From TeemuL- 28mm Monsters from 'Mansions of Madness' (45 points)

These were my first choice to paint during the Challenge, because I knew they were rather quick to paint. There are not much details, they are smallish and the base practically needs to be plain black, so not much time needed for basing. I basecoated these white before the challenge, but for some reason I didn't remove the mold lines... They were not very bad and don't show from distance, but still they are there. Well, these are playing pieces, not showcase models, so I can live with that.

These models are from the board game Mansions of Madness (there was at least one maniac from that game already in this challenge). The game is set in the same environment, but smaller scale, than quite famous Arkham Horror - a horror co-operative game set in the H.P.Lovecraft's Cthulhu myth (you might guess what's coming during the bonus round). So there is little bit everything supernatural and terrible in the 1920s (or so) New England. Like these three zombies and a witch.

Cultists are regular opponents in the games, here are three of them with their Dark Young leader in front with a manic. What is a cult without a maniac anyway?

This Dark Young looks almost like a woof elf, doesn't he? I don't think I have any wood elfs, but if I someday have, I think I might use these colors (Waaagh! Flesh, Averland Sunset and Mournfang Brown), feel free to try by yourselves. Camera is doing some tricks here, the white basecoat does not show through that much in real life. Second layer could be useful (or black undercoat, if you like it).

For some reason the maniac looks like Number 6, might be just my imagination after watching the original series first time recently (I still have the final two episodes to watch).

 Here's a group photo for all of them.

The models are rather nice, but the details are quite soft and the plastic is not same as used for example by GW (at least I think so). This is softer. Even though they are not moving as a group on the game, but rather as random encounters, I wanted to have an unified look in them to get a feeling that they all are living in the same world. Almost by chance I happened to use a limited palette, which seemed to work very well together. Just dark green, dark yellow and some browns in addition to the flesh tones. I wanted to have rather dark look, so ended up using almost only the Citadel Base paints, no layers and minimal use of highlights and washes. Only exception is the witch, witches are usually quite eccentric people. aren't they? They don't mind what other people say about their clothes or hair color.

All in all, this lot looks a better than couple of other monsters I painted before the challenge, for example the cultists were painted in bright yellows and reds, which don't fit the horrific atmosphere very well.

These monsters can be used in the Arkham Horror as well, the monster tile can be slid in to the base and all the necessary information is visible through holes either from the top or the bottom. These bases are quite large, but if glued on a smaller base, at least the zombies can be used in any zombie game I think. Same goes for cultists, maniac and Dark Young. Nothing too futuristic probably, but otherwise they are quite general. The Witch can be used in many eras and professions, too.

From Curt:

Ah, these are really great Teemu. As I've mentioned before I have this game myself and I think you've really added a tremendous amount of fun to your future gameplay by having these nasty denizens so wonderfully painted.  The skin tone of the zombies is excellent and I like the high-contrast of their eyes. I hope we'll see some of the Heroes in a future submission (hint, hint...).

Well done!