Kit Review – Dumah, Lord of Bones (Kimera Models)

PRELUDE

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concept by macs gallo

A couple of months ago I was approached by master figure painter and show organiser at Monte san Savino, Francesco “Franciuus” Farabi who wanted to tell me about a new brand of figures under the umbrella of Pegaso Models. Francesco and I have become good friends since he taught me at a workshop and to this day continues to provide me with advice and the encouragement to keep developing as a figure painter.

He showed me the very first renders of the figure I now hold in my hands and I was sworn to secrecy until now. My relationship both with Pegaso and Francesco led me to a rather privileged position where I was asked to cover the first ever review of their debut release, Dumah! This is a particular honour for me and I have been kept involved in the process since.

Dumah the first release was a collaboration with the follwoing artists:

Concept: Macs Gallo
Sculpt: Hector Moran
Painting: Fabrizio Russo – Ben Komets

The kit arrived safely in the traditional Pegaso cardbox yet without the boxart and such as this was not ready at time of press. Mine arrived with all the parts in one plastic bag with no additional protection, although again I believe this will be rectified for the general release. First impressions on opening the box and looking at the parts is very good indeed.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

I grabbed the opportunity to talk with Francesco at length and here is what he had to say about Pulvis within the Kimera brand:

Pulvis: this is a Gothic fantasy series, with a easy quick story to ground  the figures and basically is a new interpretation of some archetypal fantasy subjects. For example we will start with an evil guy (a kind of chosen of the dark god) and a good one (a paladin of the goddess of light). In this world the dark god is the “God of dust and ashes” (that is also the god of death, corpse, bones…) and the good is the Phoenix godess (godess also of light and fire..), she is the only one that can show resistance to the God of ashes (remember the Phoenix rises form the ashes). This is just a quick background setting but it will allow me to create many new things and further tell our story.

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shows the magnitude of options available

This line will be all in “multikit”: that means that you can change a lot of parts on the figure to create your own personal version. The justification for it in terms of background is to show a character before and after some kind manifestations and changes.

For example the Demon was a powerful but evil mortal man with magical armour, the chosen for the God of dust: after an apocalyptic event, the god bestows upon him more of his power and thus is transformed into a Demon. The paladin was a kind of angel, but he lost the battle with the lord of dust and he dies… but he is the Phoenix chosen so he rise from his dust yet returned as an undead, vampire if you wish…

All the others figure will follow this philosophy. I have a lot of funny things in mind…. in addition there will be other lines, some of which you may or may not be able to see at Monte san Savino!

I spoke with one of the artists doing the box art and here is what Ben Komets had to say:

“I love the idea of those new Multi-kit-Models, it gives you the opportunity to tell your own story and customise the figure very easily..the large armour surfaces are great to play with textures and colours!

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boxart version by ben komets

I think it’s great to see that Pegaso hires so many different artists to present their new line of figures and the idea of the Multi-kit-Models, each version has it own soul and proves that you can have the same material.. but end up with more than a handful of quite unique characters. I am happy I could contribute to this Project.”

THE NARRATIVE

“In the beginning there was Orgoth, God of dust and ashes, who controlled the world. Then from the ashes Alba was born, the Phoenix goddess, who lit the Fire of Life. After her there emerged many other gods and with them were the creatures that were bound to them.

They used the ash and fire to build their kingdoms and their cities and they prospered.

Orgoth became furious and decided to take back the world that had been stolen. He turned to ashes all that he found in his path. Brave gods with their chosen rose up in defence of their kingdoms and fell one by one, becoming part of the dust.

Some of them were confined to oblivion, others became vassals of the Dark god, swelling its ranks.

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some of the original concepts

From the ashes of the last battle of the free world, Alba rose again, the Phoenix goddess, goddess of light and flames, immortal, destined to always be reborn from its ruins; the only one not to be defeated by the god of dust.

Dumah, immortal champion of the god of ashes Orgoth, was a powerful warlord. The dark god bribed him, making him his vassal. Alba, the phoenix goddess, made Abel her chosen one, he was the purest of the warriors of the kingdom of men and she made him armour wrought from flames and gave him a portion of her powers. Dumah was transformed into a demon to to do battle with Abel.

Dumah kills Abel in a legendary duel  that marks the end of the war and the victory of the ashes.

But there is still a hope …the phoenix always rises from the ashes.

Abel returns to life as an undead and wanders aimlessly in search of it’s memory. Survivors know that he is the only hope to defeat Orgoth and his champion Dumah and rid the world from oblivion and ashes”.

SCULPT AND CAST

This is a 75mm scale (over 85mm in height), polyurethane resin kit consisting of twenty parts including a nice scenic base, sculpted by the incredible Hector Moran. One of the key features of this new brand is it’s diversity, the kit can be assembled with different head, arm and weapon choices along with the ability to decide how much armour to place him in. In addition to this there is also a banner that you may or maynot choose to attach.

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front view

So where do I begin reviewing the various parts? Let us begin with the main parts. The main part of the body consists of torso, upper part of the legs and a flowing tunic. The musculature and anatomy is nicely rendered and well considered although depending on how you assemble your version a lot of the bare skin could be hidden.

There is an ornate necklace sculpted to the main piece that frames his chest and shoulders. Around his waist we have “clasp like” armour, sharp, pointed and malevolent looking. I can not shake the feeling that despite the piece being a fantasy subject that perhaps the style of the armour was inspired by that of medieval cultures such as that of Syria or perhaps the Saracens.

There are various sections of armour including shoulder guards and thigh plates, the thigh plates need to be attached, unless you are willing to remove the pegs on the legs but again the pads can be attached or not or a combination, providing a multitude of options.

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rear view

The level of detailing is incredible, with belts, straps, buckles, trims all showing very sharp undercuts and definition to the parts. There are square pegs either side of the legs to attach the segments of leg armour and the fit is perfect. The folds to the tunic are hyper stylised, deep and flowing and should make for great painting.

The legs fit naturally into position and the daemonic armour around the knee nicely hides any join, so again no gap filling required. We have two left arm choices, both attach via a square peg and hole assembly and I found the “open hand” arm to be a very tight fit, too tight in fact resulting in a gap, as you can not push the arm far enough into position. I suspect I will need to trim the peg down a little to get it to fit but that shouldn’t be too much of an issue.

We have one, palm facing up and fingers splayed open, almost in a challenge to his enemy. The other is held at a right angle, with sculpted straps and small pegs to accept the shield, which lines up and attaches really well. The shield design continues in the same vein as the armour trims and details and provides a great smooth surface for your daemonic freehand!

In addition to the tunic which is sculpted to the torso, we also have three additional sections of cloak. There is a long “tabbard” type of clothing that fits snugly at the groin, a section of armour is sculpted to the tabbard so when attached to the torso completes that section of armour. There are two sections of flowing cloak, the first sits snugly across our Demon’s shoulders, blowing in the wind to his right.

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the three optional parts of cloak and tunic, very dynamic

This section has a square peg which fits a hole in the second section, producing a doubled cloak, particularly expressive and dynamic. Like with other parts, the use of the cloak and tabbard is optional, as the armour and other elements beneath are perfectly sculpted and detailed.

There are two heads, both look suitably demonic, one helmed the other bare and again the detailing is crisp and precise. The sword is a work of art in it’s own right, crafted from bone, spine and skull. It is oversized and brutal looking with a wickedly sharp and long blade.

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the two head options

The figure can also be assembled along with a banner and icon as you can see in the pictures. The cast of all the parts is very good, this is an incredibly complex and super detailed figure and all the various elements are perfectly rendered.

My kit has one obvious moldline that runs the length of the right hand side of the figure, particularly along the cloak. There are a few spurs of resin that need removing here and there and a small amount of flash, preparation should be reasonably straight forward. There are no major defects such as air bubble holes or casting slippages.

DESIGN AND ORIGINALITY

Kimera are taking the achetype fantasy protagonists and giving them their own narrative, style and interpretation. In addition to this the Pulvis range of miniatures will be a multi option release, there is almost a limitless way of assembling Dumah. The design is well considered and the composition is balanced, there is a distinct “evilness” to the character.

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various pieces of armour and stylised shield

Without the banner and icon Dumah is a slender and lithe malevolence whilst adding the banner and the cloak provides him with more mass and power, either configuration or mixture of both always provides a good balance to the pose. A lot of time has clearly been put into the development stage of this figure.

DESIRABILITY

Kimera have been very steady and conservative in their advertising to date, just giving us all enough sneak peaks of the various boxarts, to generate a genuine interest in the product. When it went live on Friday, it casued a considerable buzz. It also sees what a lot of fantasy figure painters have wanted for a long time, resin figures from Pegaso Models! Throw in the art direction from Francesco, the quality cast, the archetype fantasy characters and I am sure this range will be very popular indeed.

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another version by Fabrizio Russo

AFFORDABILITY

Kimera will sell the Pulvis demon, Dumah for a limited period with a launch price of 59.90 euros. You can buy the first limited number of copies at the Monte san Savino Show, and you can start to preorder the piece now, either to pick up at Monte or via the web.

Around December the store for Kimera will be online and the street price will change, so is much more convenient to pre-order him at the lower price. This seems a competitive price point for what is on offer especially baring in mind the amount of options you have with the kit.

Also we would like to provide credit for everyone involved in the Kimera project:

Powered By Pegaso Models
Luca Marchetti, Andrea Iula, Pietro Balloni
Graphic Designer: Paolo Sacchetti
Media Operator: Matteo Di Diomede
Art Director: Francesco Farabi

DATES, FIGURES AND STUFF

Cost                                            Preorder 59.90€
Material                                    Polyurethane Resin
No of Parts                                20
Release Date                             Early preorder is now up
Where Can I Get It?                Contact: p.balloni@pegasomodels.it