Saint Seiya: Goddess Athena

The reason they're all fighting for: Saori, reincarnation of the goddess Athena. Former spoiled brat.

The staff was bending all the way to Xmas and back again, so it was removed, hand and top were drilled out and a metal rod from a big paperclip was inserted.

Like Barbie, but with purple hair because reasons.

Athena and her Bronze Saints:

Saint Seiya: Poseidon Chapter Pillar

In a plot device that is suspiciously similar to the enchanted arrow - 12 hours - 12 Gold Saints to defeat device of the Sanctuary Chapter, the Bronze Saints once again have to defeat a fixed number of opponents in order to save Athena, corresponding to the destruction of an equal number of pillars of Poseidon's underworld domain.

The pillar was picked up in China and was a lot cheaper than the clock tower. It's not as detailed and clearly undersized even for my smaller figures, but it serves it's role as an objective marker, which is all it really is in a game.

Saint Seiya: Sanctuary Clock Tower

When Athena takes the battle to the Sanctuary, she is wounded by an enchanted arrow upon arriving. The arrow will gradually inch deeper towards her heart over a period of 12 hours, finally killing her. The Bronze Saints have to make it through the 12 Gold Saints' temples to reach the Pope in order to stop this. To mark the passing of time, 12 flames are lit on the clockface of the giant clock tower and with each passing hour, another of those flames is extinguished.

While Greek themes aquarium pieces can provide most background scenery for this project, the clock tower is a really specific and iconic item and I managed to pick up a goodlooking one that didn't cost an arm and a leg while in China. Designed to go with the larger action figures, for which it is undersize, it is a suitable size to go with the smaller mini figures. It comes with separate little blue flames that can be attached to the clock face, but I left them off for these pictures

Saint Seiya: Gold Saint Scorpio

Milo of the zodiac sign Scorpio, one of twelve gold saints. Not overly pleased with this one, the face seems a bit flat, so I might touch up the paintjob at a later point. The figures in this range are about 45mm and made of a rather soft plastic.

Saint Seiya: Bronze Saints

The second post for this project lines up my (re)paints of the 5 Bronze Saints (the heroes). I think they turned out okay, given what they are (bendy plastic manga figures). Bases are resin scenic bases (40mm) by Fenris Games.

The armour worn by the figures here is not the mk1 armour style from the Sanctuary Chapter (which I prefered), but rather the mk2 as worn from the Asgard Chapter and onwards, which is a bit odd given that the figures were part of an otherwise Sanctuary themed set with Pope Ares and the Gold Saints. Nonetheless, here they are:

Pegasus Seiya:

The lead character, if the name of the series didn"t give it away. Overall though,
he was pretty hotheaded and reckless, which I guess is what being a hero is all about.

Cygnus Hyoga:

His personal curse seemed to be having to always face off
 against his erstwhile masters and friends in battle

Dragon Shiryu:

Shiryu has a dragon tattoo on his back that fades as his life force flows away;
we know this because he spends a lot of time half naked and almost dying.

 Andromeda Shun:

This character looked so much like a girl that in the first few episodes of the French dubbing,
he was voiced by a woman; it didn't help that his original mk1 armour had breasts molded on...

Phoenix Ikky (for a while the villain until he conquered his demons and took up the good fight):

He did have this handy gimmick of being reborn from his ashes after dying,
which theoretically should make him unbeatable and the lead of the story.

And finally, a quick comparison with one of the figures before and after painting:

I think that's an improvement, right?

Saint Seiya: Project Introduction

This project is not quite inspired by a French/Belgian comic as the others, but it's based on a manga which was turned into one of the animated shows shown on French television when I was of an age to watch cartoons.  Saint Seiya, or, as I knew it first, Les Chevaliers du Zodiaque. 

The story focuses on an orphan named Seiya who was forced to go to the Sanctuary in Greece to obtain the Bronze Cloth of the Pegasus constellation, a protective armor such as are worn by the Greek goddess Athena's 88 warriors known as Saints. Upon awakening his Cosmos, the power of the Saints which is an inner spiritual essence originated in the Big Bang, Seiya quickly becomes the Pegasus Saint and returns to Japan to find his older sister. Quickly though, events drag him into a war against the usurper Pope Ares to protect the reincarnation of the goddress Athena...

It should be no surprise then that the bottle cap collection released by Bandai grabbed my attention. I was hoping for something close to 35mm and when I got the first set, they were about 40mm scale, so close enough. A word of warning, they are bendy plastic and they are anime to boot. Do not read on if you can't stand either. The figures all come in one colour, with an ink wash for shading. I wanted to see whether they can be painted like miniatures and this section of the blog will record the results.

To give them some stability, I got some 40mm resin lipped bases with a flagstone pattern (most of their major battles take place in Greek temples) from Fenris Games and Dragonforge Design.

Two sets of figures were released and include Athena and the Bronze Saints, Pope Ares and the Gold Saints, Poseidon and his Marine Saints, Hades' Spectres, a a few additional and ofter more rare character figures. Over the years, I managed to get a full set.