This past week I painted two of the Fly Demons from the Bones 2
Lesser Demons set, as part of my effort to start assembling the creatures I will need for next year's Ghost Archipelago Campaign. The rules' creature list calls for a couple of Giant Wasps; but not having any giant wasp figures on hand, I figure the Bones Fly Demons I had would fit the bill well enough if I painted them as Giant Bees.
I prepped these figures in the usual way; soaking them in a dish of water with a couple drops of dish-soap added, then giving them a light scrub with a soft toothbrush, and then rinsing and drying them. I then did the conversion work, and then glued the figures to black-primed 1" fender washers with Aleene's Tacky glue, and then glued the washer-mounted figures to a tongue depressor with a couple drops of the Elmer's glue under each washer.
I began by painting the bees' heads, undersides, and alternating stripes on their abdomens using Black. When the Black was dry, I drybrushed it with Americana "Neutral Grey". I then painted the unpainted alternate stripes on their abdomens with Apple Barrel "Yellow".
Next, I painted the wings with Americana "Dove Grey". Then after everything had a while to dry, I gave their wings and the yellow stripes a wash with some thinned Winsor-Newton "Chestnut Brown" ink. When the wash was dry, I painted the top spine of each wing with Black and then painted the veins within each wing using some Accent "Real Umber mixed with Black.
I then painted the center of each wing panel with the"Dove Grey", and did highlights on the mouth and tongue(?) with Crafter's Acrylic "Storm Cloud Grey". Next, I repainted the eyes with Black to remove any drybrushing that got on them. After that, I drybrushed the yellow abdomen stripes with some Crafter's Acrylic "Daffodil Yellow", and lastly I did some White highlight dots in the eyes..
It was now time to work on the base. First, I drybrushed the the rocky outcroppings with the "Neutral Grey", and then with some Folk Art "Porcelain White". Next, I drybrushed the log with Americana "Raw Umber", and then with some Americana "Khaki Tan". Lastly, I painted the skulls with some Americana "Antique White", and then drybrushed them with some Crafter's Acrylic "Light Antique White".
I then worked on the bases; drybrushing the stones with Americana "Zinc", then Americana "Neutral Grey", and lastly Folk Art "Porcelain White". After that, I drybrushed the log with Americana "Raw Umber", then some Americana "Mississippi Mud", and lastly, some Americana "Khaki Tan". Finally, I drybrushed the skulls with some Americana "Antique White, and then some of the "Light Antique White".
I let the figures dry overnight and the next morning I gave them a coat of Americana "DuraClear Matte" varnish. When that was dry, I flocked their bases. Another overnight dry, and I sprayed them with Testor's Dullcote".
I'm generally happy with how these turned out. I think they made the conversion to giant bees pretty well.
Those segmented abdomens do lend themselves rather nicely to being painted in stripes! Very interesting miniatrues, but I do have to say that the head seem a bit unclear - what's a tongue, what's a mandible? Maybe you could try to give the eyes a coat of a shining varnish to distingush them from te rest of the face?
ReplyDeleteI agree about the abdomens; in fact, when I first saw these figures I assumed they were bees becuase of the built in stripes. It was only later I found out they were supposed to be flies.
DeleteI found the heads/mouths in general to be a little hard to decipher. I think that's kind of why I just painted it all black and gave it a quick drybrushing. Since you don't necessarily think of bees having mouths, it was hard to draw inspiration. I didn't want to paint the interior pink or something false looking like that. The gloss varnish on the eyes is a good idea; I will do that.