Colours weren't yet invented in the 20's!

[Silent Invader]

Very nice - much more disturbing in shades of grey - I too made the mistake of instantly thinking B&W photos - which is a compliment to the effectiveness of your paintwork.

[Steve F]

Lovely painting, Marko - especially given that these are from a sculptor whose style I dislike.

But my mother would have hated you.  Whenever a film or TV programme used black-and-white to indicate a flashback to past events, she'd complain, "We didn't actually live in black and white in those days, you know!"   

[kidterminal]

Yup, all gangsters are Dixon minis. I really like them, nice and chunky

I really need to paint the eyes on these, the two that I did look so much better than the rest..

They look great much better then I expected them to be.

Rob

[vikotnik]

  Great idea to put Cthulhu in a monochrome setting!

These really are great paint jobs and an excellent choice of miniarures. Thanks for sharing!

[marko.oja]

Thanks for all the comments.

The "drive" for this project came from me trying to learn how to shade. There is an excellent article on painting black and white by Carmen "evilcartoonist" Cerra at http://www.thecourtjestersstudio.com/files/wpm3high.pdf which highlights the key point of painting this way.

One thing I noticed when painting these is that contrary to what you might think, this isn't any quicker that using colour - you still have to paint just as much surface. Instead of using triads of colour, I bought 10 or so different shades of grey and used triads of these and tried to create contrasts between the "coloured" areas. My own favourite is the third guy in the top picture: there's a medium "middle area", surrounded by the darker coat, and highlighted by the white spats and hat.

I'm getting more and more tempted by the idea of a sepia cowboy project, these were fun to paint... Maybe I should do a couple more cthulhu monsters and a car or two for this project though...

[Blackwolf]

Great Marko,very evocative and moody I like moody

[Onebigriver]

Those are great Marko. I was tempted to do something similar after seeing an article in the shortlived Wargames Painting and Modelling.

Incidentally, there is a CoC black and white silent movie out there:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478988/

[ushistoryprof]

They look great in black & white

[MrHarold]

Looks awesome, thanks for sharing!

[marko.oja]

I was tempted to do something similar after seeing an article in the shortlived Wargames Painting and Modelling.

That's the same article as the one I've linked. WPM was a very good magazine, shame they aren't making it anymore.

And as to the movie - the store where I used to work sells it, and a few years back we were showing the movie on repeat just before christmas, so being behind the counter meant that I've seen the film probably 20 times... It was good the first time but after that... On the other hand, watching the film over and over again may well have been the subconscious reason for doing this project, who knows 

[chicklewis]

Please let me know the manufacturer and model numbers for the non-robed 'deep ones'.  I need to add them to my swarm. 

[marko.oja]

Black Cat Bases: http://www.blackcatbases.com/product.asp?strParents=&CAT_ID=145&P_ID=604

The ghouls on the same page look very nice too...

[chicklewis]

Thanks, Marko !

[Crudeboy]

Amazing work, marko.

I recently finished a guy for SuperSystem painted up in the same way, with bits of color here and there, Sin City style. I'd read the aforementioned tutorial and decided to give it a shot. It's a remarkably easy technique.

Once again, great work. I'm especially fond of the beasties. 

As for the CoC movie, if any of you are Netflix subscribers they recently put it and a few other Lovecraft Film Fest movies on Instant View.