CREATURE FEATURE DOUBLE BILL 40K EDITION

 This will be my last post for this years Monster May(hem), had a few other models I'd hoped to finish but just couldn't get them done in time, and that's okay, as I can always do them at some other point. First up today is a Krootox, you may remember back in January I mentioned I'd like to use the spare parts I had to make a fifth Krootox to bring the unit to a full contingent of five, now as this was one I was building, I could change the pose and make it a bit more dynamic like I'd seen in some of the artwork. So what parts are GW, the head of the Krootox, the Kroot and weapon are all GW plastic except the Kroot's legs, the rest was made from greenstuff and a foam core.

Painting wise I went with my standard palate, and changed some of the tones, here it is with the rest of the Krootox I have, although it does make the standard GW one look like it's trying to compensate for something with all it's bling ! LOL

Next I've finished the Khymerae for my Dark Eldar which I showed earlier in the year.

Here it is with the rest of the squad, still need to make two more, or find some reasonably priced ones on Ebay, to finish this army.

Many thanks to Keith for hosting this years challenge, enjoyed being part of it again. Until next time stay safe, and have fun !

Cheers Dave  

CREATURE FEATURE DOUBLE BILL STAR WARS EDITION

 Today I have two creatures for Monster May(hem), first is the Correlian Hound I showed in progress earlier in the year, I've been struggling with sculpting recently, but will discuss that at the end, let's just say happy to finally get this off the workbench. Painting wise it's mostly white, but glazed some other colors in to match the reference.

For those expecting the Eopie next, it is finished sculpting, but I haven't had chance to take a mould of it as I want a second one with a rider, and don't fancy sculpting another from scratch, so instead have the second Jerba seen outside the cantina in Mos Eisley, it only gets a couple of seconds screen time in the movie, so can easily be missed, this now completes the three creatures from outside the cantina, painting I tried to match the colors from the reference.

As you may or may not know, I have a long time illness, one of the side effects are ghost sensations, for instance, you can feel like you've broken a rib, when you haven't but you get all the symptoms. For the last three months I've been struggling with my right hand, now the ghost sensations, come and go but this one has been there for the whole three months, and causing me to struggle holding the sculpting tool properly, and paint brushes, so why mention this, well it's been holding me back on work for friends and clients, as I always want to give them my best work, whereas my stuff I'm not so worried about, and I've been trying to find ways to compensate, think I'm just about there, and can hopefully get there stuff finished now, sorry to bring the mood down, normal programming will now resume ! LOL Until Next time, stay safe, and have fun !

Cheers Dave

SCAR FACE

 No I haven't started gang warfare or mob gaming, but finished my last Great Gnarloc, so why scar face ? I went heavy on the facial scar tissue, to show that this one rushes in, and adds to the running pose, I looked at how Ostriches run, to help with a correct pose, as both are large flightless birds.

Painting wise, I stuck to the normal recipe, with a slight tonal variance. As promised last time, here is a group shot of all six together for the first time.

I think I'm done on these now, and can't see a need to make anymore, so until next time, stay safe, and have fun !

Cheers Dave

FLOCK'S SAKE

 For my second Monster May(hem) entry I've painted the first of two Great Gnarloc's that I showed the green's of earlier in the year, I have to say I love the pose on this one, and I've photographed it with it's herder for scale.

Painting wise I went a shade or two darker just to keep adding variation to them all, one more to go and then then I'll have a total of six of these fantastic beasts, and I'll try and remember to do a group shot when it's done. That's all for today, so until next time, stay safe, and have fun !

Cheers Dave

MAY THE 4th BE WITH YOU

 This is becoming a yearly tradition for me, a Star Wars related post on Star Wars day, and even better if I can tie it into Monster May(hem), which this year I have, a Dewback for going outside my cantina project

Used the same color scheme as I did for the Stormtrooper ones I did earlier, with a little variation. The model is a 3D print in resin that my daughter got me as a thank you, which was extremely nice of her.

Earlier in the week I was a little bit slow to reply to comments, and comment on many blogs I follow, unfortunately my PC died, and had to wait for a new one to arrive, still trying to get used to it, and find all the bits I'm looking for, but hopefully I can except the change quicker than normal ! LOL Until next time, stay safe, and have fun!

Cheers Dave

DRAGON

 For my last entry for Monster May(hem) I decided to paint a Dragon I've had for almost 20 years now, it is made from a form of wood pulp that has been set in shape, on top of a real log, my oldest children got it for me as a Christmas present, and the dragon came prepainted, but was a very basic black with a wet brush dark grey over the top, and attracted a lot of dust, so a repaint was long overdue.

I now like the colour scheme a lot more, I used purple as the base, and orange in the highlight colour, to give some strong contrast. This also counts for Keith's other challenge Year of the Dragon, as some will ask it stands 13 inches tall, and the dragon itself is 10 inches long.

Next time I feel an itch to do some more Star Wars, so until next time stay safe, and have fun !

Cheers Dave

FEED ME SEYMOUR !

 Occasionally my children's requests line up with current challenges, and this being one of them. My daughter wanted a vanity table that had a little shop of horrors theme to it, she started the process by creating what you see below, she made it out of air drying clay, and this was where the problems started, and dad was asked to sort it out ! LOL

When it arrived to me, the wall sections had cracked off, the vines were no longer attached, and it needed a head solution as well, plus painting. First I put all the bits back together, I also added some sand in the top of the flower pot, to look like soil, then painted it all to look like what you've already seen. Next was the head of the plant, I started with dense foam, and built the basic shapes for a top and lower jaw, this was all then protected by a layer of filler, which was then smoothed. Before fitting the two halves together I made teeth out of greenstuff, and then painted all the mouth, as it was a lot easier to get to at this stage. Once it was all dry, I put the two halves together, and filled the gap with more filler, then painted it. Last was the leaves, these were made from card, and stuck on, then before painting, a lyer of PVA glue was painted over them to give them some added strength, once dry they were painted, and now the table looks like this.

Hopefully the Grand daughter likes it as that is who it is for, that's all for this post, so until next time, stay safe and have fun !

Cheers Dave

I WANT MY MUMAKIL ?

 I've actually finished this quicker than expected, but will probably mean no Monster May(hem) post next week, but we'll have to see how that goes. So here is the one from the movie that I've based the model on

Then this is quite different from the basic GW model which looks like the below picture.

So after a fair bit of greenstuff work I ended up with this.

As you can see from above I added the driver as well, not just the details to the tusks and front legs, I also add to blend out a lot of the seam lines as the detail didn't line up well, and if I was doing all this work I needed a good base to work from, happy with the end result though. So that's all for today, so until next time stay safe, and have fun !

Cheers Dave

YOU SHALL NOT PASS

 

So who could forget the classic scene shown above when Gandalf faces the Balrog, I've spent a lot of time recently rewatching this scene, in preparation to paint these two characters, and one thing I noticed was that the Balrog isn't glowing all over, but in sections, almost as if as if the skin is breaking open at points where the skin is tight due to movement. The other thing I noticed was his wings weren't solid and actually made of smoke (that's going to be fun to try and replicate ! LOL). With all of this in mind I pulled out my special edition Balrog ( you didn't know there was a special edition, it was released with all metal wings instead of plastic, and you can really feel the weight ), and looking at the basic model compared to the reference, it needed some work, first was his mohawk of flames, needed to spread across the shoulders and not just be a solid line, it also needed some small outbursts near it's elbows, these were all done  with greenstuff, I also greenstuffed the base to look like flagstones,  fitting the Mines of Moria.

When it came to the painting I started with all the flames and areas that would be cracking. I basecoated them GW Yriel Yellow, then put GW Iyanden Yellow contrast all over, for the tips I used GW Fuegan Orange Wash. For the hotter parts I started with GW Yriel Yellow, then Flash Gitz Yellow, and finished with GW Phalanx Yellow, making each layer smaller than the last. Once this was all done and fully dry I basecoated all the black including the wings, I highlighted the black with GW Covus Black, and some areas had some orange worked in as well, which I noticed in the reference picture (easier to see in hand than my terrible photo's ! LOL) For the smoky effect on the wings I used GW Apothecary white contrast, which I applied in a random fashion to give the illusion of smoke, this was a liitle too brigt on it's own so I layered GW nuln oil wash over the top to darken it back down.

Gandalf was a lot simpler and just tried to replicate the colours from reference pictures, pretty happy with how he turned out, and here is a shot of them facing off against each other, although I didn't build a casam for them ! LOL

So that covers my first submission for Monster May(hem) plus additional figure, hopefully I should have another to show next week, and I've got a couple more that I hope to do by the end of the month, so until next time stay safe, and have fun ! 

Cheers Dave