Overlord Forces - Neptul

One of the coolest villains to come out of the Blackstar cartoon, and one of the few toy characters that made it into the cartoon, is, in my opinion, Neptul. Aside from having has his own host of merfolk to command, he looks like the offspring of Cthulhu and Merman. I just knew I had to add him to the lineup. I figure in the expanded universe, he could be a sort of right hand man to Merman, adding his people to the different underwater tribes at Merman's beck and call. 

Neptul and his warriors, as they appeared in the cartoon

Did I mention I hate panting orange? I really do and so many of these characters and troops seem to have it. I tried a different approach on this one and I sort of like how it came out. Still. Orange. 

Overlord and Neptul together. Looks a bit like they're singing a duet. 

Neptul facing Blackstar

Well met He-Man. Merman sends his regards.

All the Blackstar figures for now...

Heroes of Sagar - Enchanted Blackstar Ice Sculpture

In the Filmation episode "Lightning City of the Clouds" Mara enchanted an ice sculpture of Blackstar and Warlorck that was made by one of the Throbbits to take the fight to Overlord, while Blackstar himself was engaged elsewhere. While he was ultimately destroyed, the enchanted ice sculpture bought our heroes some much needed time to secure victory and bring back spring.

This was a quick one to paint. Including the base it probably took about 10 minutes from start to finish, being essentially a thin wash over the white primer. Really effective for the look I was going for though.

The original inspiration:

At last, we meet again, Blackstar. I see you are pale from fright!

Flesh and blood Blackstar next to ice sculpture Blackstar

Overlord Forces - Overlord

De facto ruler of the planet Sagar, descended of a long line of despots, Overlord is the main nemesis for our hero Blackstar. More akin to Hordak than Skeletor, he is fairly successful in his endeavours and more competent in keeping his underlings in check, resulting in his uncontested dominion of the planet. Uncontested, until John Blackstar entered the scene at least. Wielder of the Powersword, his goal is to take it's second half, the Starsword, from Blackstar to assemble it into the Powerstar and cement his position. While he came very close to achieving that goal, the final victory keeps eluding his grasp and Blackstar and his allies have started whittling away at his forces.

Overlord, the master of his domain.

The miniature is another privately commissioned limited release, with a custom base to match my other bases. I chose dark blue to be the colour for this faction, mainly as I was running out of good options.

Battling his bane, the former Earth astronaut John Blackstar:

Finding likeminded new allies;

Maybe we can help eachother, nyaaah!

You shouldn't have ventured here alone, He-Man. Meet my new ally.

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?