Thursday, April 23, 2020

Larval Stalker


The Larval Stalker is a ghost-like entity that comes from the original Silent Hill video game. They don't get much in the way of attention because they are harmless, and don't really play a large part in the game.

I've always liked them because of how strange and mysterious they were, so I decided to finally create a sculpt after years of toying with the idea.

The beta texture for the Larval Stalker offered the clearest image to base my sculpt on, since it is not transparent.


I carved the body out of plastic sprue, then used staples to make the arms and legs. The head, limbs, and details were fleshed out with Kneadatite.



Once things settle down a bit and I am able to get more stable with my finances, I'll try to order some mold making supplies so I can cast the sculpt in clear resin.

Part of the lore in Silent Hill is that Larval Stalkers eventually turn into Stalkers, but I'm more of the opinion that Stalkers are just a variant of the Gray Child (just more difficult to see).


Making Gray Children was easy because I planned on modifying pre-existing figures.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I received an order from Khurasan Miniatures at the beginning of the month, and part of the reason I made the order was because The Flayed from their Apoc666 line of horror minatures, looked like good candidates for Gray Children.


The miniatures are possibly a bit shorter and thinner than I would prefer, but they'll do.

There are two different looks used for the Gray Children (or three if you include the Mumbler).

In the Japan/Europe release, the Gray Child was changed to the Mumbler because of concerns that the final texture for the Gray Child was too similar to a human child.



In any event, I sculpted both the beta texture and the final texture versions of the Gray Children by building up the heads of the Flayed with Kneadatite.


I then drilled some holes into their hands and added some filed down staples to represent knives.


If you are wondering about the blue Sharpie markings all over their bodies, it's for an experiment to see if I can produce veining on the figures.


After spraying a coat of solvent based primer, the Sharpie bleeds to the surface. I think the technique doesn't quite work on figures that are this small, but the primed figures kind of resembles the Gray Children from the Silent Hill movie.


I'm not sure how well the blue will stay visible after I start adding my gray washes, but we'll see.

On a separate note, the other Apoc666 figures are also quite interesting. I got some Lurkers in Dark Places, and I would have gotten the Cercopyths as well except I didn't want to go over budget.


I'm thinking these guys can make great Bone Devil imps (while the Cercopyths would make great Demogorgon quasits) along the lines of what's happening in D&D with Yeenoghu quasits or Yeenoghu dretches in Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus.

The aforementioned creatures are available in the D&D Icons of the Realms line. Yeenoghu's Dretch (Baldur's Gate Descent Into Avernus #12) is on the left, while Yeenoghu's Quasit (Baldur's Gate Descent Into Avernus #01) is on the right.


The Lurkers are taller than the quasit, but I think they all look good together because they have similar builds.


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