Project Cave Kraken

Cave Kraken, Watcher in the Water, Cthulhu, or whatever you call it, every one needs a tentacled beasty to lie in wait for unsuspecting adventurers.  I'll start by showing a picture of the completed project.  As usual, Friar Tuck (an Airfix Robin Hood set figure) and Conan (a Caesar Miniatures Adventures set figure) make their appearance for scale, as well as the Scale Picture (the scale picture).

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This project was a lot of fun.  It began when I saw a tube of plastic kids toys at Hobby Lobby.  I found a cute pink octopus inside the tube, at least it was cute on the outside, I could sense the evil inside just waiting to be released.  The picture below shows the contents of the tube and the red circle give you a glimpse of how the octopus looked before being converted to the Kraken.

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I took an Exacto knife to the octopus and chopped off all of the tentacles.  I then glued the body to the base.  I took a small bit of tentacle and glued the small loop of tentacle in front of the main body.  Next I  added an armored plate from a GW Tyranid sprue and sculpted the beak.  The beak worked out perfectly, it looked exactly as I pictured it in my head.  I then glued some of the left over tentacles to separate bases and it was ready for the basing.  I sculpted the waves on the bases out of paint-able latex caulk.  I attempted to sculpt some white capping waves as the kraken and his tentacles rose from the depths, and again, I lucked out because the looked exactly as I had hoped.

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I then painted the little beasty various shades of purple and blue for the body, yellows and tans for the beak, light blues for the suckers, and green for the eyes (he just seemed to be the jealous type).  The water was primed black, dry brushed white, and then painted with several different colors of diluted ink to achieve a water effect.  I then touched up the white caps with some white paint.  The last step was to give him a gloss coat of sealant, so he would appear to be wet

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Here is what the cave Kraken looks like on the game board when he rises from the depths of the "Well of Doom".  You know the dwarfs are wondering who ordered calamari  and are hoping they are not on the menu.

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It is amazing what a little time and effort can do with a humble toy.  From cute to killer in nothing flat.

Questions and comments are always welcome.  Thanks for reading...

Copyright © Ron Hamilton 2011, All Right Reserved.