Everyone should have their own Cthulhu

I applied a quick paint job to this  rather large Cthulhu model. I got it through one of the Reaper Bones kickstarters I participated in (page listing this particular Cthulhu model). It was lurking around my painting desk for quite some time.

The paintjob is rather simple and quick: basecoat black, darkgreen wash, then successive layer of highlights, with some fine detail added (but not too much). I always feel Cthulhu should be as raw as possible, and that should reflect in the paintjob as well.

Fellow co-blogger (we post on this same blog) Bart also did finish his Cthulhu some time ago (as usual, his paintjob is a bit more sophisticated), so now we can have a battle of the Cthulhus (or is that Cthulhi?).

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.

Painting monsters monstrously fast

In the 'pre game chat' phase of an RPG session the other day, people were showing their fantasy figures (as you do) which for me includes this big guy:

This is of course Reaper's Bones version of Cthulhu. When I mentioned that I painted this monster in probably less than an hour overall painting time, some disbelief was expressed. In this post, I'll explain the technique I used to paint Cthulhu by painting another figure using the same technique.

The technique in question is ink staining over a black base coat with a very heavy white dry brush on top of it. Staining ink over this results in an immediate shading effect. Let's show this on a figure of a forest troll. First, the black base coat:

Then, heavy dry brush of white:

And then the colour layers come in. Basically, just flow ink all over the areas that need colour. I use Windsor & Newton inks -- I've put the colors I've used in the photographs below:

And that's really all there is to it. With just two applications of ink (with a day between them to allow it to dry), this figure is pretty much done. I will add some detail to the teeth, nails and fungi like protrusions on the troll's body, but the main part of the figure is finished.

This is not a new technique by any stretch. I know of at least two other people who use it. One is Ed from the venerable and now long disappeared Ed's Hobby Hovel, the other is a French guy from the Lille club who uses it to successfully turn out thousands of 15mm figures for his painting service customers.