The Miniworks aren't dead!

Not by a long shot! The period of inactivity is due only to me being both lazy and overburdened. So without further dudes, here's the material I have held back from you, my dear readers.

First of all, the new edition of Vampire Counts has been upon us for several months now and that means of course new models to paint! While some of us actually scorn the new plastics, I find them quite bearable and paintable. First up, the all-gross, all-delicious Corpse Cart:

I find this piece very much to my liking. It's exactly in the theme I want to pursue on my VC army project: it's a generic undead model, with no hints to the Gothic atmosphere we were treated to in the last edition of the Counts. No that Gothic is bad, what I mean is that the overall feel of the cart reverberates with the feel of my army, and that can't be bad. Besides, it's a treat to paint and assemble. And it looks great even with my moderate paint job.

Now, I have to admit I rushed whilst painting this baby. It's clearly evidenced on the necromancer's face, the bell and some other areas. Mea culpa maxima, I knew rush is a no-no, and I did it anyway. And here I am, with a model I know I could have pulled off much better than I did.

I tried to make the bodies on the carts (not the zombies pulling it) appear as if they'd drowned. Have I managed to? You be the judges. At least one of the viewers agrees so far.

Then there are the Dire Wolves, also a very peculiar, new plastic kit. While painting these I made my first conscious attempt at using glazes properly, which I did on the light beige skin.
As much as I'm reserved towards plastics, the new ones are getting better with every release. The molds hold more detail and the new resin-based material seems to be both agreeable on casting and modeller-friendly as well. The flash on the minis is almost nonexistent in some places, yet the material is quite resilient. If plastics are to dominate Warhammer (and they are), it's great GW makes a conscious effort to improve on these. I'm very much looking forward to the new Dark Elves being released just in a couple of days.

Speaking of which, I have also been busy on my druchii (pronounced, according to Mark of Chaos:Battle March, as 'droo-k-eye'). I finally sat down to the Black Guard.

These are one of my most favourite minis in Warhammer. Being both metal and quite well-designed in terms of pose and variety (and awesomely-designed in terms of overall feel to them) I always knew I had to have a unit of the Witch King's finest.

I'm presenting the pictures in a new, collage-like format. How do you like it? Also, I will only be showing one picture per model pose. Quite pointless to show duplicates, you'd agree. The unit is fifteen models strong, with full command group and from what the rumors about the new edition tell, I will be adding a hero, quite possibly a BSB.

I added clump foliage to the base theme to break the brown-tan-gray look. I think it works quite well, and clump foliage is a great material to play with.

I didn't want to make the guard look too black, therefore only their under-robes are black. The ones they wear on their armor are kept in my army's established color. The cloaks of the command group, however, are black. It's a real shame the rank-and-file don't have cloaks... but they are a bitch to rank up anyway.

The drummer is my most favorite of the command group, dunno why. Maybe it's the tattered cloak?

Too bad the entire command group is not bareheaded. It'd make a nice subtheme to the fully armored unit. The drummer and champion are both produced in two options, with or without helms, I wonder why the standard bearer isn't.

I'm not happy about the runes on the banner. Firstly, the color didn't turn out as saturated as I'd like, secondly, it can hardly be seen that the design is actually only a part of a larger whole, as the torn banner would suggest.

The champion is slightly converted. I got no idea how to make his arms properly stick to the body while holding a straight halberd shaft. So I simply dropped his weapon altogether. And I do have a thing for pointing fingers on my minis, mostly leaders.

Currently, I'm working on the last five of the Black Guard. After these, I just might sit to my long-overdue Cryx Battlegroup project. I got a splendid idea for the color theme and bases and I'm quite anxious to try it out.

See you next time!