Center Stage Miniatures: Fog Giant, Mountain Giant, Friblog Giant Reviews

The above represent three figures I received from Center Stage Miniatures for their 28mm Demons and Devil Kickstarter. But Joe I hear you say, those aren't demons, their giants! Yes, I ordered some of the existing stock. I have a fondness for giants but due to their size, their often very expensive. The Kickstarter had them for a nice sale price. Note the Fog Giant is missing but from left to right we have the mountain giant and two friblogs. The friblogs are a little tall for my taste as my recollection of them is kind of like 'noble hill giants' but not quite so stupid. The mountain giant on the other hand is a nice side.

My problem if you will in the sculpts is the wide leg stance on the mountain giant and the middle friblog. The fog giant has the same 'issue'. Mind you, this isn't a problem in terms of the pose. I find them all in good stance. The problem is that the width of the leg stance forces them to go on larger and ever larger bases which I could hold off on when possible.

The figures are light on detail. This means that their quick to paint. I got the set Monday and finished these four off today. I love some figures from Werne and Tre but man, belt buckles, skulls, ropes, straps, bones, and lord knows what else are hanging from them. These have a few pouches and belt but nothing crazy.

In terms of figure preparation, they were 'dirty'. It wasn't lead rot, they weren't crumbling or anything like that, but there was a lot of mold release agent or something on them. I would recommend some fine sandpaper, some files for the easily reached areas and a nice wash of warm water and soap. I probably could have did a better job on these guys in terms of cleaning but

For assembly, each figure had one connection point except the fog giant. For the fog giant, it was the hands to the two handed sword. The body and legs, up to the pelvis, are also separate. Pinning that would make for a good strong connection. For the mountain giant, it was the arm with the club. The shoulder attaches to the body. For a good attachment, you might want to pin it. I brushed it down with sandpaper on both contact sides and just used the old superglue. The club runs along the shoulder so I popped some glue there as well. In all cases the fit was fine and didn't require any massive playing with or chopping or green stuff. For a lazy person like me, that's vital. I want to assemble and paint not assemble assemble assemble.

The middle friblog is similar with a join in the hand and leaning against the shoulder. The third one has two contact points, one for the hand to the wrist and one for the sword point to a point in the base itself.

Here we see the same figures, again minus the fog giant. The reason these three are together? Army Painter Barbarian Flesh primer. It's a great thing that you can just spray over the whole figure. Perfect for when the majority of the figure is one color, as in the case a lot of these figures were.

And as we see, I still can't take a picture to save my life. The flesh is mainly a few washes of Ogryn Flesh and Delvan Mud from GW with a few touch ups of the medium flesh color.

Regretably, more dark photos. It's like the three lights I have on top of them are not shedding normal light or something.

The fog giant is the largest of the bunch. He's also the one I used the least amount of actual paint on. His flesh is a light blue primer from Vallejo, followed up with some white primer. The armor is the old GW blue wash a few times with the studs picked out. The hair has nuln black wash thinned down while the belt is nuln black wash without being thinned down. The flesh was washed with the same blue wash but thinned down again to make it less blue.

With the right primer, you can cut out quite a few steps. The only thing? If using washes like I did to 'paint' the figure, be sure to put some protection on it between painting. I knocked the fog giant down once and rubbed off a whole bunch of ink causing me to have to repeat the layering process on those parts.