Monsterpocalypse: New Protectors Starter & Taharka Showcase
I’ve painted up the new Protectors starter to add to my collection – plus another cool new monster!
Why not start with the starter?
Picking colors for a Hurricanus turned out to be kind of difficult. Looking for inspiration I did some searches for wind elemental on Pinterest and Instagram. As you might expect, I got a lot of grayish-blue creatures that weren’t particularly exciting. Some that I liked a lot more were purple clouds or cyclones with a glowing blue interior and these were the ones I used as inspiration. I also added some black and greenish brass accents for a little more variety. I like the result but I feel in a lot of ways it looks like a ghost or revenant as much as a storm creature. 
I went with some of the same purples and blues for this smaller Air Elemental unit. I think the wind elemental feel comes off a bit better here but it’s easier when the model is shaped more like a little tornado.
Next are the fire elementals. All my elite units are distinguished by some gold somewhere on the model. For this fire critter I basically just went with gold for all the armored non-fire areas. I started off using what I felt was too much orange as “reflections” of the surrounding fire. I ended up toning it down with less orange and more gold in the final.
For the non-elite fire elementals, I went with a much darker brownish-black for the armor, with a few scant pale blue highlights reflecting off the hot metal.
I used lighter colors at the base of the model since the source of the fire is the brightest of all. To simulate a glow on the surrounding devastated city I just used a blast of orange from the airbrush before gluing the models in place.
Last up we have the latest Legion of Mutates monster: Taharka. As a young child, I had a cheap plastic rhino toy that came from a grocery store. It was just the right size to hang out with my He-Man action figures and was an important part of their adventures. So of course this rhino man had to be purple. I love how he turned out – from the purple skin to the red metal armor. So far he’s the only Legion of Mutates model I’ve painted so I’ve got to get some units ready to go soon to fight alongside him.
