D&D crafting: monster from The Ritual
The Ritual is a fantastic British horror film that came out in 2017. You can find it on Netflix. Given that the true nature of the villain is a massive reveal at the end of the film, this video is a heavy spoiler. If you haven't seen The Ritual, maybe watch it first, so spoiler alert.
Spoiler alert out the way, this video is a build / conversion job to make the monster from The Ritual, the Jötunn or Moder. When I saw it, I thought it was one of the most D&D things I've seen on the screen in a many a year, so it was only a matter of time before I hit the crafting table. This is the only YouTube copyright friendly image I can find of the Jötunn from the film, but you can easily find a better one without those restrictions via Google.
For this build I'm going to use this:
• Schleich giraffe calf toy.
• Bits of old sprue (the plastic frame model kits come attached to).
• Das air-drying clay.
• Tin foil.
• Paper clips.
• Pin vice with a bit around the same width as the paper clips (about 0.85mm).
If it's any consolation I did feel terrible removing the head from the giraffe calf. Unfortunately it's the body I want, and not the head.
I'm going to need a framework around which to form the bizarre human torso-shaped head the monster has. It will have two bars top and bottom, like the serifs of a capital I to give the antler and arms something strong to connect to.
Here I drilled the main body and the middle of the cut-out sprue section with a pin-vice, so I could to pin them together. The 0.85mm bit it is just right for the paper-clips I'm using to make the pins.
Luckily I had these genestealer arms, which, being heroic scale, as it's called, are larger than the more realistic 28mm model standard and are better suited to the monster.
Here I'm drilling holes so I can pin the arms to the sprue frame.
I've pre-drilled the frame so that I can super-glue a single pin that runs all the way through, for extra strength.
Here the genestealer arms are going onto the head-torso frame.
I used some bits from another old empty sprue to make a frame for the antlers.
This is the somewhat fiddly job of drilling through the top of the torso-head frame to give the antlers a pin to attach to.
I'll use these lengths of paper-clip to slide the antler sections onto. It's not obvious in the illustration, but because the bulk of the Ritual monster's head looks like a torso from above, where the antlers meet the torso-head the antlers look a bit like arms. I'll be able to bend the wire on the model to match the joints where they're halfway between antler and human arms on the monster.
Here are the first two sections of the antler-arms. If you see them more as arms than antlers, then these will be the upper arms, so to speak.
This second pair of drilled-out sprue sections will do as a base for the rack of antlers.
Once the underlying wire is bent, this should start to make visual sense, even though they do look like the handlebars of a motorbike at the moment!
Hot glue is good for sticking the tips of cocktail sticks to the antler rack.
Now the framework is done, foil goes on to bulk out the torso-head.
Here I'm stuffing a whole load more foil in to give the neck between the torso-head and the rest of the Jötunn's body more bulk.
This is the first layer of Das clay going on. It's pretty rough at this stage.
With a bit of care and plenty of water to keep the clay smooth, I can start to form the pectoral muscles on the pseudo-torso, along with a curved ridge to show where the ribs would be, if they were actually ribs.
Then I put a strip of clay on to represent the naturally-forming hooded section, which covers the Jötunn's real eyes.
Because the monster's back has a row of spines, I had to drill a line of holes to put pins into. Again, this is just using chopped up sections of paper clips.
Pins all the way!
There's a bit more clay to go on to hide the fact I've used genestealer arms. I also needed to make a stump where the torso-head's head would be if it was a torso and not a head. Did that make sense? This cryptid biology is getting confusing.
The back spines were easy to fill out by putting the glue gun's nozzle over them like this.
The torso-head head stump isn't prominent enough, so I'm extending it slightly with more Das clay.
I've black-bombed the model with primer and here I'm going over with burnt umber - or dark brown to me and you.
I'm starting to highlight now with a heavy dry-brush - almost a wet-brush - with a mixture of burnt umber and clay coloured paints. I wished I'd filmed it, but I went over the main body of the creature with the hot glue gun, daubing on blobs then dragging the tip of the glue gun through the daub. This made the body look more monstrous and less like that of a giraffe, I think.
This is just clay-colour going on now.
Moving up to the upper highlights, this is a mixture of clay and sand colour paint.
A last, very light, pass with pure clay-colour contrasts strongly with the original dark base tones.
To finish, I'm using a wash. These inks are highly pigmented, so I'll be using them sparingly. Flow aid will dilute the ink and also make it sit in the recesses, leaving the raised areas of the model less affected.
This vignette shows the monster as it might look at the table. Hope you enjoyed this video as much as I enjoyed running the session where the Jötunn appeared. Check out the Callathiforay series if you'd like to know more about the world in which the campaign is set.
Until next time, insert snappy sign-off here.
