My first completed model for Monster March over at Path of an Outcast is this Giant Spider from Massive Darkness. I’d started this one late last year as the third step in giant spiders after finishing the Spawn of Ungoliant and Spider models from Journeys in Middle-Earth, but as with so many things, my interest waned over time as I got distracted by other things or just had my painting mojo ko’ed for awhile. My thought was that at this scale, I could use this model in the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game as a proxy for Shelob if needed, as it’s an acceptable size for friendly games. It could even fit in with some Drow, if needed!

Besides that, it’s something I could (and would) figure out a way to proxy into games like KoW and AoS, and perhaps even use in games of Massive Darkness 1 & 2!

So you may be wondering: Why is this spider Pink and Purple? Well, dear reader, the rationale is the same one that led me to paint the Spiders Teal & Green and the Spawn of Ungoliant Yellow/Green with Magenta/Pink. For tabletop “friendliness”. I could have painted all of these in a pretty realistic manner, but since Marouda is repulsed by spiders, I’m not super-fond of them myself, and we’re not exactly the only people around with those sorts of feelings, they need to be models that people can both handle being on the tabletop and literally handle as they move around in games.

And so with that as my self-imposed brief, I wanted to make this model look “realistic”, but with a colouration that’s “not somethin’ from ’round these parts”. So googling around, I found some images by a bloke called Peter Baker of his MD Giant Spider, liked it a lot, and as it looks great and fits my use case criteria, decided to rip his scheme off.

Since I wasn’t directly copying Peter’s scheme as a reference, I painted the legs in inverted colours to his spider. I also had the thorax in the same pink as the head and abdomen, but after re-referencing Peter’s spider changed it to a purple, since it’s a carapace – though since doing that I do regret it a little as it looked good on my model – better I think than the purple does. It wasn’t until later that I realised that the model that inspired this one looks to be inspired by the old-school Genestealer colouration.

I’m pretty happy with how the mottling came out on the spider’s abdomen. The thorax looked similar before I purpled it, though it does at least still look okay.

As per usual, Berkeley provides us with a scale shot. It’s a big beastie, though there are bigger and chunkier Giant Spider models out there (foreshadowing for a future challenge perhaps?)

Anyway, despite my slight misgivings about the repainted thorax, I’m still pretty happy with this one! More Monster March Models to come!