Mechanical Sushi, Anyone?
Another in the series of pieces I painted for Spartan Games, this time it’s the Ika Mechanical Squid.
I fell in love with the Jules Verne inspired steampunk squid submarine when I first saw it previewed, so it was great to be asked to paint one for Spartan Games.
I thought I’d go with a pseudo realistic crustacean colouring for it – seeing as they went to the effort of copying a design from nature. So as you can see I’ve sort of gone for a hybrid of the blue-ringed octopus and a classic orangey-pink octopus/lobster colour.
Really pleased with how it came out in the end.
Have to say those tentacles were rather fiddly to attach and pin. And they’re quite long, the whole model measuring a good 3-4 inches as I recall.
My only regret looking back at the paintjob is that, although I do like the darker sea colouring of the base, I could have done some hint of the tentacles under the surface.
Max Von Deadlock's Miniature Madness 
Hey Max interested in the way you did the colours could you give me some ideas of the paints/Colours you used at all?
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Hi Jez, thanks for leaving a comment.
Hmm, now what colours did I use again? I think I started with a basecoat green spray from the underside, which you can’t really see here, and a mid fleshtone from the sides and top (probably Vallejo Medium Fleshtone). I then did a sparse highlight spray from above of light flesh I think.
At this point I sprayed some purple dots over the place and then filled in the centre of the circle with the medium flesh colour to leave purple rings. I did very fine freehand lines with a mix of the purple and light flesh following the purple rings to make them look like octopus rings (google the blue-ringed octopus).
I then picked out all edge highlights with the light flesh before washing it all with a 50:50 mix of the purple and the medium fleshtone. I probably added some dark green into the wash and used that only in the deepest recesses and shadow areas.
I do remember then thinking that I wanted a richer, more orangey colour so went back with a yellow glaze to get that overall coral colour.
After that I went back with detailing – portholes, and such – and the Blazing Sun flag.
Hope that helps š
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