Painting Crawling Chaos

This is the third faction I painted for Cthulhu Wars. I was creeping toward higher ambitions at this point, but took a lot of shortcuts.

The faction colour is a mixture of VGC 72.022 “Ultramarine Blue”, VGC 72.023 “Electric Blue”, and much less VMC 70.811 “Blue Violet”. I decided to associate blue with magic in other factions, so the Wizards, though opposed to Crawling Chaos, are also mostly blue.

The primary contrast colour is VGC 72.035 “Dead Flesh”. I highlighted it with VMC 70.858 “Ice Yellow”, which was also used on the tabards of the Acolytes, and again on Sleeper’s Wizards.

Another paint I used in several places with this faction is shared with the Masks of Nyarlathotep, a mostly-neutral expansion: VMC 70.893 “US Dark Green”. I used it as a heavy glaze on the Dark Demons of that expansion, which are not shown here. For Crawling Chaos, I used it in Nyarlathotep’s trench above the burning eye, to stain the Polyps, etc. The recurring intermediary between Ice Yellow and US Dark Green is VGC 72.035 “Dead Flesh”.

Acolytes

The masks and krises are silver.

Nightghaunts

This is little more than a wash, but the sculpt is good enough to make it work.

Flying Polyps

I was inspired by Chase Norton’s Flying Polyps when I designed the eyes.

The base of the eye is the mixed faction colour. The streaks are Ultramarine Blue. The iris is Dead Flesh with a webbing of US Dark Green. The pupils are black.

I had a lot of fun with these, especially staining the Dead Flesh skin by flicking red and black inks; that produced the right dirty look. The darker red is P3 Flesh Wash.

Hunting Horrors

Like the Nightghaunts, the original paint job on these was fast: A very thin wash of 50% Vallejo Smokey Ink and 50% Vallejo blue ink, with VGC 72.006 “Sun Yellow” tongues and Electric Blue eyes over white. That original paint job was damaged on one wing after several years of play, and it never looked very good.

Lovecraft describes the “hunting-horrors” of Nyarlathotep only on the last page of The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (1927), and uses no colours to do it, except that the ash they leave when burned is grey. Still, it is common today to describe them as black after later authors, so when I repainted the Hunting Horrors in 2026, I first darkened what was left of the original paint job with a glossy black primer, diluted to a thick wash and leaving the bright blue highlights, then I applied three layers of GSWCM 1728 Darth Blue all over the skin, alternating with highlights up to VGC 72.047 “Wolf Grey” and adding a little white on the first “finger” coming off the metacarpus. This was a quick fix, but the glossiness of it does suggest something of Lovecraft’s shapelessness.

Nyarlathotep

Crawling Chaos is led by a specific avatar of Nyarlathotep, called the Bloody Tongue. I did not paint it to look bloody, but complex and semi-naturalistic, because I liked the crustacean look of its legs and lower opening.

It’s mainly VGC 72.019 “Night Blue” in thin glazes, and lighter blues that are colder than the Ultramarine Blue on the base. The basic brown is VMC 70.822 “German C. Black Brown”, also followed by lighter cold browns. The subordinate greens are principally mixed from the blues and the browns, but a more saturated green was used for the gem-shaded orbs on the figure’s hands and for the “souls” in the figure’s chest and gut.

Retrospective

Nyarlathotep’s chest as shown here was repainted by hand following a failed attempt to airbrush the glow. I would like to try it again with some airbrush-friendly fluorescent and more careful OSL.