#90 Menagerie of creepies

I finished these miniatures up awhile ago and just had not found the time to write about them. This group was comprised of snakes from Wrath of Ashardalon, spiders from Castle Ravenloft and Hellhounds and bigger spiders from Descent. They were fun to paint up and the owner had a distinct scheme for each group.

I started with the snakes. A typical green and yellow coloring was asked for and I used it to explore washes with different colors. I washed the yellow under belly with brown ink and i used a darker green for the back area. I picked out the eyes with black and the mouth with purple. I used a little bit of yellow on the head and that pretty much finished the snakes. A simple paint job that I think looks pretty good. I have these same snakes and will try a different back color.
*the snake photo shoots a before and after for the dark green wash phase.

Since I had already painted some traditional Hellhounds my friend wanted these to be toxic/plague hounds. I was eager to try this since I had tasked about ding this on some hounds I have in my collection. I gave the fur a light gray basecoat and the flames a green basecoat. So far so good so I followed that up with a light yellow wash on the skin. I picked out the flames with a couple green layers and the mouths, eyes and claws with green wash. The only problem with these sculpt was the fur detail was shallow so the wash wasn't really that effective. Still the came out ok and have the desired effect.

The small spiders were an odd color request: snow spiders. It's a good thing these things looks like tarantula since I think that really helped give a snow feel. There are spiders that live in cold climates though I'm not sure how many of them are hairy. Anyways the trick with these ones was giving then a dark gray basecoat and then following it a few layers of white and then a final wash of dark gray. I then dry brushed the tips of the legs a light blue for an icy feel. Mission accomplished on these.

Last up are the big spiders. These also suffer from shallow detail so I knew I would have to do a little more to get those details popping. I started with a light gray basecoat. The end goal here was to make phase spiders. An excellent look which I suggest checking out. I followed this up with a dark blue wash on those areas that would be blue on a phase spider. Some white layering on the legs and body finished this areas. The blue parts I painted with a dark blue and then picked out the edges with a lighter blue. The tips I hit with a little black asking with the eyes. I think it's a very distinctive paint job and came out great.