Happy Spooktober! Part 3: Ghosts!

It's starting to get cold and dark as Samhain approaches, but there's still a little time left to post some more spooky seasonal models! Let's go old school with a classic spirit host model that's been kicking around my collection since it was in production.

This was a good opportunity to try out a new colour scheme. I think it's a big upgrade from my previous ethereal colour scheme. I applied Terradon Turquoise Contrast over a zenithal highlight, then slapped on a load of turqoise oil paint which I gradually made brighter by adding white. Once it was dry I touched up the brightest parts with white acrylic.

One thing I'll change for next time is the oil colour I applied - it was too dark. I had to add sooo much white to get it bright enough, which made the final result a bit messy and sketchy, and also made the drying time much longer than it could have been (several days!). Still, the effect kind of worked with the old sculpt, and I think the colour gives a great ethereal effect. I look forward to using it on some new ethereals I'll be adding to my army in the near future. These ghosts, however, are a stand-alone model to enjoy!

Until next time, happy painting! 

Happy Spooktober! Part 1: Terrorgheist Rescue

Way back when the terrorgheist model was released I picked up one for my vampire army. I loved the model but - like most of my collection - despite seeing many games it remained unpainted for a very, very long time. After a couple of house moves and a period spent in storage it was also starting to look a little worse for wear, with bits breaking and a thick layer of dust caking it in texture Nurgle would have been proud of.

When I got round to looking at my beloved bat again I wasn't sure I could save it. At the very least, I didn't think I would get it to a standard that I'd be happy having in my army. So I decided to rebase it, take the square base it was on for another project, and try out a grimdark, dirty, grimy style using mostly oil paints. I figured it was an appropriate style for painting the undead and it'd give me a chance to try out some new techniques.

I was very, very pleased with the results.

Photos taken with a dark atmosphere to show off the terrorgheist to best effect.

This one taken in full light so you can see it in less favourable conditions - still looks pretty good!

As you can see, it came out really well! I couldn't easily fix the broken wing-tip but the rest of the repairs aren't noticeable, and the dirty painting style really suits the piece, I think. Even in harsh light it looks pretty good - I'm actually regretting not keeping it on a square base so it could be part of my army after all (but rebasing it was such a hassle I am not doing that again).

I hope you like this first installment for Spooktober (is that a thing? If not, let's make it a thing.). There'll be more to come before the month is out!

Until then, happy painting!

Vampires Chapter 9: Black Knights

And the Vampire Army continues to grow with the addition of a block of cavalry!

Like my grave guard these guys were in a half-painted state for a long while. I decided to shake things up with the style a little to make them a bit more fun, and stippled all of the purple and bone with impressionist-like ease. It really sped up the whole process (not to mention how relaxed it made it!) and with a dark brown oil wash to tie everything together any ugly little errors were more or less erased. The most annoying part was repairing the banner pole and lances that broke during various moves (they were unpainted on one shelf or another for a lot longer than they were half painted!).

I hope you like them. Until next time, happy painting!

Vampires Chapter 8: Grave Guard

Dead? This blog? No no no no. It doesn't die. It's just been... slumbering for a while.

Yes we're back again. Not even a global pandemic can finish off this blog. You'd think I'd have got a lot of painting done during the various lockdowns, but the past year or so has been a burnout and my brushes have hardly seen any action. Things have started to pick up, though. This is the last of the old photos to share (completed pre-pandemic) and in the last couple of weeks I've found some time (and energy) to paint, so there'll be even more soon.

For now, here are my grave guard complete with freehand banner. These guys were actually started around the same time as my first lot of skeletons but have been sitting half-finished for ages waiting for one last push to see them done. Now they're just waiting for their own shelf in the display cabinet, because I have a lot of undead in there and I'm running out of room!

Close-up of the banner. The design is a raven silhouette. Probably could have practiced it a few more times before doing it. Hopefully the flying one sells it!

That's all for now. Until next time, long live the blog and happy painting!

Vampires Chapter 7: More Skeletons!

It may be slow, but I'm still progessing on my Vampire Counts army. I'd already painted my main skeleton unit using the slowest method to paint bone ever but, having originally intended to run two large blocks I still had a bunch left over waiting for some attention. Since I was running low on undercoated models waiting to be painted and was having a lot of fun with Contrast paints, I decided to try to paint the remaining bony boys a bit more quickly.

Here they are:

In total there are 29, but as they're all the same basic skeleton I decided to take close-ups and alternate angles of just a few (and the command, of course). Unlike last time, I just painted the bone with Skeleton Horde over a white undercoat (actually it might have been a Bleached Bone undercoat) and then gave it a light drybrush of Vallejo Dark Sand mixed with a little Ivory. Deeper shadows were enhanced with a little Agrax Earthshade. I decided to keep the speed up for the rest of the painting by stippling and dryburshing pretty much all of the rest of the models, except the wood which was painted using brown Contrast paints (mostly Cygor Brown and Skeleton Horde over a woodgrain painted on in white).

I think I could have pushed the bone highlights a little more, but otherwise they're a very good result for much less time invested, even if the freehanded banner got away from me a bit - pro tip: always sketch your freehands at least once before trying it on a model.

So ends the last of my rank and file skeletons... except for one which has been taken for a special, secret project that may or may not appear here*.

Until next time, happy painting!

*Eventually. Maybe.

More Ghoulishness

After putting quite a bit of effort into my last few models and using mostly dark and cold colours, I decided I needed a change of pace. Inspired by John Blanche's use of Contrast paints (it's somewhere on the Warhammer Community website if you feel like searching for it) I decided to try doing something with a yellowish palette. 

I had a hunt through my boxes of sprues I found some more ghouls I thought I'd lost or traded. They seemed like a good choice for playing with Contrast paints and dirty, yellow tones, and as I'd already sold the other ghouls I'd painted there was no obligation to keep to that colour scheme. A couple of days of building and painting later, they were done!

While these were nice to paint, I'm not quite happy with how they came out. The yellow seems to have green undertones to it that I wasn't really aiming for. One problem this project highlighted for me was that I still don't understand the Contrast method of painting as much as I'd like - I forced myself not to use any highlights after the Contrast paints but wasn't quite able to get the level of nuance of light that I would have liked. I guess it all comes down to practice. Maybe I should try painting with traditional watercolours.

Anyway, it was still nice to have a change, and while they're not the best they do look pretty good in the cabinet (which now needs extra shelves, but more on that later). As I don't have a place for ghouls in any of my armies, I intend to sell or trade them off at some point for something else that looks fun to paint.

Until next time, happy painting!

Ghoul Lord on Display

Well hello 2020!

Man this blog has hit a slump. But we're going to try to turn that around. I have a few photos lined up I want to share - I just need to get round to sorting them out - and I'm working on a few things at the moment that should start appearing in the next month or so. Now, though, it's time to revisit a model that last appeared as a WIP.

Remember this* guy? Well now he's finished!

This is my ghoul king and he was an experiment in Contrast paints and stippling. All the colours were Contrast mixed with either ivory or white (to highlight) or black (to shade), except the bone, which was shaded with various Contrast browns and Agrax Earthshade.

I wanted to make purple my main colour and as I gradually made him paler (to make him more vampiric), added some green (goes well with purple), and added blood around the mouth I realized I made him the Joker. So I just ran with it. I'm pretty pleased with him in any case. As he doesn't really have a place in my vampire army I gave him a round base for display - speaking of which...

I got a display case! Photos aren't great (should probably have waited until it was brighter and used my camera instead of phone) but you get the idea. I've been looking forward to having somewhere safe to put my models since the last time I had to dust them all off. This is just the Detolf glass cabinet from IKEA with some dust strips added to dust proof. At some point I'll be adding more shelves, but for now the project will be to clear my models of dust one last time and transfer them to their new home - the ghoul king just gets the honour of being the first.

Until next time - which I hope will be sooner than this was - happy painting!

*Oh, one last thing. I mentioned in the post I referenced that I was taking painting commissions again. Unfortunately, that has proved to be impractical to work around my job so was quickly squashed as an idea, so commissions are not currently available.

A Month of Mayhem

It's been pretty quiet here, huh?

The last month or so has been hectic for me. I haven't painted as much as I'd wanted. I've also not finished anything in a while - instead, most of my projects are WIP or just getting started. Some have barely moved past the planning stage. Still, we're overdue for an update here, so I'll let you know what's going on hobby-wise.

I'm not entering into the Everchosen competition. I really wanted to, because I need to push my painting again to improve and competitions are a great way to do this, but I just didn't have time to paint something for it with personal and non-hobby things getting in the way. Also, the models I really want to paint next aren't eligible as the rules state that entries have to be current GW miniatures, and the model I had prepped for that kind of painting next is long OOP. Ah well. I'm going to aim for Golden Demon next year, anyway.

I have several projects on my painting table right now. I'm still playing around with contrast paints and plan to make a post dedicated to them soon. I've got anther unit of skeletons half-finished, and a bunch of undercoated ghouls (I found another 10!), and some dwarf slayers and eldar rangers waiting to be undercoated. I'm also working on a ghoul king I had lying around.

This blog is slowly being updated to move all my photos to blogger's archive instead of photobucket. I found out recently they've been sticking an ugly logo over my beautiful models so I've started the tedious task of downloading my images one at a time and replacing them. It'll be done by the end of the year... I hope.

I'm taking commissions again! It's been a while since I've painted for anyone but friends and family (and myself) but as I've had good feedback from selling painted models online and I need a budget for my hobby again, I figure it's time to give it another go. Plus, I often find when I'm overwhelmed by my own pile of painted miniatures it's easier to work on someone else's! I've added a page with details of the service I offer and a rough guide to what I charge.

More or less you're now up to date. If you've read this far you've definitely earned a photo. Here's a couple of WIP shots of my Ghoul King (base is still drying!):

(These photos were taken with a phone camera which I think is making the contrast a little more extreme than it really is. I'll play around with the setting for future pictures but for now it's something I can try to improve on the model itself.)

Until next time, happy painting!

Vampires Chapter 6: Spawn

It's been a while but there's lots to show so let's get to it!

Every vampire army needs, well, vampires. I haven't got round to working on my characters yet, but I have polished off my Vampire Spawn:

Models courtesy of Games Workshop. I really like these models I just wish they were a bit more poseable without more modelling skills than I really possess (or at least more dedication to modelling them).

I'm pleased with how they came out. I thought the pale skin would take longer to achieve, but it turned out to be pretty quick between airbrushing highlights and skipping layers I used to think were essential before brushing on the last highlight (Vallejo White Grey). Just be sparing with where you place it and you don't have to worry about making mixtures of 1:2 and 1:1 White Grey:Wolf Grey to make it look smooth.

Unfortunately, one of the buggers broke a nail during final assembly (I painted them with only one wing attached) and despite a lengthy search and rescue the missing piece was declared lost. This was particularly annoying as I had gone to the trouble of buying new vargheist heads because one of the ears had its tip bent off while it was on the sprue. Oh well, at least it's not very noticeable.

Until next time, happy painting!

Ghouls for Sale

Among my collection of models still on sprue were some Games Workshop Crypt Ghouls. I don't really like the idea of ghouls in my vampire army (my Vampire Lord is something of an elitist) so they've been sitting unmade for some time. Since finishing a lengthy project I decided it would be nice just to bang out something quick and ghouls fitted the description. I decided to use the round bases they came with as I figured I'd flog them to an AoS player when they were done. I don't know but I imagine 10 ghouls make more of a difference in AoS than in The Ninth Age, where it'd need to be at least 30 for a unit.

Anyway, a couple of days cursing at the models for being so annoying to put together (I really didn't see that coming, but none of the parts seem to actually fit) followed by having fun with an airbrush and washes and here they are!

For quick-and-dirty painting I am impressed with how they came out (and slightly regretting putting them on round bases). I haven't had much call to use the Blood for the Blood God technical paint before this either, which is something I will try to change in future. That paint is fun and if you're liberal with it it can hide a multitude of mistakes. At least I have some Ghast models I can try this colour scheme out on again. (My Vampire Lord will tolerate ugliness if it's in low numbers and has better combat potential.)

Until next time, happy painting!

Vampires Chapter 5: Happy Skeleton Day!

If you've been following my recent posts you'll know I've been painting up a bunch of skeletons for my Vampire Covenant army. (If you haven't been following then now's a good time to get in on the ground floor of my readership, and tell your friends you knew the blog before it got big.)

Well, it took a while but here's the finished unit!

And a shot of just the command rank:

I'm very pleased with how they turned out.

As it takes me so long to paint stuff, I often find that my painting style and quality have changed by the time I paint a new unit for an army (or, in this case, the second half of a unit). I think with these skeletons I managed to stay very close to the original while still exploring some new things in my painting. Here I wanted to be a bit bolder with my colours, and I think the new batch of skeletons look more vivid, but not so much that they look out of place next to the older ones. Here's all 50 on a movement tray I promise to replace one day.

Together the whole unit looks cohesive, if a little hard to get all in frame.

I also spent a little extra time on the banner, on which I've painted a freehand design of a vampiric skull with a ribbon of yellowed parchment. The motto on the parchment reads MORS IN VICTORIA (Latin for "Victory in Death", or so the internet tells me), although it is hard to make out as the banner is old and tattered and also I need more practise writing on models. (The skeleton banner is also way too narrow for my liking, and the curve in it made it very awkward to freehand.)

Now I need to replenish my grass tufts so I can finish basing my barrow guard and put them on the "finished" vampire shelf.

Until next time, happy Samhain!