with the reversed colour palette these have going.

Battlecat's face off:

A side by side comparison of the two variant colour schemes:

Man-At-Arms is clever enough to keep a safe distance while battling these foes:

Heroic Warriors - Man-At-Arms on Sky-Sled

One of the Heroic Warriors' preferred means of transportation is the Sky-Sled, the detachable front half of the Battleram vehicle. The Evil Warriors had their own version of course, but more on that some other time. Seen here is Man-At-Arms flying one of the flyers in stylish Filmation colours.

The model is a conversion of one of the old 1980's Grenadier Battleram models. I cut off the front half and added some detail that was missing from the back. For the rider, I removed the tab from a Quest Miniatures Man-At-Arms figure and the pose was practically a perfect fit. Some minor bending of the ankles to adjust it and a spare plastic hand from the same Fireforge soldier box previous bits were sourced from made it complete.

Man-At-Arms, foot and flying. I tried to make the eyes a bit smaller on this second version, but that doesn't seem to have been an improvement.

Now, now, using that laser in your wrist to shoot from above is a bit unsporting, old chap.

Heroic Warriors - Battlecat

Battlecat is one of the top tier characters that should be present in any MOTU collection. A huge armoured tiger, with a humanlike intelligence that can be ridden in battle by He-Man is no foe to trifle with. Like He-Man's alter ego Prince Adam, Battlecat is the empowered version of the Prince's tiger, Cringer. Once He-Man calls upon the power of Castle Grayskull, the cowardly Cringer is transformed into the fearless Battlecat.

This model is the 1980s Grenadier Miniatures sculpt and it holds up surprisingly well for it's age. There are a few minor rough spots, but those are more due to the casting techniques of the day than any flaws of the sculpt itself. The size is also spot on, and makes for a really imposing model. The base is a Fenris Games resin base, to which I've added the usual flagtile texture. These are the only bases I've found that are big enough to accommodate this mighty beast.

Supposedly at 25mm scale, the old Grenadier model is just about the right size for the newer 30mm sculpts:

He-Man and Battlecat

Easy now, big cat, we're not looking for any trouble.

Heroic Warriors - The Goddess

The Goddess is an Eternian deity tasked with maintaining the natural order and protecting Castle Grayskull from those would plunder it. Originally, it is she who provides He-Man with the armor and weapons he needs to fight Skeletor; later, she guards the Cavern of Power where Prince Adam and Cringer transform into He-Man and Battle Cat. This character appeared in the first minicomics and went through many changes. First her colouring was changed from the original green to match Teela's colours, then she went from a Goddess to being the Sorceress and was ultimately redesigned to be the Filmation Sorceress we know and love. Her journey didn't end though and a few years ago she got her own figure in the MOTU Classics action figure range and in more recent comic continuity, became Teela's evolved form as the Snake Goddess.

The Goddess, in all her serpentine glory.

The miniature is the old '80s Grenadier Miniatures Teela figure. Designed after the toy and not the Filmation series, she doesn't look much like the Teela we know, but she does look exactly like the original Goddess. Unlike the other figures from the '80s miniatures range, the women were sculpted by a different sculptor and were more tall and slim, making her a perfect fit for more modern miniature scale. I did convert her slightly to add a bit of meat to her thighs and hips. After all, those were a trademark of the MOTU female characters too and this made her fit in better with the Quest Miniatures sculpts. I also gave her slightly longer feet as the original figures came with these small stumps that were hardly there. The base was custom made by cutting a hole in a plastic base to insert the thick metal integral base of the mini and then covered over with putty to add the flagstone texture.

Paintwise, I tried to stay true to the source material but "Filmation her up" slightly. Hence the (non metallic) gold accents, which also appeared in some later incarnations. the vertical black lines under her eyes were also part of some later source material and I thought it would be interesting to incorporate those.

Some more angles... 

The original minicomic scene where she gives the savage He-Man his first weapons

Gosh, Goddess, thanks you so much for these, the girls will love them!

You and I, Teela, we are one of a kind.

Your power will be mine!

While she looks taller in some pictures, she is the same size, it's just that she's the only figure who's standing up straight.

A different look, using the new lightbox

That's the last of the additions to the Heroic Warriors for now, as some more baddies are long overdue to balance out the sides.