Today’s post is another Queue-Jumper. That is to say, I’ve still got a fair few April models to post up, but I entirely painted this one today (Sunday at time of typing) and so up it goes. It’s a “Coral Golem”, a Bones model, and also another good example of Reaper being Reaper with all the weird shit that they produce. It also happens to be my first submission for Monster MAYhem, over at the Angry Piper’s Blog – aka Dead Dick’s Tavern and Temporary Lodging, run by a nice bloke named Keith.
Being a Bones model, I wasn’t about to kill myself working on an award-winning paintjob. Instead, it’s all about getting the model to the point where it’s good enough, and with a large, weirdly-detailed thing like this, the “good enough” is more about visual impression than natty freehand or subtle blending.
So with that in mind, and this being a model cast in the original, shitty, hydrophobis form of “Bonesium” PVC, the first step to painting was done a few years ago – it was sprayed with Shellac. I found it in a tub of minis the other day when cleaning up the crap under my painting desk, based it yesterday morning on an 80mm round – the feet weren’t even even – the sole of the left foot being parallel with that of the right, but raised a good 3mm higher. What the actual….? So I had to make a little rise with greenstuff. Superglued the thing down, and once that all dried, Vallejo Desert Sandy paste all over the base.
This morning I started the actual painting. Again, because Bones, I base coated the whole thing in Reaper Brown Liner, then (everything using Reaper’s “HD Paints”) Drybrushed it with a dark bluegrey, a dark blue, then diverged with some sections in a dark purple and others in a deep seagreen. The purple bits diverged into lighter purple and red, while the seagreen went to teal, and diverged to both light blue and lighter greens. Red and the greens were both able to go into yellowish, and then I painted the head-coral in yellows, and picked out the Octopus and Starfishies, along with the nesting crab and a few other bits and pieces. Washed the base with thinned Vallejo Leather Brown and drybrushed with Iraqui Sand into Ivory, and then painted on sealer (Reaper’s one on the model, and Micromark’s on the base, and then some long-grass tufts that I find reminiscent of the beach.
Now it’s done. I have no idea what to use it for. Tzeentch, because colourful? Idoeneth Deepkin, because waterful? Yeah, it’s probably more going to be a storage issue than anything actually useful in a game….
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
Oooh, nicely done! I agree with you that this is a bit of a WTF? figure but it looks great. The colours really work and I love the octopus hand! How bad were the mold lines? One thing that absolutely kills me with the old white Bones plastic is how easy it is to slice into the plastic when trying to remove flash.
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Thansk Matt! The mold lines weren’t too bad on this one from memory – though that’s also likely influenced by the weirdness of the sculpt where it would have been easier to camouflague a rough cleanup. 🙂
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Excellent work mate, the colours are so typical for an undersea coral reef, and the individual details you’ve picked out add to the overall effect of the piece. Could see it fitting in for deepkin, but would also be perfect for Deep Wars, not that you play that ! LOL
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Thanks Dave – it’s very much a Reaper miniature given how obscure and off the wall it really is. Very much a niche model!
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Awesome work on an interesting miniature.
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Thank you! 🙂
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looks brilliant!
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Thank you, Mike!
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That is a truly wonderful thing – a mini soooo niche that it genuinely rocks my world. I love it, and I love what you did with it. Feel free to send it my way if you’re stuck for somewhere to store it! 😁
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Haha thanks Alex. I’ll keep that in mind… 😉
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Whatever you do with it, I like! 🙂 Shame Alex has called dibs on it already!
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Haha thanks John!
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Whomever came out with this concept had some decision power! I cannot possibly imagine anyone successfully pitching this idea to anyone! Nice underwater tones, very realistic coral and one big WTF!
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Reaper does billions of minis. It’s one of the reasons I like them so much — if you need a specific figure, Reaper probably does it. I think they do 13 different golems lol.
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Yeah, I guess the surprising and impressive thing is how many different SKUs they seem to manage to keep in production. I imagine a lot of them don’t really make much money individually but the variety of the range keeps people coming back – after all, I imagine the D&D people who are minis-inclined buy well more than 1 model at a time.
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From memory it was part of an aquatic-themed set – I guess it works as one of the Boss Monsters if you’re doing a fantasy RPG that would also use the other models around it..
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That is a grgeat paint job given the subject matter, quite an … er… interesting scult and concept really.
Cheers,
Pete.
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Hahah thank you, Pete!
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This is so beautifully done, Azazel. It really looks like it shambled off the ocean floor. I’ve been aware of this miniature for a long time, but this is the best I’ve seen it done. Bravo, sir!
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Cheers Mate – I really appreciate the very kind words!
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That’s a big figure, well painted and I really like it. I can’t see it fitting any game I’d normally run, but you never know…
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Yeah, it’s certainly a niche model for sure!
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It seems pretty easy to get a miniature concept green-lit at Reaper, but I think that’s too their credit. A wonderfully weird model, lovey paint.
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Agreed on it being to Reaper’s credit. It wasn’t *too* bad a painting experience either, aside from the whole “bonesium” thing…
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You have to appreciate Reaper’s willingness to green light any miniature concept! Great painting!
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Very true. It may not sell all that well I’m sure, but I’m a fan of any company that isn’t afraid to take risks or cater to way more than their best-selling set of models!
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Great use of colours here, muted and dare I say washed out? The mini itself is really unique and it rather makes me wonder how I’ve never seen a coral elemental or similar before.
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This is a creative sculpt for sure! While it is kind of a dumb idea, I kind of love it at the same time. I feel like this could be an aquarium decoration which is a tribute to your painting. It really looks that lifelike. I do hope you find a use for it down the road as it is definitely a unique mini!
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Love the paintjob, love the model! Great use of colour here, on a decidedly out-of-the-box mini.
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Really like the colors here, very evocative of coral. If you can’t use it in a game, it would do well in an aquarium! Seriously good work on a novelty mini.
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