A quick post today on some models I was able to quickly paint in a couple of evenings after work earlier this week. The half-dozen giant spiders from Shadowed Paths.
Now these might seem to be rather uncharacteristically painted for giant spiders, let alone ones based on Tolkien’s writings – and very much unlike the ones seen in Peter Jackson’s Hobbit films, or most any depiction of the Spiders of Mirkwood, but I have good reason for this! Marouda is not at all fond of spiders as mentioned a couple of posts ago, and while I’m not a special fan either, these ones are just the exact correct size to be a really fucking big spider. Well, not like a Huntsman, but a large house spider or White-tail. Well, the wrong shape for a White-tail or Wolf Spider, but at a glance, enough to make you reach for a boot or block of wood. They’re actually close enough in shape for an Australian Garden Wolf Spider. If you’re an arachnophobe, you can skip those links. You’re welcome.
So anyway, the point being that if I want Marouda to be able to play a game involving these villains, then they can’t look at all like something we might see in real life, so I decided to go for a bright, tropical-looking colouration, somewhat inspired by a Redditor called Bellman and with enough yellow in them that they can still work well enough with the Spawn of Ungoliant. I primed black, zenithal spray grey, then white from above – then Contrast Aethermatic Blue all over except for the tops of the legs, the tops of the thorax and abdomen. Dropped a drop of Contrast Medium on top of the Thorax and Abdomen, and then went in with Citadel Technical Tessaract Glow, wet-blending into the Aethermatic blue around the edges. The links in this paragraph just go to models. Though they are of spiders, though not realistically painted ones.
Then coming back later to add some Tessaract Glow to the “knees”, and add some Contrast Kroxigor Scales to the tips of the legs as well as the underside of the body. Pretty great paint pot, as well. (look closely!) Eyes picked out with Contrast Blood Angels Red. For basing it was some AK texture paste, drybrushed with the usual and some tufts added.
So yeah, pretty luminous and not especially unrealistic, but they look pretty good for what they are – and more importantly – Marouda will be able to handle them being on the table, though she won’t be handling them, even with this particular scheme. The Spawn of Ungoliant, Beorn and Beravor provide scale comparison for these creepy crawly giant little bastards…
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
I just love that colour combo, like something out of the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise.
Looks like a low risk, high reward paint recipie too.
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Thank you! I didn’t think of that, but now you mention it I can totally see it! 🙂
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Love the colours they look great. Better than just the traditional black!
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Thanks! I kinda wish I could paint them as realistic spiders – just to see how well I could do – but since that’s not the case I’ll settle for nice tabletop ones in crazy colours…
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Nah. Look great the way they are.
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I’d be much less uncharitable towards spiders if they all looked like that – great job mate!
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Either that or you’d hate brightly coloured bugs and think of the black and brown critters as harmless like beetles… 😉
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Wonderful work mate, the painting of these are excellent, and remind me of some of the colours you find in peacock spiders, it’s surprising how many brightly coloured spiders there are in the world ( Just don’t tell Marouda)
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Yup – the thing is we don’t have to worry about seeing those around here so there’s no worry about mistaking them for a real one.. 😀
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Great color scheme for something like Phase Spiders too. How many coats of Aethermatic did you have to apply? Isn’t that the one that’s super light? If it’s the old Contrast paint I’m thinking of, I nearly tossed it on first try. I haven’t tried out the AK texture paste yet, should give that a go.
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One thinned layer in most of it, blended into the Tessaract, and a second coat in the lower parts, blended into the Kroxigor Scales.
I like the more subtle Contrast paints, though I rarelky use them “properly”. I’ve got a couple of terrain pieces that I’m working on now involving more Aethermatic Blue over a drybrushed Teal/Turquoise base. Looks a treat!
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Oh, that sounds cool! Have you checked out the GSW Dipping Inks yet? I’m finding they have more of a matte finish so far. I need to find a model to use them on, and see how well I can paint over the top, before I decide if they are going to into my toolkit permanently.
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PS – looks like they are still on sale for 25% off .
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I’ve now got them after they finally arrived (ordered the whole set) – I used a combo of two of them red/burgundy I think? plus medium on …something? I can’t actually remember. Unless I didn’t like how it looked and scrapped it? I always varnish anyway, so I’m not to fussed about paint’s natural finish most of the time. But yeah, haven’t had the right models to use them yet, but I’ve been doing a lot of “finishing off” since they arrived…
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These look great! 🙂 I can see why you’d want to paint them up like that for Marouda’s benefit!
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Thanks John! If it allows them onto the table then I’m all for it!
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Great color scheme on these! A suitably unsettling swarm.
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Thanks mate! Colourful creepies!
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Those are great- bright and toxic looking.
Cheers,
Pete.
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Good point, Pete – green is always a nice gamer shorthand for poison. 🙂
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They look awesome! Loved reading the technique. I did too went straight to get that contrast blue… That everyone seems to criticize, but jumped at me as a needed niche.
That pot takes GW’s infamous bottle design to a whole new level of derp! A very weird fabrication issue, to think how could that have even happened!?
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Thank you – and yeah, I almost always dilute my contrasts, but then I rarely use it the “official” way anyway, so I actually prefer the less heavily pigmented colours. I wasn’t aware that Aethermatic was criticised – interesting..
As for the pot… it’s really odd. I need to find a spare empty pot from one of the GW mediums and swap that over. First time I’ve ever seen that, and it’s not something I was able to reorient, either.. very odd.
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I also hate spiders and so these are a good choice to my eyes as well (I did not check the links out).
That paint pot is amazing!
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Yeah, they’re a little less evil to the eyes like this. The worst thing about that paint pot isn’t that I can’t use the little “shelf” to get paint off – it’s that the thing spatters contrast everywhere when I open it due to the flicking!
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That is even better, I had not thought about that!
Perhaps you should encourage them to make all there Blood For the Blood God pots this way!
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😀
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Really lovely models! And a very effective technique – I may want to try something similar on some tyranid / genestealer… thx as usual for sharing!
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Thanks Carlo – I think the same technique/scheme could look really good on some Lizardmen as well, now that you’re making me think… 🙂
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I’ve said this before already but these look like pretty good sculpts from FFG, either that or you’re such a skilled painter that you make them look great! 🙂 I like the bright colors as they still look somewhat plausible and if that’s what it takes to keep them playable in your hourse then I’d say it was a smart choice as well.
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The FFG sculpts from this game series are indeed pretty solid. Scale isn’t always consistent, and they’re not to the level of the best GW models, but as boardgame models, they’re pretty nicely sculpted and detailed, and the material is a much improved PVC to older games. I’ll have no problem dropping many of these into a game of SBG, etc.
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Nice. I think that when one is dealing with spiders the size of your people, one can afford to let realism slip a bit when it comes to the colour.
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You know, that’s a pretty reasonable point!
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I’m glad Our spiders don’t come in those colours Mate!!! or maybe it would save me from getting bitten all the time!!
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