Earth Dragon

When I pulled out CMON's Demon of Souls, I also grabbed their Earth Dragon. I don't know if there's anything in the mythology about it, or did someone in the office just make it up. But there was a pic of it in the art book I bought with the game and he appears as a yellow dragon with green "gems' in the skin, as well as a black and gold head. I thought I took a pic of the illustration but I guess not. Anyway here it is in primer - 

This came in multiple parts which were assembled in the factory. No effort was made to fix the seam lines. The other thing was that parts of the dragon are incredibly detailed, while other parts are *very* soft. 

I started off with a base coat of an orange color and the black head, planning on going lighter as I went.

Once I started lightening it, I added gloss black for the gems, as I planned to use the GreenStuff World's metallics line. But unlike other metallics who benefit from the gloss black, these paints don't. So I redid all the gems in white. Then once I added the color they really popped.
I thought I had more WIP shots, but no. So here's the finale done. Thanks for looking.

 

Demon (Oni) of Souls!

This is another mini model from CMON's game Rising Sun. I'm guessing this demon is something just made up by the game makers. But in General Oni are: 

... born when truly wicked humans die and end up in one of the many Buddhist Hells, transformed into Oni. They become the ogreish and brutal servants of Great Lord Enma, ruler of Hell, wielding iron clubs with which they crush and destroy humans solely for enjoyment. An oni’s job is to mete out horrible punishments such as peeling off skin, crushing bones, and other torments too horrible to describe to those who were wicked (but not quite wicked enough to be reborn as demons themselves). Hell is full of oni, and they make up the armies of the great generals of the underworld.

This model is on one piece soft plastic, sort of like the old green, toy soldiers you played with as a kid. I'd rate it a five as some parts of it are intricately detailed, while other details are very soft. 
Having heard about CMON's funny business with their Kickstarters, I'm less enthused to paint them. I have two on the table and most likely these will be the last ones I do.  
But anyway: 

I started out with a green that looked too blue, so once finding the color that more closely matched the pic in the book, I carried on.

A few sessions later I was done. Just a regular paint job, of base coating, washing in shadows, reestablishing the base color and then a few highlights. Thanks for looking.

 

Shinto of the Turtle Clan

This very detailed mini is from CMON's Rising Sun game.  Normally I'd just do the bigger sized monsters and demons, but this little one just had too much detail to ignore. I somehow never took WIP shots, so this post will be a showcase. Thanks for looking.

The Monkey King

This time around I finally finished a mini that has been on and off the to do shelf for literally years. It's the Monkey King from CMON's Rising Sun game.  One thing to note that in the game it was given a name. But word got out that CMON simply looked thru names on Wikipedia. Problem was that the name they picked for this guy was hacked, and is actually the name of "some guy" in New Zealand. People complained that Kickstarters handed over +$4 million and CMON went no further than Wikipedia for research.

With that aside it's a pretty nice little mini. The detail is a little soft, but for the size, it's ok.
Being on and off the desk so long I don't have any pics of the model early on - just one WIP and then the final result, but I figure y'all get the idea. ;) Thanks for looking.

CMON Mountain Giant

Reaching back in the Blood Rage game, I pulled out the Mountain Giant. This is a softish type plastic which made getting rid of the seams a little difficult. 
Looking at the box art, everything seems to be tans and browns.

Not liking the disk shaped base I cut it off. the next step will be to creat a little vignette for the giant. Check back and thanks for looking.

Rising Sun's Oni of Blood

This is the second of about a zillion figures from CMON's Rising Sun kickstarter game. While I don't play there are quiet a few of the larger sized Ogre's, Trolls (both know as Oni in Japanese Folklore) Dragons and the like. This guy has been on the desk for weeks. I'd paint him in between other steps and other models as to not waste time.

With so many figures that piqued my interest I was glad that CMON released an art book. The only thing I wished they included even a few lines of what the figure was all about. Having said that I was glad to have a document of what they thought it looked like and what color. Here's the page of the Oni of Blood - 

The figure was well done, but the down side was that it was done is a soft almost rubbery plastic.  It was also pre-assembled, making some places difficult to reach with the paintbrush. Being per-assembled it means that there are seam lines as well as a little flash. With the plastic so soft, it made getting rid of the flash etc... a bit difficult. After a time, I left some flash instead of ruining the figure.

The first thing noticed was the red skin so that where the painting started -

Gloss black was added to those "maces" as they will end up being a gold color. Making a mistake the beaded necklace was painted a tan rather than the gloss black. This will be fixed. 

Heads and faces base coated. Also realized the hands are to be darkly colored

Continuing on, more parts get painted in. He has a number of layers of fabric, heads and gold ornaments that make things a bit difficult to keep track of.

 The gold ornaments are painted the gloss black And the fabric, a dark green color. In the book's image it's hard to make out individual colors - everything looks gray to me. So some I left gray, other items I made a dark green. Then I tried my hand at free brushing a little design. Easy with the flesh color - harder with the gloppy Army Painter Gold I used. I didn't realize until too late that I had Vallejo Gold. :-/

Finally I got to the point where if I went on, I would start ruining things. So I painted the base, glued on some of the red sand I had, and called it done. Thanks for looking.

Took 3x to get the tiny pupils just right.

The Jinmenju

For something in the out of the ordinary file we have the Jinmenju. 
Jinmenju (人面樹, Jinmenju) is a strange tree with human faced fruits called jinmenshi, human-faced child. The tree is said to be found in remote valleys from the south of Japan and China. 
The fruit of the tree looks like a human head. It doesn’t say a word, but it is constantly laughing. It is said that if the fruit laughs too heartily, it falls from the tree. Most people think of yokai as some kind of monster, but the Jinmenju is a type of yokai called choshizen, or super-nature, which includes mysterious plants and animals. 
when I was searching for images of what this tree was all about, I came across this one - 

While I suppose hearing constant laughing while you're walking alone in a dark forest can be creepy, looking at the model from CMON's Rsing Sun miniature game gave it a horror face more like the girl from the Grudge - 

So I sort of split the difference and used the red fruit color for the horror face. Two layers of foam, some Sculpt A Mold, and static grass, and this was a quick build and paint up. Thanks for looking.

 

Rising Sun Miniatures Game

I have been waiting for this one!  as many may know, I don't actually play the mini games. But I do love some of the details that the figures now have - a long way from the old Ral Partha figures. 

This was another Kickstarter offered by Cool Mini Or Not (CMON).  I forget the amount asked, but basically they offer you the game, and then as others join the bandwagon, and the more they make the more free bees (in this case) they offer.  CMON has had tremendous luck with these kickstarters. The last game I was involved with - Blood Rage a Viking game, made more than $1million. This one, if they didn't go over $1 million, they came awfully close.

When all was said an done, I ended up with 4 boxes of game and figures, plus I bought the Art Of book. Their illustrations were terrific and I just had to have it. There was so many of the monsters that impressed me, I wanted to make sure they got painted correctly. 

I just opened one of the Monster Packs and was not disappointed. They are plastic - not hard styrene, but not really that bendy toy type plastic either.  
The pack came with Oni of Plagues, the Fire Dragon, Jorogumo the spider, and Jinmenju, a sort of Tree of Ghosts. I imaged a few of them - 

Oni of Plagues

Jorogumo

Fire Dragon

I can't wait to go thru the rest of the boxes and start painting. Looks like a lot of fun. If this game isn't already available, it should be very soon. Be on the lookout for it. Thanks for looking.