Today I have the first of (and maybe only? we’ll see how the month pans out) my submissions for this month’s Model painting challenge – the Colossal Skeleton from Reaper Miniatures’ Bones line. I think it was from their first Bones Kickstarter, but frankly I can’t be arsed to check, as at this point it hardly matters. This model was a nightmare for me (no pun intended) due to the rather horrid properties of the Bones Material, going sticky over time along with ill-defined details. The model is actually heavily based on a metal counterpart, though given the need to glue and join something like that together, I can only imagine it also being a nightmare as well, albeit of a mostly different sort.

I started this large, skinny fellow a couple of years ago – which you can easily spot by the use of the Square base – based as he is for Kings of War and Marouda’s Undead Army. So why did he take so long to get done? He’s mostly bone, isn’t he? After all, that’s easy enough to do..

Well, the issues I had with the model were a combination of the bone layers becoming rather tacky early on in the project, as well as all of the fidldy little details scattered across the model. The problem with those details is that most of them are pretty well ill-defined and simply …mushy. I found that particular combination rather off-putting, and despite any number of challenges over the last almost-a-year by now, from Dreadtober, Neglected Models, Jewel of July, Monster March… and on and on, I never could get more than a little of him done. In the first few days of this month however, after going to bed, I had a feeling come over me that I would finish the model that weekend. And so, somehow, I did just that.

In my little epiphany, I knew that I needed to break down the model into managable chunks. Good thing he was an unassembled multipart model, then – so legs and base, torso with head attached, and two arms. And then I worked on the fucker for most of the two days in my spare time. And it somehow worked – at the end of the weekend, he was done. And varnished both with Reaper’s own brush-on and AK Interactive’s matte. Somehow it’s also not sticky or even tacky. Yet.

A scale shot, along with some of his little (aka regular, human-sized) mates.

So now, after at least a couple of years, this big bastard is done, and I’m actually quite happy with it. My problem with him now becomes where to store it, especially since the Undead Army is already overflowing their shelf. Ah well, there are worse problems to have in life.

Now, the next question will be if I can get another awesome model done for August, or if it will remain with just the one completed for the challenge. Either way, it’s mission accomplished as far as I’m concerned.