Week 20 (24 Nov - 30 Nov 2002)
Spiny skeleton
*whup.*
Stipple the halfling froze in his tracks, motioning for Erodon the elf to do likewise.
*whup.* *whup.*
The halfling's face stretched into a grimace. "Old Stickleskull, one of the Brown Bone Lords."
The elf shook his head. "How can you tell? We've only heard three *whups*."
"He's rumored to frequent these parts. This is where the legend arose."
*whup, whup, whup*
"How do you know it's anything but a legend? Remember the Rubber-Faced Vampire? Remember the Unwholesome Gullet?"
But the halfling was already scurrying back up the dark stone passage towards the light they'd left yards back.
*whupwhupwhupwhupwhup*
The elf shook his head again. He nocked an arrow and slowly stepped around the bend in the passageway ahead of him.
Down the dank black hallway, shining a little in the dim light, a grim figure advanced. Twin morning stars shone in identical arcs, framing a leering skull. Blue sparks shot from the steel wherever it touched the stone of the walls or ceiling.
*whupwhupwhupwhirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr*
The drone seemed to hypnotize the elf. Slowly he drew back an arrow, then thought better of it. He released the bow in a smooth motion, dropping the arrow to the floor, and ran after his halfling friend.
For this week's mini I've painted up an old conversion I just tracked back down. A couple years ago, I got my hands on the GW skeletons regiment box, a set of tiny drill bits, and some plastic rod. Stuck at the in-laws with nothing on TV, I put this guy together. The idea was to improve upon an idea a friend had had, mounting pins into one of his Necromunda figures (which was in turn inspired by the Pinhead character from the Hellraiser movies). I decided a neat variation might be a menacing skeleton who should be entirely incapacitated, but instead brings whirling death.
I just drilled in hole after hole and inserted plastic rod. I decided to add something odd to the base as well, so I tacked on a piece of toothpick carved into a crude face. A piece of wire forms the strand of hair. After he was converted, he rolled around for a couple years in the bottom of the Mordheim box where I kept all my plastic sprues, only to make an appearance a couple weeks ago. He lost a couple spines in the process, mostly on his back.
I gave him a base coat of dark brown (a mix of Reaper Volcanic Brown and Vallejo Smoke, I think) then built up through a caucasian color to highlight dots of slightly darkened ivory. The spikes are painted black with a little subtle gray highlighting. The metal is done using my standard method for steel. The little guy in front was painted a mix of blues and greens, and the sand of the base was painted up in blue-grays.
He was a lot of fun to paint, and I'm inordinately pround of the bone color. The toothpick idol isn't great, but isn't quite as bad as the scan makes out, either. (That's fair -- the teeth and metal aren't quite as good as they look.) Finally, I missed a couple mold lines before painting. All in all a satisfactory project, and a lot of fun.
Back to week 19 (17 Nov - 23 Nov 2002)