Dark Tide - Moonglow Paints Pirates and other Maritime Minis

[MoonglowMinis]

Garrick Grimes - Quartermaster

Every ship needs a good Quartermaster.  Someone to stand up to the captain for the needs of the many.  And someone to keep the crew in line and following the captain's orders. For the Bloodhawk, Mr. Grimes is just such a man.  A veteran sailor of the Kingless Sea.  He was once a simple merchant sailor until he got fed up with the thieves taking advantage of the lawless waters between the two kingdoms. He sailed as a mercenary pirate hunter for many years before settling down.  His bones ache with the years, but he was never one for a life of ease. All it took was the promise of lost treasure to get him back on open water once more.

 

You can see more photos of Mr. Grimes and see a bit about my painting process in the Show Off thread HERE.

[MoonglowMinis]

Sabine DeFlour - Gunner

If you're looking for fire power, look no further than "DeFlour Power." Sabine is a former navy officer of the Emerald Envoy and a master gunner. She earned her nickname "DeFlour" after an explosive incident involving stockpiles of flour. She embraced the ironic name and now uses it proudly. Following her retirement from the navy, she has set up shop in Port Venture selling cannons to both the military and common sailors alike. Her expert knowledge ensures that each buyer gets the most BANG for their buck.  Though with threat of war on the water again, the Duke has levied strict regulations on the amount of weapons allowed to leave his port.  Sabine's business is struggling, and the promise of adventure and easy money seems all too alluring.

You can see additional photos of Sabine in the show off thread HERE.

[MoonglowMinis]

Coconut Crab

Now that I'm finally running my Dark Tide campaign, I'm getting to flesh out details of the world I had left ambiguous. One of those details for each location is a list of creatures. 

Im using a mix of real animals and more fantastical ones. Also trying to encourage myself to create some of my own instead of just using D&D ones. 

 

 

Enter the coconut crab. Inspired by real-life coconut crabs which are intimidating monstrosities, I've created a more whimsical twist.

 

Coconut Crabs are over-sized hermit crabs known for making their homes in coconuts. They are able to climb trees and hang from branches, where they are nearly indistinguishable from regular coconuts. When prey moves beneath them, they drop from the tree and attack.

 

I just loved the imagery of these guys hanging from trees by their claws. So I just had to make some.

 

 

Bought these crab charms from the craft store. As well as a bag of assorted beads. I could have just glued the beads to the crabs and called it a day but I wanted to stretch my sculpting/kit-bashing muscles a bit more.

 

 

The crab got the chop and a few limbs rearranged to be front-facing. I looked at references of hermit crabs and noted that they used their back legs to hold onto the inside of the shell. So this guy only has two pairs of legs exposed. I also went back and chopped a few other legs down to make some eye stalks. 

 

 

Broke out the green stuff and gave the bead a flat belly so it wouldn't roll, plugged both sides, added a little body to the front, and the sculpted the edge of an open coconut. It's not perfectly round but it'll do the job just fine.

 

 

Decided the claws weren't threatening enough so I beefed them up a bit. Glued the legs, claws, and eyes on to the body and called it done.

 

Looking forward to painting this guy up. Also want to make him two friends as well. I have 5 charms in total but I'm also hoping to finish building a boat before next weekend so I won't bite off too much.

 

Anyone have any favorite basing material to look like sand? I no longer trust my baking soda trick.

 

Edited December 4, 2021 by MoonglowMinis

[Samedi]

Great idea, love that crab!

[MoonglowMinis]

Continuing work on my crabs.

 

 

Whipped up two more bodies. Actually had more trouble with these than the first. Working too quickly means more finger prints. Next time I'll stick some wire in them so I don't have to hold them. 

 

Also chopped up some more crab charms. 

 

 

The second crab was posed as if he were raising up. His claws got cut and readjusted. Didn't bother going through the effort of cutting the claws open. Seemed like a lot of work for little reward. Especially since I'm trying to rush through these guys and a ship build before Saturday.

 

 

The third crab I wanted posed crawling over some coconuts. So I plugged some beads with green stuff and glued them to a base. 

 

I'm hoping to paint the crabs and bases separate so the third crab got assembled off the base.

 

 

Final result is a sideways crab who is very defensive of his coconuts. 

 

I'm pretty excited to paint this trip up. It's a lot of fun to make something uniquely your own.

 

I also learned that coconut crabs are INDEED a type of hermit crab. They just develop strong exteriors in adulthood and don't need shells. They love to eat coconuts. And there's even a few fun photos of juveniles wearing coconut husks. They DO climb trees and DO drop down from them. Though they aren't known for dropping on prey.

 

So it looks like my whimsical creation isn't that far off from the real life inspiration. 

Edited December 7, 2021 by MoonglowMinis

[Loth]

You’re a horrible person for making these monstrosities…and I love them, very cool!

 

Loth

[MoonglowMinis]

Skeleton Pirates

Cursed to eternal undeath, the former crew of Captain Dread rise with the moonlight to track any who dare touch their treasure. 

 

I've painted many skeletons before and wanted to do something different to set the skeleton pirates from Brinewind apart. I really enjoy that classic ethereal skeleton pirate look and decided to try something in that realm. Somewhere between a ghost and a skeleton.

 

I looked up lots of different references and got pretty inspired by those warm/cold two-source osl paint jobs. Though I ultimately ended up in a different direction.

 

I settled on a blue-moonlight look with an eerie green glow from beneath. At least that was the original intent.

 

I found a great tutorial online for ghost minis that I used as a jumping-off point.

 

I started by priming the minis in black, zenithal of white, and a dry brush of white to bring out more detail.

 

They then got a coat of Rutterlich Blue.

 

This was followed by another dry brushing of white to bring back those details.

 

At this point I strayed from the tutorial as I wanted richer colors. Back to the airbrush for some Marine Teal, starting to concentrate more from the top left.

 

I followed that with an even more concentrated spray of Spectral Glow from the top left.

 

Added a bit of white into the spectral glow for even more contrast.

 

And too enhance the creepy ghost factor and add some color variance, some leaf bud green sprayed from the bottom right.

 

From here I switched back to the paintbrush and used pure white to highlight nearly all the edges and add a bit more purpose to the final look.

 

I thought about doing more with the bases, but all I could think was to dry brush and I was worried that would make everything look too uniform again. I was happy enough with how they turned out.

 

Somehow I missed the map-carrying skeleton so he'll have to get painted up with the rest of the deck-crew. 

 

This was a pretty quick and easy way to make some unique skeletons and I'm pretty happy with the results.

Edited December 28, 2021 by MoonglowMinis

[Samedi]

Those ghostly skeletons look great! And thanks for sharing your techniques!

[Glitterwolf]

Skellies look great!