Friday 7 February 2020

From ByronM - A visit to Piper's Peak - Kingdom Death nightmare ram (45 points)

As I continue having fun blundering around the island, I came upon Piper's Peak, and the challenge was to come up with something mountain based.  Hmmm, what to do?  As luck would have it I just very recently received a package from Kingdom Death with a copy of the new Nightmare Ram model.


The nightmare ram is a creature that lives on or near the inverted mountain range, and while the base of the inverted mountain is the highest area from the ground, and the peaks nearly touch the ground, I still think a mutant plant turned mountain goat should qualify for a mountain creature, no matter how screwed up the actual mountain is!


The nightmare ram is the living spawn of a parasitic plant. It subsists on the salt of creatures which it metabolizes to power the glowing bulbs that grow atop its tough horns and the large lantern organ it carries outside its body. They are sensitive, lonesome creatures that carefully cultivate beautiful, hidden gardens containing the plants that produce them. They will often beat trespassers into a pulp and use them as salt-rich fertilizer.

Like any fruit that has been picked, their life span is short.

Well, that's not disturbing at all, is it....


I was not really sure what to do with the nightmare ram, but felt most of it had to be flesh tone, but wanted it to be fairly pale and gray since they are in the shadow of the mountain most of the time.

I also wanted to have the stone face that the hands are holding up show as paler than the flesh so that it is easy to see as stone.


Beyond that, I knew I had to have the pods on the horns and the lantern glow.  Since the glow comes from the parasitic plant that forms the ram, I wanted to use something other than the yellow I use for all the lanterns in KD.  I decided to go with a cold blue effect as I felt going with a warm colour would not work as well against the flesh and fur.


I like to imagine that this is mother natures revenge against vegans, as it is a plant the beats people to a pulp to grow more of its own kind in their bodies.


While KD is a 35-40mm scale game, and while this guy is quite large, I think just counting him as a horse is good enough, as he is not quite big enough to count as a monster in this scale.  So I should score 15 points for him, 30 points for Piper's Peak, and hopefully some nightmares and squeels of disgust by the people that view him.



That certainly is a beast to give you nightmares, Byron. Great colour choices - the blue glow works really well against the flesh and fur shades.

TamsinP

19 comments:

  1. Well, we all need "salt rich" fertilizer - who are we to judge?

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  2. Brilliant! Love the blue glow but it's the hands a face that completely creep me out.

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    1. Its not the second face and arms coming out of the chest holding the lantern that creep you out? This thing has so many creepy bits, I guess it is hard to choose :-)

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  3. I am with Curt, the thing just creeps me out immensely! But those blue colours really are cool!

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  4. Terrifying and cool at the same time!

    Christopher

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    1. Thanks Dave, its easy when something is as fun as this to paint!

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  6. Great painting! Really, really creepy!
    Best Iain

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    1. Thanks Iain, looking at the pics again now I realized I completely missed the lantern! I have to go back and paint it, I was going to shade it to be grey, but left it black by mistake, i didn't even realize with everything else going on with the model...

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  7. Deeply traumatized now Byron. Thanks for that.

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  8. It's OK guys, I got this...

    AAAARRRGGH!!! WHAT IS THAT THING??? MY EYES!!! BURN IT!!! BURN IT WITH FIRE!!!

    Brilliant execution as usual Byron, but damn it all, that sculptor REALLY needs therapy!

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  9. Well, I think you get the prize for the weirdest model painted in this years Challenge Byron.
    Damn well painted though Sir!

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  10. Disturbing, utterly disturbing! But excellently painted of course. I don’t think that game is for me but I still find those crazy creatures rather interesting.

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    1. Oh, I think you'd actually quite enjoy it Nick. It's an amazing and amazingly brutal game system. It came as a bit of a surprise to many who jumped into the Kickstarter thinking we'd only be in it for the minis.

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  11. Reading this is like eating cheese before bedtime.
    The painting is gorgeous though.

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  12. brilliant as as every one sys very creepy, it does have a nice arse though

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  13. Nice painting, but nopety nope nope nope.

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