Mansions of Madness -Hunting Deep Ones

These are from the Horrific Journeys expansion and are a step-up from the core miniatures in quality, being made from rigid plastic and having crisper detail. Excluding drying time, these took me about an hour to paint, so I’m definitely speeding up (at long last!).

I kept things simple, as I have been with all the MoM minis, but again wanted to experiment a little. So, these were white primed and then given an all-over coat of Darkoath Flesh Contrast paint, which would provide pre-shading for the next step. I do like using the contrast paints for pre-shading under inks or glazes, and I want to experiment further with that in the future….

I then reached for the airbrush and two bottles of Vallejo ink, Black Green and Green. I sprayed the former from below and from the horizontal, the latter from 45° above and directly above the mini. Things didn’t quite turn out as I’d hoped, as the difference in the two colours wasn’t as much as I’d expected. Still, they looked okay and I didn’t want to spend any more time than I had to on them.

At this point the two figures were identical, but now it was time to experiment and turn to the drybrush. I don’t use this technique very often, but when I do I tend to build up the colours, usually drybrushing two, three, or more colours to work up to the highlight I want. I know a lot of people only do a single drybrush, especially on something quick like these, but does it make much difference? Is it worth spending an extra minute or two more to add another drybrushed colour?

Here, I wanted a final highlight of Bonewhite, so on the one I simply drybrushed it straight on, no build up, just Bonewhite. The other, I applied an initial, heavy drybrush of Dead Flesh and then a light one of Bonewhite. You can see the difference between the two and it is quite a difference…

• 

• 

The one that only has the Bonewhite is quite stark and lacks the vibrancy of the other. Even using just two colours the other looks more natural and is much more pleasing on the eye. It creates the impression that more time was spent in building up the colour when in reality it only took an extra minute or two.

Having that initial application of Dead Flesh, which is green based, makes the transition to Bonewhite less of a jump and therefore doesn’t look so stark. It also alters the colour of the overall figure, making the base greens look brighter. If the figures had been much smaller (these are fairly chunky and stand at 45mm), then it would have been best to use a single layer, as the contrast is reduced by adding that intermediate colour, though I could have added a third layer, maybe white, to push the contrast further.

After that, I added a few details, making each figure slightly different. Varnish, then transfer to transparent bases and that was theHunting Deep Ones done, Dimensional Shamblers are next in line…