James over at Gonzo History is running a competition inspired by Gary Gygax’s antics designing the original D&D monsters.  Legend goes that young Gary, looking for fantasy monsters to populate his dungeons, got a bag of cheap plastic monsters from Hong Kong and made up names and rules, bringing  Rust Monsters, Bulletes and Owlbears to life for the first time.  James’ challenge is to do the same and win fabulous magic prizes.

The competition rules I took to heart were:

1.  Find something cheap and nasty and plastic.  Not any of this blog’s regular finely-detailed fodder, but something entirely unsuitable for real miniature modelling.  (“Did you try company X‘s miniatures?” you could snark.)
2.  Reinvent it as something different.  It’s a challenge about creating a fresh iconic monster.  No point finding a cheap plastic toy dragon and painting it to be a … dragon.
3. It’s explicitly not a modelling or painting challenge, so don’t expect to win with technical excellency.

Presenting the Great Wight Shark:

Putting the “soul” in sole fish.

This monster started life as a free gift with some CBBC kids magazine.  I was initially drawn to it because of the armour-plated head, which I thought could be transformed into a cool fantasy fish-helmet.  I also thought I could sculpt a samurai armour visor on top and make it into an Oriental Knightfish.  But then I realised the toy was not just green but GLOW IN THE DARK.  Rather than squander this gimmick under putty and paint I decided to harness it to portray a fish spectre.

She’s a shark, and she glows in the dark.

I added bloodsplatter to create visual interest, and also to attach it to a gaming base.  There’s a steel pin running through the bark base through the bottom jaw of that I’ve disguised as blood dripping out its maw and running off the lowest point of its chin.

Here are the stats, 1st edition Monster Manual style:

GREAT WIGHT SHARK

FREQUENCY: Uncommon
NO APPEARING: 1–6
ARMOUR CLASS: 5/10
MOVE: 15″
HIT DICE: 5
% IN LAIR: 10%
TREASURE TYPE: Nil
NO OF ATTACKS: 1
DAMAGE/ATTACKS: 2D4
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Nil
SPECIAL DEFENSES: Silver or magic weapons to hit
MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard
INTELLIGENCE: Animal
ALIGNMENT: Neutral
SIZE: L
PSIONIC ABILITIES: Nil
ATTACK/DEFENSE MODES: Nil

The Great Wight Shark is an undead giant plate-skinned fish, existing on the normal and negative material planes. They are found haunting the places where their inshore waterways once were – where lakes have dried up or rivers have changed course over time.

Great Wight Sharks will attack if their territory is invaded, and can work cooperatively in packs of up to six to hunt prey. Their semi-material jaws, originally for punching through the thick shells of freshwater prey, can penetrate even a knight’s plate armour. Great Wight Sharks have heavily armoured heads and thick thoracic shields with an armour class of 5, though they are very vulnerable to attacks to their fleshy hindquarters where their armour class is 10.

Commonly sighted with other aquatic undead species including Stingwraiths, Ethery Eels, Kelpie Kelp, Tadpoltergeists and Vampiranhas.

My teenage Orc and Goblin army featured a Night Goblin shaman on Cockatrice.  I’ve sold the bulk of the army, but hung onto the Cockatrice out of sentimentality.  Bulking out my Frostgrave Chaos into a Dragon Rampant force demanded a fantastic monster, so this mythological bird resurrected itself from the ashes.

The wings on my Orc and Goblin Cockatrice weren’t the original MM44 ones, but had been nicked from an High Elf Dragon.  I replaced these original replacements with a pair of 15mm Demonworld dragon wings.  Since I was converting the figure with non-Citadel parts, I figured I’d swap the rather dull tail with a scorpion one from the Dark World Manticore.

The Cockatrice torso showing his original yellow paintjob.  He was known as “Lemon Chicken”.

I did plan on him having a Chaos rider, and tried every single mounted Chaos figure in my collection.  However, anything bigger than a weeny Night Goblin shaman looked ridiculous, and the wings and neck all obscure the rider.  So Stingwing is an unbound monster, which also means he’s easier to legitimately field in Age of Sigmar.

Chicken stripped.

Attaching the Demonworld wings, and at a different angle to the original MM44 wings, required hacking away the sockets on the torso and some heavy pinning.  I used three layers of putty to first fill the gaps, then sculpt muscles, and then add fur.

In my efforts to bend the old lead wings into curved shapes I managed to break the left one straight in half.  The metal along the split crumbled, and I had a pig of a time trying to reattach it.  I managed it with pins in the only two places that joined, and a good amount of putty.  Luckily the membranes had very little sculpted detail so my repairs are barely visible.

Anyways, here’s the finished beastie! I went with a mainly flesh, and ran the warband’s signature red colour onto the comb, wattles and scorpion tail.

Cockatrice breaks through a clearing in Mourningwood.

Sadly I have no good photos of the six-way Dragon Rampant game from the Knavecon weekend – I’d borrowed sho3box‘s selfie-stick and only managed photographs of my own arm.

Put in black and white, however, this looks intentionally arty. And you can’t see my Superman socks clashing with the hotel carpet.

The monsters is also an iconic Dungeon and Dragons monster, and will be featuring in some upcoming adventures!

Pazyryk  Banefire and the Thugs in the Matityahu Temple.