While these prehistoric grazers came in a variety sizes (with the species Megatherium standing 20 feet tall on its hind legs), this figure scales pretty closely to a North American species called Megalonyx jeffersonii. If you'll forgive a short paleontology lesson, in 1796, Vice President Thomas Jefferson received a box of fossilized bones, including a number of large claws. Theorizing that these were the partial remains of a large, hitherto-unknown American lion, Jefferson proposed the name "Megalonyx," or "Giant Claw," in a paper to the American Philosophical Society. The publication of this paper marks the birth of American paleontology, and in 2008, Megalonyx was named the state fossil of West Virginia.
I'm used to seeing giant ground sloths in a variety of coppery red-brown towns, and while that formed the basis of my color scheme here, I tried to vary it - over a basecoat of Reaper's "Woodstain Brown" I drybrushed layers of red-brown, red-orange, warm gray, and khaki, allowing colors to mix a bit on my brush as I went. Claws were picked out in a dark gray and the eyes in black - I'll go back and put a drop of gloss varnish in each one later.
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| Explorer for scale. |
I used Green Stuff to blend the sloth's base into a 50mm round base, and then textured the whole thing with superglue and baking soda. Once this was painted I applied an autumnal ground-cover - I could have sworn I had a spring mix, but I couldn't find any. I would have liked to have had that green to contrast with the reddish tones in the fur, but it wasn't to be this time around.
Well thats not something you want to run into for sure! i have tagged it as a 40mm figure so 37 points it is.
Brilliant, love it. Exactly what I had in mind for the crevace
ReplyDeleteNice beastie, Bill :)
ReplyDeleteGreat looking mega sloth!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
That is definitely a faithful rendition of me in the morning before coffee. Fabulous work Bill - I particularly like his fur.
ReplyDeleteNice work on the monster sloth
ReplyDeleteWooooah, Bill - that's terrific! A fantastic addition to the Crevase! I love the painting and the basing is really super - the "super-glue/ baking soda" combination sounds like a lot of fun!
ReplyDeleteI picked it up from a Youtube video; the idea being that regular grains of sand are like pebbles around the feet of a 28mm figure, so something finer is called for. Baking soda reacts with cyanoacrylate superglue, causing it to harden almost instantaneously, so spreading some superglue over the base and then sprinkling baking soda over it creates a much finer earth-texture (which my flocking here completely covered up).
DeleteGreat entry and thanks for sharing the basing tip
ReplyDeleteVery educational!
ReplyDelete