Post: #1

Hey guys

I have been and still am quite busy at the moment with my exams. After endless hours of learning formulas and calculating stuff I've finally found some time to create this painting log, which I had wanted to do weeks ago.
So without much ado, here is a sneak preview on the army that is going to follow soon: the first early WIP pictures of my green (well... blue) knight:






By now he only got basecoats and a few blends from Regal Blue to Enchanted Blue and a wash of the former. The next step will be some highlights before the really tricky part starts: freehands! and of course the armor in NMM and an OSL on the weapon (which will be a bright green glow). I also apologize for the poor pictures, the next ones will probably use a light box that has yet to be built.

The army concept overall is simple:
The bases are going to be snowy, so I was kinda heading for an army of the North theme. As you will notice I did not put that much effort into making them look frozen. The blue cloth and the bases will have to do.
The idea behind it was, that my vampire was a lonesome wanderer in the chaos wastes who had no aims in unlife but to improve his fighting skills. As a kind of barbarian he annihilated smaller chaos marauder tribes on his own and raised them as minions. With his growing power he decided to gather other vampires around him to go to war against the weaker living races of the Old World.

Long story short: my Vampire Lord (did not purchase him yet, just some of his fellows) will be a conversion out of a Chaos Champion (maybe even Archaon). As I did not want to convert every single model I decided that only special miniatures needed small conversions. To adapt to the cold climate of the chaos wastes some minis have sculpted fur.
The symbol of the army is a wolf (yeah, ironical for a vampire, as they don't get along with werewolfs in mythology all that well - but it looked cool), so banners (with few exceptions) will contain fitting freehands. To fit the theme I also got a unique mini for my 2nd Varghulf, but that is a surprise for now.

This is probably nothing exceptional as my rank and file are pretty standard paintjobs, I do put a lot of effort into my characters and other outstanding models such as Varghulfs and the like though. Also my updates might take a while because I'm somewhat of a perfectionist and, as stated above, am terribly busy. I do my very best though and took this plog as a motivation to paint regularly.

What I have at the moment:
40 skeletons (painted)
20 GW ghouls (painted - not that good though, might sell them off on ebay and get some from mantic - if only GW had a different policy for their stores )
20 GG (mixed HW&S and GW - 14/20 done, including command)
winged vampire (painted)
caster vampire on foot (painted, classical von Carstein)
Corpse cart with necro (necro removable, painted)
Varghulf (GW's sculpt, painted)
2nd Varghulf (assembled, but not painted - might wait until next Golden Bat with it)
Green Knight (mounted vampire, WIP)
about 30 zombies (assembled and primed)
5 spirit hosts (LotR army of the dead, assembled and primed)
6 wraiths (LotR army of the dead conversion, assembled and primed)

Need to buy:
Dire wolves (1 box should be enough - they fit my theme hellishly good)
more skeletons (I somehow prefer them over ghouls, though ghouls are admittedly better)
more / new ghouls (mantic seems the way to go here)
an additional 10 GG

I realize that this has become longer than I thought it would. Tell me what you think and what you would like to see next. To fill the time periods when I can't paint much I'll hold back part of my painted minis to be able to update frequently.

And finally: a pic of the place where all the work is done:


With kind regards,

Dogmar

Post: #2

You have a very organised looking work place! Looking forward to seeing your progress, good luck

Post: #3

WOW...so clean,my workshop looks like a troupe of babboons had a paintfight.

Post: #4

This is kind of a "before" picture. "After" painting it usually looks a lot more messy!

I will take photos of the Varghulf, which you can already see on the workspace-pic, tommorow night, so this gets a little more interesting. I know a knight with some blue blendig is not that exciting

By the way: did anyone bother to read the wall of text? Any comments on the overall concept?

Cheers and thanks for the kind replies so far,

Dogmar

Post: #5

The concept seems sound for your army idea, good generalized Warhammer vampire tale with a Blood Dragon bent! I also like the idea of a traveling army in the north, this allows you to use nearly any model you desire apart from Lizardmen.

Any chance we can get some pictures of the stuff you already have painted? Kind of get us caught up on what you have done before?

Post: #6

Concept sounds great. Undead chaos do tend to look pretty great. Looking forward to seeing the log as it progresses.

(Do a skeletal spawn, go on...)

Post: #7

Looks great if you ask me! I really like the blue color you've got on your green knight, I can't wait to see some more from him. Could you also get some pictures of the rest of the army? I like the frozen theme(as you know) and I'd really love to see what you do with it, both for the fun of seeing an army being born and for inspiration to my own army.

Post: #8

As I said earlier, my "frozen" army is not that frozen. The skellies look quite common, as they're shaded with browns, not with blues. That was the reason why I liked your work so much, Lejontass. I simply did not have that amazing idea! Still almost everything I paint is decent tabletop quality or better, so stay tuned!


More pics of my finished models will have to wait until tonight or tomorrow for two reasons:
1) With lightbox the pics are worse than without, so I have to change something about it.

2) I have been busy with this:


This is a good friend of mine. I'm not allowed though to post the orininal picture up. But let me point out, that it looks quite similar to this!
The picture will be part of a birthday present, so it was on top of my priority list.

Tell me what you think.

Cheers,

Dogmar

Post: #9

Nice portrait Dogmar. Always cool to do a custom birthday present, goes down a treat.

Post: #10

Thank you for the kind comment and the reputation point Mr Saturday.

Here goes the promised update: My finished Varghulf






I painted this guy a few months ago, in the time until now my painting has improved a lot. I like him anyways . The snow on his base is still missing as I'm struggling to find a way to do it properly. Imo the GW-snow looks bad and boring. Any ideas?

Comments & Criticism is always welcome.

Cheers,

Dogmar

Post: #11

Hi Dogmar, well I think you green knight model is looking rather nice, i would properly bring the shading up one more tone just as very fine highlights, and then perhaps but a blue wash over the top, how do you plan on painting the armour?

Varg is looking nice but what happened to the werewolf! I am most disappointed I found when painting rock/stine painting it shadow grey, devlun mud wash followed by a shadow grey dry brush, 50.50 skull white/shadow grey (this is done lighter) and then a final very very light dry brush of skull white looks very cool. For exposed muscle I actually paint tamya clear red over it, once dry i paint black wash over the top, looks very effective.

Keep up the good work!

Post: #12

one way I have seen people do snow is a mix of Elmer's Glue, Snow Flock, Baking soda and water. You mix all together until you get something roughly the consistency of cream of wheat. then you let it set for a few minutes, then go back over it with a sprinkling of flock and baking soda. When it dries it should look exactly like snow!

IMPORTANT!!!! you MUST seal the model before you begin this process. the mixture will leach color from the paint underneath it and you will wind up with Technicolor snow if your not careful!

Post: #13

Nice model.

Post: #14

Thank you all for the nice comments so far.
@logan:The Green Knight is a really early WIP and as I said in my first post the blue is not done yet. Still a good suggestion On the Varg: this is only the first out of two Varghulfs I'm going to have in my collection. This one was painted quite a while ago. The werewolf has arrived now and is already assembled. It needs some green stuff though, to fill gaps and add even more skulls to the base (you should have found that in your inbox already ). I'll try your colour scheme for stone on him - you know, he's kneeling on a rock covered with skulls.

@Cruor Vault: Thats an interesting idea for snow. I suppose Elmer's Glue is normal, clear drying, multipurpose glue?! I'm somehow afraid to use baking soda, as it 1. absorbs colour and could ruin the model and 2. doesn't it ehm... rott or somehow change structure? - you know what happens to food if it's open for too long. That kind of thing. I might try it on a spare base or cardboard before .

Keep the suggestions coming. I like the way this is going

Cheers,

Dogmar

Post: #15

awesome varghulf, i love it!!

Post: #16

Very nice varghulf love the cold it inspires great work looking forward to more

Post: #17

Very nice Varghulf Dogmar!

Don't use baking soda, as you said, it gets miscolored with time, turning yellow. Atleast that is what I've heard.
I mix Snow Flock, PVA-glue, Water and Skull White on a seperate plate and then apply it to my model. It looks ok I guess.

A tutorial.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBqtYJwDD...re=related

Post: #18

Thank you for the tutorial, it looks very helpful, I might try that out soon.

On my progress: The Green Knight takes hellishly long to paint, spent several hours today working on the blue parts with only minor improvements showing. The base colour of the barding is now done and looks rather nice, just the freehands in the secondary colour (white) are missing. I've also done the horse in a dark grey. Nothing worth showing here though. That will have to wait until I can start with the armour (which I will as soon as the saddle and the fur features are done). Expect it to be a great model once it's finished, but also expect it to progress slow, there are so many details on the beautiful sculpt.

Don't be disappointed though, here goes the first of my two skeleton units - spear skellies:






These were my first undead miniatures, so their painting quality is not the best as they were rather "experimental". Feel free to comment and criticize away thoguh . I'm especially proud of the standard bearer. If you like to I can do some closeup shots of him.

Cheers,

Dogmar

Post: #19

They look good,very clean.I just got some of these skellies myself,it's odd to me that they made all the banners blow forwards,as if the wind is blowing from behind.I guess it's to make them seem more unnatural,I'm gonna turn mine around though.
The freehand on the banner is tasteful.do you plan to embellish the shields?

Post: #20

That Varghulf is stunning...just wow !!
Those blends of blue are so subtle and well done that they look seamless.