Tag Archives: Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures

D&D Monster Manual 19: Wrath of Ashardalon – Gauth (Bellax)

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Wrath of Ashardalon - Gauth

Bellax, Baby Beholder?

Since we’ve been playing a bit of the D&D boardgames lately, a few more of the models from those games have sneaked into my painting queue. Despite my fairly effectiove use of “The Tray” unfortunately some of the stuff there just isn’t driving me to paint it right now, and the D&D stuff belongs to that most relevant painter/gamer clause of “I need it done now for a game”. So when I found this thing in the bottom of the game box, primed and basecoated red. Well, I could see that the model was going to be simple enough to finish pretty quickly. So over the course of not too much time over two days, I got it finished.

Wrath of Ashardalon - Gauth

Dancing Dragonborn Fighter for scale.

As I understand it, a Gauth is like a small Beholder, which is a bloody silly monster in and of itself, and as such, very D&D. It’s also one of the noises that – should you find yourself making it with any frequency – means you should go get yourself tested for COVID-19. As for the model, I dunno. While I actually have an amazing looking paionted variant of this model in my mind’s eye with mottled skin and transitions between distinct shades, it was already basecoated red, and given how much of a zero-sum game my painting time is, it’s really not a model that calls for such effort. It was an easy paint, it looks alright, it’ll work well when we need it for the boardgame or if I ever play D&D/Pathfinder again, so it counts as an easy win, I guess!

D&D ̶M̶o̶n̶s̶t̶e̶r̶ Hero Manual 18: Castle Ravenloft’s Arjhan the Dragonborn Fighter

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Castle Ravenloft's Arjhan the Dragonborn Fighter

In case anyone might be wondering what the hero models from these D&D board games look like, here’s the sole example of one that I actually painted. And by painted, I mean it’s been sitting part done on a series of shelves, tables and containers for the better part of a decade now. I can’t answer why I even started this model, as it’s a pretty awful example of sculpting, casting, posing (WTF is he supposed to be doing? Dancing? Throwing a Punch? It’s dancing, isn’t it?) and pretty much everything else. It got painted in reds with gold because ….I think maybe the character card art insinuated these were the colorus to use? Or maybe I chose red because Dragonborn? I can’t recall. I dunno, really. Or care. I did the hair/dreads this week though. I went with yellow because fire, because Dragonborn. Also, the bright colour draws the eye to the model’s head where black or a dark colour would have dulled it down.

Castle Ravenloft's Arjhan the Dragonborn Fighter

This model is a good example of a bad model from 10 years ago. It might be a boardgame figure, and it’s now painted, so it’ll work for that okay, but it’s not great in any way by any means. It only gets it’s own blog post to fit in with the other Ravenloft models, and so I can entertain myself for 10 minutes shitting on it in type. It’s another example of a model that’s now done that I can pretty much never concern myself thinking about again. And if I ever need a Male Dragonborn Fighter armed with an Axe, I guess I’ve got the perfect model to fit that unlikely event….