The Devourer in the Dark (Part One)

THE BUILD

I have been wanting something big, nasty, and Lovcraftian in my collection. Unfortunately, much of what I really like is either beyond my current budget or, in many cases, not released yet (Kickstarters). So, I have enlisted my own sculpting/converting skills to bring something to the collection.

Take one cheap, plastic frog, apply green stuff..and...

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I blocked out the details in a quick-curing, horrid smelling putty. It only takes about 5 minutes or so to set, smells like burning hair, but allows me to set the basic forms so I can get on to the fun stuff. You also see some of the early details here, including the fleshy mass in the mouth that I later decided to get rid of.

Here you see the basic form and shape put together. I really should have put the tongue/tentacles and teeth in later, but I have a habit of growing inpatient on conversions and put it all together. This will come back to haunt me when it comes time to paint.

The next step was to blend the putty work into the original frog toy. I applied thin layers of putty over the green putty, except in areas where I wanted the smooth texture to remain. The primary tool for this process was a .05mm mechanical pencil tip with the lead pulled out. This makes a nice, find pock marking. In some areas I used the hollow end of a plastic stir stick (the red kind) for slightly large pocks. Where the patches came together, I pushed them into one another with the tip of my sculpting tool to hide the edges. There were also a few details I enhanced at this time, such as evening out the sensory lobes (top of the head) and the venom sacks (cheeks).

Once all the details had hardened and I was satisfied with the blending, I shot the whole thing in a even spray of black and a spritzing of grey. I find that this always makes a conversion or scratchbuild look better as it unifies the various details. The grey will serves as my basic pallet for what I want as a gaunt, sickly color scheme fitting a Lovecraftian terror.

The next step is to get painting, which I should be able to accomplish over the next couple of days.

-Eli