Raising the dead...

This chap has served a bit of a triple function, a) the beginnings of a new warband for "Get the Girl, Kill the Baddies", and b) to test a colour scheme for a potential new project, and finally c) another step on the road to living without Charadon Granite.  Those of you of a certain vintage may recognise the miniature - it's the Marauder Necromancer, who came in the same blister as the Vampire I painted a little while back, a Lich and a Wight.

I went for a really quick and easy paint scheme, with a nod to my old "Charadon Granite" base.  The base coat for the entire model was Stormvermin Fur, which is just a lighter version of the Granite, but a layer rather than a base paint. I then highlighted everything with increasing amounts of Karak Stone added to the base colour, with some final highlights of a 1:3 mix of Karak Stone and Skull White.  The robe and staff were washed with Badab Black and then the sleeves were washed twice with Thraka Green.  Once these were dry, the belt and tabard were washed twice with Baal Red and the fur collar was washed with Gryphonne Sepia, with some Devlan Mud on the lower parts.

The blade of the sword was given a highlight of pure white, and then washed twice with Thraka Green (one coat just doesn't seem to be enough for some reason) for a rough jade effect.  The gold all over the mini was P3 Blighted gold, washed with Devlan Mud, then highlighted with the gold and Mithril Silver

I wanted the skin tone to be pale and unhealthy, so a base coat of Rakarth Flesh (near enough Dheneb Stone in old money) was washed with Devlan Mud, and the highlighted with the Flesh colour and White.  The glowing eyes effect was done by first flooding the eye sockets with Thraka Green, then working around the eyeball with Catachan Green.  The eyeball was painted Camo Green and then slightly highlighted with Cano Green and Rotting Flesh.

...and that's pretty much it!  Not too bad for a few hours work (not including drying time), and he has kind of an old-school feel to him, which I'm really pleased with.

As always, comments and criticism welcome!

Salute!

There seems to be something of a trend amongst us sad old bloggers that we need to declare we're going to Salute, display a picture so other bloggers will recognise us and then list the things we're really excited about.  I'm fully embracing the herd mentality and doing my bit.  :)

Here is the obligatory mugshot:

This is my happy face

Yes, my glasses are wonky.  Now you've all come out from behind your desk chair/sofa, here's my list of things that are getting me excited:

• GCT Studios/Bushido - I'm going to get the rest of the Prefecture models to complete my warband.  The rest of the Ancible team have known these chaps for ages, so we'll probably be there for a while.
• Hasslefree - Barbarians and loads of other cool stuff, definite purchases from here
• Heresy - As for Hasslefree
• Maxmini - Polish resin stuff that's good for conversions, hopefully the Kromlech stuff will be there too
• Microart - As for Maxmini
• Privateer - Warmachine stuff, probably some Hordes stuff too

Let's face it I'm going to be excited about a lot of stuff, I'll be roaming the halls with the rest of the Ancible team, trying to keep a lid on my spending and failing miserably.  I need to fill this:

ThinkGeek's "Bag of Holding"

...and all my pockets.

Vampire Complete

A little later than planned, here are the finished pictures of Lord Vacu, Dark Prince of somewhere eerie, drinker of the blood of virgins, etc, etc.  He's come out alright, but doesn't have quite the "presence" I was hoping for.  Maybe it's just the miniature itself, or it's the paint job, or more likely a combination of the two, I don't think it quite pulls off the elegant, decayed look I was going for.

A really simple paint scheme for the skin:

• Base:  Dheneb Stone
• Shade:  Thinned Devlan Mud wash
• H1:  Dheneb Stone
• H2:  1:1 mix of Dheneb + White
• H3:  Pure White

It gives that pale stark look, and frames the sunken red eyes really well.  In the picture below you can see a slight slip-up - the hand furthest away is missing some flesh tone under the thumb side of the palm - not sure how I managed to miss that, but it will be fixed at some point

I wanted to give the black an aged, decayed look, so I used the Charadon Granite and Dheneb Stone highlighting method I've used before.  It's pretty simple:

• Base:  Neatened up black
• H1:  1:2 mix of black and Charadon Granite
• H2:  Charadon Granite
• H3:  1:2 mix of Dheneb Stone and Charadon Granite
• H4:  2:1 mix of Dheneb Stone and Charadon Granite

The last thing to do was the base:

• Base:  Charadon Granite
• Shade:  Devlan Mud Wash
• H1:  Charadon Granite
• H2:  Khemri Brown
• H3:  Dheneb Stone
• Wash:  Gryphonne Sepia

Originally I tried sticking some "Autumnal tufts" that I bought back at the Colours show, but it just looked too bright and cheery, so off the tufts came and I fell back on the more appropriate GW Scorched Grass.

In the pipeline is something from Freebooter, this chap from Reaper, more article stuff, a bloody great Malus Darkblade model for some chap called Kenny, and some Malifaux...

As always comments and criticism are most welcome - especially if you could offer some advice on giving this chap more impact.

Vampire - Adding a Little More Colour

Steady but slow progress on Mr Classic Vampire (he doesn't have a name yet).  Nurgle appears to have visited the Walker household, as both the wife and I are suffering from whatever winter bug is doing the rounds here in freezing cold Swindon.

I didn't want to do a bright red for this chap, so I went for more of a maroon colour:

• Base: P3 Sanguine Base - this is a nice colour, but does seem to take a couple of coats to cover a black undercoat properly
• Shade:  Leviathan Purple wash - in hindsight, I should have watered this down a little, and maybe added some Baal Red, as it's gone a bit dark.
• H1: Sanguine Base
• H2: 2:1 mix of Sanguine Base and GW Vomit Brown
• H3: 1:1 mix of Sanguine Base and GW Vomit Brown
• H4: 1:2 mix of Sanguine Base and GW Vomit Brown

I reckon the colour has come out pretty well, and makes for a nice change from my normal red scheme.

Next up is the face - I'm going for a really pale skin tone, and I'm toying with the idea of some small tattoos on his face - not sure yet though...

As always, comments and criticism welcome!

Vampire - Metallics Done

A little bit of progress tonight:

The gold was made to look a little more bronze than usual, I wanted it to look old, but not dirty/oxidized.  I'm hoping it will work well with the Maroon/Black colour scheme I want to use on him.

• Base:  Tin Bitz
• Shade:  Devlan Mud
• H1:  Tin Bitz
• H2:  1:1 mix of Tin Bitz and P3 Blighted Gold (I'm really liking this colour)
• H3:  Blighted Gold
• H4:  1:1 Mix of Blighted Gold and Mithril Silver

The other bits I got completed were the jewels - apologies for the picture, I used my phone camera to make the transfer to PC a little easier, but it does mean the quality suffers.

They were done in the classic GW style:

• Base:  Reapplied Black
• H1:  Dark Angel Green
• H2:  Camo Green
• H3:  A small "tick" of White added to the opposite side of the jewel.

Next up is the dark red/maroon of the shirt and sash.

As always, comments and criticism welcome!

A little Vampiric WIP and some shopping

Nothing too much to report, but I'm going to try and get a few more of these little updates done each week.

First up, the Vampire - the bat idea just wasn't going to work, so I hacked up a little polystyrene to go around the pins:

I glued some larger stones (Woodland Scenics medium ballast I think) to the top of that and coated the whole lot in PVA glue to make it a little tougher.  Unfortunately I managed to miss a couple of small patches with the glue, and the propellant from the spray on undercoat ate away part of it (D'Oh!).  The little holes were filled with glue and stones, and actually look pretty good. 

The lack of progress this weekend was due to a break in London, which included the usual trips to Forbidden Planet and Orc's Nest (who have a good restock of Reaper miniatures), but I also took a side trip to Waterloo and visited Dark Sphere a lovely little store with a good range of products and really friendly, helpful staff.  I didn't spend too much, but did manage to pick up Kapitan Ivanka and Granny Weatherwax as well as a couple of bottles of Vallejo paint to experiment with.

I strongly recommend you pay them a visit when you're that way, from my 15 minutes in there I spotted:

• GW
• Privateer Press
• Infinity
• Malifaux
• Flames of War
• Spartan Games
• Avatars of War
• Kromlech
• Micro Art Studio
• Scibor
• ForgeCraft
• Gale Force 9
• Vallejo
• Army Painter

Coming from Swindon, where we have GW, and not much else, it was a little bit of gaming geek heaven.  :)

The New Lair, nearly done!

It's been a long hard slog, I've been incredibly destructive and happily constructive, I've learned to plaster and to mount a flatscreen TV to a wall.  I've learned how the Dulux PaintPod is so much better than a normal roller, and how some Victorian red bricks are harder than others (I have a masonry drill bit with a perfectly flat end to prove it...).

But it's been worth it, and I'm about 80-90% of the way there.  Please excuse the photography, as it's from my phone, but this is where I've got to:

This side of the room is pretty much done - I've got to build a paint rack to go on the blank bit of wall next to the sticky board and mount a few pictures.  I know I'm incredibly lucky to have a spare room to dedicate to my hobby, so hopefully this doesn't come across as me showing off - this is pretty much a dream come true for me, and I'm really pleased that I've managed to do most of it myself.  Having the camera permanently set up is already making my life easier when it comes to photography for articles.

This should be where I'll relax after a hard evening's painting:

A big thank you to Kenny from the Ancible for the Infinity posters - with some glass clip frames from B&Q they really do look the business.  I'm not sure if I'll be allowed to sit on the sofa-bed though, as these two characters will generally be hogging it:

Hex (The Devious)

Ponder (Lord of all He Surveys)

They're only allowed in the room when I'm in there (they're part of the reason I needed the room in the first place), as they see the desks and the shelves as a giant cat tower for them to play on, and all the little things on the desks as their toys, the little buggers...

Actual hobby-wise, I've already had to start on painting for the next article, I'm cracking on with the Fellowship of the Ring for the in-laws, and I've just started my little Vampire project.  He's a (very) old Marauder Miniature (remember when they did loads of cool stuff for GW?) which I've always loved.  The previous paint job was not too bad for when I did it around 15-20 years ago (gulp), but he needs a fresh new look.

I originally just mounted him to a base, but that looked a little dull, and I wanted him to stand out, so the plan is to have those two pins surrounded by bats, so it looks like he's being borne aloft by them.  I've got some old Marauder Miniatures bats that I'm going to try and carefully pin and position around the bottom of his robe.  Hopefully this will look pretty good, the bats are quite two-dimensional so it should work.  Hopefully, the next post will have some pictures of him plus bats.

As always comments and criticism welcome!