Underground Miniatures

Conan the Barbarian

By Ceremonial Studios

Bit of a J R Hartley moment for me (remember the Yellow pages advert? or am I showing my age?) when this ebay purchase arrived the other day. When I was a kid my brother and father had a family business called Ceremonial Studios (I wonder where I got an interest for the hobby from?) and they used to manufacture scale miniatures, mostly Napoleonic but they started a Fantasy range way back in 1982 with a Conan figure and princess based on the comic book cover art by Earl Norem and sculpted by Richard Almond. It was probably one of the best selling models they ever produced. Ceremonial Studios have long ceased to exist and with my father passing away over 13 years ago and a long estrangement from my brother I haven't laid eyes on this kit for some time. Although I still have the single Conan figure that I painted as a teenager I never got around to painting the full two figure piece as it was intended.

This is how it arrived, still mint in box.

This is the artwork it was based on

And this is the single Conan figure that I painted aged around 16/17 in oils. It was one of the first (in fact I think the second) large scale (this one is 110mm in height) figure that I ever painted.

Should be fun to paint this again and see how much I can improve upon this first attempt.