Frogs and Fairies

Ida Rentoul Outhwaite is a 20th C. Australian artist who drew fairies as one of her main subjects. Among her illustrations are many that depict frogs alongside fairies.

I am Kexy, Friend of Fairies.
from The Little Green Road to Fairyland

They Stood in Front of Her.
from Fairyland

A less amicable relationship between frogs and fairies is found in Touhou Project, with the ice fairy Cirno who has the rather cruel hobby of freezing frogs.

The fairy had this to say about
playing by freezing frogs:
Interview from「東方文花帖」

⑨

With the introduction out of the way, I'll segue to the miniatures for this post, which include new grung miniatures and various fairy (pixie) miniatures.

The prepainted grung miniatures are from D&D Icons of the Realms. The Grung Warband (WZK96123) consists of six figures. The first image shows a Blue Grung, an Orange Grung Elite Warrior, a Purple Grung, and a Green Grung.

The second image shows the remaining two members of the warband, a Red Grung Wildling and a Gold Grung Elite Warrior. The final figure is Chief Yorb (Tomb of Annihilation Set 1 #7).

The unpainted Grungs (WZK90415) are from Nolzur's Marvelous Miniatures.

I really like the series of grung miniatures produced for D&D, but the prepainted miniatures are definitely on the expensive side.

For the fairies, I'll start with four figures from Critical Role Miniatures. On the left are three unpainted Wisher Pixies (WZK90558), followed by their prepainted leader, Mystic Iotha (Monsters of Exandria Set 1).

I apologize for the quality of the image, but the clear wings and light primer just made them really hard to photograph.

The assembly of the unpainted miniatures was rather sloppy, with dried glue caking the joins, so a bit of clean up is required before painting. The middle unpainted figure stands higher than the others because I stepped on the figure by accident, breaking it from its base. I reattached the figure by gluing the stand to her coattails instead of her leg, since I felt they should hover near human eye level.

Iotha is painted messily, and looks as if she regularly visits spray tan salons. I don't care for her purple outfit either, so a repaint will be in order.

The next two fairies come from D&D Icons of the Realms. The first figure is a Pixie (Wild Beyond the Witchlight #24), followed by a Healing Spirit (Fey) Spell Effect (Mighty Conjurations #4).

The paint job on the Icons Pixie is better than that of the Critical Role Pixie, but the eyes are out of register, so the face needs touch up.

All of the figures are roughly 13-15mm in height, with wings that resemble those of butterflies.

I'll be looking to see if I can reproduce the wings so I can create additional fairies using some N scale figures that I have as a starting point.

Frog and Toad

There are a large variety of frog people that populate the D&D universe, but to me, they can be reduced down to those that are based on frogs, and those that are based on toads.

I've mentioned metal Frogfolk in the past, but for those who prefer plastic, a couple of options have recently become available from Wizkids.

For prepainted miniatures, there are the Grung (Waterdeep Dungeon of the Mad Mage #6) and the Grung Elite Warrior (Waterdeep Dungeon of the Mad Mage #16) from the D&D Icons of the Realms line. Similar unpainted Grungs are available from Nolzur's Marvelous Miniatures (WZK73845).

The miniatures with the black bases are from the Icons of the Realms line, while the other three are Nolzur's miniatures that I already painted up.

I've seen several reviews on the Nolzur's miniatures that claim they need to be washed to remove release agent, but that sounds unnecessary since the miniatures are not bare plastic, but actually pre-primed.

For toad people, I recently picked up some Ropuchons Warriors (SPCR0006) from Spellcrow miniatures.

These are part of a 10mm line of miniatures with some figures that seem to rival the size of 15mm miniatures.

In any event, the figures are made of a hard resin that is somewhat brittle. One of the miniatures that I bought was snapped off at the ankles, but easily fixed with a bit of CA glue.

These figures actually did need to be washed, since they were slick with release agent.

Last is a comparison of a Frogfolk from East Riding Miniatures, three Wizkids Grungs, and a Ropuchon.

Rot-Eaters

Plague Toads are daemons from Warhammer Fantasy Battles. Apparently they are pretty much neglected in the official rules, but they did get representation in miniature courtesy of Forge World.

The models are cast in resin and require some minor assembly (the front feet and some of the horns come as separate pieces).

I bought these toads a few years ago with the intention of painting them in the garish colors that I saw on the web (which is what attracted me to them in the first place).

However, after priming and applying the base coats, the colors didn't really appeal to me anymore.

Recently I decided to get them finished, so I redid the base coats in earthy colors, although I left the purple paint that I originally used to color the insides of their mouths.

I think that Plague Toad A turned out the best.

Plague Toads B and C are okay, but maybe the colors are too dark or overly uniform.

From the pictures I saw on the web, a lot of people had fun with painting the pustules and whatnot on these models, but I don't think I could bear looking at them on the tabletop for any period of time if I had done that.

Bein' Green

The following miniatures are a small group of frogs and toads I have assembled for gaming purposes.

The first two pictures are of frog folk from East Riding Miniatures. The first three figures below, are from the Frogfolk Command (FT65), followed by the two poses from Frogfolk with Swords (FT69), one pose from Frogfolk with Spears (FT68), and two poses from Frogfolk Ambushers (FT70).


The next picture shows one pose from Frogfolk with Blowpipes (FT67), and the two poses of Frogfolk Archers (FT66).


I really like this range of frogs from ERM. They are currently the only 15mm fantasy frog people in production. However, Eureka is halfway to producing some of their 28mm Warrior Frog line in 15mm through the 300 Club, and I understand that SLM will also be releasing frog people next year.

For normal frogs which can double as familiars, Chariot has a Plague of Frogs (CFB02) in 15mm consisting of ~20 frogs on circular bases. Irregular produces Kermit the Barbarian (CR27) on a square base, as part of their 6mm fantasy line. The third miniature below is a Ral Partha toad from their Familiars set (02-958), followed by Reaper's toad familiar from their Familiar Pack III (02593). These toads are rather large, and the Reaper toad in particular would be good cane toad in 1/72.


Next are the giant frogs: The first is the Giant Frog from Citadel (FF56), followed by three different poses from Black Tree Design's Frog Swarm (FA0822).



Even larger giant frogs and toads follow. The first two miniatures below are toad mounts from Eureka's Warrior Frog Cavalry (100FRG26). There are six different variants made up by combining three different types of body with two different sets of legs. The bodies are made of a gray resin, while the legs are made of metal. One of the frogs also comes with an extended tongue made of metal. The final Giant Frog (M134) is from BTD. It is a two part figure, with separately molded front legs. The feet of an unfortunate victim protrude from it's mouth, but I think I will be removing them.