A Halloween Night Horror

I've had this mini in my collection for a very long time and decided, on the eve of Halloween to paint it up (there's also a competition on the Night Horror and Gothic Horror Facebook page which helped motivate me). 

I've tried out a black background for my photographs for the first time too, for added spooky darkness.

This old Night Horror wraith came to me broken, the scythe was missing and so a suitable old, rusty replacement sword was located (I think this is from the Mantic skeleton sprue) and I placed the sword where the hands would be, trying to make it look like it was being held by the unseen, supernatural force of the wraith. 

The paint job was so easy. Primed black, zenithal through grey and a touch of white from above and then several washes of nuln oil to make the zenithal blend together. Then quote simply a few highlights of grey/blue on the robes and a final glaze of a black. Gloss varnish applied inside the jood. The rusty sword was boltgun metal washed with bestial brown and then part bestial brown and part ryza rust. Edge highlights with chainmail. Perhaps 30minutes all in including the base. 

Makes me want to gather all my other undead and see if there is a start of a quick army there....

28 Plague Zombies and Plague Cart (185pts)

The diversity of the Nurgle Army list in the Lost and the Damned tome, is one of the most appealing features in my desire to create an army from it. I love the Zombie concept and the list allows me to have a unit of them amongst my Nurgle legions. I'm not a fan of any of the GW zombies, whether lead or plastic, past or present, but I am a massive fan of the Mantic variety and about 5 years ago I bought a load of them and skeletons in some deal. 

They really are a very good plastic kit, the multi part element gives lots of options and with a little imagination in reposing you can easily create that wandering, shambling horde look as the zombies stumble towards their prey enmasse. I'd painted about 10 of them back then and now 5 years later, I've finished the other 17, the Sorcerer and the movement tray. The painting was over the top of a white undercoat and was comprised of a succession of washes and glazes of yellows, browns and greens and then for blood, purples, browns, blacks and reds. 

Here you can see a wip photo of the painting process, as well as the variety of shambling poses:

Zombies generally need a Necromancer to animate them so I've included the option for a level 10 Undead Hero, which in this case, for narrative reasons, is an Undead Nurgle Sorcerer.

Now this is far from my favourite ever Nurgle model, but I had it for some reason in my bitz box and decided to try and improve it. Off went the silly, crooked hood and over the top staff and a horn and skull were added respectively. 

The Lost and the Damned also allows for skeletons, but I'm not keen to include them, I don't want this to be too similar to an undead army, however it does allow for a Plague Cart, for free (!) which of course is very NURGLESQUE and can be part of the Calvalcade that I have in mind later for this army. This was painted a few years ago for the annual Deadcember competition and I was lucky enough then to win a prize for it, a Zombie dragon. But that's for another day and another army... 

So 28 Plague Zombies + Level 10 Undead Hero + Plague Cart =185pts.

The current cumulative total for the army now exceeds 2000pts at 2055pts. 

Until next time...  

Deadcember: Scibor Necromancer

 Scibor miniatures produce some lovely sculpts (perhaps not everyone’s tastes) but still wonderful character and detail, in my opinion. This is the first one I have bought from them; having been disappointed to find the original sculpt of this being only available in 54mm size. I loved the sculpt as soon as I saw it with the Necromancer actively raising his undead minions and the lovely triangular composition in particular being pretty inspiring. So I was made up when I heard that this sculpt was also available in 28mm scale too and immediately purchased it from their website. It was, I’m sure you can imagine, a pleasure to paint after I had decided to base the Necromancer on the Emperor Palpatine due to their very similar appearance. I knew I wanted him to made up of blues and blacks and have slightly warmer, contrasting flesh tones for the summoned zombies. The model will fit in well with my Mantic zombies and therefore they have a new leader to direct them around the dungeon.

The “Blotted” vs Undead - a Halloween photoshoot!

Rasham’s Forgotten Bandits (aka “The Blotted”) could hardly refuse the purse on offer from Lord Lardars, especially for such a straightforward mission. A dark prowler in the local Cemetrary was rumoured to have scared off some kids who were playing hide and seek amongst the old tombstones and when the dads went to investigate, they easily frightened off the old, bearded codger. However one of the children is still missing and the local soldiers can find not trace of him or the old man. Rumours start spreading and soon the graveyard and church are the scene for numerous tall stories, witch hunts and unsubstantiated spooky happenings. Soon, even with no evidence to the contrary everyone is avoiding the site and this is when Rasham gets wind of the story whilst passing through the town and having an ale at the Spotted Dog. After some investigations he surmises that this will be easy money; stake out the cemetery, catch an old fella and if necessary force him into a confession into killing the kid, regardless of guilt. Get the money and the backslaps and quickly move on..

After two nights, Wilf his crossbowman (and the only one of his crew not completely smashed on ale) sees the tall, old bearded man dithering through the cemetery and calls his brothers to arms. They approach with little caution, embolden by the booze and confident in capturing the man and their reward. And then....

Gravestones

 I’m on a bit of a scenery roll at the moment; lots of partly completed projects are being addressed and here is the next of these. A couple of sprue worth of Renedra gravestones, plus some old/new Citadel, a few left over Mantic ones and a Reaper Bones statue, gave me quite a few to paint! I decided to base them in both multiples of two and three as well as individually (all into plasticard) so that I can arrange them in a variety of configurations for the Cemetery that I've just finished painting. I'll set it all up on my table later, but for now here’s the gravestones (plus a few guests...)

A Plague Cart for Deadcember

I converted this Plague Cart up quite a while ago and as we have entered the month of Deadcember, I thought it a perfect opportunity to paint it up. It will eventually feature in my Lost and the Damned Army as the Nurgle list offers an opportunity to have one for free (!) and it will accompany my unit of zombies and help their instability tests.

The old Citadel sculpt it great, however you'll notice a few changes and additions to my version. The sculpt of the original rider was a bit too squat and comic like for my tastes, so instead I plumped for a a more sinister Nurgle champion. He himself was given a plastic gong and bells from a Skaven kit (with all the iconography scraped off) to add [silent] sound to his impending arrival and I bent his feet a bit so that they looked as if they were gripping the shaft of the wagon.

You'll also note the addition of a Plague Doctor who had a greenstuffed mask applied over his face. This is also a contemporary Citadel from the Fighter range I believe (a thief if I recollect).

You'll also note a few additions to the skeleton pile - the original piece looked a bit scant so I added a few skulls and an additional skeleton almost falling off the back for a bit of dynamism and movement to the overall effect. His slightly pained pose looked perfect for this.

In terms of the painting I challenged myself to go for a monochromatic palette. I wanted to avoid the obvious inclusion of a spot colour of, for example, glowing eyes in exchange for a more ghostly approach to the ethereal colour scheme. I wanted this to contrast with the dark, solid plague doctor and the colour coming from the basing. This was achieved by priming white, washing with a dilute Nuln Oil, then highlighting with small amount of Nuln Oil and white in increasing quantities and then re-washing with a very dilute Nuln Oil.

The cotton wool mist effect was something I have wanted to experiment with for a while and after long consideration decided to apply it very finely here. I think it adds rather than detracts from the model; although of course, as always, I'm intrigued to hear your opinions. Overall I'm pretty happy with this model though!

An Undead Champion of Chaos (Deadcember)

I like a bit of ambiguity, in a hobby sense it creates opportunity. Ambiguity of race, alignment and status are all present in this model that I've just finished painting. Is he undead (the skeletal legs would assume so), but perhaps a good undead - the shield design and colour may make that a possibility? His helmet suggests some sort of status too, perhaps a hero? He could of course be a Undead Champion of Chaos, as per the Lost and the Damned. I haven't found any models that were specifically released to fulfil this role though, anyone know of any? Anyway, he'll be fulfilling one of those roles for me...

 

 

Ambiguity with a sculpt, however can be a pain in the arse when it comes to painting, trying to work out what is what is slightly irritating, especially if you work it out half way through painting it and realise it needs to be re-painted. A third layer into highlighting the cloak around his shoulders with a pale blue, I realised it was in fact a metallic shoulder armour...



This model has both types of ambiguity. The definition of the shape of the axe was pretty terrible and I'm still unsure what exactly is supposed to be around this fellow's neck, (I guess it allows some creative freedom - which is a positive) but I'd take these sculptural/casting defects any time for a nice ambiguous character. Because this guy (I believe) was marketed by GW in 1985 as a Chaos Champion, but because of his skeletal legs, he could also quite easily be an Undead Champion. Muliple uses. Added character. Helps create a backstory for him.



This of course triggered the Lost and the Damned in me, in fact the Lost and the Very Damned in me, because what could be more damning than a dead servant of chaos being re-animated on a whim by their patron as an undead, lesser version of before? The Path of Chaos indefinitely prolonged in a  non-progressive stasis? But he'll have no idea of his identity, so this is all bollocks anyway. Here's why LatD says on p.159:



"The fallen body of the Chaos Champion rises as an Undead Champion. Initially his appearance will be little different to that of his living form. The Undead Champion is recognisable as such only by his deathly pallor and slightly ungainly way of moving. As time goes on the Undead Champion starts to decay. His flesh peels away, exposing his putrefying innards and gleamin bones. Eventually the Champion is reduced to a complete skeleton. Undead Champions do not have the intellect or even the sense of identity that they had when alive. Perhaps a remant of their former identity haunts their eyes, but they are really little more than automatons."


A further passage in the book describes how you have to deduct characteristics from the original champion as he becomes Undead, losing S,T,I etc but becoming fearsome and immune to psychology. He can also lead Undead units which is useful as in the army list from the same book there is an option for zombies and skeletons to be present.




The cold blue paint job for this guy was based upon a Wight King that I painted a few years ago, but this time I wanted to add some artificial warmth to him, to represent the once living and some part of his former self, hence the sun shield (which I think is from a Marauder Dwarf?) I had to raise him up on some cork rocks, partly because he's such a small figure (didn't you know that in 1985 there was a shortage of greenstuff due to the surfeit of sculpts during the golden age of Gw and all those grand ideas needed to be sculpted with something)  and also because he needed a more leaderly looking pose, raised up on a plinth of sorts, more statuesque perhaps.



I like my efforts on this undead champion of chaos, it was fun to conceive and to create.

If ambiguity provides opportunity then I am nothing more than an opportunist. Completing this model on the one hand for my Nurgle warband/army but also so I can partake in Deadcember (painting undead during December). It's a thing apparently and a nice bit of extra motivation to get something else done from a pile of models. And I haven't found too many (any?) examples of an Undead champion of Chaos, so Google had better make this post come up first on any search result. Maybe you can help with that by reading it once at work in between important stuff  and again when you get home in the comfort of your armchair. Go on, it won't kill you.

Frostgrave Bestiary Challenge: Vampire (and all the Undead)

Well the model is actually an 80's Citadel Champion of Chaos, but was surplus to requirements for other projects and with his bone armour donned he looked suitably necromantic to be used as a summoning vampire (hence the Mantic skeleton rising from the slabs).

I tried to capture a strong contrast between the light, smooth bones and the dark, grubby cloak and the limited palette of colours made me introduce a spot colour in the blue of his swords hilt and the eye's of the raised skeleton.


And here are all my recently painted Undead, being led by their new Vampiric leader:

I'll be having a break from my Frostgrave Bestiary Challenge and returning to old Citadel Nurgle next (seeing as I've recently finished collecting all of the Nurgle Champions...)

Frostgrave Bestiary Challenge: 10 Ghouls

I absolutely love these Heresy ghoul models, I saw them years ago painted by Mika over on the Warhamner Forum and loved how he had created a great contrast between the ghouk's skin and the dark reds of the blood and gore. They are pretty dark miniatures (I found applying the blood and gore to the baby quite upsetting) but they are wonderful characterful sculpts that are a real pleasure to paint. There's actually not much to them, they are mostly flesh with a few other details so it was imperative that I got the skin tone spot on. I realised early on that it would have to have a green tinge so that it complemented the inevitable red of the blood, but I also wanted to create a layered, transparency it the skin too. This would be offset with the neutral grey basing. I also did a bit if research into how to create such blood and gore and foinf a great recipe to make the blood quite physical, see below. I usually steer clear of too much blood, but these ghouks, being cannibals and because of the additional details of body parts being butchered and eaten, these guys did need to have a realistic blood effect added.

So after some skin experiments (I'd already decided to veer away from my Orc skin recipe) I went for this approach:

White Primer
Earthshade wash
Small amount of earthshade plus increasong amounts of white, layered on for the highlights
Glazing with purples and blues in the shadows and especially apparent in the faces
Yellow glaze over the teeth
Then final glaze with green ink (and lots of medium) over the skin to remove any chalkiness from the highlighting.
Before the physical blood and gore was added (see below) I washed a mixture of purple and red inks to the hands, feet, knees and elbows (to create a little extra contrast and to break up the large areas of green skin).
Finally I prepped the areas that would be getting the blood effect with a combination of black, purple and red inks, increasing the amount of the latter where the blood was to be most fresh.

After weathering the bases I then approached the blood and gore. Quite simply I used a mixture of Tamiya Clear Red, black ink, UHU glue and a cocktail stick to mix the mess together and to apply it to the areas of stringy, gooey gore. The cocktail stick was used to stretch he goo between two surfaces , for example from mouth to floor. I didn't want to overdo it, so I had to keep restraining myself because it's a smashing effect and easily done. I decided that several of the models would not have any of this applied at all.

With regards to the Ghoul King who is digging out a grave, I decided to use a Tamiya weathering stuck (essentially an oil pastel the colour of mud) and applied this to the grave area, the base and dollop on his shovel too.

Lots of photographs to follow, as I have a new iPhone and have used this as an opportunity to experiment with it's focus and exposure corrections during the shot and it's editing abilities after. I'm pretty damn happy with these: