Lurker Above

My second professional sculpt! the Lurker Above was a real challenge for me from a conceptual standpoint - how do I make a flying wall interesting?
 The basic body shape was easy enough  as it has been describes as being manta ray shaped since its initial appearance and the silhouette of a manta ray is easy to find. This bad boy is pretty big, as went with the dimensions given in the tome of horrors pretty closely and I wanted to make it large enough to envelop a 28mm sized hero with ease (it is mounted on a 50mm base). I knew I needed to make the sculpt dynamic in order to keep it interesting because of its basic physiology, so I settled on an approach similar to my cloaker sculpt. I tried to give it the impression that it was swooping down from above and I included some subtle tricks to increase the sense of motion in addition to a descending angle: upturned wing tips, a slight twist to the body, and a trailing tail. I even used the counter angle of the "stand" itself to help reinforce an illusion of motion (though that idea didn't work as well as I would have liked - it needed to join farther back on the wing).
      With the structure complete the belly texture was the obvious place to start  and I stuck pretty close to the concept art from The Tome:

I modified the scale pattern slightly to better fit the body shape I had  and reduced the size of the scales, but other than that  it is a close approximation. the mouth, similarly, was a simple extension of the concept art.
      The eyes, on the other hand, didn't translate so well. I had tried sculpting them several times but the inward turned cephalic lobe gave it a more peaceful/pouty demeanor and the eyes themselves were not positioned well for a "sit and wait" predator. I decided on a more classic inspiration:

 Bug eyes! I didn't want to abandon adornment on the eyes, though, and I had learned an important lesson  while sculpting the froghemoth: the facial features of a monster convey a sense of emotion and it is important to embrace the opportunity to do so, even if it means sacrificing "realism" or concept. In the case of the froghemoth the curvature of the mouth was a crucial turning point (happy vs grumpy) and here I wanted "sinister." Any kid who has watched cartoons knows that sinister = sharp upward curved eyebrows. after that realization the idea quickly fell in to place; I chose to invert the cephalic lobe to create a structure that was reminiscent of pointy eyebrows! that definitely gave him the evil look he needed.
       The back of the lurker above was troubling because it  has never been portrayed  in art. To solve that problem I tapped my experience as a biologist and asked myself what would be up there. The clear answer was "something to attach to the ceiling with," which gave me two choices, suckers or spines. I had decided against the spines on the leading edge of the wing previously because my mockups indicated a compositional balance issue, so I figured I'd reintroduce them. I positioned 100+  retractable-type spines in key areas along the edge of the wing and along the spinal column and at the periphery of the face, places where I thought support for suspension would be important. The striation pattern was an extension of this idea and became a little more developed as the final details were being added. in the head area they eventually became somewhat geometric in shape, maybe I was watching a bit to much Tron in the wee hours of the morning when I sculpt. I like the overall effect as they give the impression  of some sort of anatomy important to the spines, and more importantly, they will be interesting to paint.


and there you have it, another sculpt of a huge sized monster! next up on the sculpting block is a pair of pterodactyl men for "The Forge of Ice," a small Alaska based miniatures company.

Manes Demons

 

 

Fresh from the kitchen table! I received these guys as part of my CSM rewards and knocked them out as fast as I could. they share a color & basing scheme in common with all of my demons: blue skin, green eyes and reddish golden hair; while still being unique. They are quite small and the models are mounted on 20mm round bases, my preferred choice for small sized minis. at some point I'd like to get another 27 of these and convert up a crazy swarm of the evil looking little demons.

Getting close to reaching my annual paint goal of 52 minis! Only three to go!

 Edit: These are among my most viewed miniatures - but the pictures were awful! I have posted newer photos above, but the pics below are the originals that I have left for some reason.

 

Horned Devil

This was the first paint job that has been used by a studio: horned devil 2. This test piece was painted along with a second devil over the course of a few days. I am reasonably happy with the outcome. I had a near disaster towards the end when my matte varnish frosted badly. I was able to salvage the work using gloss and  matte and touching up what I couldn't fix. lesson leaned: heed the weather, shake well, and don't thin with water in this climate.
    My Demons & Devils Kickstarter loot came today and I've already started on some of the little demons. Pretty impressive haul, without a doubt, and I'm looking to getting my legions of evil ready for the game table.
My stack of minis from this year is getting daunting. I still have a few more devils coming, a good sized Deepwars haul, the last of sedition wars, and tome of horrors at the end of the year. All that loot from KS alone. Yikes! I better get painting!

Chaos Champions

I got a great deal on these old Fenryll sculpts and painted them up in an evening in an effort to improve my speed painting skills. Despite being "generic" evil worshiping barbarians I think they have a lot of character and their own unique charm. I plan on incorporating a number of other evil barbarian types in to the group.

Temple of the Ancients

The Temple of the Ancients was definitely my most ambitious terrain projects to date - it is HUGE. It took many months of working and reworking the temple to finally get it to a place where I was content. This is the first instance where I really toyed with interference paints. while nearly impossible to photograph, they give the model an eye-catching shimmery look in person that shifts between teals, golds and purples.
The statue was a bit of an experiment. The scheme was a risky deviation from the classic bronze used by the studio chosen in part to differentiate it from that paint job and to tie the model in with my Dark Mariners miniatures that have rusted metal equipment. The end result was decent but not as impressive as i would have liked. I hope to sculpt up a few alternative statue models for the dais so that the temple itself can be used in multiple situations.
I'll post some WIP photos to detail the construction of this monstrous piece at a later date.

small Ancients of Atalan warband

I've been splashing this pic around the web today. these are my Ancients of Atalan for Deepwars. It's no secret that I am a big antimatter games fanboy, and these beautiful models are no exception. I've given them a simple TT paint job, but the end effect was much nicer than i had anticipated.

Goblin warband

Another post! One of my many ongoing projects is the creation on coherent warbands that can be used for skirmish games and RPGs. This is the current state of my goblin warband. The gobbos  are long overdue for some love and I'm thinking I'll add another few to the group soon to give them some much needed numbers and leadership. Of all my warbands I like the overall aesthetic of these the best;  good color palate, fun basing and some serious character, what's not to like?