A Barbarian with a Brawdsward!

Some years ago a set of potentially 'first iteration' Heroquest Heroes came to light. Since then a number of these have appeared in various collections and eBay shops. Make of it what you will... Painted versions of these that clearly date to the same era as the more famous Heroquest prototypes can be seen in the Foundry cabinets. Being not that interested in them I didn't take a proper photo but you can see this barbarian below the AHQ Heroes in this picture.

Of course the barbarian I'm really interested in is the proper one shown below. However two points- 1) He's pretty much the same model (I have spent a while in front of the Foundry cabinet comparing them) with the only real differences being the sword (turned 90 degrees and with a different hilt) and the fur on the boots. 2) The 1st iteration barbarian is, as I have said, seen infrequently for sale whereas the actual barbarian model never comes up. For this reason the last time I saw a 1st iteration barbarian for sale I took the plunge, intending to do some conversion work.

Now if this was a truly rare figure I would feel very bad about cutting him up and gumming his legs up with putty, but as I have hinted I don't believe all these 1st iteration barbarians are truly vintage castings. Whether they're from the original mould or not I honestly couldn't say, not being able to compare them side by side with the one in the cabinet. It was a pretty simple matter to cut off the sword, turn the blade and resculpt the hilt. I added fur to the boots and bulked up the bracelet a little with green stuff. Voila, a passable proper barbarian prototype. I'm not so keen on my paintjob unfortunately. One of those cases where I think I got the wrong colour from step one and the more I tried to correct with washes and overcoats the more contrasty it got. Really I should strip him and start again, but not right now. Maybe something for the future.