Miniature Monday – Burrowing Horror
Since we both found the time to paint a mini and got good participation from you all too, we have a wide range of burrowing horrors to show! Read on to see what could be waiting in the soil just beneath your feet…!
(post by Antonia)
Dirk was glad to find nearly an hour for painting (in sum and within two weeks time) and went with variantions of brown.
Dirk said he plans to use the creature as something to be summoned in one of our D&D roleplaying campaings, therefore he made it look as much like it lives within the soil as it is a kind of elemental being, made from earth and stone. He put on some layers, washes and a drybrush, and although he’d love to add some detail, he is happy with the result so far!
I decided to paint a lava-version, an special twist on the “subterranean creature” idea:
I started with yellow and added layers of orange and red plus a dark grey and finally black drybrush, as I normally do when painting lava bases. It was fun to do it on a creature, and although I didn’t get to spend much time on the mini (as always) I really like the effect. I seem to paint many demonic, fiery and lava beasts and demons, maybe I just like reds and the chance to paint glow effects 😀
Arjen chose a color scheme similar to the classic D&D Bulette:
He wrote he chose browns to give the creature a camouflage look, which seems perfectly reasonable since the land shark is spending most of its life under ground. This way he created a very effective and realistic paintjob! On first look I even thought you used non-metallic metal technique on the scales .-)
Jim went for an 1st edition D&D bulette which just happened to grow a bit more colorful:
Jim, I tried to google the first edition bulette, is it similar to later versions, brown with a blue-ish grey head and back? Or how did the original beast look? But anyhow, the combo of blue, white and turquoise are something I (Antonia) also considered too, maybe to make an “ice” or “crystal” version of the land shark. I love the eye, btw., how did you manage to paint the pupil? I already had problems painting the eyes in one tone :-p
Kylie went the extra mile to give her land shark a gorgeous base:
She wrote that after she had finished painting the critter in an earth-colored scheme she felt a bit underwhelmed by the result and therefore decided to give it a base which shows the creature in its natural habitat (or on the surface of it). The result looks really cool, and fortunately for us, she documented the making of the base in her blog.
Do you have a link to the article, Kylie? Feel free to post it in the comments!
William got his inspiration from a computer game!
He used the Helmasaur King from “The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past” as a reference, which is an awesome idea! It’s always fun to get new ideas and inspirations to paint minis, be it RPG books, films or games. Well done, especially the glow effect on the eyes! The metallic back also looks great.
and here the “original”:
I definitely can see where you were coming from 😀
this week’s gallery
Coming next:
04/10/17 Dwarf Cleric (Dwarven Santa, since Easter Bunny is busy 😉 ) Core Set
–> Attention: The submission date for photos is about three days before publishing date, to give us a bit of time to actually write about your pictures 
You can of course send in pics later, but to take out a bit of the stress (most pics arrive here rather last minute) please consider the three day deadline. Later pics will show up in an update and won’t get as much spotlight, I suppose 
04/24/17 Tick Queen, Core Set
05/08/17 Sqoug Warriors (Swamp Invasion Part I) Core Set
05/22/17 Imrijka, Iconic Inquisitor (Female Orc Inquisitor) Core Set
05/05/17 Kelpies (Sea “Elves”) Core Set
Caffeineforge 
The classic bulette is brown wirh a bluish grey back, which leaves room for interpretation. Kylie and dirk emphasized the grey while Jim emphasized the blue. I like Jim’s version a lot with two very different kinds of blue which somehow work well together. Dirk’s version succeeds in giving the front and dorsal regions a very bony appearance, which good shading that works very well.
I set myself the challenge of using only shades of brown without becoming dull, so I went for extreme highlights in the dorsal region and although the mini lacks a certain finishing touch, I came close to what I intended.maybe I will whiten the teeth a bit more, I am not sure how to finish it.
My blog post is here : http://dabblesminis.blogspot.com.au/2017/03/watch-out-for-tremors.html
The post is longer than most of mine so if you want to skip to the step by step guide to the base its at the end of the post.
Dirk – really impressive for 1 hour. I like that you used a bone colour for the fin & plating across the top.
Antonia – I love the lava idea – really original but the more I think about it the more I could see how a burrowing monster could really work in a subterranean setting.
Arjen – using a single colour is challenging and I think you did great – some fantastic shading.
Jim – I didnt know that in one variant they had blue – but since they are a creature made with magic it makes sense that they might be some interesting colours. I think the colour scheme looks great and I agree with Antonia – that eye is awesome!
William – I love your colour scheme, and you did some beautiful shading on those orange scales. I think the glowing green eyes are really eye-catching.
Every did a great job – and so much variety!
I like all of them! I particularly like the lighter colored back on Dirk’s, the lava effect on Antonia’s, Arjen’s looks exactly how I would expect a burrowing creature to be colored (brown!), Kylie’s looks particularly good on that base (show off!) and William’s has to be the most original color scheme.
Thanks for the compliments on my eye painting! After human sized minis this didn’t seem too horribly difficult. I think I used a brush, but the pupil may have been dotted in with a round toothpick.
Overall, I just tried to follow the 1e description: “Typical specimens have blue-brown heads and hind portions, with plates and scales gray-blue to blue-green. Nails and teeth are dull ivory. The area around the eyes is brown-black, the eyeballs are yellowish, and the pupils of the eyes are dark-green.”
When I started, I thought I still had my old bottle of “Bulette Head Blue” from the official Polly-S D&D paints line from the early ’80s, but it was dried up. I wasn’t sure what blue brown should actually look like so I gave it a heavy brown wash. It helped dirty up the mini but I lost some of the highlighting. Oh, well!
The original bulette is one of the monsters that originated back in the ’70s after someone found a bag of plastic monsters (or dinosaurs) with some pretty weird creatures in it. Some others include the rust monster, owlbear, umber hulk and maybe some others. It looked like a cross between a snapping turtle and an armadillo! If you have a minute, search on YouTube for a video in which Tim Kask relates a brief story of how he invented the landshark. It’s a good lesson in creativity and inventiveness.