We're gonna need a bigger newspaper: there's a Sump Spider on the loose!

These last few weeks I've been having a glorious time picking up random projects taking up space around my paint station. This rather horrifying Sump Spider, a model by Print Minis, is one of those projects. It also marks the first model of a giant spider I did not paint pink. That's a bit of a change for me; I would also say it's nightmare fuel compared to the bubblegum pink Gobbo Spiders in the display case.

The running peasant from the Giant's kit has to rate as one of the top models ever produced by GW. Also there's a humongous zonking Sump Spider on the picture (in case you missed it).

I printed this monster a while back and I have to honest: I had never heard of Sump Spiders before. Now I do and I'll be using this one in a game of Stargrave at some point. As to the model: it is intimidating.  After recovering from the shock I had while peeling the supports of (it IS a monster), I placed the model off to one side on the paint station and occasionally wondered what to do with it. The model ended up on the business end of a habit I've developed over the past few years. I have quite a few primed and half painted mini's just sort of standing around my paint station. Every once in a while my airbrush cup is still half full after painting a model. Instead of disposing of the paint, I just empty the cup on a (few) random model(s). The Sump Spider went through a couple of color changes until I finally used leftover Night Goblin paint (black and highlights) on it. It turned into quite a scary monster at that point.

Shutting the brain down and just adding paint sometimes leads to results that are both nice and nightmarish at the same time.

While standing around the paint station looking black and slightly menacing was cool, I couldn't quite figure out what to do with the monster. This weekend I just decided to go for 'when in doubt, just add color'. The teeth went through a few shades of brown and yellow. The eyes went from white to orange to red and the maw started out pink (had to add some pink somewhere). I tried to add some white/pink soft squigly bits between the plateson its back, but it didn't turn out all that well. I just covered that up with a judicious application of Typhus Corrosion, followed by feathering with an ancient brush. 

Added in the mess on the base are a couple of cut-down cardboard straws. These straws are useless when it comes to their primary purpose (drinking through them), but they are awesome for modeling as paint that you stick on a cardboard straw stays on the straw (as opposed to the classic plastic ones).

The pink bits still don't work quite as well as I had hoped. Maybe I'll go back in with a pure black at some point to hide that particular mistake. The belly on the other hand worked out great. And all I did there was just spray out whites, browns and yellows I was using on a different project :). The base itself was the most fun to make. I just covered it with PVA and sprinkled cardboard squares on it followed by random bits withing grabbing reach and more cardboard to integrate the bits. I covered the rest of the exposed PVA with a mixture of fine sand and insta-plaster I recently made (I should perhaps write in more detail about that at some point). I got so carried away, I painted the whole base while still wet (all airbrushed of course. I finished up by adding Swamp Water effects by AK and tossing in a few orbs from the 'don't eat - keep dry' packets you find in boxes. I let the water effect dry overnight and added more a day later. I think it looks properly disgusting and I hope I'll never meet one of these close-up and personal in real life. Not even at the miniature scale pictured here :D.