Today I have the second of the three monstrous models from the Echidna’s Children boxed expansion set from Mythic Battles: Pantheon. Once again I’m submitting it for this year’s Monster March Painting Challenge being run by Swordmaster over at Path of an Outcast.

Inspiration for this model came largely from the official artwork, found in the rather nice Art Book that I got in the Kickstarter. The skin of the beast in Loic Muzy’s art is a rather ruddy tone, and I instead wanted something that wasn’t quite the colour of human skin, not quite the tone of a Lion’s coat. I did really like the stark contrast found in the painting, so I atttempted something not by using a zenithal spray of white over black (which all too many of the new-school of self-appointed “experts” making YouTube painting tutorials would say is the only way to paint) but by experimenting once again with Citadel’s Contrast paints. In this case, a very-dilluted with medium Wyldwood – which happens to be one of my least-liked colours from the range.

I feel like it came out pretty well, and certainly worked nicely as an experiment using this colour. I did go over it with some other colours, though – and with no signs of reactivation, it seemed to do the job without fuss. On the YouTubers point made above, the Zenithal technique is a worthwhile one, and I’m certainly not discounting it – just the rather dogmatic and arrogant way a lot of the YT’s present it while shilling this video’s sponsor. You’re not MJF, kids!

Originally the model’s wings were pretty much in the upright position, as this photo I “found” on the internet of an out-of-the-box version of the model shows. I gave it the old boiling water treatment, and luckily for me, the type of plastic these models are made from is stiff enough to hold the new pose pretty solidly. You can also see from this pic just how much I built up the base with slate chunks to fill in all of the open space on that large oblong disc.

The model’s not a bad one, but I’d hesitate to call it a good one. It’s got some very nice musulature on the lion’s body – possibly taken from a different 3d model? I wonder this since the heads are a lot more mediocre and the mane/hair down the beast’s back is simply made of verrry simple spikes that really don’t look like hair, fur or a mane of any kind – maybe Bart Simpson’s or a Dragonball Z character’s hair.

Still, the important thing (once again) is that the bloody thing is done and dusted! Adding one more step to being able to play this particular board game one day, and more realistically in the nearer future adding another monster to the stable for games like Kings of War, Age of Sigmar, or even Dragon Rampant.

As is custom for monster models, Chainsaw Girl Berkeley once again provides us with model scale (and yet another trophy for her wall!)