Getting there!

Meaning of course getting towards the end of my VC army project! I have set myself a deadline to finish the army, which is until the end of the year. I know I probably won't be able to manage, due to the amount of work I have and a certain game adequately abbreviated to WoW... but I'm still trying. As evidenced by the following.

My army lacked a vampire battle standard. Moreover, it lacked a good model of such, meaning the new versions of bloodsuckers were right out. No, with this army, I needed something truly great. Luckily, the old Blood Dragon vampires were up to the challenge, which resulted in, for instance, this gentleman.

The banner is of course hand made from scratch, as perhaps evidenced by its less-than-hoped-for quality. The ugliest part has to be the lion figure... well, no decent laser printer, let alone decal paper, was handy at the moment. The streamer is painted on freehand, design being copied from the VC book. I might actually be learning how to paint streamers!

The shaft and cross bar are just lengths of circular brass wire, a material quite hard to get in Poland, believe it or not... Oh, and Typrand's shaft-holding arm comes from the necromancer supplied with the corpse cart.

On the cloak and the skin you can observe my first attempts at glazing. I'm especially happy about the red on the cape.


Of course Typrand needs a unit to lead, and what better than the grave guard? These are some of my favourite minis overall, and definitely THE models that should be used for armored skeletons, if a bit old-fashioned in the design.

The unit is 20 models strong, including Typrand. There are three fillers. I modelled the bases as if the unit is advancing along a road or duct, so signposts are perfect for fillers in my humble opinion. Here they are.

And yet another shots of the unit itself:
Next up are the rebased and redone black knights. With the new rules allowing them for a much broader freedom of movement I felt it was proper to model them as if they really are crossing some obstacle. Here is what I came up with.

Modelling them as ethereal didn't feel right to my mind, so I just made them leap over a fence. The horses and riders' legs are the same as used previously, however all the rest is taken from the splendid Grave Guard and Skeletons plastic sets. I honestly am in awe of these two sprues and the amount of detail put into the models. If GW has to make plastics, this is the way to make them.

Here are some more shots of the unit. Oh, the fences used on my VC are of course from the Walls and Fences set. Also a great resource if you ask me.

The bugger on the last picture is of course another character, formerly a wight lord, now called a wight king in the book. Made the same way as the regular knights, but with a much older horse model.
Next up are the Blood Knights and maybe a sneak peek at the skeletons! Stay tuned.

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!

(Title's gone fishin')

A lot has happened in the time I was not updating, not in terms of the amount of painted minis, but rather the size of the mini I've been painting. It's a commission piece for my buddy by the alias of Mauler. I was under some pressure whilst painting this piece; it's a commission, it's a centerpiece of the army, it's BIG! Judge for yourselves if I've managed to pull this one off:

As far as my own minis are concerned, all I'm waiting for are the horse skeletons to arrive and I'm all set for starting the Black Coach! It's still about two weeks away, so I think I'll have a well-deserved break from painting. I tried to finish my other zombie regiment before the new year, but I think I can't be assed to sit to them. Anyway, there is stuff to come here - watch this space.

Capo di tutti capi, part two

Hey there. Without going into pointless apologies and whatnot, I give you the finished general. Feast your eyes while awaiting more. And be prepared for a completely new project taking place very, very soon!

Capo di tutti capi, part one

You're right, this week's update marks the beginning of of the VC general project. I'm not sure whether this will be fielded as a Blood Dragon count or lord, but definitely as a Blood Dragon and a Lord level character.

While searching for he most appropriate model, I decided to go through well-trodden tracks and use Archaon as the basis for my conversion. Almost everything spoke in favor of this model, it being very imposing, full of character and easy to convert. In fact the only downside was that it has been done before, lots of times even.

I've bought the Archaon, Lord of the End Times kit (is he a Mormon or something?) long before making this update and played with the parts by dry-fitting and examining them thoroughly ever since it arrived. Therefore, I knew exactly what I will be facing when actually completing the model.

I was very impressed by the quality of the sculpt and it was really a shame I wasn't going to use several bits of it, most notably the shield and the uber cool base bit. Here are the components that made it through the selection:

Now, saying that it's easy to convert does not mean it's dead easy, pun not intended. There are some problem areas that I had to tackle before I could assemble and paint the model. These included the Chaos icons on the sword crossbar, the huge Chaos symbol thing on the horse's hindquarters and the spikes on its shoulder, and the star on Archaon's breastplate.

In the process of preparing this mini for assembly I decided to leave the spikes. They're not that bad-looking on an undead model and definitely add a sinister, evil feel to it. The Chaos star, on the other hand, had to go.

First, I filed it down to the skin level (it sticks out in one or two places). Then, I filled the gouge with Vallejo Plastic Putty, a great material for just that kind of work. It comes in a tube and has a very narrow applicator which makes the work one hell lot easier and cleaner. It is also sandable and can be drilled into, albeit gently. It took three or four application-sand-repeat cycles for me to get rid of the star and still it isn't completely gone, but I will be covering it with a set of severed heads hanging from the chainmail tunic. Here is the horse 'after'.

The sword's crossbar, on the other hand, was really easy. I just filed down the three stars from the blade and that was it.

With these alterations taken care of, I could assemble the horse and begin painting it. As it had some nasty gaps in very prominent places, I decided to use green stuff as an adhesive. By squeezing it out of the joints, I could scrape the excess, leaving a very small amount of the putty showing. When working with green stuff and its quantity on the model, less is definitely more. The less GS you use to fill the gaps, the less you'll have to sculpt it and struggle to make it invisible after painting, which sometimes is a pain to do. I was happy to find out I managed to achieve it somehow. Here is the horse (plus some other parts of the model) after assembly and mounted on handy implements, ready to be undercoated and painted.

When waiting for the GS to cure, I handled the base. I had to mount this model on a standard 25x50 mm cavalry base, since no VC character can be mounted on a 50x50 mm monster one unless it rides the zombie dragon and mine doesn't. Using a two-part epoxy resin glue I stuck two rare earth magnets to the underside of the base. I also cut out the holes for the horse to stand in. By using magnets I was able to stick the model to some kind of mount in order to touch it as rarely as possible when painting. Here, I've used a tall, sand-filled jar.

After that, the painting was, citing the Marovingean, like wiping my ass with silk. It's really a pleasure to work on a model that you genuinely enjoy and it is my advice to all the people who try to improve their painting skill - if you can afford it, buy models that you really, really like and turn a blind eye to whether or not you can use them in game. Having fondness of your 'patient' can really give you an incentive to work harder than usual and try something new.

The painting of this piece was no different. I tried to keep it muted and not very outstanding, as it already is a focal point due to its size and pose. For that reason I've also made the base as modest as I could. I won't go into the detail of brands and colors used, but if you'd like to know more, feel free to ask. I will be talking more about paints and painting next week, when I hope to show you the upper partof this mini.

Here is my general's steed finished.

Braaaains...

Yes, you guessed it, the zombies are making an appearance in today's update.

The idea for the unit came to me after very much pondering, discarding what was considered unfit and generally brain masturbation. I had a major nut to crack when trying to make the zombies both in a winter theme and that bit unorthodox. The frozen river motif sprung up out of the blue really, but was in a way inspired by the zombies from one of my favourite music videos (sincerely recommend the band as a whole too, they rock). The idea of having sombies emerge from the down under was just too cool not to try.

Having said that, I'm not at all happy with how the models turned out, nor had I actually expect to be. Confused? Let me explain.

I've treated this project as a test drive for both my idea for the aquatic zombies and my skills in actually making that idea come to fruition, plus the aptitude of my workshop too. I tried two major things here, the overall unit theme and the magnetized bases, pictured left. To make the magnets (3x3 mm, 1mm thick, rare earth) work, I had to place them directly in contact with the movement tray. The underside of a standard GW base has 2mm of space left. Faced with the choice between using thicker magnets and making my own bases, I went with the latter.

You see, when dealing with plastic minis, too much magnet force could easily mean ruining the mini - they have to be lifted from the tray, right? Now, using a magnet twice the thickness would mean absolute impracticality when it came to gaming. Left with no other option, I set about to making custom bases for the zombies.

I used two thicknesses of polystyrene, 1 mm and 0,5 mm. The former is used to host the magnet in a drillout, the latter covers both the hole and the magnet and forms the surface to which the mini itself is glued.

The unit consists of twenty four models, complete with a musician and a standard bearer. To get across that water emergence thing, I modeled the ranks as literally emerging, starting from the rearmost. To the right, you can see what I mean.

The zombie skintone is not what I aimed at by a longshot, but this is entirely my fault. When I finally substitute my worn GW paints for P3 Formula or Vallejo, I think I'll be able to pull out the color I wanted for these.

The water is made out of Vallejo Still Water polyurethane disperse. I'm not at all happy with this product though; while having the shine and full transparency, it does not look like water at all. Or maybe I can't use it properly.

The movement tray is made out of a 130 mm by 80 mm steel sheet, 1mm in thickness, with balsa sides glued on and textured.

As I already mentioned, this unit is not to be considered a showcase quality in any way - it was a test drive. I have the other 24-strong unit of zombies awaiting its turn, and with the lessons learned on this project, it is my hope that I will be able to make that other one much better.

One of the valuable bits of knowledge I got from making these is the increased familiarity with the P3 Formula metallics. I realize that I scoffed at them some weeks ago, but when putting them to a diligent test, they turned out maybe not awesome, but decent, and much better than the GW ones. In my upcoming project I will put them to much more use and i think I'll be able to say decisively where do I stand on them. For now, look at the musician's bell and decide for yourselves.

This, however, does not apply to ordinary P3 paints, which are just plain great. I used 'Jack Bone and Ryn Flesh on these zombies extensively and have nothing but praise to utter about their performance. Let me just say this - I was able to achieve complete coverage of beige over black with one layer. Really.

As for the next project, I won't spill any beans today, mainly because I have to decide between the general and the Black Coach. Both, however, are going to be very involving projects and it is my intent to make each update a 'step' in finishing these.

Out of the less in-topic announcements, I have added a modest logo to all pictures posted here, mainly due to another case of theft of my work. I've rehosted all images, but haven't really got the time to resize them properly. My bad, you'll have to cope with this until I sit to them.

Righto, off to the next project. And the realization of being that one step closer to digging my teeth into the Cryx Battlegroup makes me work all the more diligently. I hope.

See you next Friday!

Adding some character

Hello and welcome to Drazhar's Miniworks on this wonderful day. Wonderful, because I've just recovered my hardware from a major virus infection and I'm in the process of bringing it back to shape, which also explains the late update.

Today I want to show you the characters for the Vampire Counts army project, at least these I've made so far. They're still one character short - the general.

I might have told you that I didn't want any vampire models for this army. Of course I will use the rules for vampires, Blood Dragons at that, whenever I actually play a game, but as far as the models themselves go, no vampires.

I've started the character part of this project with the necromancers, partly because of the nice models, partly the ease of their execution. Pictured left is the first of two corpse entertainers I got. Nothing much to comment upon here, the model is quite old and therefore not THAT good, but still quite a decent piece.

I restricted my color palette on these to a very limited set of colors, in fact there are only two major tones - black and dark green, with some neutral colors to break the dark feel. I thought of the necromancers not as some really powerful sorcerers, but rather practitioners still on their way to damnation. This also affected the choice of the models, obviously.

The second wizard is a bit more 'cluttered', but still, to my mind, possessing only a few accessories, which is exactly what I was after here. The model is very characterful, second only, I think, to Heinrich Kemmler in dark and brooding appearance, drooping mustache and all. The only things I don't quite like on it is the staff headpiece and the weird Phrygian cap he wears. Other than that I find the model very much to my liking.

The third, last character, and at the same time the penultimate in the army, is the foot battle standard bearer. Here, there were no choices, I immediately knew what model I was going to use. The older fans surely have guessed by now; presenting - the IVth edition skeleton banner bearer, AKA the bellman, model extraordinaire:

Definitely one of my favorites when it comes to undead minis, with the addition of the oversized, IVth edition style banner pole. Younger gamers might not know that, but in the times of the IVth edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle there was this weird trend of making the banners and banner poles bigger than their bearers; sometimes this was very characterful, sometimes very awkward. This model falls into the former.

Also, veterans might recognize the banner as being none other than that of Arkhan the Black. Here is its uncolored version, painting is, of course, mine. I have reinforced the paper photocopy with a 0,20 mm polystyrene (yes, apparently they make is that thin) and I sincerely recommend it for any paper banners. They don't rip, but can still be twisted and cut with ease.

These are the characters I have made so far. The general is still not even started, so I won't go into any massive detail about him. All the beans I can spill here is: expect some conversion work and a truly imposing, mounted model.

Now, I'd very much like to show you the zombies come Friday, but that requires some discipline on my side and I don't know if I'll be able to conjure it in equal amounts. Still, keep your fingers crossed. Oh, and GW Space Wolves Grey is possibly the worst paint ever made. Honestly.