Kings of War Monsters: Designing The Chroneas
19th Jun 2018
Dave
This week, we’ll be taking a look at some of the new monster releases for Kings of War. We’re kicking off things today with a look at the design process for the Chroneas!
The Chroneas is a bizarre and mysterious creature. There’s very little text available to describe it; an ancient being that pre-dates not only the Abyssals, but the Wicked Ones themselves. It has the ability to manipulate time; either slowing down or speeding up the passage of time around it. It uses this power to avoid blows or destroy its enemies by ageing them centuries in seconds. Physically, it is described as a lumbering, black skinned giant.
It was the job of the Mantic Studio to piece together these breadcrumbs to create a new monster for Kings of War. The first step in this process is to create concept art, to visually express what the miniature could look like. This goes over several stage of refinement before you get to something approaching the final model. The Chroneas was tough to nail down initially, as it had to fit in with the rest of the Forces of the Abyss range, but also be visually distinct from them (remember, it isn’t an Abyssal).
These initial concepts were created by the talented Juan Dianderas and show the first ideas or the creature. Fire was a recurring theme, as it helps to tie it into the demonic forces of the Abyss. We refined this more based on the physical description – specifically the word lumbering, and its relatively low speed in the game – this needs to be a slow walking ancient giant. The second set of concepts we had done reflected this.
By the time we got to the final concepts, you can really see how the final miniature will look (or does look, now that it has been produced). The lighting effect here is actually to aid the sculptor by clearly defining which areas are magma and which are obsidian. You can see the various poses we were looking at and even identify the final pose we went with for the miniature.
After going to one of our talented sculptors, then through our amazing resin casting department (who are always in high demand), the final miniature was ready for painting by our studio and production for our loyal fans. We even had one particularly dedicated soul who painted one up between games in a tournament – to bring his army up to 100% Mantic.
