Paris 1625 and the Great Old Ones rise!

[steve_pickstock]

So! A few weeks ago the actress Claudia Christiansen (Susan Ivanova from Babylon 5) shared a picture to her Facebook page of a game book she had written called "Musketeers vs Cthulhu"

And as I do when I have got a lot of things going on, I went "Ooooh! Shiny! Something new!" You do, don't you?

Now it's no secret that I really enjoyed the Red Box Musketeer Range, and to a slightly lesser extent, those from Ultima Ratio. It may have been the isolation during the pandemic, or just that I think they're one of the best ranges ever, or it could be that 'it's just my thing', as they say. Whatever. The idea of combining the horrors of HP Lovecraft and August Derleth with the world created by M. Dumas just seemed to click.

So the plan is to build a game around this, using bits and pieces of rules from the Osprey Dragon Rampant/Pikeman's Lament series, because that's what my players know and enjoy. I'm also adding in some new rules to capture the flavour of mind-numbing eldritch horrors.

The idea is that in Paris in 1625, amidst the confusion of the Wars of Religion and so on, someone is trying to revive the old gods, and it will be up to the players to stop them by risking their sanity and their sword arms.

So where am I on this?

I ordered some Reaper Bones figures.


Reaper tend to be -sort of - about 25mm in scale, rather than 32mm, so they fit in reasonably well with 1/72. They're big, but they're not too big.

I also needed some scenery to fight around.
Sarissa Precision's French Chateau.

Stylistically a bit more late 18th/early19thC but it's nice, and a decent price.

And lastly I found a load of .stl files for free from https://cults3d.com/ and a friend printed them out - I was just looking for some heads to convert figures with but there were so many nice things, so i got some statues and some monsters and a thing with lots of eyes and tentacles and teeth.

A statue of Old Squidface himself



A damaged Angel


A sphynx


And some flying gribblies


So that's where I am at the moment right at the start, the good news is that I can drag lots of bits out of other boxes/armies for this, so hopefully it will cometogether quite quickly.

[Peter]

Oh I'm looking forward to this very nice project! Can't wait to see the next steps Steve!

[steve_pickstock]

The last few weeks have been a bit busy but I finally made a start on this project.

First up - some head swaps, In D&D these might be called Ilithids, or mind flayers, whatever. They're gribblies, they're all gribblies - it's just that these are human sized gribblies.
The first one is a magic user fron the Undead set from Caesar and the female is from the Ultima Ratio Musketeers of the King of France set. The heads are .stl files from Cults.3D, they're supposed to be 40K genestealers, but my friend scaled them down by 70% and I think they work well.


These heads are a tricky job, there isn't a lot of space for pinning and the face tentacles are a nuisance, But I think they look're okay.

This is the demon from Reaper Bones. Most creatures in the original Lovecraft stories tend to be described in terms of grey. So I have thrown some greys straight out of the bottle at it and some mixed greys, some flesh tones and some purple and red inks. Still a lot to do on this fellow, to bring up the detail and create some visual interest, and not make him just a grey mass.



Lastly today - a Shoggoth (I think). That's a lot of eyes, a lot!


The thing about these models, as opposed to a human sized figure is the amount of detail - not just the myriad of staring eyes, and the surplus of teeth, the boney spines and the forest of spikes, but the blistered skin and the grasping slimy tentacles as well. They're horrors, mind-warping, face eating nasties - that need the attention to bring that out in the model.
There's still work to be done but I thought I would share the progress, such as it is..
Thanks for looking in, Steve

[Ochoin]

Awful. Disgusting. Horrible.
I like it!

donald

[steve_pickstock]

Just one god-d@mned thing after another!

[Santi Pérez]

They are certainly disturbing and terrifying creatures, Steve. I wouldn't want to meet any of them in a lonely place at night.

Santi.

[Susofrick]

Looks great! When I was a teenager I borrowed all Lovecraft-books in Swedish from the library and read them quite a few times. There were only two. The Lovecraft-craze came later. But I still have fond memories of ole HP's short stories and the few novels he finished.

[PhilC]

I love monsters, and those inspired by Lovecraft's nightmares are among my favourite, so I find your project highly interesting ( all your projects are)! Your version of the Shoggoth (another printed figure ?) is excellent so far, can't wait to see the final result.

[steve_pickstock]

I love monsters, and those inspired by Lovecraft's nightmares are among my favourite, so I find your project highly interesting ( all your projects are)!

Thank you.

Your version of the Shoggoth (another printed figure ?) is excellent so far, can't wait to see the final result.

Yes - my friend printed it for me, from the Cults3D website.

[Rich W]

Very unusual and interesting Steve! It seems you’ve got a lot of plates spinning with your projects!

[Peter]

Awful. Disgusting. Horrible.
I like it!

donald

Seems to be the rights words for me too!

[steve_pickstock]

Some update pictures from the Rise of the Great Old Ones (aka the One God-d@mned Thing after Another) thread .
First up - the Reaper Bones Demon. This is a small model compared with some that Reaper do, but it works well with 1/72. As per my previous post on this I'm trying to get/create as much detail on this as I can, so that it's not just a grey monster. It's also mind-bogglingly ugly and I'm trying to bring that up as well.
I need to sit and look at it for a couple of days and see where to take it next.



The Black Sphinx - I am seriously considering this scenario - and in particular perhaps changing the setting to 19thC, as French interest in Egypt really didn't get traction until the time of Napoleon. I wouldn't have to change much just paint up a load of French Napoleonics for the players to use.
Actually no! As much as I like that idea, I'll stick with the current plan.
Anyway if either of the players gets any troops near this particular statue it will trigger the arrival of some mummies or similar undead, possibly even some giant undead scorpons.



It's the Shoggoth again. Like the demon above I need to sit down and look at this. I feel it needs more work around the eyes - gloss varnish them, tidy up the black dot of the pupil and add a dot of white for a reflection.
The mouth also needs to be redder and 'wetter' - more of a gaping maw - in this case - maw is more.



Next two human sized gribblies. These are the conversions I showed in the previous post. He needs a contrasting colour for the border on his robe - suggestions will be gratefully received - something that really jars with the purple.
She is going to be the Red Queen - so all of her clothing will be red, except for some gold detailing.
I will probably also paint the plates on their heads.


Lastly - the name of the stl file for these was Star Horrors. The inspiration for painting these came from some videos I watched recently about some women small-holders in Vietnam (don't ask). One thing I noticed in the videos was that there are black butterflies everywhere. They're quite disconcerting, they're very common, and more noticeable because they're black. A person inclined towards the supernatural might see them as some form of 'presence', a manifestation of something.
Anyway they're not all black and certainly not midnight black. So I did these with a black base coat and then various dry-brushings using a mix of English Uniform and black, finishing with a dry-brush of tan. Dots of purple on the wings to add a spot colour.
And I am leaving them at that. They'll be a basic unit of six models, cannon fodder really, so they don't need more than that.


Bases need to be done, but I didn't have any yellow ochre.
Thanks for looking in.

[steve_pickstock]

This week's update - less about the Great Old Ones and more about their minions. Most of these are ready, they just need details like weapons doing and their bases greening.

First up the flying winged thingies - the star horrors. As before inspired by the black butterflies of Vietnam.



The Red Queen. She actually looks better in real life (I'm pleased with it anyway).





The magician - same comment as the queen - better looking in real life, just his staff to do.





Haven't shown this one before.
Outside of the original Lovecraft stories there was a series of stories by Robert W Chambers, called the King in Yellow - so et voila!
The character never appears in the stories, it's a play about the King and he is a malevolent character, but according to the stories watching the play can induce madness, so the KiY sort of fits with the Cthulhu mythos, and the Ultima Ratio figure. Started off with a Yellow Ochre base, and various yellows, until I gave everything a unifying yellow glaze. The face is supposed to be a Venetian style mask - but I was reaching the limits of my abilities. Anyway I am quite pleased with him and he'll do.




Some of the Red Box mummies to provide an unpleasant surprise for anyone venturing too close to the Black Sphinx. I think these guys need a light dust coloured dry-brush just to tone things down a bit and unify their appearance.



Last of all some Caesar Miniatures Lizardmen. There are reptilians in the Lovecraft stories and these were the easiest option and to be honest they were a lot of fun.


I know they're not the best figures in terms of painting. I have been through a bit of a trough recently and painting these, I found the enjoyment of figure painting again.
So that's this week, I'm hoping to finish the bases off and put together some tableau pictures at the weekend.
Thanks for looking in.

[Ochoin]

So much "gribbily" goodness.
I'm rather taken by the Yellow King.

donald

[Santi Pérez]

You're getting a very original and terrifying collection of creatures, Steve.

Get on with it!

Santi.

[Peter]

The queen and magician are Star Wars figures!

All figures are excellent painted!

[steve_pickstock]

I was going to finish the bases on the above models off this week and arrange some tableaux for photographs, but I have had a heavy chest infection (that may or may not be Covid) and really I haven't had the energy to do anything. Maybe next week.

[Rich W]

Nice work Steve. I didn’t even know those Lizardman existed-I can imagine they were real fun to paint.

[steve_pickstock]

Nice work Steve. I didn’t even know those Lizardman existed-I can imagine they were real fun to paint.

They did slide under the radar a bit and I admit that I had to scrape around to get these. But yes they are fun.
A lot of people would just paint them dark green. A friend of mine did that with some 28mm Lizard men and it doesn't do them any favours - they just look dull.
When you think about lizards there are so many colours, and patterns.
I've seen some tutorials on Youtube - and I have box of old GW Lizardmen in a cupboard and I'm thinking of giving them a whirl.
These 1:72 ones are very simple - base coat is Vallejo Russian Uniform, then a partial wash of GW Devlan Mud. I say partial wash - I mean just the head, torso and down towards but not all of the tail. I also gave a dab of wash to the inside of the arms and thighs.
Once that is completely dry a dry-brush of the straight Russian Uniform, then a second lighter dry-brush with Russian uniform. There is a lot of detail on these and I wanted to bring it out. I also wanted the end result to be quite bright.
The spine plates are the key - base coat of red, then successive brighter reds to highlight.
The mouths got a coat of pale flesh followed by a flesh contrast paint which makes the flesh look purple(ish) and suitably reptilian.
It sounds a lot but it's all pretty straight forwards and simple.

[steve_pickstock]

The queen and magician are Star Wars figures!

All figures are excellent painted!

You've just given me an idea.