It's weird how there have been, over the years, certain lacunae in models available in undead form. Certain things you have a complete glut, like dragons. Boy, do sculptors love to make undead dragons! And then you get completely nothing in things you think would be fairly obvious - like an undead hydra. And then, you go decades without undead representation for some fairly common races/creatures like say, ogres, and then all of a sudden everyone has the same idea within a short amount of time and you get a whole bunch.
I always wanted an undead representation of one of the most iconic D&D monsters, one of the few wholly original creatures in original D&D, the beholder.
For years there was no undead beholder representation, but around 2007 Wizards of the Coast put out this Beholder Liche for its prepainted D&D miniature line.
Wizards of the Coast D&D Unhallowed #31 Beholder Liche
For a prepainted plastic, the quality of this piece is really good. Although it suffers from all the issues that prepainted plastics do, the sculpt itself is not bad and probably deserves a reissue in resin. The paint job is ok, but could really pop with a quick prime and repaint. Of particular interest is the missing central eye, which could be attributed to rot, but apparently was part of the original lore of the beholder liche. I'm not a lore guy, and I really couldn't care less about fluff, but when the idea of a beholder liche became a thing, part of the process for becoming an undead magic user required the beholder to blind itself. Which I think is a pretty cool detail, seeing how the large central eye is the defining characteristic of the creature.
And there's this zombie beholder from the defunct Magnificent Egos Miniatures circa 2005.
Magnificent Egos MEO4037 Oculus, The Rotten Eye
A full metal piece. Not the greatest sculpt, but very interesting. I particularly like how the guts spilling out of the mouth forms the flying base. The excellent paint job above done by Dragon Eye Miniatures.
But aside from those two figures, there was nothing. I figured I could use one or both of the two as a random monster in one of my undead chaos armies, but certainly not put together a unit or anything.
But now, it's raining undead beholders!
Wizards of the Coast D&D Dungeon of the Mad Mage #44 Death Tyrant
Wizards of the Coast D&D Dungeon of the Mad Mage #29 Zombie Beholder
Two new prepainted plastics from Wizards of the Coast's D&D line. The Eye Tyrant is a larger figure and I think a better sculpt than the Zombie Beholder. Again, I like how the Eye Tyrant reflects the current D&D lore with the creature being solely skeletal, but with the eyes still magically revolving around the head long after the stalks have rotted away.
And because we live in a world of 3D printing where you can actually create anything you can dream up...
Jax Miniatures Death Tyrant
3D printed Death Tyrant from Jax Miniatures located on Shapeways
Death Tyrant by Duncan Shadow Louca
Above is a magnificent sculpt by the extremely talented 3D artist Duncan "Shadow" Louca. You can buy a number of his prints from shops on Etsy or contribute to his Patreon and print your own!
Dungeonworks Death Tyrant
A 3D printable Death Tyrant from the recent Dungeonworks Monstrous Encounters - Undead Rising Kickstarter. It looks really cool. Again, I like what they do with the ghostly eye stalks. Of course, I'll let you all know, once I get my freaking Ender 3 to freaking print!
