I liked the castle so I bought the snake...

The Creatology 3D puzzles have come up for discussion on The Miniatures Page message boards, and last post you saw the Creatology 3D puzzle castle I was using for 18mm anthropomorphic fantasy, which I'm quite happy with for my purposes. The TMP thread started with a post about a sphinx puzzle, so today I went to my local Michael's store to see if I could score one, with the additional intent to buy some gesso to try as primer.

I didn't find the sphinx, but I did find a skeletal snake for $1.50 that I've sussed out three uses for (now I gotta go back and buy two more of the things though!). The first use will be as a full model, representing a statue that can be used as a scenic piece either indoors or out.

This is the thing head on, and below is from the side, with our 40mm lady again standing in for scale.

I'm thinking of trying to paint it a jade colour, maybe starting off with black spray paint, then green, then maybe with some lighter highlighting afterwards. It came with googly eyes, but I'm going to use some plastic jewel pieces that you find in craft and dollar stores, my plan is for red (ruby) but may have to go with clear (diamonds).

If you just look at the head, I can think of two things I'd like to do with it on its own. The easy one will be to use it as an idol hanging from a temple wall (Kull anyone?), maybe done up in brass (ruby eyes would look good in that scenario), with a blood-stained altar below.

The second option will be to have it as part of the external entrance to the temple or some subterranean cavern, the sort of thing where you have to walk into the snake's mouth to gain entrance, with steps leading down once you're in.

Hmmm, now that I think of it, a third use would be to use the two pieces that make up the "bread" in the head sandwich and turn them on their side, so the tip of the snout meets in the middle, sort of forming an arch...guess that means three puzzles to buy tomorrow!

Now what to do with the bodies? I'm thinking with some strategic cuts, they'd make good "bleached bones of an ancient leviathan" scenices, for everything from 2mm fantasy up to 28mm skirmish. One scenic piece of the bones stretched out in the desert, another of them half-embedded in a cliff wall, maybe covered in loam in some dark forest, that sort of thing.

In other purchasing adventures, I picked up some 1/72 Airfix WWI infantry for the British, German, and Americans, so I guess I've started a "Through the Mud and Blood" project too... I also picked up a 1/720 model of the Hindenburg, for WWI and pulp aerial adventures.