Rural horrors

Karl Greever was in town a while back, talking about some meteor that fell out on his property. Said he bet it was full of gold an' diamonds and he was going to get rich.  We laughed, 'cause he was always full of big ideas that went nowhere.  Nobody saw him around for a while then, so Pastor sent his boy up there with some food.  He ran back saying old Greever looked green an' half-rotten, an' attacked him with a shovel!  Even left his bicycle, but nobody wanted to go fetch it...

Heaven only knows what Cindy Jane got herself into.  Maybe she touched somethin' unsavory out in the back woods, and got 'fected.  Or maybe she got to readin' one of her great-grandpa's queer old books up in the attic.  Whatever it was, she just ain't herself lately. Used to be such a chatterbox, an' now all she seems to do is gurgle.  An' that arm of hers - never seen anything like it.  Hope I never do again.

Both of these ghastly individuals are 28 mm "Mansions of Madness" figures.

Lovecraftian Creepers and Crawlers

Chthonian and Mi-Go

28mm scale

Drain you of your sanity
Face the thing that should not be

These two Mansions of Madness game figures depict a few of the sanity-draining horrors of the Lovecraftian mythos.  

Chthonians are huge creatures that live deep in the Earth's crust, burrowing through rock and communicating telepathically.  When they (rarely) emerge above ground, they resemble thick segmented worms with squid-like tentacled heads.  They can control humans and other beings telepathically.

Mi-Go are fungal-insectoid alien beings, interstellar travelers that have established a base on the planet Pluto (which they call Yuggoth) to explore our solar system.  They are scientifically advanced and are expert bioengineers and surgeons.  The Mi-Go abduct and transport humans through space by removing their brain and placing it into a "brain cylinder", a device that maintains its life and consciousness and can be attached to sensors to allow sight, hearing and speech.

Cthulhu Swamp Cult Party Shack

15mm scale

I got me a car, it's as big as a Shoggoth
And we're headin' on down to the Cthulhu shack!
I got me a Chrysler, it can carry a ton
So hurry up and bring your Great Old One!

What are those tentacled weirdos up to in their sinister wetlands hideout? A dimensional portal? A colour out of space? They're chanting up a storm!

Time to crash this party!

The Party Shack is made of coffee stir sticks and corrugated cardboard (and a spare LED)... great results!  All miniatures are from Khurasan.

Life in the Mythos

Priest of the Yellow King

28 mm

“This is the thing that troubles me, for I cannot forget Carcosa where black stars hang in the heavens; where the shadows of men's thoughts lengthen in the afternoon, when the twin suns sink into the lake of Hali; and my mind will bear for ever the memory of the Pallid Mask. I pray God will curse the writer, as the writer has cursed the world with its beautiful stupendous creation, terrible in its simplicity, irresistible in its truth--a world which now trembles before the King In Yellow.”
― Robert W Chambers, The King in Yellow and Other Horror Stories

This cultist of the King in Yellow is a piece from the board game "Mansions of Madness".  I made the crude idol he worships before in the style of a similar one that appeared in "True Detective".

Crawling One

28mm scale

“Great holes secretly are digged where earth’s pores ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl.” - HP Lovecraft, "The Festival"

Crawling Ones are created when dead wizards or evil mystics die and their remains consumed by masses of worms and invertebrates.  Their evil life essence possesses the mass of creatures, forming a humanoid mass of squirming horror.  This is another "Mansions of Madness" figure.

The Innsmouth Look

Innsmouth villagers

28 mm

The secluded village of Innsmouth.  Odd rumors about its peculiar folk abound in the area around, but the village is isolated by a great marsh surrounding it, and the most... unwelcoming attitude of its residents.  

And a peculiar folk they are. The village is run-down and shabby, one might almost mistake it for abandoned except for the odd figures shambling through the streets.  Figures with a very distinctive faces: bulging eyes, large batrachian lips, receding foreheads.  Certainly rather inbred, but with a suggestion of something else too...

These characterful Lovecraftian figures are from the Mansions of Madness board game (sweater guy) and EM4 miniatures (thin man).  Lots of fun to bring them to life, even though they're not "flashy".

Evil Elephant

Chaugnar Faughn

(sort of) 28mm scale

"Originally from a dimension very different from our own, Chaugnar Faugn travelled to Earth in its far distant past.  Chaugnar Faugn appears as a 'statue' made from an unidentifiable element of a disgusting humanoid hybrid creature which combines the very worst aspects of the octopus, elephant, and human being. His proboscoid trunk sports a horrible lamprey-like mouth at the tip, which Chaugnar uses to drain his prey of their essence. This process also causes the victim to slowly transform into the likeness of The Elephant God himself." - Monster Wiki

This monstrosity is a Cthulhu Wars plastic figure.  It was my first paint job done using underpainting, so I painted the whole thing black, dry brushed it in light gray and white, and then glazed over it with thin colors.  I made the gore stretching from its proboscis to its claws using hot glue.

The Dodge Dart of Cthulhu

The Dukes of Al-Hazred
15mm scale

Yig Snake Daddy we come lookin' for you
We got a bored-out Chevy and a twelve pack of brew
Well we're a right-miffed party and it's easy to see
We've got a one-way ticket to the pit of insanity...

With a roar of supercharged pistons and a hazy contrail of eldritch energy, this rune-covered hot rod peels down the strip, its unspeakable riders cruising for... what exactly?  Well, it's probably better to just stay well out of their way.

Vanity plates, $300 well spent!

This is a Hot Wheels '68 Dodge Dart (I couldn't find a Dodge Charger) with an engine lifted from another car.  The riders are Khurasan cultist heads with fairly crudely sculpted bodies by me.  Worked surprisingly well...

I wish I could take credit for the titular pun on this one, but this car was squarely inspired by the album cover of "The Dukes of Alhazred", from the amazing Lovecraftian band The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets.  Ever wanted a song about shoggoths, Erich Zann, or the Dunwich Horror?  The Boston Molasses flood?  Coelocanths?  They gotchu, fam.

"Get in loser, we're wgah'nagl fhtagn!"

Slave to the Power of Death

Tomb of the Screaming Pharaoh
15mm scale

Tell me why I had to be a Powerslave
I don't wanna die, I'm a god
Why can't I live on?

 

 

It was said that the pharaoh Ser-Akh-Aten, seeking to escape not only bodily putrefaction but mortal death itself, entered a pact with forces far older and darker than the gods of his people.  He expired, shrieking in an incomprehensible tongue, his body grotesque and contorted, and was hastily mummified and interred under the Elder Sign by his priests, in the hopes his madness would be buried and forgotten.

It was not forgotten, and did not long stay buried...

 

He knew the Black Pharaoh
Servant to the Faceless Sphinx God
He gave me the book of the dead

 

These figures were a kind gift from CP Models.  I made the tomb from Fimo (the face) and insulation foam (the wall).

(A bit of a "Zardoz" vibe now that I think of it)

Return of the Shoggoth Masters

Elder Thing
28 mm scale

Unlike many of H. P. Lovecraft's horrors, the Elder Things were not supernatural or truly malicious in any way.  They were aliens who traveled to earth in the Cambrian era, founding a strange civilization and bio-engineering the dreaded Shoggoths as their servants.  Though hinted at in various eldritch volumes of the past, their existence was only truly discovered by Antarctic explorers from Miskatonic University in the 1930s, precipitating the loss of most of the expedition.

This alien from H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness is actually a figure I sculpted myself about 5 years ago... I primed it and everything, but I think what stalled me then was that I couldn't decide on a reasonable colour scheme.  If you look at fan art of Elder Things online, people seem to go with everything from "grim grey" to "tropical parrot with tentacles".  I finally decided to go with a bit of colour, but I tried to keep it muted or a bit desaturated... I don't think Elder Things are specifically "evil", but I didn't want it looking goofy either.

I made this piece out of greenstuff over a wooden bead and wire; the results were pretty detailed, but when I revisited it it was obvious the wings are not nearly as robust as they should be... one had broken off.  It definitely wouldn't do well as a gaming figure.  I think that if I made it today I'd also use a very different wing design, this one is a little too simple/static.  Oh well.  I still like that weird tool it's carrying.

He didn't remotely recognize the species, but he
figured politeness couldn't hurt.

Bump in the Night

HP Lovecraft, Paranormal Investigator
28mm

I opened the door and went out in the gallery toward the stairs to my study, ******-Man following at my heels. Before we had reached the stone steps, however, the cat darted ahead of me and vanished down the ancient flight. As I descended the stairs myself, I became suddenly aware of sounds in the great room below; sounds of a nature which could not be mistaken. The oak-panelled walls were alive with rats, scampering and milling, whilst ******-Man was racing about with the fury of a baffled hunter.  
- "The Rats in the Walls"

Another great Bears Head figure, of the (in)famous horror writer H.P. Lovecraft as an investigator in his own mythos. Accompanying him here is his brave cat of unspeakable name, ready to take on any paranormal threat to his master.

This is actually the second figure of Lovecraft I've painted.  It's perhaps less dramatic than the first, but I think I might actually like it even more.  The face is less gaunt and exaggerated and he has a lot of gaming potential for those who play mythos games.  The cat is an old Reaper familiar which I think really adds a lot to his character (as well as referencing the classic HPL story "The Rats in the Walls").

"He went that way!"

(Cultists courtesy of winnipegmichael!)

Scribe of the Unspeakable

H.P. Lovecraft
28 mm

This Bears Head miniature was a real pleasure to paint!  Part literary caricature, part dramatic fictional character, it's an excellent sculpt, crisp and dynamic.  Waving his unholy idol and clutching his dog-eared copy of the Necronomicon, the author unleashes the creative process on an unsuspecting world...

I learned a few new things about Lovecraft in the painting process, like his hair colour, for which I had to consult professional Lovecraft impersonator Leeman Kessler, as no colour photographs of the author seem to exist.  I've always enjoyed Lovecraft's lurid works, and despite his substantial... personal shortcomings... and the fact that many of his creations have reached the status of self-parody in recent fandom, I truly think he was a man of remarkable imagination who contributed a lot to the fantasy, horror and SF genres.

Late night rites at the Miskatonic University library...

Masters of Horror

To my great excitement, these two figures just arrived from the Bears Head Miniatures Gallery Series Kickstarter.  There are a lot of nice offerings in this KS; I appreciated the variety and the impressive sculpting mojo.  But I managed to restrain myself and buy only two figures:

That's right! Edgar Allan Poe and HP Lovecraft, two of the most notable writers in the history of horror fiction, and so far the only authors in my collection.  At least until someone does a miniature of Margaret Atwood, that is.  I want to try and paint HPL (the "cultist" version, the "mythos investigator" was a surprise bonus!) as soon as I can, I have a fun idea for him. But I won't let Poe languish under the floorboards with my lead pile, either...

Protoplasmic Terror

Shoggoth
no scale

Formless protoplasm able to mock and reflect all forms and organs and processes - viscous agglutinations of bubbling cells - rubbery fifteen-foot spheroids infinitely plastic and ductile - slaves of suggestion, builders of cities - more and more sullen, more and more intelligent, more and more amphibious, more and more imitative! Great God! What madness made even those blasphemous Old Ones willing to use and carve such things? - "At the Mountains of Madness" by H.P. Lovecraft

This Reaper Bones miniature is a weird and convoluted sculpt that captures the amorphous spirit of the powerful bioengineered creatures that Lovecraft wisely described in vague terms.  I've seen various interpretations, but this one definitely fits the bill.  It is small for 28 mm but perhaps it's an immature specimen, and consequently the Bones figure is "priced to sell", as they say.  A quick, fun paint job!

"Don't worry Leela, they're quite harmless if you know how to talk to
them... Would you like a jelly baby, teke-li-li?"