Cthellean Cudbear

“PIC-I-NIC BASKETS!!!”

Cthellean Cudbear

Rear Shot

You can sort of see its peculiar face in this shot.

According to Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader:

Native Cthellean Bear

“The Cudbear is a vicious carnivore originating from the Cthelle Death World.  Its natural habitat is cool woodland and mountain, and its shaggy coat is ideal for keeping out the cold and wet.  The same coat also gives the creature the appearance of a large, purple, excessively furry bear with gaping tooth filled mouth and long rending talons.  Cudbears are highly territorial and ruthless killers, and think nothing of attacking even large numbers of well armed troops.”

“The Cthellean Cudbear is a useful example of a typical Death World carnivore.  Any number of similar creatures can be represented with the same profile and habits.  It can be controlled by the GM, moving towards and attacking the nearest models at all times.”

Native Earth Bear

The model that I used to represent this classic RT wandering monster is a Secrets of the Third Reich Soviet Urzine Were Bear.  A regular bear model would have worked fine too (and is undoubtedly what the RT authors intended) but when I saw this model for sale cheaply I bought it with this use in mind.  I like that the design suggests some sort of bear – its still vaguely ursine in some way – while not looking like any real-life bear.

The howling pose makes the figure hard to photograph properly, which compounds that it has quite an odd face that is a little hard to make out.  It looks fine on the table though, staring up at its owner.

L to R: GW Chaos Space Marine, SotTR Urzine Were Bear, GW Inquisitor

The cudbear got a pretty fast series of drybrushes for its fur, followed by a little bit of layering on the tongue, snout, head, ears and paw pads.  I painted the teeth and claws up from orange through to white rather than the browns that I usually use.  I thought that the orange would look nice and space-alien-y against the purple, but its a pretty subtle thing really, hardly visible.

Cudbear close up.

It took me a while to figure out just what the models mouth reminded me of, but I worked it out eventually: it reminds me the mouth on Mikey, the alien disguised as a immigrant at the beginning of Men in Black.

Mikey from Men in Black

Cudbear is the name of a purple dye in real life.  I didnt know that until very recently.  So the creatures name is – technically speaking – a form of joke.

“Peter Jackson presents…”