From DavidB: Caprica looks back (34points)

"I see what you did there"

Caprica is the perfect place for exploration and this Christmas present for my son. He has a lot of orcs also which would've added to the theme, but my time is limited and these two barely made it in time for Christmas. I chose doom for the theme.

A Beholder is an OG of D&D. A big bloated ball that has inate magical abilities ( sees invisible, levitate, fly,charm, detect magic), has many eyestalks that can cast many spells (fire ball, magic missile, lightning bolt, prismatic spray...) they can speak many languages, are very intelligent, very devious. They can fight with spells, bites, smashing prey with eyestalks or cannon their body into adventurers. They set traps physical and magical and form armies from lesser monsters and creatures. Their only weakness is they are very narcissistic and believe they are the most intelligent, beautiful, and powerful beholder there is. If they ever lost that narcissistic behavior, they could overrun the fantasy realms. As is a chance encounter will end a party and even if a group of adventurers were to prepare for battle with one, the odds are rarely in the party favor. Yet, the immense hoarde of magical and mundane treasure are enough of an enticement to bring on the challengers.

My D&D days just had "regular" beholder, which were quite enough. My old party which is more familiar with THAC0 and 1st and 2nd editions still shudders when we think of beholders. Now they have beholders of many types. Some live in water, some in space, some are mindless zombies that can still cast spells, some are more melee, some more magic...all are dangerous and can easily doom some careless adventures.

These are some wonderful sculpts from wizkids and light years in detail from the old pewter model my party fought. They are also bigger and weigh far less than that one too!

I used contrast paints with some areas of painted detail to push the detail on the bodies. The eyes and mouth being focal points got the most attention and paint layers.

The eye stalks blasting spells are clear resin tinted with contrast paints which run translucent. I should have done a few tests as some are close in hue 

Still, it was fun to play with color on these fellows, and my son is excited to use them.

The smaller green fellow is the wizkids model for a zombie beholder, but painted in fashion to be used as a lesser beholder. He has ice blue eyes rather than"dead" ones. The plug arms are a nice touch and the plugs hold well enough without glue.

I may borrow these for Silver Bayonet as it would be interesting to see how Napoleonic forces would fare against one!

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Ah, nothing says classic D&D monster like a Beholder! And wow, what absolute brutes these are. One of many benefits of casting in plastic or resin is the size that they can produce these beasties. Doing this in white metal would be such a hassle to work with. Another bonus is those nifty effects illustrating the spells coming out of their eye stalks. Very groovy, that.

I'm going to give you a few extra points as these are definitely larger than your standard 28mm fare. 

Wonderful work David and welcome back to the Challenge!

- Curt