Mason Thornwarden

Just finished up Mason Thornwarden (03500) from Reaper.  He's part of a group of rangers I've been working on over the last few weeks. I'll have a few more completed rangers ready to post soon.

Mason Thornwarden from Reaper Miniatures

Mason Thornwarden is a great sculpt by Bobby Jackson.  I love the action pose and the look of concentration on his face.  I would hate to be the poor orc standing down range from this archer.  For fans of intricate detail on every millimeter of a miniature, this may not be the figure for you however.  He is rather plain actually.  Only the lacing on the sides of his extremely tall boots and a bit of work on the quiver stand out on Mason's very basic kit.  For a ranger type though, I think the lack of detail is quite fitting. 

Interestingly enough, there is a previous sculpt of this miniature by Gene Van Horne (or is it a newer sculpt?) with the same name but with a different product number (02918).  This particular version depicts Mason in a similar stance but with different garb and equipment.  Instead of the soft leather tunic on the first version, he seems to be wearing some type of studded leather or brigandine armor that boasts a fair amount of detail to break up the monotony of the ranger's garb.  He is also equipped with a sword this time in addition to his bow, along with a few other tweaks.  I just purchased this version and look forward to painting him up as well to compare the two.

 

How odd.  After I took the photo above with my iPhone to illustrate some of the differences between the two sculpts, I noticed that this miniature definitely has some issues going on.  The bottom of the right boot seems to be missing or perhaps it was folded over during the casting process and strung out in a long line of extra metal that runs along the top of the base and ends at the start of the left boot. I did not notice this large defect when I took it out of the package.  Darn!  Gotta send this one back...

As an aside, I've always enjoyed the creative names Reaper has assigned to their miniatures.  Instead of "male ranger", it's refreshing to see all the individual names of each mini while flipping through their catalog or cruising the web.  It also makes it easier to remember the name of a particular model (or refer to it) rather than trying to recall a product number or generic descriptive tag.  And just for the record, Mason Thornwarden definitely ranks up there among my favorite names created by Reaper.  Wish I had thought of it.

I wonder if there is one person in particular at Reaper that comes up with these names or is it more of a committee affair.  Anyone know?