Starting with the Gothitropolis Kickstarter and into the Mythic Legions-branded “Eathyron’s Dozen” wave, Four Horsemen Studios has released a number of “Avian Warriors” over the years. Many of these figures were based on realistic birds, including ravens, roosters, eagles, flamingos, ducks, and more. Some of the most popular Avian Warriors released, however, were based on birds and bird-like creatures taken directly from the pages of myth and legends. In this “Blast from the Past” article we look at a number of these Mythical Avians.
Griffon
One of the first figures shown in that initial Kickstarter wave, the Griffon was part of the original, pre-stretch goal offerings for that series. Like all the figures in this “wave”, the Griffon used the same body design found on the other “bird” figures. The only difference here, and on all the figures, were the head sculpture used and the colors of the figure’s deco.
Loosely based off of the mythological Griffin (a beast with the hind legs of a lion, plus the wings, head, and front talons of an eagle), our version of this creature changed things around a bit to accommodate for the parts we had available to use.
Decked out in his green armor and dark brown feathers, the Griffon figure worked well with the large dark brown wings or the white wings we offered for sale during this same campaign. Those large wings allowed you to remove the small wings that the figure came with in favor of the larger variety.
Quetzalcoatl
Based off the feathered serpent found in many Mesoamerican religions and myths, this striking green-feathered character was highly requested by a longtime friend of the studio, Mr. Israel Ramirez. In fact, this character’s full name, Iz-ra-mirrus, is a not-so-subtle nod and tribute to Iz himself!
While a Quetzalcoatl is often represented as an actual serpent covered in brightly colored feathers, once again we took that design concept and updated it to work with the parts we had created for this line.
Iz-ra-mirrus was actually a stretch goal as part of our first Kickstarter campaign, but once our goal was met and he was unlocked, fans excitedly added him to their pledges! Many of them also added the large red wings to the figure to replace the small ones on his back. The red wings seemed most appropriate at the time, since the figure did have red feathers on his head, but later on when we released the Eathyron’s Dozen wave, we would also include green feathered wings in that sale, giving fans some options on how they wanted their Queztalcoatl to be displayed.
Phoenix
When you consider mythological birds, the fiery Phoenix would have to be one creature that many fans would have at the top of their list to be made. We agreed, and we added this character as the final of the Mythological birds from the Kickstarter wave.
Offered as another stretch goal, the Phoenix was another popular seller for us, as many fans loved the way we sculpted the feathers of his head to almost look like flames rising up. We tried to create that flame look for the paint applications on the rest of the feathers on the figure as well, and the Phoenix had one of the most detailed paint decos of any of the Gothitropolis bird figures.
Knowing that the Phoenix had been a popular character for us, we decided to revisit the sculpture in our second series of birds, the Eathyron’s Dozen series. This time we redid the character with a “blue-flame” deco, giving fans an alternate look for their Phoenix figure’s display. We also released a set of blue wings in that series which paired well with Phoenicus.
Dragon
The final figure we will look at in this feature was also part of the Mythic Legions-branded “Eathyron’s Dozen” wave - Drayleeon the dragon. While dragons have long been requested of us in Mythic Legions, and we do have hopes of doing a proper, huge dragon one day, we knew that we had an opportunity to do a dragon-like character in the Eathyron’s Dozen wave.
With the feathered body we used for these figures may not immediately scream “dragon” to many, the reality is that while European dragons are rarely depicted with feathers, Asian dragons are quite often shown with feathered wings and bodies. That was all the inspiration we needed to created Drayleeon!
Featuring one of the most striking color palettes of any of the bird figures, Drayleeon came with a stunning, metallic purple deco that we also used on some of the large wings.
Drayleeon was one of the best selling figures in the Eathyron’s Dozen wave, and he has remained one of the most popular for new fans looking to add some of the “birds” to their collection. Along with Eathyron and the original Raven from the first series, Drayleeon is one of the hardest to locate (and therefore one of the most expensive) on the secondary market today!
Further Reading
While not official releases in the line, the MotU Tribute Birds that we auctioned off at the 2013 Powercon event were also creatures that fell well outside of “normal” birds. One of them even used the head sculpture from the Phoenix figure!
For more information on these birds (which were actually 2-Up resin statues and not true figures), you can check out this article.
Credits
Griffin photos by Francisco Javier Diaz, Nikki Nikole Chaney, Paul Stewart, Nattapong Worapivut
Iz-Ra-Mirrus photos by Robert Radcliffe, Nattapong Worapivut, Cullun Culp
Phoenix photos by: Cullun Culp (Red Phoenix 1 and Blue Phoenix 2) and Nattapong Worapivut (Red Phoenix 2 and Blue Phoenix 1)
Drayleeon photos by Nathaniel Armstrong, Ryan Lord, Christina Abney, Robert Radcliffe, Nattapong Worapivut
Published on 08.24.21