Here is a new faction to my Kingdom. I’ve collected and created various skeletal warriors oever the years. My first skeletons had swivel ball joints and smiley faces. These are actually my favorites. The shoulder style allows the arms to be splayed out to the sides. This is handy if trying to display a skeleton onto a wall (as in a dungeon).
The newer skeletons have uni-directional “swinging” arms. Although are more stable, they just lack the diversity that I enjoy so much.
There are a few specific members of the Skeleton Army, as follows:
1) Skeleton King. He wears the gold crown from when he was a ruler. Since his return from the restful dead, he has become the obsessed leader of this undead army. Perhaps he was a benevolent yet very zealous commander, but now in death, he just remembers how to be a powerful and formidable opponent.
2) Pumpkin Head. This skeleton lost his head in life, and has since used a jack-o-lantern instead. I’m not sure if I am going to have him some sort of a magic user. Perhaps after evading permanent death, he in turn raised the others from their eternal slumber and made them his army.
3) Jester. This came from a Ninjago set, but I am going to say that this guy was, in life, a twisted jester who came to a tragic demise. Can you say CREEPY?!
4) The rest of the gang are plain skeletons from old sets, Ninjago (ones with shoes), a Captain Barbosa, and the tanned ones are from the Ninjago bowling set. The latter don’t have skulls, so much as cylinders. But I am going to say that these are skeletons that have spent more time underground prior to reanimation.
5) The bounty hunter. I may not use him in my Kingdom, but I thought I’d toss him into the photo. In life, he was a marshall who brought criminals to justice. He still wears his black cowboy outfit and hat, but now sports a skull and carries around a set of handcuffs. The origin of this figure occured when my wife and I were creating new figures at the local LEGO store. She actually made this little guy! Nice job, honey!
6) Skeletal Rider. This guy and his skeletal steed came in one of those Build Master (or Master Builder?) books from LEGO. It came with parts and figures, and the book was filled with ideas creating new things with those parts.
And there you have it. My concept for a skeleton army.
I’m willing to bet you can upgrade your skeleton faction even more once the LEGO Lord of the Rings stuff surfaces. Should be some nice new parts! Meanwhile I dig the bounty hunter the most because it’s pretty unique. Never thought of a skeletal bounty hunter before. Interesting concept. Would have to lend some serious personality or work ethic and hunting skills to the character.
I can’t wait for the LOTR/Hobbit Stuff to come out. I would love to have some Ring Wraiths, goblins, orc, Urukai, Trolls, and Hobbits to add to my Kingdom!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am so envious of your foresight and earlier collections of the old LEGO chess sets. I never knew they existed, much less thought to collect them. Plus, you probably have some of the trolls and goblins of earlier Castle-themed sets. Your ghost figure that you have in one of your castle modules is another ‘Holy Grail’ item that eluded me in collecting! Does yours glow in the dark? I can’t remember if they all did, or just certain LEGO ghosts from specific sets.
Once again, the Skeletal Bounty Hunter was entirely my wife’s idea. She was just playing with figure parts in the store, while waiting for me (and I was waiting for about 3 little kids to get outta MY way!) to finish collecting the parts that I needed at the LEGO store ‘build-a-figure’ table. I assumed that she was sort of basing it off of ‘Ghost Rider’, the comic book/movie character. Nope. She never saw the movie, nor did she know anything about the character. Nice! Maybe if I develop a Western themed display, I’ll include our little bone-head guy. Criminals beware!!!