Some Villains for 'Devilry Afoot'

Continuing on with my 'Devilry Afoot' dalliance, here are a few Villains and Monsters for our brave heroes to face and overcome (or get made into wet bits scattered about the moors).

First up we have the Count along with three of his brides. These are from Crooked Dice, through their MyMiniFactory store. Lovely models and a joy to paint.

One thing you gotta say about Dracula, the dude's always been solid with the ladies. Look here, three wives! Wow, right?! All at the same time and not at each other's throats... Well, yeah, anyway. Now, I figure you either have to be French, Mormon, or the Prince of the Undead to pull that one off.

The slightly yellow-greenish cast of his skin is on purpose to drive home that he's not entirely human.

Nothing says lady-killa like a purple velvet jacket and red-lined cape.

Devilry Afoot has a profile for 'Bogeymen' with a relatively open interpretation describing them. So, I decided to go with two variations, one a good ole scarecrow (from Reconquer Designs) and the other a creepy AF harlequin/jester (from Bestarium Miniatures). 

The scarecrow was fairly straightforward, but I took a little bit more time with the harlequin as I wanted a more desaturated look to him. He was great fun to work on.

Thanks for dropping in!

- Curt

Entry #8 to AHPC VIII: The Screaming Antelope & Terrain for 'Kingdom Death'

Hi All!

Our gaming group has been playing a lot of 'Kingdom Death' lately, and I have to say it's a very addictive game - very nasty and adult, but addictive. The core campaign is called 'People of the Lantern' and lasts, if you're lucky, around 30 sessions. We're about four sessions in and have managed to survive several White Lions and our growing settlement is just about to track down the next nasty: 'The Screaming Antelope'. 

From a distance, the creature looks like a giant antelope, but when you look closer you discover that it has a nightmarish gaping maw that runs down the length of its underbelly, with little creepy hands emerging from each side of the mouth that help to stuff in any nearby victim. 

Yes, the hills are alive with the sound of...screaming... Yeesh. 

As nasty as this creature may sound, it's small beer compared to what's coming down the pike. Oh well, it's not called 'Kingdom Death' for nothing.

I've painted the Screaming Antelope pretty much the same as I did  the White Lion last month. Sort of a sepia greyscale(ish) effect, with a bit of source lighting (sorry Greg) cast underneath from a dropped lantern (a little 3D print I came across). 

Sarah absolutely hates it, so I must be onto something. :)

In addition to this gnashing beastie, I've also managed to get some terrain done for the game. 

The core box comes with an assortment of punch-out cardboard pieces to represent obstructions and various bits of cover. They're perfectly fine and serviceable, but I thought it might be nice to have something a little more in-theme to go with the miniatures.

I did some poking around on Thingiverse (gosh, I LOVE that website) and discovered that some very talented folks have made excellent 3D designs of most of the game pieces. I printed off a set of the Fallen Pillars (artist: Gazgoblin) and the Giant Stone Face (artist: heribertovalle) to see how they looked. Well, as you can see they printed out very nicely, with lots of deep relieve which makes drybrushing them a doodle. 

Felix was hoping it was a dog treat.

I think I'm going to place some lanterns along the edges of these to cast (airbrush) some spooky uplighting, but that will have to come at a later time.

Next up for this game will be the oh so touchy-feely: 'The Butcher'

Entry #3 to AHPC VIII: 'Kingdom Death' Prologue Survivors and The White Lion

Last year Byron came for one of his visits and introduced our gaming group to 'Kingdom Death', an artfully composed hybrid of a horror RPG, tactical skirmish and board game.

While the gameplay is (brutally) ingenious and the figures are amazingly sculpted, the themes are very, VERY adult, and so definitely not to everyone's tastes.  Nonetheless, we loved it and became immediately hooked. So when the Kickstarter went up last year for the updated version I completely lost my wits, mortgaged the dogs and backed it to the hilt. Anyway, the first avalanche of stuff (suitably titled 'Monster 1.5') arrived at our door this autumn, so I thought I'd use the Challenge to  complete some of the core elements of the game.

These first four figures comprise the 'Prologue Survivors'. These poor souls awake in a world of darkness, with no memory of their past, little clothing and only lanterns and a few shards of masonry as weapons. 

Since I'm going to have a LOT of figures to work through, I decided to save myself the torture of determining what colours to use figure-by-figure and instead use a hybrid greyscale effect that incorporates lanterns' glow for a bit of visual interest. 

The main elements of the effect was achieved using an airbrush and then switching to thin glazes to highlight both the greyscale and lantern glow. I realize it's a little over-the-top but I think it works okay for the game's setting. 

The beginning scenario has the four survivors being immediately set upon by a huge lion. Using only their bare hands, some stone shards and lanterns they are forced to fight for their lives. 

I decided to use the same lantern-lit greyscale effect for the White Lion, with a fallen lantern providing under-lighting to the lion's face, underbelly and flanks.

The light effect of the dropped lantern.

These figures are quite large, with the humans coming in at around 40mm. The Lion, not surprisingly, is a bit of a brute in comparison. The funny thing is that he's considered to be a fairly small creature in the game - Yikes! 

I hope to get a few more of the game's monsters done this Challenge - wish me luck!

First entry to Challenge VIII ('Challenge Ate') - 'The Unspeakable Thing Under the Bed'

For our eighth edition of the Painting Challenge, the theme is 'Challenge Ate', and so celebrates all things scary, creepy and monstrous. I could easily go off on a tangent on how this could reflect the socio-political landscape of parts of our world today, but lets keep this civil and focus instead on kinder, gentler monsters, such as fire breathing dragons, rapacious werewolves and perhaps even dread Cthulhu.  

Mulling over what I would do for my first entry, I thought back to my childhood, remembering the things that I considered to be particularly frightening and monstrous. I clearly remember having a puppet that seemed quite scary sitting in the night's darkness, and the moon-shadows of the trees outside my window could be quite creepy, but the thing that really caused me bring the covers to my nose was the thought that something unspeakable could be lurking underneath my bed. 

My mind would race, and I would think, 'What could be under there?' Was it listening for me go to sleep before it would make its move? If I ran, would it catch me before I made it to my bedroom door? Should I peak under my bedframe to make sure I was safe? Thinking of all these things while peering over the top of the sheets was such wonderfully delicious torture. 

It's a wonder I got any sleep at all during those years.

Anyway, here is a little vignette I came up with as a wink to those macabre childhood imaginations. 

The bed and teddy bear are 3D prints from files I found on Thingiverse. The bedlinen is tissue, soaked in diluted white glue, while the lone slipper and tentacle were mocked-up from a bit of milliput sculpting putty.

As I was pressed for time to make the submission, I decided to paint this in a fairly straightforward greyscale effect, with only the tentacle being in colour. I would have preferred to experiment with a few more ideas, but considering the time constraints I'm fairly pleased with how it turned out.

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Next Up: Chapter II of Ortona '43