Fishfolk Cultists

Over the Christmas Holiday I started working on the Fishfolk Cultists from Crooked Dice. These were released along with a lot of other Lovecraft themed minis and terrain to support the “Lurkers from the Deep” feature pack. To be fair, these were released before LotD dropped, I guess to whet the appetite.

Even though Lurkers is firmly placed in the Pulp genre, these fishy fellows have nothing that forces them into a specific time period. Yes, they can be cultists in a modern or pulp era story. But they can also be used in a Fantasy setting or even, maybe in a Post Apocalypse setting.

One of the figures is quite large. Not too big or out of scale, but clearly bigger than his companions. This is a feature of some Crooked Dice minis. A lot of miniature lines will focus on keeping everything as close in height as possible, usually those with a more historical focus. It can look odd with everyone at the same exact eye level.

But, people aren’t like that. Crooked Dice has minis for larger and smaller characters that don’t look like you are mixing scale. This big guy stands out. Not as if you accidentally pulled in a 32mm scale figure, but as just being a tall specimen of whatever he his.

I kept the color scheme very close to what others have done with the cultists. That dark red robe and dark grey hood are difficult to work with. It’s tough to get highlights to work well without them standing out too much. Nicely, the minis have enough detail that a simple block paint, wash, and highlight with the same paint goes a long way.

The skin color was going to be tough. I didn’t want to mix a color, because I have many, many more fishfolk to paint and I just know that I would never recreate anything I mixed. I also didn’t want them looking too “fishy” on the table. From a distance, the greenish skin should be of a shade that could be easily mistaken for normal skin tones.

I played with a few different options, and settled on Army Painter Necrotic Flesh for most of the skin. For the “soft underbelly” portions, like under the chin, the palms, and under exposed arms, I used Army Painter Skeleton Bone. When hit with a wash, these colors work very well together for fishfolk.

For the eyes, I went with progressively brighter shades of yellow. No pupil needed here, though you could do that. I tried fish-eye effects with a large dark pupil, but it didn’t look right.

One mini, the high priest or whatever, has tentacles in place of an arm. Not sure if that’s a blessing or a curse for this group. And that raises an interesting possibility for 7TV gaming. Some of the plants from the Apocalypse minis have similar tentacles. It’s a mix of themes, but whose to say the curse and cult aren’t somehow related to plants and fish? Could be an interesting mix of characters for a cast.

Cultists only a dispassionate external being with no regard for human affairs or concepts of human morality could love. There is another fishfolk miniature that I plan to paint in a similar color scheme.

As usual, I highly recommend these figures. The casting is clean and detailed. The minis are well done with enough detail to make painting them interesting. With the look of these, there are a lot of other color schemes and themes that could be applied. With a more human skin tone, these could easily be evil humans or half-orcs in a more Tolkein-ish fantasy world. Maybe not Tentacles there, but the others are good.

And yes, I have decided that’s guy’s name is Tentacles, pronounced in the Greek fashion. Like Heracles, Pericles, or Icicles.

2022 Count:
14 figures painted
14 figures printed
3 figures purchased