Off the Bench: Ice Demons

Light and breezy today. I’m working a few beefier posts but sometimes you just want to wax poetic about your silly small side project.

Introducing my frost demons. Really, they’re part of my Godmarked concept–a group of humans marked by their dying god, giving them tainted blood that mutates them into demonic forms when they win in battle. The elation of victory takes hold and your skin becomes stone-like as you twist into a new form that will never leave you. Of course, looking like a demon doesn’t help in political relations, so they embrace the curse as it gives them the strength to defend themselves.

Why frost? Look, I won’t lie: I did the stone skin and decided a frost base would look cool. I came up with a simple method and… well… frost demons!

They were fast, fun, and easy. I’ll do a whole force like this and use them across a variety of settings for years to come, I’m sure. I’m increasingly tempted to do a Five Leagues from the Borderlands campaign with these as one of the villain groups. Immediately, they were intended for Midgard and Age of Fantasy. My Midgard opponent has drifted back into Elder Scrolls: Call To Arms, which has been his “home” game for the past two years, so I doubt I’m getting him back on the grand field any time soon. They’ll definitely see play in Age of Fantasy with the kiddo, though–especially because in the lore there, his lizardmen hate the Rift Daemons and want to destroy them. It lines up well.

As always, I love these little side projects where I chase down an impulse through to its logical end. The drive to get these painted really started with the base. I put down a layer of blue paint, then an uneven layer of Liquitex Matte Super Heavy Gel, which I dry brush white after drying. The snow is just AK Ice Sparkles on some glue. Super easy and very satisfying to my sudden desire to make an ice army. Assuming I can find time while the passion lasts, these will make a cool little army, if you can forgive the pun.