I've always liked these weirdos so when one of my clients sent me two of the bonkers wee guys to work on I was delighted. I have Opinions (captial O intended) on Spawn so forgive me if I come across a bit dictatorial here! I find Spawn weirdest when they are displaying either their recognisable origins (some poor swine who incurred the wrath of the gods) or some piece of naturally occuring biology in totally the wrong place. As such I decided that both would have an unhealthy flesh tone and recognisable eyes.
The flesh is fairly easy. The wonderful Rakarth Flesh forms a base coat which is shaded with Reikland Fleshtone to warm it up. I highlighted up all the way to Pallid Wych Flesh and then turned my attention to the weird bits. The eye was the only draw in the centre of this spawn so I had to go all out. Zoom in and take a look. The trick is using a mix of Pallid Wych Flesh and white as the sclera (the white bit) with thin washes of Carroburg Crimson around the edge. I then used Casadora Yellow to form the iris and a goat pupil in black finished off the nasty look.
The arms reminded me of hermit crab limbs and so I went with it! Over the Pallid Wych Flesh I layered two or three coats of Fuegan Orange, you gotta wait for each layer to be totally dry. Hairdryers are your friend! I then gave them a drybrush of Eldar Flesh and recoated with Fuegan Orange. Painting fleshy bits between the sections finished the legs nicely.
The second spawn was a riot of heads with one massive arm so I knew I would have to minimise some details and bring others to the fore otherwise the model would be a gaudy monstrosity. Less is more is an important rule with spawn.
I made use of Seraphim Sepia and Agrax Earthshade's translucency on the large horns to make a lovely blended tone. There are probably about fifteen layers of feathered washes on these to give the proper gradiation. The all too human eye was coloured with blue glaze which gave a nice watery blue.
The tangle of heads on the back was too much if I had painted each to stand out. Instead I gave minimised the impact of each with drab colours and merging skin tones and let the sculpting and conversion speak for itself. Mass effect is often more useful in these situations.
Once again on the beak I used Seraphim Sepia and Agrax Earthshade over a base of Averland Sunset to create the shading on the beak. Doing this tied the beak and the horns and balanced the colours on the model. Likewise the tongue on the bird and the wierd horned head thing were both treated the same way, Bugman's Glow shaded with Carroburg Crimson.
Hopefully you agree with me that by applying "less is more" and recognisable biology to the alien wonder of a chaos spawn adds a lot to the model. I see a lot of them in a riot of colours and they never quite work. My advice is always, in addition to the above, to theme your spawn when making them. Have a spikey spawn, an eyeball spawn etc. Works much better than a riot of different parts. Both of these work for that precise reason. Anyway, enough chaotic wibbling, see you next time!
TTFN
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