Lava Children

Lava Children are often scorned as one of the absurd joke monsters from the Fiend Folio, and people have laughed at the illustration for bearing a striking resemblance to Alfred E. Neuman, but something about the harness it wore had a vaguely Polynesian look that made the association with lava work for me.

On the other hand, I didn't care for the 5th ed. incarnation of the Lava Child, which looks like the unholy spawn of Carrot Top and Pennywise.

There are no miniatures of Lava Children, and I doubt that there ever will be, so I took it upon myself to make my own version based on the original Russ Nicholson illustration.

I started out by sculpting the face out of Kneadatite.

What– Me worry?

To make things simpler for myself, I decapitated one of the Deep Fire Dwarves from Sgt Major Miniatures (now sold by Battle Valor Games) to use as the basis for a body.

I'm guessing that the miniatures are supposed to be Azers from the Monster Manual II, which are probably even more obscure than Lava Children.

First the head was attached, and some lines were scribed onto the kilt.

Then I sculpted the harness to the best of my ability.

My plan for painting is to undercoat with black, and then use a foam brush to dab gray and white over it to replicate the appearance of a charcoal briquette after being used in a barbeque.

A closely related monster for which there are three miniatures is the Magman (Magmin). The first miniature is from the D&D Miniatures line (Angelfire #56), while the next two miniatures are from the Icons of the Realms line (Elemental Evil #01 and Monster Menagerie 3 #1).

The Angelfire miniature was my original candidate as a proxy for a Lava Child, albeit undersized. The Elemental Evil miniature was rather underwhelming, but I liked the Monster Menagerie miniature so much (because it is made of transparent plastic), that I bought a whole bunch of them.

Another lava related miniature is the Magma Mephit (Monster Menagerie 3 #02a), which has an alternate paint version that is the Mud Mephit (Monster Menagerie 3 #02b).

I really like the look of these miniatures, and if you don't want to use them as mephits, they could just as easily pass for imps or homunculi.