The Rise of The Vampire

The first warhammer figure I bought; purchased from GW Warrington years and years ago, he was the start of my undead army, and nearly invincible once he avoided my brothers treeman.

Years and years later and he needed a makeover. What he got was a huge base; with his daft sized cloak and sword ranking him up with the skellies was a nightmare. A new 40mm square bases means he can be counted as a vampire AND 3 skeletons, and fit in and look impressive. I hope.

The paint scheme is daring; pink followed by red and purple replaced thr traditional black. His squashed nose (a legacy of not looking after my models) spoiled a decent job on the face. A wash failure did not help - with the main colours on I went for an all-over strong tone wash, only to put it in the same paint mix space as a copper which wasn't dry, and he turned darker and a bit glittery. It didn't do too much damage however.

I finished off with a matt varnish painted on. It could probably do with a bit more watering down but came out OK. Overall I'd say 6.5 out of 10 - not as good as I might have hoped for, but not too shabby.

Great Chariots of Bone

This week I have been mostly working on chariots. I've two skeleton charriots which I've had for....many years, mostly unpainted and in poor condition. But spurred on by my daughter wanting to paint (in her case a dragon) I've put brush to paint and finally given them a dusting of colour. In case your wondering 10 minutes of mostly green and she left the dragon for another time.

The chariots had already been fixed and tidied up and based, and given a nifty brown undercoat (army painter for those with an interest).



The bone effect I did some YouTube research and settled on a white paint coat, followed by an army painter strong tone wash, before a drybrush/highlight of GW bleached bone, with extra bleached bone for good measure. 

I went for a burn red for the leather and wood, and a lovely bronze for the metals.

The bases were a red brown vallejo coat, followed by a dry brush of army painter monster brown, and a light iraqi sand drybrush to follow. I'm liking the effect, I'm just sad that the rest of my skeleton infantry still need rebasing so they will have to wait. Green is the flick of choice, and I'm still debating which colour to do the edge of the bases.

Napoleonic French Artillery - In Progress

I've slowed down alot this month, far too much happening and too little hobby time or enthusiasm available. But in what time I did manage I've been putting together some Napoleonic French artillery.

It's a Victrix set which I've had for a good year plus (possibly last year, or the year before Christmas present), and it's very nice looking.  My creativity seems to have taken a hammering I the last few years so I've struggled a bit with picking arms and poses but overall I'm happy. I've made two cannon and crew and here they are stuck to plasticard ready for (spray) painting.  The third artillery piece from the box I'm doing as a howitzer and I've yet to make the crew.

The Black Coach - An Undead Relic

In a land before time, back in the early 2000s, I purchased a Black Coach.  It was painted...well Black obviously, no self respecting vampire is ever going to be seen in anything else.  I didn't want to hide the vampire in his coffin so left his coffin and it's lid loose so he could pop in and out of the back, and with the addition of a couple of skeleton horses, a whacking huge MDF base and a very early 2000 paint job it was done.  It even travelled to university with me, spending a couple of years on the mantlepiece of a fireplace in my room.  

In the follow years it saw much use, scaring the forces of good across the land, and with this it became a little tatty.  It was a time before I'd worked out varnish coating, and there was plenty of scratching on the metal.  It was in need of a revamp; the base in particular annoyed me because it made the model an easy target, and also look very 'meh'.

Stage one of the revamp saw me tear the model from the base, something which the horse still took badly, and still haven't recovered from.  That wasn't something I worried about however as I planned to give it a spookier vibe with some 'real' horses rather than skeleton cartoon ones. Painted black of course.

The model then lay in a box all but forgotten for a while. Days stretched into months, and months into years, and one day I decided that while fixing up the Skelton chariots the coaches time had come.  Stage two appeared, with the cleaning of the paint from the metal, then plenty of green stuff helped me put it back together on a custom made base (customer made by me out of plasticard).  The coffin lid was glued shut, and the coffin itself glued into the back of the coach.  A little bit of bending of the traces saw the new horses 🐎 fit it nicely, even if one of the tails was a bit long.

Overall I'm very pleased how it looks on its new base with new horses, although I am getting nervous about making a decent job of the Black.  The next stage will be sand on the base, then a base coat (most likely brown) before I see if my painting kills are up to the task.  If it comes out similar to my black robed wraith I'll be happy.

Old black.

A Week Of Wheels - An Undead Tale with bits of carriage....

These last couple of weeks I have mostly been working on things with wheels.  Having decided that my Skeleton chariots would be fun to work on next somehow my black coach was added, then a superb ECW Warlord games coach came into the picture.

I've had the chariots for.....25 or so years, and this is yhe best cobdition they've ever been in.

This chap needed a revamp, he doesn't have wheels.

ECW coach - the most difficult of the transportation devices I was fixing up -ive had to brace the extra long base to stop it flexing, and lots of varying glues and putty had to be used.  The passengers, dog  hat and roof to be painted and stuck on later. 

The artist formerly known as The Black Coach.   Usually seen with skeleton horses but I liked this look more. Probably end up black again.

What the coach used to look like, a very dated and scratched paint job.

Digging Up Old Bones - An Undead Post

March of the mummies - an incredible present from a very good friend; six classic GW mummies teamed up with a couple of strays picked up/donated to the cause (possibly originally intended to be part of a blood bowl team.

I added a couple of bits of scatter scenery at the back, and a magnitised movement tray and it looks....well....actually quite good!  For once the pictures don't do the paint job justice, and they join what is a growing band of revamped undead.

Airbrush Adventures

 A few years ago (7 years.  How has it been 7 years?!?) I was gifted an airbrush for the first time.  Not an expensive shiny one, because I’d never had one before so didn’t know how much I’d use it, but an ‘entry level’ kit, as seen in the lovely pictures below.  It was great, I used it a fair bit at the time, mostly for painting 15mm German late war camouflage on my Flames of War vehicles, and rather super they look too if I say so myself.  However, it has been languishing in a cupboard with most of my modelling kit for a long time now. 

Until last month that is when, having watched some ‘Eons of Battle’ YouTube videos I decided to get it out and see if a). It still worked, and b). would it make my current (Wars of the Roses ) project more interesting/impressive.  So I whipped it out and stuck it on a table.  I tested it and all seemed fine – compressor worked, buttons worked, fingers worked pressing the buttons, and air shot out of the airbrush nozzle (a 0.3mm version in case you’re interested).  I laid out newspaper paper, I created a cardboard box backdrop to catch stray droplets, and I even got myself a facemask so I didn’t breath any in, which was oddly something I never thought of first time out.  Luckily there are many facemasks around at the moment. 

I loaded paint, aimed at the first victim…..and nothing happened.  No air, no paint, and nothing would make it clear.  I assumed there was an old blockage of dry paint so went about taking the airbrush apart, and found, well, no obvious blockage.  So I put it back together, only to overtighten the nozzle which promptly snapped off.  After some choice words I prepared to buy a new brush, but I was fortunate enough to air my frustrations on a gaming Facebook group, and a friend who’d had a similar occurrence gave me a link to a video on fixing exactly that problem.  Less than £5, a few days, and a new nozzle and needle dropped through the post.

Having installed them I put it back together and readied myself…..and the paint came out!  It looks as if I hadn’t pushed the needle all the way into the nozzle after cleaning it originally.  The fix came just in time for me to change my interests to Warhammer and my Undead (more on that another day) who were the reciptiants of a coat or two of lovely paint. It’s going to get a fair bit of use, and I’m also looking forward to trying out some new techniques I’ve seen online – YouTube really is a wonderful place, and for anyone new into airbrushing I can thoroughly recommend watching a few videos.  More results when they happen.  Or not.  Or not.