This Week's Monsters

 This week, I relaxed by not painting any tiny checks on any metal Eldar. I had some time off work, so I was able to sit down and finish a few models that I'd had lying about and to tidy up an old conversion.

First off is a troll. I love the look of Games Workshop's trolls, who have a nice sense of cartoony, dim-witted menace. It's a shame there isn't a purely-troll army, as I'd be tempted to make one. Unfortunately, you need about six million goblins, and I'm not as keen on the goblin models.

Anyhow, this guy has the upper body of a GW Rockgut Troggoth (aka a stone troll). You get six upper bodies in the standard set, all of which are very good, but only three pairs of legs. This strikes me as a great waste, so I built the lower legs of this troll out of a Reaper Bones troll (a much worse model), which I sculpted over with DAS clay and green stuff. 

I've done this conversion before: for a better guide, click HERE

Here's a WIP - the black bits are standard GW.

And here's the finished troll. I love all the details on this model, especially the baby bird reaching for a worm that's dangling off the rock he's about to throw. Presumably he's been wearing a nest as a hat. Painting the rock was difficult - is that quartz? - but satisfying.

Then I repainted a model that I made ages ago, as part of a 40k inquisitorial warband. He's a somewhat cartoony demon. His arms and lower body came from tyranid bits; the upper body is an old Dark Eldar part, and the head is a kroot head with a face from a snotling. He looks suitably silly, and a bit sinister. I would not buy a used car from this guy.

Third is a simple plastic beastman from the old days. You used to be able to buy a set of ten identical beastmen to bulk out units. He's not an amazing model, to be honest: perfectly serviceable but to my mind lacking the detail of newer miniatures or the charm of older ones. I think he looks more sinister with a bare human-style chest.

And finally, I ordered some squig faces off ebay, on the grounds that they might come in "useful" somehow (I mean, squigs are basically balls of clay with faces, right?). One of them looked a lot like a deep-sea angler fish, so I sculpted him a body and some fins.

And then painted him to look like something surfacing in the port, much to the disgust of everyone.