From StuartL - One for the Arachnophobes - Arda - 40 Points?

Hello,

My journey around the Challenge Sector has brought me to the planet of Arda, a Tolkienesque place, filled with all sorts of magical and fantastic things. 

Back when the LotR trilogy came out, I went to watch the movies with some of my friends, one of whom is both a huge Tolkien fan and also a huge arachnophobe. Sitting through the Shelob scene in Return of the King was a lot of fun. So, when it became apparent that I needed to paint up something that fit the theme of Tolkien style fantasy, I knew exactly what I wanted to paint. 

This lovely looking eight-legged monstrosity is another figure from Reaper Bones. It came complete with a sculpted base that is strewn with skeletal remains. My wife refused to come into my hobby room while I was working on this.

The spider's front half and legs were painted up in light grey with some white highlights and then given a covering of contrast black. For the large abdomen, I went with a layer of vallejo silver and then a blue wash, which I think gives it a strange, yet menacing appearance. The eyes were done in a similar way with a green wash.

Here we have Jarl Hvat-Skael (a 28mm Viking model, not part of the entry) to help showcase just how large this gribbly beast is. The model's original base has been mounted on an old CD for added stability. 

So, for scoring, I'm guessing 20 points as this is easily the size of a vehicle, plus an additional 20 points for Arda, for a total of 40.

There are 4 skulls on the base that can go towards my noggin count.

My god Stuart that is a big spider!  I got a chuckle out of your arachnophobe stories, my wife has tales of me jumping out of my skin when we watched the Aragog sequence in Harry Potter.

Nice paint work on this arachnid although I am glad that it lives in Japan and that I won't be getting any closer to it.  There is Challenge lore regarding counting spiders as vehicles, but we'll save that saga for another mead hall.  40 points you shall have sir on my scoresheet and hopefully Barks has the Skullometer fired up.