XLVI. Eater of Children

This weekend I've been busy with this miniature version of the Pale Man, a grotesque child-eating monster from Pan's Labyrinth. I've wanted to make this conversion ever since I first saw the film, and now I had an excuse to do it. He will be a Henchman in the fairy crew I'm working on. :)

If you don't know what I'm talking about, take a peek at this post: HERE.

The Pale Man.

I found the perfect miniature to start from: GW Dark Eldar Ur-Ghul. It is Finecast (I won't comment on the quality of GW's resin casts; it's been discussed and ranted about enough all over the Internet), and it comes in two parts, plus an extra head for those who need more than one and want variety. The creature is about human sized, and it comes with a 25mm round base. It would look best on a 30mm, but I put it on a 40mm lipped base for practical reasons (if I ever wish to use this crew as counts-as Hamelin&co. in Malifaux this mini would represent Nix, and Nix is on a 40mm base).

When I was thinking about the pose I had several options, but I went with this one because it is the most iconic. This meant I needed a couple of open hands to replace the original fists.

The bits: one Ur-Ghul and a pair of plastic Pink Horror hands.

First I needed to take my power tool and grind his legs thin, turning some of the muscles into hanging skin flaps. I took the tool to his head as well, removing all the excess nostrils until he was left with the proper amount of two. I cut off the arms and built complete new ones with green stuff over paperclip armature. You can see the armature showing on the right arm in this crappy picture.

I sculpted the skin hanging under his chin, and the eyes on his palms. The eyes drove me crazy, I just couldn't get them right. Had to redo them three or four times.

After all the bits came together and got properly blended in, the mini was ready for some paint. This is just the white basecoat and the first light-grey wash.

The idea was to fit him among other fae, and at the same time keep him recognisable as what he is supposed to be. The colour scheme obviously deviates from the source material because I wanted to adapt him for the crew; this unnatural skin tone is standard for my fairies, and so are the creepy black eyes. But the details on the sculpt and the iconic pose should be enough for him to look familiar to someone who had seen Pan's Labyrinth. 

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You might have noticed a couple of new elements in the sidebar. In case you haven't, they look just like this:

 

Clicking on them will take you to pages dedicated to the Countess' and the Plague Doctor's crews. They contain pictures and fluff about the characters, all gathered in one place. For now it's just these two, but eventually each of the factions will get their own page.

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