Back to the D&D Board Game series today – The four eponymous villains from the Temple of Elemental Evil box. Each of the foursome took a rather different style of painting.
These first two of the models come in a dark but slightly transparent plastic – The Water Elemental took some Contrast Paint, as I actually painted it alongside the three from Drizzt. Because of the dark plastic, though, it turned out much, much darker. The extra-swirly details on this model also rendered the look of it rather indistinct. As with the Drizzt models, I drybrushed a bunch of Vallejo Foam Effects white to give it a slightly better look. I’d still call the Pathfinder models far superior to all of these Boardgame models.
The Air Elemental on the other hand was another Contrast Paint Experiment fail – it just looked awful with both grey and white attempts (each of which I quickly washed off). In the end, the best option to make it look like a decent Air Elemental was to go properly white, and then give it some subtle shading. Sure, it looks a little like a snowman, or a soft-serve-ice-cream-swirl-man, but trust me – it looks a lot better than stock. Once again, though – I think the more recent Pathfinder models are better.
The next two models again both take different tacks. The Earth Elemental was another Contrast Paint experiment that had an …average outcome. I don’t recall which of the paints I used here, but it did give the Earth sculpt a real “prepaint-dip” type look, which can pretty plainly be seen in these pics. I gave it a drybrush to finish off, because, let’s face it – it’s a mediocre sculpt that doesn’t deserve more time than I gave it here. Good enough for gaming.
Finally, the Fire Elemental started with a yellow spray – the same bright yellow spray used to base coat the Yochlol. Following this was a paint wash of thin white to brighten the deepest parts of the sculpt, then after it dried, a redo of yellow, then orange, red and then a very dark grey for the highest (coolest) points, including the fingertips, “ears”, and end of the tail. A few layers of drybrushing to give a kind of OSL-effect, as well as a black wash to finish the base in order to increase the OSL-shadow-contrast on the floor.
This final pic gives us a sense of scale for the two larger elementals next to an ogre, as this pair are my final submissions for Ann’s Miniatures of Magnitude Challenge for May & June! Wrap-up post for Ann’s challenge (with a group scale shot) tomorrow!
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
Bet your glad to have these finished with how much trouble they’ve given you, the end results have definitely elevated what could be some really dull sculpts
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Thank you, Dave! – These ones weren’t too much trouble thankfully. I got them all done in about 4 days (2×2 for each pair) so they were fast enough that they didn’t have time to feel like mental blocks or hateful tasks.
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I like them! 🙂 The air elemental is my favourite here!
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Now we know who really just likes Ice-Cream!
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They’re all cool mate, but again, it’s the lava one that blows my mind… I love it 😎
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Thanks Alex. Unusually for a miniature, it actually looks a bit better in the pics than in real life. I probably shouldn’t have said that openly… 😀
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I concur with Alex. “Lavaaaa, lava, lava… you don’t treat me no good no more.”
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Touche’ mate. I’d forgotten that song…
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😉
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Very nice- like the fire elemental.
Cheers,
Pete.
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Thanks Pete – it came out well in the photos!
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They all look OK but the last two are definitely the better pair. I know you weren’t over keen on the Earth elemental but I rather like the sculpt. The paint job on the Fire one though is top notch.
Cheers Roger.
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Thanks Roger :). It just looks a little silly compared to the other… well, ok, these all look a bit silly. But the Earth Ele just looks like an angry little cartoon midget – which does have a kind of amusing appeal I will grant you…
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Nice! I’m actually really liking that water elemental – the higher contrast makes it feel like a little slice of the deep, dark sea coming to drown you.
That ice-cream elemental, though.. I have no idea how you’d make that look like anything other than ice-cream 😅
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Oh you could always make it look like a giant marshmallow or meringue or as we say here in Australia, a pav.
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The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. With a little hat!
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Thanks Fredrik. It’s not well defined but it looks better than I’d have expected it to. Gloss varnish really helps on some of these!
As for the ice-cream elemental.. if I’d painted it brown, it would look more like something that’s *not* ice-cream than chocolate….
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Nice work on those Az! The air elemental is pretty recognizable alongside other ‘elementals’. Standing on its own, not sure what I would think of it. Too bad the grey didn’t work, that would probably be my instinct. The water one is a bit hard to make out.
My brain wasn’t registering the fire elemental well (too little sleep as of late), but then it made sense as I read through. Hotter in the center, kinda like an explosive effect. Very nice.
The earth one I kinda like too. Looks like the Contrast paints were giving you a kind of blotchy effect, which can be annoying. But I like the earthy brownish stone color.
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I’ve been alternating between calling it the “soft serve elemental” and the “fart monster”. Do either of those work? 😉
Yeah, lighter = hotter close to the centre of the model, darker further out. As a solid model that doesn’t really look anything like flames it’s a bit limiting in what you can do with it, really…. I have some of the Wizkids ones now that I’ll get onto in a bit and see how they turn out…
Colour isn’t bad on stony. Just the way the Contrast worked on it made it look like a pre-dipped “prepaint” miniature. You know that specific look they have…
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Cool, looking forward to seeing the Wizkids ones too. It’s been fun reading about your Contrast experiments as well.
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The Water and Air Wizkids ones are done, I’ll be adding some of the others to the next tray, though as D&D models they can jump right into the queue as replaement models for these ones! 😀
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Wow mate these are interesting characters !!!
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Thanks Pat! Want some ice-cream Elemental? It’ll have to be take-away though. Obviously… :p
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These are certainly not the finest D&D sculpts but you did well with them and hopefully cranked them out quickly. They will certainly look great on the tabletop which is the most important thing!
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