Custom Miniature – Ax Battler from Golden Axe (He-Man Mini Resin Recast)

It’s time to unveil the second entry in my Barbarian series of custom miniatures created from epoxy resin recasts I made from a He-Man Eternia Minis figure. Instead of going with an original character like I did for the first entry in the series, I felt the urge to go with another video game inspired build (officially turning my Barbarian series into a crossover series). Since I’ve been on another retro arcade-style beat em’ up kick, my mind immediately went to the barbarian Ax Battler, my favorite character from the classic Genesis game Golden Axe. Not only is he a cool Conan-inspired character who would be a natural shoe-in for this project, I always dug his blue and silver color scheme.

I thought I had a decent starting point shot of the resin casted figure prior to all of my over-sculpting and other modifications, but unfortunately the only surviving picture I have of it is the one seen in my What’s On My Desk update from 2/16/22. And even then, its already been sanded down and its He-Man harness dremeled off. It’s the golden yellow one.

But here’s what the figure looked like after my initial layer of sculpting, using terracotta colored milliput (I remembered to wear gloves this time so it wouldn’t stain my hands), Green Stuff, and Apoxie sculpt to make his mullet, fringe, choker, and muscles. I should mention here that I’m basing my design largely off the original sprite from the Genesis game as well as the recent action figure of the character released by Storm Collectibles (far too rich for my blood, but an amazing looking collectible nonetheless). Ax Battler is one of the characters who has a slightly different look in seemingly every game or piece of promotional art, particularly his hair style and color. So I hope I at least captured the general essence of the character to the point where a fan of Golden Axe might look at it and go, “oh hey, that’s Ax Battler!”

I also glued him to a resin duplicate of a G.I. Joe stand to use as a base because they’re both incredibly versatile for different sized figures (and not just the 3.75” Joes that they were meant for), have a cool bit of texture to them, and I made a whole bunch of them.

Instead of saving this part for last like I sometimes do, I gave him a sword (because, despite his name, Ax Battler doesn’t actually battle using an axe). This is a resin duplicate of a He-Man power sword that was taken from the same He-Man Eternia Mini figure that I cloned to make the base figures for my Barbarian series. I had to modify it some using Green Stuff and my dremel to make it look more like a generic blade than He-Man's iconic power sword.

After my various sculpting putties cured, I primed the figure with Duplicolor adhesion promoter and gave it a flat gray Rustoleum spray coat. This revealed to me a bunch more air bubble “pinholes” that I’d neglected to fill in (again using Green Stuff or milliput) prior to priming the figure and, as we’ll see later on, I still didn’t get them all.

I started basecoating the figure before I realized that there were still too many air bubble pinholes to ignore, so I stopped partway through to fix them. But here’s the list of paints I used:

• Skintone – Army Painter Barbarian Flesh
• Boots, trunks – Reaper Dragon Blue
• Wrist bands, tops of boots, belt, choker, sword – Citadel Runefang Steel
• Hair – Vallejo Calvary Brown (possibly with a little Mephiston Red and Vallejo White mixed in)
• Teeth, eyes – Vallejo White for the teeth, for the eyes first a layer of Citadel Abbadon Black and then a layer of Vallejo White over it (such is my technique for drawing eyes until I can improve enough to the point where I feel comfortable adding irises/eye colors).
• Base – Citadel Steel Legion Drab (or possibly Citadel Rhinox Hide with a layer of Steel Legion Drag dry brushed on. My memory fails me once again.)

Using a bit more milliput, I filled in the air bubbles, lighted sanded the areas once the milluput cured, and resumed my basecoat using the colors listed above. I finished it off by drawing on the pupils with a fine-tipped Prismacolor marker though I would end up having to completely redo his eyes after I got some of the wash in them. Oh well, just more practice for me.

And speaking of the wash, I went heavy with an all-over Citadel Reikland Fleshshade wash over the skin and Citadel Nuln Oil for everything else. I likely used Agrax Earthshade on the base as well.

I went back over the figure’s high points using the base colors and a mix of dry brushing and just straight-up repainting over the areas I wanted to bring back out over the shading. Nothing too fancy here, though I did give the base an added dry-brushing of Citadel Krieg Khaki to help break up the terrain a little more.

Once I was satisfied with the final paint job, I gave the figure a protective clearcoat using Krylon crystal clear glossy spray paint.

I’m happy with how it turned out and it’s always fun paying homage to characters from either forgotten or under-appreciated video game franchises. I have three more Eternia Mini He-Man resin duplicates remaining to round out my Barbarian series and while I’ve already started customizing two of them, I’m still kicking around ideas on what I want to do for the very last one. I’m thinking of making it a big baddie, possibly even Death Bringer (the final boss of the original Golden Axe), but I haven’t decided on anything just yet.