5 January 2023

Calden Keep: Resurrected Goliath

A twisted giant of metal and bone and death and hate, the Resurrected Goliath strides through the ruins of Calden Keep in search of more victims to feed its strength.

Part of my Christmas pressies from Alicia was a large order of Calden Keep minis from Etsy, as the store I get them from was for some reason ceasing to sell Bestarium prints. So I jumped online and slapped about $60 worth of figures into my cart. Upon opening the box on Christmas Day, I discovered the seller had thrown in a bunch of free figures, including the Resurrected Goliath, a mini that would have cost me around $15 if I'd bought it separately. Awesome.

The Goliath is from the second set of Calden Keep figures and is one of the largest, clocking in at about four inches tall. It's such a superbly creepy sculpt that really slams home the horror of Calden Keep. It is missing a ball-and-chain that should be hanging from its right hand, but as this is a freebie I can't complain.

I kicked off by gluing it to a 60mm base and spraying the whole model with grey primer. I wanted to follow the same quite basic scheme I'd used on the Lordsguard, metals and reds, but without the rust effect wash. Leaving the skulls and cloth bare grey, the armour was painted with Iron Warriors and given a wash with thinned Nuln Oil. 

Once the wash dried, I plastered it with thinned Agrax Earthshade and Serpahim Sepia to add a few more tones to the iron armour, and then gave it a drybrush with some Leadbelcher and Plate Metal. I thought these looked a bit too bright, so I daubed on more washes until they were duller but still visible as highlights.

I wanted to pick out some areas of the armour so it wasn't just one shade, so I painted the padlocks Bronze and gave them each a couple of coats of Seraphim Sepia.

The Goliath's whopping weapon went through three schemes before I was happy with it. Originally it was the same colours as the armour, but I thought it just made the whole model look like a mass of iron. The second scheme was Incubi Darkness highlighted with some Emerald Green, like I did for the Tomb Tapper, but I thought it didn't suit the overall look.

Finally I decided to go back to metallics, so I repainted the whole weapon Chocolate Brown and plastered on some Nuln Oil and Agrax Earthshade before giving it a gentle drybrush of Bronze. Some Seraphim Sepia to tone down the shininess and I was finally happy with it.

The leather straps were painted with more Chocolate Brown and shaded with Agrax Earthshade, and then highlighted with some Mahogany Brown.

The cloth was basecoated with Black Red and then washed with more Nuln Oil to mute it a bit and deepen the shadows. I'd usually switch to Burnt Red for the first layers of highlighting, but instead I jumped straight to Red as I thought the cloth looked dark enough. I didn't take too many layers until I got the shade I wanted, and then the whole model got a coat of matte varnish to protect the painted parts.

The final portion to be painted was the pile of skulls. After a basecoat of Chocolate Brown, I gave them a decent coat of Aged Bone and a couple of washes with Agrax Earthshade to bring out the shadows. They were highlighted with Bonewhite and a touch of Ivory before being washed again with thinned Seraphim Sepia to add an aged look.

After that it was just a case of touching up the reds and metallics where I'd gone over the lines.

The base was covered in the same cheap Crayola modelling putty that I used for snow on the model of our house. Considering it's made for kids to play with and costs all of a dollar a pack, it's among the best value for money basing material out there. I used a sculpting tool (part of a set Alicia got me for Christmas, bless her) to get the lumps and bumps the way I wanted, and then I stuck a gravestone, sword and a couple of stones from the drive into the putty and left it overnight to dry.

After a coat of thinned matte Mod Podge to seal the putty, I painted it Dryad Bark and then slathered on plenty of Stirland Battlemire to get a nice muddy look. After applying flock and a few tufts I drybrushed the mud with some Balor Brown. The gravestone was given a pretty basic scheme of Neutral Grey, Nuln Oil and Ghost Grey, and the broken sword some Iron Warriors and rust wash. I used Atholian Camoshade to tint the stones and he was finished.

More Calden Keep minis to come, including another huge monster, so stay tuned!

18 comments:

  1. Absolutely top-rate work, Matt. What a cracking freebie, as despite its missing weapon (which I don't think you'd know if you hadn't said) its a beast!!! I own a free Beastiarum miniatures myself and think they now sell pre-printed figs themself - which might have caused them to cease licensing their figs to others..!?! I was tempted to support them for their STLs - and still might - but one of their big selling points is the DnD5e modules/campaigns they provide for their setting/models - and I believe Wizards of the Coast are now saying that want companies to pay them if they're using/producing DnD stuff (if the company are making so much money from their IP).

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    1. Thanks, Simon! I was very pleasantly surprised to see him in the box as it was a model I'd wanted to get but for some reason never got around to ordering. That's interesting info on Bestarium, I'll have to have a look as to where they're selling the minis. Happily the Etsy store owner chucked in so many that I think I have a decent force already :-)

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  2. 4 inches tall and quite the nasty looking hulk! I could imagine random skulls toppling out of that torso vessel as it lumbers about, or swings that nasty massive corkscrew.

    Alicia certainly did a lovely job gifts-wise it sounds like. Lucky lad.

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    1. Cheers, Dai! It is a nasty looking monster, but that huge pile of skulls coming out of the torn armour is also pretty cool :-) Alicia did a great job of getting me hobby-related pressies, bless her.

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  3. It's simply fabulous, from the beginning to the vey end, I'm most impressed!

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    1. Thanks, Suber, it's a magnificently menacing model!

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  4. What a great bonus model Matt, your painting brings out it's weirdness well, and the missing weapon doesn't detract from the model. Great gifts Alicia got for you.

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    1. Cheers, Dave! I didn't even realise the ball and chain were missing until I looked up its name online, and happily you can't even see that there was supposed to be a weapon in its right hand. So I got away with it :-)

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  5. John@justneedsvarnishFriday, January 06, 2023

    That's a brilliant figure! :-) Very creepy though!

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    1. Creepy is what I like the best, John :-) Cheers!

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  6. That is a cool looking mini, Matt! The colors you chose have a really nice harmony but also get the personality of this monstrous being across. I really like the gruesome and imposing fantasy miniatures you're finding on Etsy. I think you're going to end up costing me money because I wouldn't mind painting a miniature like that myself (as I've probably said before haha)!

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    1. Thanks, Jeff! I do like hunting around Etsy for horrible miniatures and ones that look totally out-there, and this Calden Keep range certainly has plenty of those!

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  7. That is an awesome looking beast, and you've painted him beautifully too. as you said last time this is what GW's chaos stuff should look like!

    Cheers Roger.

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    1. Thanks, Roger! This guy could easily work as some kind of daemon or possessed monster in 40K!

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  8. Wow, another huge monster coming up?! I already thought this one was pretty massive! The next must be Shogun Warrior size!! This is one cool looking mini and whomever came up with it, should pat themselves on the back. Your paints definitely do it justice as well!

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    1. Oh, the other one is the same height as this one, Brian, but there is one Calden Keep model that's pushing six inches tall. The Resurrected Goliath is a superb figure and came out looking really good.

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  9. AT four inches tall, it resally is a giant of a model in every which-way. Picking out the detail must have been a delight and your finish with the base is wonderful too. NOt bad for a freebie eh ?

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    1. Thanks, Joe! It's a whopper of a figure and really towers over almost all my other minis. Painting wasn't too hard, and I had fun doing the base. And as you say, for a freebie it's pretty good :-)

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