Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Lou - Chibi C'thulhu

A few weeks before Halloween, I picked up some of Reaper's chibi Bonesylvanians. Lou, a chibi C'thulhu, Mel, a chibi mindflayer and Drak, a chibi man-bat.

I decided to start with Lou and after looking him over for a bit I knew that I needed to model him after the larger C'thulhu that I painted a few years ago.

To get started, I found a spare 40mm base and cut out a section of it. I then glued some blister pack plastic to the bottom of it and used green stuff to make a shore line and fill in the bottom edge of the rim.

Once Lou was glued into place, I glued sand onto the base and let it all dry before priming him.

Since I was painting him green and brown, I started with a black primer coat and then began painting the main body, which started with a base coat of Caliban Green.

I couldn't remember my actual mixes or colors for the old C'thulhu, but I was pretty sure I used Caliban Green and Moot Green and made sure to use those on Lou. I was also pretty sure I used Rhinox Hide for the brown sections and my Vallejo browns for highlighting that as well.

One thing I knew for certain was that I didn't have the blues that I used for his eyes. I originally had used Arthurian Blue as the base coat for the eyes. But it's since been used up and it seems that apparently Reaper has discontinued it.

That wasn't a huge deal though, as it was highlighted up with Sotek Green, which is a turquoise and I could fudge it a little to get the effect I was looking for.

The biggest problem with the eyes was trying to get them to look suitably gemlike and alien. My first attempt was ok, but the pupils were slighly sloppy and I wasn't a fan of the transition of color from dark to light on them.

The second try turned out much nicer and the pupils were much more crisp and more uniform between the two of them.

For the brown of the skin, I used Rhinox Hide and a sponge and dabbed paint where it needed to be, creating a mottling effect. This was then followed by Vallejo Chocolate Brown and Flat Earth to give it some highlighting.

The base was painted with a mix of Ushbati Bone and Moot Green, thinned quite a bit to so it would get in the recesses of the sand. While it was still wet I painted more layers on it, essentially mixing it on the model and once it was dry I drybrushed it a little to highlight it slightly.

The pool area was painted with the same mix, but I began mixing in Caliban green and black, darkening it the closer it got to the rim of the base. This helped it look as if it was getting deeper the further out it went.

The next step was to pour the resin in the base cavity. I needed to be extremely careful with it, as I didn't want to spill it, or get it on parts of the mini itself. I had to slowly pour it and judge the maximum fill on the fly. Luckily I had the presence of mind to tape off the rim, so any resin that spilled over didn't get on the edge of the base.

Once the resin was dry, I made some waves using Liquitex Heavy Gel medium, by laying it on the surface with a colour shaper and then teasing it a bit with a toothpick. After letting that dry for a bit, the tips of the waves were picked out with a quick dry brush of white paint.

That's it for Lou! He turned out really nicely and I'm super happy with the results. It was great fun painting up a chibi version of a model I'd already painted before and I dare say, he turned out even better than his big brother did!