Wizkids Classic Beholder - WZK90740

 

This was great fun to paint and I used a variety of styles and paints to put this one together.

I started off using Vallejo Xpress Color paint, but through an airbrush. First time that I've tried using an airbrush with the Xpress paints. I did not add flow nor thinner to the paint as I wasn't sure how that would interact with the formula of what Xpress is - so these were pumped right out of their bottles. I also know that usually you can't go lighter with Xpress paints so I started with the lightest first and then layered down into the darker colors (however, an experiment for another day, I think atomizing the paint through an airbrush might work based upon how I saw these colors lay down on the model).

The Xpress colors used through the airbrush were...

1. Imperial Yellow (lightest)

2. Nuclear Yellow

3. Martian Orange

4. Plasma Red

5. Velvet Red (darkest)

I was really impressed at how well the Xpress paints flowed through the airbrush - no hiccups or problems at all whatsoever. Coverage appeared to be really good. I was able to blend the layers together starting at the top with the lightest color and then flowing downwards to the darkest color.

Then I switched over to the Sharpie Creative Markers.

6. Purple on the lips

7. Pink on top of the purple to highlight the gums

8. White on the teeth, they center eyeball

9. Red thin line around the outside edge of the center eyeball

10. Orange thin line around the outside edge of the center eyeball but within the red line

11. Yellow central eye on the center eyeball and struck lines from outside edge to just short of yellow center; then all 10 of the stalk eyeballs

12. White medium dot on all 10 of the stalk eyeballs

13. Black tiny dot on all 10 of the stalk eyeballs and elongated pupil on the yellow eye

14. Grey as a highlight on the black pupil and around the yellow eye

Finally, I used traditional paintbrush and Vallejo standard paints to paint and drybrush the base

15. Black

16. Neutral Grey

17. Stonewall Grey

Asking Google's Gemini to convert the painted model into artwork generates probably the model closest resembling what I painted - it did enhance the eye...

As to ShadowDark stats - as mentioned with the Beholder Zombie, I'd probably use the stats in the core book for The Ten-Eyed Oracle. However, when comparing the stats to the original AD&D monster stats I might make some changes that would make the Classic Beholder unique in ShadowDark. I think the Eyestalks are a good compromise between ShadowDark and the original AD&D ray attacks - many of them are the same. Two attacks that are missing which this Classic Beholder should have would be the anti-magic cone and its bite:

1. the core rulebook has hostile spells targeting The Ten-Eyed Oracle are DC18 to cast and I would replace that with an anti-magic cone from the central eye which I would ShadowDark as filling a double-near sized cube extending from the creature with the antimagic shell spell.

2. a bite attack +4 for anyone silly enough to get within close with 2d4 damage

And finally I would restrict its movement to 1/2 near - the original beholder was a slow moving tank of a monster - it hovered a few feet above the ground and slowly obliterated everything in its path.

Final thoughts - I posted a pic of the front image to a local game store Discord and someone mentioned it reminded them of Cheetos. So this new ShadowDark monster is now named Hot Cheetos and upon its untimely death it explodes in a fireball as if the spell was cast on a natural 20.