Fun with Lurkers

Over the summer, I've been looking for quick-and-simple things to paint as a break in-between painting those large units of figures.

I really started having fun when I dug up these "monsters" that I'd received as part of a 15mm scale Fishmen army pack from Evil Gong. Some of these can be used as "fighting" monsters in the traditional sense, while others appear intended as "lurkers." (In the Hordes of the Things rules, there is the concept of hidden forces which ambush passers by - Lurkers.)

The Giant Slugs were painted up to go with my Fishmen army, so I went with a "sandy" look - a basecoat of gray, a wash of darker grey, and a drybrush of white, with yellow highlights. I used putty to smooth the models into a steel base, then sprinkled sand onto wet paint.

Slugs are 25mm long, with a body about 6mm wide.

The Two-Tongued Lurker was superglued to a metal disk, with putty added to smooth out the edges. This guy looked a bit silly to me, so I went with a bright "silly" green color for the monster. (Usual technique again: base of green, wash of dark green, drybrush with light green.)

I initially wanted a bright glowing yellow eye. However, when I used an ink wash to bring out the details of the eye socket, I stumbled on this "sick, infected yellow" look that I liked, so I never did the "bright yellow" thing.

A friend has scolded me about the tongue - he says that bright red tongues only happen in children's coloring books, and that the red with the green makes this a "holiday season" Lurker! (I actually didn't intend the tongue to come out so bright...oh well...)

The base was terrained using wet paint and green flocking. After the monster was sprayed with flat clear for protection, I went back and brushed gloss clear on the eye and the tongues for the wet look.

The Two-Tongued Lurker measures 19mm from side to side.

The Water Lurker was also superglue-and-putty'd onto a metal disk. (I use metal disks and store the models in drawers lined with magnetic sheeting, to prevent damage when transporting armies.) This model comes in two pieces, so the "arm" was also attached with superglue.

Various shades of purple were used on the monster, with the inside of the mouth being black, the tongue green, the teeth black, and the eyes yellow. I think the final result looks cool, though it's terribly hard to photograph (it's not as dark as the picture!).

The base was painted to match the water color of a terrain set I use, with light blue highlights drybrushed on. Then everything was brushed with Minwax Polycrylic clear gloss for a "rising out of the sea" wet look.

The Water Lurker is about 15mm from side to side, with a tentacle standing 10mm tall.

Painting up the Chaos Cunjevoi was a similar operation, though I went with a "elephant" gray look for this monster. The suckers on the tentacles are purplish-pink, and the eyes are yellow with black pupils (adding using a technical pen). The base was painted as with the previous monster.

The Chaos Cunjevoi has a 10mm wide body, and rises about 12mm above the water.

All of these were fun, quick projects that let me re-energize for painting yet another of those mega-figure infantry units...