It is time for the beginnings of a second set of crews for Malifaux: Ten Thunders. I’m really enjoying Malifaux, but the fact that their range was entirely metal was a downside for me as I vastly prefer plastic as a medium for my dollies toy soldiers miniatures. So when Wyrd announced that the new faction (Ten Thunders) would be released in plastic, my geeky little heart cried out in joy. After playing a game against a local Henchman’s Dark Debts crew, I decided that it was worth a purchase. Thus far I have been annoying my friends by insisting that we play 24SS games of Malifaux (a non-standard size but it’s the most you can get out of the basic crew box) since that’s all I have of Ten Thunders. The crew is a lot of fun to play but I’m not sure if I will be able acquire enough Ten Thunders miniatures to play them in the next tournament.
Anyway, here is the Hungering Darkness. He’s an evil demon thing who lives in the basement of the Honeypot, the casino owned by Mr Lynch (more on him later), eating the souls of various gamblers. In game, he’s hilarious as he gives people the Brilliance effect, uses them to do his bidding, then pops back out of them when they finally die (if anyone has been able to kill him in the meantime). The miniature, while looking reasonably like the artwork, is difficult to paint well as it looks like a giant tadpole. I opted to paint the legs a different colour from his body simply to make the Hungering Darkness look a bit less like a big black blob. I’m still unsure on the eyes, which are plain white at the moment. The rest of the Brilliance-infected crew will have pupil-less eyes to show their inhumanity but it doesn’t look great at this size. On the other hand, my other thoughts (e.g. slit pupils) would be hard to pull off without looking even more silly, so I’m going to leave them for now in case I get inspiration.
Finally, here is the first work from Argentbadger Junior MK1; aged 3. It’s Sparkie the Dragon from Mike the Knight if you’re interested.
Next on the painting table: The Illuminated.
The Bovine Overlord 
Hungering Darkness looks cool. I am unfamiliar with the official scheme for the figure, but making the legs, teeth and tail a different colour looks good to me.
I recently painted a couple of fishmen that had a similar angler fish look. I also decided to paint the eyes a milky colour as it fit with that, I agree with you regarding painting eyes like those of a lizard or cat: its hard to get right and usually ends up looking more like something from the Muppets.
Argentbadger Junior MK1 paints better than some of my grown up opponents over the years did.
Thanks very much. For an alternative (and rather better) look at the Hungering Darkness, check out Markus’s version here.
Regarding children vs grown up painting, I must just be lucky in this group. Although we all play our share of unpainted miniatures when appropriate, the quality of models are painted is pretty high. In the Malifaux tournaments I’ve attended, I’m pretty much in awe of all my opponents’ crews. Maybe people just bring out their ‘Sunday best’ for such occasions (though I don’t particularly).
Argentbadger Junior MK1’s painting is spot on. My three year old paints a lot of ceramics (my wife does a lot of pottery n stuff) and its only in the last week that she’s started to paint at this level. Before then it was just random colour splodges but now shes trying to pick out detail. I might have a model painter in the family yet!