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

Evil Warriors - Hover Robots

The Hover Robots are Skeletor's disposable minions, well...., most disposable minions. They are mindless automatons, which might be an early design for Hordak's horde troopers, as there is some resemblance. They are relatively small in stature, but can fly, shoot lasers and have whirling blades for hands. The figures are part of a private commission with a small run and they are spot on in my opinion.

I somewhat rushed the paintjob on these, not taking as much time as I should, but then I plan do plenty more of these, so some speed is of the essence. With hindsight, using dark grey instead of black for the recesses might have been better, but it still works OK. Some of the highlights look a bit stark in the pictures, but they are not as extreme in the flesh. I also think I waited too long removing the masking tape from the flying stands as some of the glue stuck to them and removing them left a somewhat matte finish. Still, they remain usable and I may try at some point to add a coat of gloss varnish to see if that resolves the issue.

Skeletor and his Hover Robots

He-Man is battling one of the Hover Robots and is unaware of the ambush coming from above...

Skeletor is urging on his minions... from a safe distance...

And finally, a look at the original inspiration:

Heroes of Sagar - Blackstar

Like Queen Marlena, John Blackstar is an astronaut from Earth, stranded on the planet Sagar after being swept in his spacecraft through a black hole that took him to an ancient alien universe. On Sagar, John makes allies with the Trobbits, the shape-changing Klone, the dragon Warlock, and Mara the Enchantress. Armed with the Star Sword, which forms one half of the Powerstar, Blackstar and his allies oppose the evil Overlord who seeks to rule Sagar. While his ethnicity is never clarified, Blackstar is presumed to be of Native American decent.

The model was a private commission with a limited number of copies made. Aside from using too much black to outline the eyes, I think he came out rather well.

Blackstar was produced in 1981 by Filmation, who would go on, shortly after, to produce the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon. Both shows share a lot of similarities, both in used concepts and the general look and feel of the setting. Some monsters and animation sequences from Blackstar were later used in the MOTU cartoon, though the one thing that, above all of these, firmly puts the planet Sagar in the MOTU universe is the appearance of a Blackstar statue holding up the Starsword in a MOTU episode:

Blackstar statue to the left

Blackstar as he appears in the Blackstar show

Masters of the universe

Your magic wand is no use against my Star Sword, witch!

Who are you, one of the denizens of the Overlord?