Miniature Monday – Mind Eater and Chthon
From the dark depths of the deepest dungeons come forth this dire denizens of the darkness. Tentacles and brains await you to scare you to death (or perhaps eat you, or brain-fry you, or…)
(posting by Dirk)
This time we have really strange monsters lurking in our blog. From all the monsters in the manual Bones II, these two are some of the most scary. Although they are very different in appearence and way of living, they are a good match in my opinion – they both have a little “mind-flayer”ish touch.
I had to work fast on these two, so I went for traditional colors.
The chthon/grick was painted in classic green scales and fleshy tentacles, but I like the overall result. It’s a well balanced color scheme.
I used red for the mind eater as a complementary color to the green grick. And I took the time to make him a stony base (mainly because he didn’t fit on the base… 😉 ).
Antonia went further and made this minis even more scary…
The chthon she wanted to paint in underground colors, but when she sculpted the base with putty, it looked more like flames… so she spontanously decided to make a fire worm from hell – watch out for those lava pits!
The mind eater’s brain was painted in pink and partially washed with red and blue to get a blotchy effect, while the body was painted with metallic purple. The subterrainean base even got a stalagmite from the Bones II “Thank You”-pack. But what’s really awesome are the strands of bloody slime she added to the monster, it literally bathes in its last victim as it just crawled out of the last host. Antonia made these fibers out of a mix of red wash and “UHU”-brand all-purpose-glue. (P.S.: see the gloss varnish on the brain to make it more slimy?)
Michael send us a quick picture of his mostly finished monsters.
He used a lot of purple, connecting the monsters through color to each other and the otherworldly maiden we saw last time – really a good job. It even looks like she is communicating with or commanding them.
Michael, was it intentional to link the monsters to her? Do you want to use them in a combined way?
Jim found this minis very interesting.
Like many of our painters he painted these two quick and dirty (as he said). Jim liked the Chthon/Grick, but wasn’t so pleased by the claws/blades of the mind eater. I also had difficulties of highlighting the Blades without destroying the shading in the recesses. Did anyone had similar experiences?
I like the highlighting on the Grick, and the brain looks very fleshy and moist.
Arjen send us some really creapy pictures.
I love the overall color scheme, especially on the brain. It gives me the creeps (in a good way) and definitely looks the most alien (as in extraterrestrial).
Arjen attended a workshop a while ago and practiced some of his new techniques using more watery paint.
Arjen: “Results are most clear on the legs of the mind eater, where there is a gradual blend from greenish yellow to bluish green. The chton/grick was less suitable for this, as it is mostly scales, no large areas.”
Can you tell a little bit about this technique? It is kind of a wet-in-wet-method, mixing the colors while still wet? Or more of a layering?
We had some very scary monsters this time. I liked the minis: they were small but well detailed, and could be painted in a short time. Perfect if you need some exotic opponent on the run. I pity the adventurers that have to face these beasts 🙂
This week’s gallery:
Coming next:
11/20/17 Bones III Vagorg, Half Orc Sorcerer (B3 Core)
12/04/17 Bones III Death Dog (B3 Core)
12/18/17 Bones II Friar Stone, Monk (B2 Core)
01/01/18 New Year’s Break (Really! But you can prepare for the next minis while sobering up, of course 😀 )
01/08/2018 Bones III Dashing through the snow: Yetis (Shaman, Warrior, Shredder, as many as you like!) (B3 Core)
01/22/2018 Bones III Aeris, Female Elf Ranger (B3 Core)
02/05/2018 Bones II Infernal attack: Fly demon and/or Blood Demon (B2 Core)
02/19/2018 Bones III Giant Cobra (B3 Core)
03/05/2018 Bones III Lendil Blackroot, Wizard (B3 Core)
03/19/2018 Bones II TBA
04/02/2018 Bones III TBA
Caffeineforge 
Nice work, everyone.
Dirk, I like the red legs on the mind eater, and the base is nice too. The green scheme looks good on the chthon too.
Antonia, I love the sticky blood strands and gloss on the mind eater! I think I need to look into getting some glosses/glazes to try that kind of thing myself. Nice twist on the chthon too.
Jim, I can see that fine highlighting on the scales of the chthon – looks great. I think the recesses on the mind eater’s blades were very fine; it did make them easy to obscure even trying to do a light dry brush.
Arjen, the transition on the mind eater legs looks awesome! I also like the freaky blue brain.
For mine, I started these two pretty much with Aglanda, and they were kind of linked. When I knew she’d be a weird space cultist, I thought these monsters would be great companions (or perhaps having them next in the queue influenced who she became). While they all have purple, the shades are different. I actually think I might kind of lighten/gray the gyri of the mind eater brain a little more; I used a purple ink to get the sulci to show veins and such. I teach Anatomy & Physiology and had just dissected a sheep brain with my students, so it was right in my head.
As for the chthon, my mind took a weird turn. I had been listening to the audiobook of Dune and was thinking about sand worms… but then I started thinking about the worms in Beetlejuice, and those purple and black stripes that Tim Burton likes so much. I have several grick minis already, so I thought I could try something non-traditional. After I painted the purple, I thought it’d be too hard to make black stripes on the scales, so I just kept the purple. As I said, I might do a little bit more touching-up on both of these, so we’ll see!
The big issue with the mind eater is how to bring the body and brain together so they appear as one creature. Antonia did it by using blood on both, so you get a pink-red-purple gamma and both the legs and the brain have red blotches. Michael used a similar gamma, brought together by giving both parts a “stonewashed” look. Jim is more subtle: a red brain on a black body, but on closer inspection, the black recesses in the brain make a color link to the body. Dirk took a different approach: the body has the same color as the brain, but the legs are different. My approach was to give the black body a blue shading and some blue highlights. I do not know if all these decisions were made consciously, but it is nice to see how everybody solved the problem in a different way.
Regarding my painting class: I got into the hobby through a simple paint kit instructing me to paint a color, apply a wash and add a highlight. I did not really evolve much from there except learning myself to do a decent drybrush. So last month I took a three-hour course in layering. I never realized that the trick with diluted paint was to get most of it off your brush before painting. So before, I always got a runny effect with paint sloshing everywhere if I tried to use dilute colors. As a result, I normally did not dilute my paint much.
You can see that now, by using a diluted green and green- yellow blend, wiping most of the paint from my brush on tissue paper and then applying the brush to my black legs very gently I got a very thin, translucent layer of paint and it did not run into those cursed shallow recesses. The paint does not have to be completely dry when you paint the next shade, as there is so little moisture that it will hardly run through each other, just enough to make a seamless blend.
The downside to this technique is it is very time consuming if you want to paint large areas this way.
Some really good creepy, horrifying critters this time! There is really no right or wrong way to paint these two in my opinion. Everyone’s color choices are great for different reasons.
I’ll admit, I didn’t even know what a Grick was until I googled some pics of the Chthon! Mine has really sharp casting detail, which made it fun to paint and in person it looks the best of my two minis. My Mind Eater (Intellect Devourer) came out a little more red than pink, but I still wouldn’t want to meet that thing in the dark!