I am considering an adventure for my local group that will involve some extended underground travel.  It’s a custom campaign so there’s no Underdark and what not, but there will be some shriekers, mycanoids, and other plant based life in addition to some traditional underground dwelling critters.

To that end I have begun a project to make some fungi to place on the map.

The plan for the first one was simply an ovoid on a vertical stalk (like a bush) with irregular growth.  I added a toothpick to a plastic base and trimmed it at the max height I wanted for this large fungus.

Then using superglue and sand I built up the tip of the toothpick with sand.  Once I had a core I added ballast to the outside using superglue and sand to cement it all together.  I then knocked off a couple of small chunks of ballast to maintain the irregular shape.

Voila, a large green ovoid fungus that will exhale spores into a chamber as a natural trap to create some carrion to grow on.  (side note to self: disassemble a skeleton to “grow” a fungus from)

I added more ballast to a section of the ovoid and the ground.  This will be a separate organism / parasite that is growing onto the ovoid.

So after filling the parasite with a bit of glue to blur the organism into itself, I painted it orange and then back on the ovoid I painted in the raised sections white and then filled the interior of that with a purple.

See … at this point I had forgotten something … adding the Glow in the Dark medium to the paints.  So angry.

The next step was to continue introducing paint to increase the texture contrast and make the white/purple into “caps” around the sides of this ovoid while leaving a lot of the base ovoid “exposed”.

When next we see the ovoid again, you’ll see some lining around the “caps,” mottling on the base ovoid and a wash to add more shadows to the parasite organism.