These are the two big creatures supplied with the base game (two copies each). Epic boss fights are not a must in Mansions of Madness but in my experience they add to the drama and memorability of a scenario. Needless to say, they are much scarier than the cultists who summon them.
Posing for a group photo. Everybody say “Nyarlathoteb”.
Chthonian 1. A signature creature of the Cthulhu mythos, Chthonians are actually not an invention by Lovecraft himself but by a later author, Brian Lumley. They are basically slime-covered worms with tentacles – a monster archetype found across the fantasy/horror genre. A classic.
Chthonian 2. I chose a simple color scheme to go with the simple shape. The painting was easy and straight-forward. Painted the body grey, applied black wash and added a few grey highlights to create stronger contrasts. I spent relatively little time highlighting the tentacles but found the overall appearance satisfying enough even without a stronger blending from dark roots to bright ends. Obligatory for all models in this entry is the gloss-varnish finish, for the slimy look.
Shoggoth 1. This is a Lovecraftian classic, taking a prominent role in his novella At the Mountains of Madness. In order to get a painted model on the table quickly (it appears in the first scenario) I just dry-brushed layers of green over a black basecoat. I spent just a couple of minutes adding some highlights and repainting some of the crevasses black. Didn’t spend much time painting the eyes either (there are too many of them!). Despite its uneven, rough texture, the result is quite OK, especially if looked at from an arm’s length. Also, painting time was only around two hours.
Shoggoth 2. I borrowed this color scheme from boardgamegeek user Matteo Bocci. Again starting from a black basecoat, I added increasingly brighter layers of Nauseating Blue (a GW color I bough in the nineties and still use). Only later did I realize that I went for a different effect than Matteo. While I highlighted only the raised parts, emphasizing the model’s three-dimensional texture, Matteo basically painted a web of glowing veins all over the model. The result is just awesome – check out the pic below. Overall I spent four to five hours painting the model.
The paint job that inspired me, by Matteo Bocci. I guess you would have to spend at least ten hours to get such a fantastic result.
The Good, the Bad, and the Undead 