'Monstrous' from AdamC: Corps Caterpillar

This fellow is from the Bones III Graveyard expansion and I felt it would be perfect for the this bonus round. I'm not sure if the minatures has a name (most Reaper miniatures do) but I'm thinking of it as the Corps Caterpillar.  With those teeth it can make corpes if doesn't find nough.

I opted for bright clolors becasue many times catapillars are brightly colored to tell preditors they are poinsons and... of course this is also true of venimous cretures too. 

I plan using this fellow in Frostgrave and for Dragon Rampant.

I would have liked  little more texture on the skin, but its hard to paint that when its not there on the figure.

Its a big nasty baddy that I shall enjoy using in my games. .   Its a 25-28mm scale figure actually bit bigger but with the limited details I don't think it worthy of any more that standard points.

'Monstrous' from AlexK: Monster Madness!

So this is my 1st theme round entry of the challenge and it's taken a while to find the right miniature. My criteria for the monstrous round are -

Big, bouncy uncontrollable monster- CHECK

The bounce of said monster should be slightly off vertical (8° ideally) - CHECK

Odd socks - CHECK

Mad, teeth bearing grins for all - CHECK

Arm yourself with a wooden sword - CHECK

With that list in mind I present this cheeky chap. I've stolen a few ideas from other challengers, in particular BrendonW's colour palette for the skin tone of the goblin and I've tried to referece Curts opening piece of the challenge with the stripey sock.

I'm generally a historical painter/gamer so I had a chance to go to the further flung corners of the paint box with this piece which made a nice change. As for the figure it's one of a select few that I really like from GW, the over the top sculpting really works well on this.

I'm going for a 2 for 1 with this as well. I've had a really good time painting through the challenge, so much so that I nearly forgot about the entry fee! So this one is for you Curt, I hope it covers the admin fee. Hopefully it should make it's way to you before the challenge end.

Thanks for looking, 

AlexK

'Monstrous' from Anthony O: George the Giant

George is big, in fact he is down right monstrous. Don't tell George that though as he can get a little sensitive, sure he is a little taller than average but that could just be because he is big boned. It really is not George's fault that none of the clothes in 'Ye Olde Shoppe' fit him, I mean do they think everyone is a halfling?

George just wants to settle down and be an average Joe. He certainly fancies himself as somewhat of a pretty handy baker but for some reason every time he wanders into a new town looking for a job it is all screams and pitchforks and "Call out the guard!".

George is actually a really nice guy, unfortunately George has to fight sometimes though otherwise these pompous little English men keep poking him with sticks. So he squashes and he stomps and swings his club all the while thinking about how to make amazing scones with some cream and a touch of strawberry jam.

One day George will get really angry at all those little English men with sticks and be they alive or be they dead he will grind their bones to make his bread, one day...

'Monstrous' from Barks: Necromunda Beast's Lair

The best monsters are the ones you never see all of...

It was inevitable that I would be sucked in by the new Necromunda. I flailed weakly against its nostalgic embrace before accepting my fate and succumbing.

One of the little pieces of scatter scenery you get is The Beast's Lair, which attacks gangers who are close to it. I spent too much time on this! After adding some plasticard, I started to paint it blue, because colour theory with the rust, then thought it would be cool as a pallid albino thing, then it looked too white, so I added a bit more flesh tones, then it didn't work until I added some more pinks.

I’ve fired up the Skull-o-meter™️ but it must be faulty- this 40K piece is reading 0!

I enjoyed the rust- the trick is burnt umber wash with bright orange stippling.

'Monstrous' from BrendonW: Stone vs Demon

1 x Demon from Games Workshop 1 x Stone Giant from MOM Miniatures.

This challenge is excellent. Deadlines can be a good thing for paint motivation. Unlike project Goblin these beasts had actually undergone assembly before the challenge. Monstrous theme challenge means they get over the line to completion. Sure there is always something else that could be done to them to take them a little further but, like an old art teacher once told me...'know when to stop.' Stop is when the deadline is due in this case. The Dwarf stone giant golem is a little over 100mm high including his 50mm square base. He is resin and was only two parts. The plastic Games Workshop Demon was many parts and it is around 95mm tall including his base with stones. The Demon is the second one I have painted this challenge. The animated stone giant as you can see took way less time to paint than the Demon who will be a 'Counts as' figure. These are for two of my Kings of War armies. Dwarves and Varangur. Both of which have had other units painted during this challenge and previous ones. I enjoyed painting these. Especially after so many Goblins. They certainly made for a change of scale even though they are for the same scale. :)

Cheers from Brendon during Monstrous March
______________________________________

'Monstrous' from ByronM: Kingdom Death Dragon King

I had so many things to chose from this round but in the end I decided I had to finally get around to the monster from Kingdom Death that I have wanted to paint since it showed up 2+ years ago but just never felt I could do justice to, the Dragon King.

This thing is HUGE!!!  It is over 9" across, 9" front to back and 8" tall and sits on a 100mm base!  It is an amazing model, even more so for the price I paid in Kickstarter (I think when it was first announced we got it for $30 US?), hell even at retail pricing of $125 US for the Dragon, human version, 4x survivors, and 200+ cards and a book, its not a bad deal!  If GW did this kit it would be $400 and a kidney!

I wanted something dark, but not necessarily black, and not too dark as it would then just blend into the black / grey of the board.  I decided on a purple / blue look, which ended up morphing into more purple as I went along.  I darkened and tried to define all the scale edges, scars, and details with various shades of black, brown, and blue. Then added some highlights to the veins and scars.

In addition to plain washes for each step I also used the Forge World clear airbrush paints to feather in purples, blues, greens and even some reds into areas.  While not super obvious, it does show up in bright light and is visible in at least 2 of the pictures to some degree, especially this one which for some reason just pops with them.

 

 I kept the underbelly a dark purple/blue then washed it with multiple coats of black, blue and purlple until it is almost black, unless you look at it under light then you see the shades through it.

I then shaded the wings to get a fleshy colour as I wanted it to be very different.  I realize you can go with the same skin colour on the wings and it's probably more natural to go so, but I didn't want the overall model too dark so went with this.  I washed in sepia, browns, purples, blues, and greens to give it depth and contrast.

 

The horns are mainly bone coloured, but lightened are darkened to add curvature and contrast to them.  They do have a slight center ridge but are fairly flat, so I wanted to bring that out more with shadow and light.

I had planned to also do the human version of him, which stands at a mere 2" tall, but it is such a gorgeous model in its own right that I did not want to rush it, so he will come later. I have included a picture with the white lion and a survivor to help show how truly monstrous he really is.  Now picture having to fight him with nothing but weapons and armour you have made by killing and carving up lions and antelopes....  Never mind the figures, the game alone fits the monstrous theme.

This last size comparison picture was taken after I put all my lights and photo setup away and realized that I forgot to take it, hence the lower quality picture.  I am really happy with how all the other photos came out for a change though!  You can actually see some of the reflective hues in some of them from the washes and clear paints.

'Monstrous' from DaveX: A Monstrous Horde of Zombies!

Being quite behind my points goal, I needed a boost, and a big boost at that!

Whilst looking at my many options for Monstrous, I was looking at some of the Monsters in Zombicide Black Plague.  I have painted quite a few zombies but decided I would paint as many as I could so I grabbed every zombie from the box set that had yet to see paint and off I went!

I had to speed paint the lot of them, all 44 of them!  I basically undercoated them IJA Green, slapped on some block colours, drybrushed them with Army Painters Zombie Skin, painfully painted the bases and then used my favorite Army Painter Quick Shade... a magical 3 days later I sprayed some Mat Varnish, picked out some minor details and bloodied them!

It was a Monstrous effort to get them all done!

Here is my Horde of 44 Zombies for you...

Here they are... All 44 of them

The Zombies

The Fatties

The Runners

As these are gaming pieces and are handled with not much love and are constantly being moved on and off the table, I only roughly cleaned them up and missed many a mold line but they sure do look nice en-mass! 

So this should yield me 44 x 5 points = 220 plus 50 bonus = 270 much needed points! :)

'Monstrous' from DavidB: Elder God Mage and Werewolves

Back in early November/December, and when I found out the theme, I decided to delve my "mountain of neglect" for all the vile, wicked, terrible monsters I could find.  As the challenge and life progressed I was reminded that not all monsters are wicked, and some lurk very close by.

My initial thought for the final round and Curt-geld  was one of a pair of werewolves I got in the swagbag at Adepticon. My son didn't like that idea and he selected this Mind Flayer ( illithid) from our FLHS instead.

I rather like his pose as instead of idly twirling a mustache, he has tenticles.

Although he is anot apparent mage, he can easily slide into a nefarious agent of the elder gods like above. The hapless not-Indiana( Games workshop archaeologist from talisman) is about to get his cliffhanger!

Still he( maybe she- nice red shoe) is also capable of confronting warrior types in a dungeon crawl. 

But he could also use the tanks as stout minions vs the rogue hero.

I did complete both the Curt-geld and one of the backup alternates. As I stated earlier, life has a funny way of resurrecting memories of family and pearls of wisdom. In Potawatomi, Algonquin, and really all AmerIndian culture shapeshifters or skin walkers are very common. The Trickster is also very common, but unlike the Norse Loki, he usually helps the unfortunate and punishes the wicked. The wolf is a powerful protector of the people and also a bane. 

And werewolves are still pretty cool. I suffered the Twilight movies because I have daughters, wolves are even cool there as they aren't sparkling emos! ;)

My grandfather is the one who told me of an old proverb first. In each of us dwells two wolves. One feeds on fear, hate, greed, sadness, misery; the other thrives on love, generosity, kindness. The one you feed the most is the more powerful one and determines who you will be.

Because a lot of people feed the dark wolf, I've been really busy with both military and work which has put me in spots where WiFi hates blogger...or more accurately, work and government does not like me to visit any website with "game" in it! ;)

If people would feed the light wolf, I would've had more time to comment and visit each entry instead of just enjoying the emails...and able to spend more time painting too! 

So the alternate and Curt-geld for the final theme round this season. Perhaps the skin walkers and the illithid are the good guys who feed their white wolf while the pulp hero feeds his black wolf and plunders and murders his way through the world. ;)

Gerry Rafferty

Right down the line

Special thanks to my wife for posting these photos up for me as she not only found the described models, but also took the photos and started this post...at least the woods are pretty and not too cold! ;)

'Monstrous' from DebD: Jade Dragon

Hello!
As soon as I saw this dragon, I wanted to paint him. At first if I wanted to make him colorful like one might see at a Chinese festival, but eventually settled on the jade theme instead.

Scale: 28mm

Product: 02794 Oriental Dragon 

Mfg: Reaper Miniatures 

Material: Metal

Thanks! 

Deb