I took a hard left turn in my participation on the Monster March painting challenge this month. When I got sick two weeks ago, I found that I was unable to paint fine details to the standard that I hold myself to, so that put the kibosh on getting the Terminator Squad I’ve been working on finished. I also found that shading all of those god-damned bones on the Reaper Bone Giant and the Dracoliche was just not gonna happen.
So I took a different road. I had ordered some extra-large bases from Reaper Miniatures, and they finally arrived in the middle of the month. Also recently, my mate Carlo had done some gluing and puttying on a few kits for me, and the Burrower from Shadows of Brimstone was one of them. It’s not an amazing model by any account, but I looked at it and the complete lack of fine, fiddly details on the model, and as I now had the large bases, I decided to try and paint the thing for Monster March.
I went with a colour scheme inspired by the Nurgle models that I’ve been painting over the last couple of months, with the idea that I could also use it as something in my Nurgle Daemon army – the Giant Chaos Spawn profile from the Forgeworld Chaos Index for 8th Edition 40k fitting the bill quite nicely. I’m sure there’s something big and gigantic I could fill in the stats for in AoS and KoW and a dozen other games as well.
The figure itself was a matter of basecoats followed by a series of drybrushes, washes, picking out of those little bumps across the whole model and some veinage on the tentacles, and stippling in various locations to try and give it at least sort of a natural look. Matt varnish on the base and body, satin on the “teeth” and gloss on the tentacles.
Paint was started last weekend (the WIP photo was last Saturday), and I’ve just done a little bit here and there when I could after work. Luckily the model is simple enough that I got the whole thing done in less than a week.
As you can see here, the model is pretty big. Giant Chaos Spawn, indeed! I have to thank Swordmaster for running this challenge. Although I failed miserably at completing the two models I wanted to finish (because I got sick!), I still managed to get motivated enough to paint a model that could have sat there unpainted for a bloody long time.
I also have another figure that I’d been working on to mount on one of the large bases. Today is the 30th of March. Let’s see if I can finish that one for Monster March as well. Will I get it done in time or will this stubborn chest infection, Assassins Creed: Origins and the newly-arrived Far Cry 5 prevent me from doing so? Tune in tomorrow and find out!
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
I admire your painting skills and your imagination too. Good stuff.
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Thanks! That’s very kind of you to say. 🙂
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Yikes! That thing is huge! Thanks for putting the models next to it for comparison purposes.
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Yeah I took all of the original photos and then I thought I’d better probably put in an extra one as a scale shot.
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Love the wet look finish you’ve produced in the tentacles.
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Thanks! That was something I’d wanted do from the get go. I’m happy it turned out well. 🙂
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You mentioned three different types of varnish, are you using paint on varnishes? If so, is that your usual goto? I’ve only used Testors Dullcote. I’ve thought about trying out satin though.
And another beautiful model! Those colors are amazing. Everything from the skin on the beast to the tongue to the rocks on the base. I’d be happy if I could make something look half that good! 😀
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I have both spray and paint on finishes in gloss matte and semi gloss. For this model the first coat was a hard-wearing varnish and then I went over the top of it with testors dullcote. After that had dried I painted the tentacle tongues with glass and then did the teeth with paint on satin.
Thank you for the compliments also! 🙂
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Looked at that, thought “gruesome!”,”nice paint job!” and “it’s how big?”! Impressive!
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Thank you, thank you, and yeah, I need to get more of my larger models painted!
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That thing is really cool!
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Thank you! 🙂
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Jaysus, that’s huge! From the first pics I thought it was mounted on a 40-50mm base, and then you showed the comparison. Great work!
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Yeah, it’s a pretty decent-sized model. Monster March!
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That’s a big boy! Or girl! Or it! Feel better and good luck finishing!
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Thanks! I’m hopeful. If I can manage to get in and out of the house unimpeded by Marouda and the cat tooling around out there I’ll be able to spray (Testors Dullcote is great, but super-toxic) which will allow me to flock and tuft and get the thing dry and done in time to photograph it today.
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Oh yeah it is a dangerous can of fumes. I use it only in the summer, and the major reason I got an airbrush set up and a spray booth. Good luck!
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All the painting is done. All the spraying is done (probably). Now it’s just waiting for the first layers of flock to dry so I can apply the second, then see if I need to glue it down, then final assembly, then tufts and base-flock.
6 hours left of March. It’ll be close, either way!
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Looks nicely Lovecraftian. I took a peek at their website, and wasn’t sure it was worth US$40, but then I came back here and took another look at the scale pic. Wow, that thing is big!
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US$40? I wouldn’t think it is worth that much. I got it as part of the “Mine Cart” KS pledge (though it was something like 2 or 3 years late). It’s certainly big, though it’s pretty simple as well.
What are the other established painting challenges out there for April? The Dreadtober/Squaduary/Monster March types? I’m wondering if there’s something there I can use to help motivate myself to get more stuff done this coming month aside from my own Assembly…
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As best I can tell from the scale photo, that thing is on something like a 100mm base, putting it somewhere around the same size as the ETB Redemptor Dread, which also retails for US$40.
I am unfortunately not aware of any other hobby challenges until DreadTober rolls around again. There may well be some, I just don’t know about them.
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I’ve used the same kind of base as the Rogue Idol, that being one of these from Reaper – 130mm Round bases.
https://www.reapermini.com/OnlineStore/130m%20round%20base/latest/74063
Unfortunately, I haven’t opened up any of my Redemptors yet, so I can’t do a comparison.
As for challenges, I’ll just have to keep on doing my own. It was kind of interesting to have some secondary objectives to work on as well for the last few months, though.
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Very nice, I especially like the two tone skin and the shading/highlighting on both sides. Good to see that even Nurgle himself has given you his blessing. Or did he send you his plague first to tempt you into his garden for salvation? Watch out for any unexpected horn growths!
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Thanks Subedai. In this case it was Nurgle turning me from painting the Undead and towards his ilk. I’m still coughing like a MF, tree weeks later, though I’m at least less feverish and generally sick. I’ve got a few days of now, so I’m planning on taking a few quiet days to recover a little. 🙂
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I hope you do get better soon!
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Me too. It’s gotten bloody old.
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That Burrower is a fantastic army for your Nurglite force! I also like the sculpt well enough — except it’s better not to think too long about where the creature is keeping all those tongues/tentacles when its mouth is closed.
Your paintjob is absolutely brilliant, though, and perfectly sells the model in spite of its minor shortcomings!
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Thank you – and that’s the same thing/first thing I thought of when it was unassembled, and then again when I received it back fully assembled. Where the hell does it actually *keep* those tentacles?
The only answer that even sort-of explains it, is “Because Daemon”, which kinda works for Warhammer and much less so for Shadows.
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“Because Daemon” is the best possible excuse anyway — sadly doesn’t work all that well in RL, unless you’re an overly religious nutjob… 😉
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Yeah, it’s a ridiculous model in that sense. The original sketches were a bit more feasable. As for overly religious nutjobs…. that’s what Far Cry 5 is for! 😉
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Looks great. As all your stuff does. Might have to look that one out for one of my own wormy forces.
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Not sure if it’a available at retail, but the Frogs have it on their website:
http://flyingfrogproductions.mybigcommerce.com/shadows-of-brimstone-burrower-xxl-enemy-pack/
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The brimstone stuff is very nice, my martian science drones are theirs, and their swamp slugs have great potential.
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Yeah. I need to (find time to) go through the giant box of KS stuff they sent me. I do have the tentacle set and a demon-thing out on the modelling table, so we’ll see when they actually get sorted out!
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Wow!! That thing is truly monstrous mate, the tentacles are really nice & disgusting. Ten points for the casual use of the word ‘veinage’ 🙂
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Thanks Alex. I’ve realised/decided that I need to make a more concerted effort to get some more of the “big stuff” assembled and painted. I should have given the post a pun-title. “Purple Vein.” Except it only just came to me then.
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