Cave Spider: Bones 4 Darkreach Figure

     This past week I painted the big "Cave Spider" from the Bones 4 Darkreach Expansion.
     This figure comes on a big 3" integral base, attached by a central stalagmite that connects to the spider's underside.    I really didn't want such a big base, as it makes it hard to put figures adjacent when in combat, and makes it hard to fit the figure into close terrain.

      So, the first thing I did was take my Dremel cutting blade and remove a half inch around the outer edge.  This was made difficult by a pair of stalagmites that fell right about at the half inch mark and were too thick to cut through, so had to be cut around to remove them from the base.
     Once the excess base was cut away, I prepped the figure in the usual way, soaking it in a dish of water with a couple drops of dish-soap added, then giving it a light scrub with a soft toothbrush, and then rinsing and drying it.  I then glued the spider to a 2" fender washer with Aleene's Tacky glue.  When the glue was dry, I painted around the edge of the washer with brush on Metal Primer, and when dry, I glued the washer to a large pill bottle with a couple drops of Elmer's glue.

     I began by painting the base with Americana "Charcoal Grey", and then painted the spider with Americana "Charcoal.   When the paint was dry, I used some Elmer's glue to glue some black sand on various places around the spider's base.

     Next, I painted the base by drybrushing it with some Americana "Mississippi Mud", and then with some Apple Barrel "Rock Grey", and lastly with a little Americana "Dove Grey".  After that, I gave the spider a coat of Citadel "Nuln Oil" wash.

     I then drybrushed the spider with a mix of Americana "Zinc" and Crafter's Acrylic "Purple Passion".  I followed with a lighter drybrush of a mix of Americana "Grey Sky", and Apple Barrel "Apple Lavender".  After that, I painted the fangs with the "Purple Passion", and then painted the pincers with a Reaper MSP Sample paint that was a purple color (shown in the background of the photo below)

     Next, I painted the eyes with Americana "Forest Green", and then highlighted the fangs with a mix of the "Purple Passion and the "Apple Lavender".  Afterwards, I went over the pincers again with some Folk Art Color Shift  "Purple Flash", and then I lightly drybrushed the plate ridges and spikes on the spider's back with the "Purple Flash" as well.   I finished up by going back over the eyes with some Folk Art "Color Shift ""Emerald Flash", and then added some Americana "Snow White" highlight dots to the eyes. 

      I let the figure dry overnight and the next day I gave it a coat of Americana "DuraClear Matte" varnish.    Another overnight dry, and I sprayed the figure with Testor's Dullcote".    When the "Dullcote" was dry, I went back and redid the eyes with a little Americana "DuraClear Gloss" varnish.

Shown with the Dark Elf I did a couple weeks ago to give a sense of the size.

     Well, I'm not terribly thrilled with the outcome.  To me the drybrush ended up looking a bit messy.  And I kept feeling like I should be doing more colors, but I felt a spider that lived in caves and rocks would generally want to blend in, and not stand out with bright colors.   Still it's a perfectly serviceable monster, and will do just fine for the game table.

Giant Spiders: Figures 91 & 92 of 265

First let me apologize for no Monday post, but it has been really busy around here, as my wife and I are in the process of buying a new house.   I was, however, able to squeeze in the two Giant Spiders from the Vermin set this past week to have something to post today.
      I prepped them in the usual way; soaking overnight in some water with a couple drops of dish soap added, and then giving a light scrub with a soft toothbrush and rinsing, then drying.  As you may remember from previous posts, I ran out of my usual Krylon Flat Black Camouflage with Fusion spray paint a couple weeks ago, and I was unable to find a replacement can of it. (I hope Krylon hasn't stopped making it!) So, I got a can of Krylon regular Flat Black Fusion, which I hoped would be the same as the Camouflage variety, but it turned out it wasn't.  I sprayed these guys with it, and as expected, it left them tacky, even after a few days of drying.        I glued the figures to 1 inch black-primed fender washers, and glued these to a tongue depressor for ease of handling during painting.
        I decided, like the Giant Beetles, I finished a little while ago, that I didn't want to do theses just plain old black, brown or gray.  So, since I had just done the Giant Beetles in a green scheme, I tried to think of another icky bug color to paint these, and came up with red as a good possibility.  So, like with the Beetles, I went to Google and did an image search for "Red Spiders".  Eeeeks, there's a page I didn't want to study too long, as a page full of pictures of red spiders is a really creepy thing! Anyway, I got a general idea of how a red spider looks with a quick perusal, and set about to paint these Bones.  To start, I painted them with black craft paint to remove the shiny tackiness.  (I may just end up using regular black craft paint to do all my priming from now on, as I really don't like the tackiness.)

  Next, I painted them with Apple Barrel "Apple Maroon", gently feathering the paint up onto the rear segment of the body, generally trying to leave this rear segment the original black.

I then dry brushed the areas I has just painted with Ceramcoat "Bright Red".

I followed this with adding some highlights to the raised areas with Americana "Cadmium Red".  Next, I cleaned up the black on the rear segments, carefully feathering the black back over any red that had covered too much of the segment. I also added some drybrushed black sections to the tip of each leg. And, at this time I added two black dots for eyes.  Lastly, I painted the fangs with Americana "Buttermilk, and then gave them white highlights; I also added tiny white highlight dots to each eye.
   After the Spiders had a couple hours to dry, I gave them each a coat of Ceramcoat "Matte Varnish, and when this was dry, I flocked their bases. I let this dry overnight, and then sprayed them with Testor's "Dullcote" the next day.

Like the Giant Beetles, I'm pleased with how these turned out.  I really think using a non-standard color for these worked really well, making them look particularly terrifying.

Figures 91 & 92: Complete

Spider Swarms: Figures 51 & 52 of 265

I did theses two spider swarms from the Vermin set as a quick project this week. I prepped these as usual, soaking them in water and dish soap first, then rinsing and drying.  I then primed them black with Krylon's Camouflage Flat Black with Fusion, as I planned to paint them mostly with drybrushing. 

These figures are a confusing mish-mash of legs and bodies, and I didn't really want to put the effort into figuring our which leg went with which body; so I did the whole bunch with a heavy drybrushing with GW "Shadow Grey". I then did a lighter drybrushing with Apple Barrel "Scotch Apple Blue".  Unfortunately I still couldn't really see individual spiders in the mass, so I tired painting some of the apparent 'ground' areas inbetween all the legs, with GW "Graveyard Earth" in hopes of providing some visual separation. 

After everything had dried, I painted the figures with Ceramcoat "Matte Varnish".  I let them sit over night, and the next day I carefully flocked them, which was a challenge with all the errant legs.  Then after that had a chance to dry, I sprayed the bases with Testor's "Dullcoat". 

I can't say as I'm really a fan of these pieces, as the sculpts are too jumbled in my opinion to be really effective.  But they're done now, and that's what counts. :)

Figures 51 & 52: Complete