9 May 2021

Paranormal Investigators 1

You know, given I've owned a pretty decent DSLR for almost eight years, you think I'd get the hang of getting everyone in focus by now. But no.

These are five of the 10 paranormal investigators from Cthulhu: Death May Die. I started painting them while doing the shoggoth and found them to be pretty straightforward thanks to their chunky sculpts and lack of annoying details like skulls and purity seals. To my surprise I managed to blast through all five in the space of a couple of days. All of them have integral round bases, so I just covered them with sand and painted them with a couple of greys.

I'd usually make up my own character backgrounds for these poor sods guys, but their C:DMD stat cards come with all their info, so I'll just incorporate bits of it.


Lizzy Ives hails from London, so yay for a Brit being involved. She's "supremely lucky" and can find things other investigators miss. 

Lizzy was the first investigator I painted. I deviated from the box art because her dress is supposed to be yellow, and I recently became allergic to that colour. After painting all the trim Light Turquoise, I realised it went really well with the grey primer. I googled "silver 1920s dresses" and was not disappointed, so the rest of her dress was painted Silver and it really works. Her hat and shoes are Blue Green.

Her skin is my usual Chocolate Brown and Flat Earth, and as per usual it's too dark.


Meet Sergeant Ian Welles of Maine. He's a veteran of the First World War, where he lost an arm to either a German shell, a sniper, or "some God-damned cult-borne hell beastie", depending on who he's talking to. 

He's a bit green. I couldn't find my pot of Olive Grey, so I went with Olive Green. It looked pretty bright until I slathered it with Green Tone, and now I'm happier. All the leather is Mahogany Brown washed with Sepia Wash.

I've nicknamed him Lenny after his resemblance to a certain dead Soviet leader.


Ahmed Yasin from Mersin, Turkey, and can "stitch cuts, soothe burns and reattach severed limbs", so he's a pretty handy guy to have around. 

Last year I said that I hate painting white, but these days I'm happier to give it a go. The only issue with Ahmed's clothing is that the Off-White looked crap over the grey primer even after two coats, so I switched to Ivory and it worked a lot better. 

Ahmed's box art has him with a red tie, but I went with Andrea Blue over a Pink shirt. Some Red Leather for his shoes and briefcase and Flat Red for his fez and he was done, apart from his skin. I used Light Brown and it looked fine till I washed it with Sepia Wash and... oops. Highlighting it with more Light Brown did help a bit. 


Lord Adam Benchley is from... Manchester? I'd have put my money on some leafy shire in the Home Counties, but OK. Lord Benchley is "quite mad, of course, having battled the cults for decades". You can just tell that behind that steely gaze and stiff upper lip, he's about to flip.

I found the Olive Grey in time to paint Adam. For those interested, it was in the paint rack behind the pot of Olive Green. I need new glasses. Anyway, that was his jacket sorted. His sweater — and I've just noticed I missed the bottom bit AARRGHH — is Cavalry Brown and his trousers Khaki.

Adam is the most heavily-armed of the investigators, and his shotgun is just Mahogany Brown with a mix of Gun Metal and Black Wash for the barrel. 


Sister Beth, from Bogotá, Colombia, is "an expert on the occult and their horrific practices". She's also convinced she's going to die soon but has made peace with herself.

Beth was by far the easiest to paint: Black Grey all over, highlighted with Dark Sea Blue, and some Off-White for the white bits. She isn't blind; after taking ages to get her glasses done without getting Black all over her skin tone, I decided to forgo painting the lenses Silver. She looks cooler in shades.

I really like all these sculpts. They're easy to paint with no real soft moulding issues (hello Reaper Bones!) or overdone detail (hello Games Workshop!) Lenny is probably my fave despite his near-70s lime green outfit, although Ahmed is a close second as I really like how his white suit turned out.

So that's the first five done, and I'm working on the others in between doing another entry for Monster May(hem). 

10 comments:

  1. Great work on all Matt, the sister in shades reminds me of Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act, trying to be cool while being a nun. If you want a lighter dark skin tone, paint in flat earth, then wash with brown, the highlight with flat earth, you can always mix in a little bone to make an extreme highlight as well

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    1. Cheers, Dave! Good idea on adding bone for the highlights, I'll have to remember that for next time. Glad you like them!

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  2. Great bunch of characters there Matt, I love the funky looking Nun!

    Cheers Roger.

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    1. She does look pretty groovy, doesn't she :-)

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  3. Oh they are just superb, Matt. I absolutely adore the colour schemes you've used. Super stuff, with Sergeant Ian Welles of Maine being my fave by far. That Olive Green uniform is terrific so clearly you were meant to misplace your pot of Olive Grey ;-)

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    1. Thanks you, kind sir! Sarge's colour has grown on me and I'm happy I used the wrong(ish) colour for him. More to come soon!

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  4. Awww, man... seeing these miniatures and the awesome job you're doing is making me want the game even more. You suck, Matt! :)

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    1. Haha, my evil plan is working :-) Thanks very much, they were fun to paint. I'm doing the other five at the mo and hope to have them done soon, as well as entry #3 for Monster May(hem)!

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  5. These minis look very nice indeed. As I said in my previous comment, these sculpts are so much better than what FFG did for Mansions of Madness that it is kind of jaw dropping for me. The clothes look great on these minis but the eyes are also really well done. I can't tell how big these minis are but either way, that tends to be one of the harder parts to get right so good on you for that! :D

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    1. These are 28/30mm minis. They scale pretty well with my Reaper and other figures. The detailing on them is just enough and the sculpts themselves are chunky enough that you can slap the basecoats on in no time. Thanks for the compliments about their eyes, as eyes are the one thing I usually bugger up lol.

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