"Really, take my eyeball and I will CRUSH you!!" What a great sculpt of the classic first edition AD&D Player's Handbook cover drawing come to life. So let's go down that path for a second as WOTC has crossed the streams a bit... it appears from Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (page 177) that the classic drawing is a statue of the archdevil Moloch. The entry for an Eidolon (page 193) states that it is a sacred undead guardian for the gods to protect the sites they deem holy - the Eidolon jumps into one of the sacred statues at the site and animates the statue with its actions. Okay, so Moloch has a powerful statline, but the monster isn't a god. Therefore, while I love the figure, it's not the figure for an Eidolon and its sacred statues - I believe the statues should have more of a Tomb Raider feel (perhaps one of my favorite movie scenes was there in the temple with the statues becoming animated). Also, I agree with many of the comments on the stat page, I wouldn't wait until a 5/6 to animate a statue, I'd just allow it to jump from one statue to the next.
I also would have preferred this statblock to be huge or gargantuan. Then I can use my dice tower purchased from Gamespot and animate it, brahahaha. A recent game with the statue dice tower as a set prop for a temple encounter - also check out the cool t-shirt, lol...
Alright, back to this figure from Wizkids -- again, this was a simple airbrush solution of a dark red to a fiery orange and then given a black wash to tone it all down and pop out the stone cracks. Give it a proper base and drybrush the greys and it's done. I did give an attempt at an emerald eye - I still have a long way to go to make realistic gems - I did the inverse dark to light and then a spot of white - it looks okay but not great. Overall though, I really like the way this one turned out and look forward to unleashing it on my players.
I love these monsters - just suck the life out of the characters with their aura and gaze of undead along with the ability to pass a message direct from Orcus - so many role playing opportunities there! The sculpts on these represent the drawing in the monster manual (Volo's Guide specifically) pretty well and while I'm liking the sculpt and the overall figure, I don't care for the color rendering in the pages of the book. Therefore I decided to go with something darker and more alien - I sprayed these with Imperial Purple and then the Vallejo Game Air line has a color called Alien Purple or something like that which is a nice highlight. Airbrush is so freaking awesome! Then did my standard drybrushing of Cold Grey and Stonewall Grey on the base. Done!
The washes were a Black Wash and a Blue Wash respectively. Following that I put together about a 60/40 mix of Sombre Grey with Dead Flesh to paint the face - the idea is I wanted to keep a very subdued/shadowy look to this group. Finally, I wanted one item of important to each model highlighted - the book with some writing, the dagger, or the flaming skull - which was painted with Goblin Green, Escorpena Green, and Livery Green. On that model I tried my first attempt at object source lighting (OSL) - whereby the green flames on the skull reflected back on the model as a light source.
This is part of the 3D Dungeon Labs Etsy shop purchase.
Sculpt: Excellent - these were fun sculpts to airbrush with lots of dynamic flowing robes/cloaks and as a group will look great on the tabletop
3D Print: Excellent - well done - clean - no issues anywhere - very solid
Fitness: Good - has the proper base and scale, and while these models make good generic cultists, they're not really dragon cultists - dragon cultists are famous for their dragon masks.
These were fun - more 3d prints from 3D Dungeon Labs. I first hit these with the airbrush using a dark red first and then hitting them with a highlight from on top with a pure red. I followed the airbrush up by bringing them to the desk and hitting the nose, belly, and claws using the schemes that I did with these hand painted Reaper Stirges.
This is part of the 3D Dungeon Labs Etsy shop purchase.
Sculpt: Excellent - these were fun sculpts and as a group will look great on the tabletop
3D Print: Excellent - well done - clean - no issues anywhere
Fitness: Excellent - has the proper base and scale, model matches expectations - very well done.
Oh I just loved these models - I think they're more ghast looking than ghoul if you look at the 5e Monster Manual - but either way I love the look. The book has them more grey to white - I went just a slightly different direction with these going from Rotting Flesh to Bone White to Dead White.
The rotting flesh was airbrushed over the entire model. I then hit them with Bone White at about the 3 o'clock level and then did a final highlight of Dead white at the 12 o'clock position. The close ups is kinda washed up and hard to see the graduations, but I think the group picture show this better - there's quite a bit a contrast from dark to light.
I thought about taking these to the desk to detail them out and actually did bring them over, but then decided against it as it would have been too time consuming without benefit on these models as I'd have to paint the clothes, the tongues, eyes, intestines, etc. and they have different features as some have clothes and some don't - it just would have broken the art direction I was going for here.
This is part of the 3D Dungeon Labs Etsy shop purchase.
Sculpt: Excellent - more ghast than ghoul but the sculpt itself is really well done.
3D Print: Excellent - well done - clean - no issues anywhere
Fitness: Excellent - has the proper base and scale, model matches expectations with the exception that I would say these are more ghastly than ghoulish, but you can really use either way - and I love that some appear more hobgoblin/monstrous and some human - makes for a nice mix that any creature can become a ghoul/ghast.
This is one of the coolest terrain pieces I've purchased - $15 on Amazon. I have the perfect adventure for this from Kobold Press within the Underworld Lairs book. My players are going to lose their minds when I put this on the table.
I started this one off with the airbrush - first hitting it with a black primer. Then I airbrushed all the bone pieces with Bone White. Then airbrushed the bridge with Beasty Brown.
Once complete with airbrushing, I brought it onto the desk to clean up overspray - mostly on the black. I did not drybrush the black with my grey stone treatment that I do to most bases because the model's 3d print is a little bit rough - if there's a negative on this one is that the 3d is a bit coarse - would like to have seen this print with a bit finer settings.
