Monster March - Warhammer Hydra - Week 2

We're back with another installment of Monster March. Last week I pledged to paint a hydra to join my old school goblin army and I've raced ahead with the painting. Behold the result below!

Somehow, it's finished.

Yep that's right, I went and got all excited and finished my pledge in the first week. It wasn't all plain sailing though and I'm still not one hundred percent sure about the finished model. If you like it, leave some positive reinforcement in the comments to stop me from repainting the damn thing!

As I said last time, I really wasn't sure which colours to use on this beastie. I knew I wanted to use green so that it tied in with the goblins. So I started with a Vallejo yellow-green basecoat, but that really didn't look right.

Yeah, I hate it.

After doing this basecoat on Wednesday night, I slept on it and then covered all the green areas with a layer of contrast terradon turquoise the next day. That made me feel a little better about things.

I chose the orange because a hydra strikes me as a semi-aquatic creature and I thought something like a fire bellied newt might look cool. Plus in Warhammer 5th edition they can breathe fire so I wanted something that would tie in with that. I basecoated it with Vallejo game air orange over a white undercoat which looked quite nice but was a bit wishy-washy.

Basecoats looking better.

So I painted on a sort of striped pattern with Citadel blazing orange which gave it a bit more life. It still needed some depth though, so I put on a coat of Reikland fleshshade. I tried doing the claws in purple but that looked dreadful as well, how frustrating! In the end, I settled on a nice neutral colour.

That's a lot of heads to paint.

By comparison, the shaman rider was very easy to paint. I already have an established scheme for my night goblins so I just used that. Even perched up there behind the head crest he wasn't too tricky.

The finished article.

Anyway, after what felt like a rather arduous week of painting I'm pleased to have it done. I like the final colour scheme, but I'm worried that it clashes horribly with the rest of the army! At the moment it's sitting in the cabinet next to the goblins and we'll see if I go nuts and try for a repaint.

Putting the hydra aside for a moment, I've somehow finished my Monster March pledge. Time to go for some stretch goals then! I've been working on a unit of old metal ogres as part of the goblin horde and I have a few more to paint, so it seems like a good time to break them out and see if I can finish them as well!

Here's two I made earlier.

I love these classic ogre models and it would be great to finish the unit. Come back next week to see how I'm getting on!