DocteurQui's Undead Pirates

[DocteurQui]

Hey everyone,

I just wanted a place where I could share the work I'm putting into my undead pirates. I'll basically just post pictures of the things I'm working on! Of course, any feedback is welcome, I'd love to get better at this hobby and receiving critiques and tips will really help me doing that I think.

The plan is to make an Age of Sigmar army based around a few vampires that have given up their royal status on the mainland, and have joined a kind of Wraithfleet, and have started laying waste to most naval vessels they encounter. The Vampire Lords have made a pact with a few Wight Kings who work together with the vampires to make sure every living being that tries to get across the seas of the Mortal Realms will perish (as they, of course, well and truly deserve, filthy mortals). The rest of the crew of the ship consists of skeleton warriors/grave guard (haven't really figured this one out yet), and are kept in motion by the necromantic energies of both the Wight Kings and the Vampire Lords. There's even plans for getting a few old Empire Cannons and proxying them as a sort of Screaming Skull Catapult from the Tomb Kings.

Well that's basically it for now, enjoy the pictures and please let me know what you think!

The Pirate Ship (name has not been thought of yet)

Spoiler: The Pirate Ship

You can even remove the upper parts of the (yet unfinished) ship!

 

[Theerteen]

Hey, so far, that looks and sounds very promising! I'm curious how the ship will turn out, are you going for a “realistic“ look or something ghostly?

I'll keep an eye on that project here

 

[DocteurQui]

Hey, so far, that looks and sounds very promising! I'm curious how the ship will turn out, are you going for a “realistic“ look or something ghostly?

I'll keep an eye on that project here

Going for a ghostly theme, just bought some Rhinox Hide to make the wooden parts of the ship (which is basically all of it) some really dark brown, almost black, shade. I'll also be trying to add some ghostly blues some of the details of the ship, not too sure what parts I should make that colour though...

But firstly, I've got to finish the ship itself XD. The only problem is that school and work is making life kinda busy, so I don't really have the time for finishing it up quickly :/
Thanks for your interest btw, it's really motivating!

 

[Theerteen]

If I may throw in a suggestion, don't use gw colors for the basing colours of the ship, prime it black or dark brown with mat car lacquer (or white for more detailed work), and use simple acrylic or even water colors for the big wooden parts. You will have to throw in 2 whole color pots of Rhinox for foundation and the following layers, I for myself would spare the money and go for cheaper colors on that big areas. You can do the last layers with gw colors, and then varnish it. But yeah, first task is finishing the build up and deciding where to put the ectoplasm

 

[DocteurQui]

If I may throw in a suggestion, don't use gw colors for the basing colours of the ship, prime it black or dark brown with mat car lacquer (or white for more detailed work), and use simple acrylic or even water colors for the big wooden parts. You will have to throw in 2 whole color pots of Rhinox for foundation and the following layers, I for myself would spare the money and go for cheaper colors on that big areas. You can do the last layers with gw colors, and then varnish it. But yeah, first task is finishing the build up and deciding where to put the ectoplasm

I think you just saved me A LOT of money XD Thank you so much! I definitely will use cheaper colours, it's not as if you'd see any real difference on that wood. Building the ship and everything probably is going to take a bit longer than I expected though, where I was just "busy" with school before, I now basically have to put al the hobbying aside for a week of two

After that though, I probably will be uploading quite a lot more!

 

[Theerteen]

it's not as if you'd see any real difference on that wood

That's it don't worry about few spare time, believe me, this hobby won't run away

 

[DocteurQui]

Hey! I'm not really sure where I should put updates to this thread (I've got some new photos on the ship), should I edit the original post? Or should I post a reaction with the new photos in it?

 

[Borgnine]

Usually people just post new photos into a new post, that way you can see the progress and the newest stuff is easy to find.

Also, that ship is a sight to behold, truly! Are the wooden parts made out of balsawood? I always considered balsawood too fragile to be used on such a scale, so I'm curious to know how did it work for you Good to see another promising plog here

 

[DocteurQui]

@Borgnine Thanks, I'll indeed just post these images in new posts, not too sure on the whole spoiler thing though. I guess it's probably better for readability to use spoilers for these photos right?

Thank you so much!! Yes, every wooden part is made out of balsa wood. It is quite fragile, but once you've put a lot of it together (and you've used some foamcore to glue all the wood onto) it actually becomes quite durable! Of course you do have to be careful with individual pieces of the balsa, especially the thin pieces that make up the hull of the ship, they do break quite easily. But that's why I used thicker pieces of it for the railing.

Long story short, it's quite nice to work with and an x-acto knife and glue gun will take you a veerrryyyy long way with this stuff.


And for the "update" (it's not a massive one guys, don't expect much ) I made the masts of the ship with yet another piece of balsa wood. This was kinda thick and had a pole-like shape. It was a little too smooth for me though, so I got my trusty old x-acto knife out again and basically just started cutting pieces off of it and wound up with an irregular looking stick XD . This seemed good enough though, as the boat should have a kind of broken and rotten feeling to it anyway.

I also used some more of the blue stuff (styrodur, if you were wondering) to make a deck for the front of the ship. Finally my pirates can have a nice place to stand while they're keelhauling the unworthy of Nagash's favour

Spoiler: The slightly updated Pirate Ship!

That's basically it! Enjoy

 

[Theerteen]

That's the way, just reply to your own thread to post the updates

Balsa is fine when it's glued to a base material, just be sure you have no edges that can break (just like on minis, everything sticking out will break one day, and usually you won't have glue at hand that moment ), alternatively you can “seal“ some edges with green stuff and apply some sculpted iron bars or something there. Again, don't haste, but Id love to see that project progressing

 

[Borgnine]

If you want to spoiler the pictures, there's nothing stopping you, that's your preference. I don't think that many people do it though, the pictures are usually the most important things here

The ship is turning out great, that is an awesome project. I really like that floor made out of styrodur. Why are the planks at an angle? Are they made that way on real ships? Either way, that looks really good!

As for securing balsawood, on one project I secured the surface of it using superglue - just poured a bit of it on the wood and it bonded with it, hardening it. I think it would be impossible to use it on such a scale, but maybe just on some fragile details?

 

[Sharkbelly]

Hey, that's looking great so far! Nice work.

 

[Farmer7574]

@DocteurQui That ship is coming along nicely, I'm looking forward to seeing those pirates painted up even more

 

[DocteurQui]

That's the way, just reply to your own thread to post the updates

Balsa is fine when it's glued to a base material, just be sure you have no edges that can break (just like on minis, everything sticking out will break one day, and usually you won't have glue at hand that moment ), alternatively you can “seal“ some edges with green stuff and apply some sculpted iron bars or something there. Again, don't haste, but Id love to see that project progressing

@Theerteen That idea with the sculpted iron bars sounds pretty cool, not really sure if it'd fit the style of the rest of the ship but we'll see! Thanks! Tbh I'd really love to haste for a second with this ship, but the building parts (more styrodur!!!) I ordered took pretty long to deliver and when I finally got them, they were waayyy thicker than I had ordered. So I'm waiting for more of that stuff to arrive, as I can't really progress with the ship until I made the main deck (which is made of the ordered styrodur).

Thanks for your interest!!

@DocteurQui That ship is coming along nicely, I'm looking forward to seeing those pirates painted up even more

@Farmer7574 Thanks! Atm I'm "converting" the pirates to be more vampire-like. But, as I'm not really a masterful converter in any way shape or form (I'm pretty terrible at it tbh ), not everything is turning out as I'd really like it to. Guess I'll just have to practice some more, and I probably should also invest in some actual sculpting tools as as of right now, I'm just using my x-acto knife and some pointed piece of wood to sculpt everything.

I will probably post some new updates on the pirates soon though! Thanks for your help!

If you want to spoiler the pictures, there's nothing stopping you, that's your preference. I don't think that many people do it though, the pictures are usually the most important things here

The ship is turning out great, that is an awesome project. I really like that floor made out of styrodur. Why are the planks at an angle? Are they made that way on real ships? Either way, that looks really good!

As for securing balsawood, on one project I secured the surface of it using superglue - just poured a bit of it on the wood and it bonded with it, hardening it. I think it would be impossible to use it on such a scale, but maybe just on some fragile details?

@Borgnine Hehehehe, thanks, think I won't spoiler the pics anymore, thanks for the info!

The ships planks are basically made this way too look a bit more interesting, not really sure if on actual ships it also looks this way (probably not ) but as I was making the plank relief, I thought it'd look cool if the planks would pan out to the front at the front of the ship, and pan out to the back at the back of the ship (excuse me for not knowing the exact ship terms, probably should look them up some time).

Furthermore, I don't really think the balsawood is going to be an enormous problem, mostly because, when something eventually does break off, I can just put a new piece of the wood on it's place and it will end up looking even more ghostly and rotten than before. Which is exactly the kind of ship I'm trying to make

It's so cool to get all these responses from amazing sculptors and painters and just hobbyists in general like yourself, thanks a lot!

Hey, that's looking great so far! Nice work.

@Sharkbelly Thanks! Really hope you'll enjoy further updates as much as you did this one!

 

[DocteurQui]

Hey everyone!

It's time for the third update to this little project of mine, I really like the way everything's turning out and I of course hope you do too!

Btw, if you want to give me advise or criticism of any kind, please do! As it's one of the best ways of trying out new things and gaining experience and becoming better at this hobby!

The ship:
Work on the ship is slowly but steadily progressing. At the moment though, I'm waiting for some building materials (the styrodur for the deck and balcony at the back). And as these building materials are needed for parts that should be finished before everything else on the ship, I'm not really able to further build it as quickly as I'd like.

The crew:
As of yet I don't have any of the skeletons I'd like to use as infantry (this is because I'm not really capable of buying much more this month ), but I do have the Avatars of War Vampire Lord, which I'm trying to convert into a pretty mean looking pirate. And I also have the BlackScorpionMiniatures Pirate Girls, which I'm using for another female vampire lord, and Undead Pirates, which I'm using as Wight Kings.

None of the models I want to use as vampires have any chalices of blood on them, sadly enough. And I do really want to at least play as WYSIWYG as possible, so I've been trying to sculpt a Chalice of Blood out of green stuff. I'm not really sure if I like it enough to put it onto a model, but the smallness of it really makes it hard for me to make it much better than this. If you've got any tips on this, please help me

Finally I've been adding pirate hats to the models you see in the pictures, they need some finishing touches, but I'm pretty happy with these. Again though, if you think there's anything that'd make these better, please do tell me, I'd love to know!

Avatars of War vampire lord with pirate hat.

BlackScorpionMiniatures Pirate Girl with pirate hat and some chains in her right hand to make her look more dangerous.

The Chalice of Blood I've been trying to make..

The painting scheme:
The last thing I've been working on is making a general view of what I want the painting scheme to be, and I think I'm pretty happy with the result. The paper you see in the picture is in no way comprehensive, but it's a start!

Again thank you for reading and following this thread, I'm really enjoying sharing my work and asking questions!

 

[DocteurQui]

Hey everyone,

This evening I decided I'd just give the current painting scheme a try. It's no amazing paintjob at all, but I think it gives a clear look at how the paints are going to go together on the army as a whole. Hope you like it!

 

[Theerteen]

Heh, the skeleton guy is neat. Nice to see the ship growing, do you have a plan how you'll use it once it's finished?

 

[DocteurQui]

Heh, the skeleton guy is neat. Nice to see the ship growing, do you have a plan how you'll use it once it's finished?

@Theerteen Thanks, I think I'm really liking the painting scheme!

And the ship... I'll probably use it as a terrain piece and as a cool and thematic place to place my gravesite(s). Otherwise I wouldn't really have a clue what to do with it. Maybe I could try actually using the ship as a ship, you know, by making it sail over the table as an actual ship would. But as of yet I haven't really found any good rules for such an idea.

What I did find was the following ruleset for a skirmish game with flying ships using the Arkanaut Frigate rules. It seems pretty fun, but the ship I'm currently making is waaayyyy bigger than the ships that are advised on this ruleset (namely about the size of a normal KO Frigate).

 

[Theerteen]

I was thinking about a ME, but even for that it's way too big. Maybe atmospheric scenery will do best, it could be a count-as building or something. Anyway it's too good to not use it.
While I saw your Green Stuff in packages there, do you use original GS? If so, may I suggest this trader? You get 1m GS for a very fair price, and it's completely the same like GW Stuff.

https://www.ebay.de/itm/Green-Stuff...e-Warhammer-/281286907040?hash=item417e0194a0

I hope it's changeable to english, if not, look for greenstuffworld on ebay, I think it's a spanish shop. One of my best money savers so far.

 

[DocteurQui]

I was thinking about a ME, but even for that it's way too big. Maybe atmospheric scenery will do best, it could be a count-as building or something. Anyway it's too good to not use it.
While I saw your Green Stuff in packages there, do you use original GS? If so, may I suggest this trader? You get 1m GS for a very fair price, and it's completely the same like GW Stuff.

https://www.ebay.de/itm/Green-Stuff...e-Warhammer-/281286907040?hash=item417e0194a0

I hope it's changeable to english, if not, look for greenstuffworld on ebay, I think it's a spanish shop. One of my best money savers so far.

@Theerteen yeah, it's probably just going to be a piece of scenery. I would really like making (or finding) duksz for it, but that would mean I've got to find someone else with another ship as well. And seeing as the only person I'm currently playing with is my brother who doesn't like this kind of hobby at all, it's probably going to end up being used as cool terrain.

As for the greenstuff, yeah I was really astonished by the prices at Greenstuffworld! Yesterday or the day before I ordered apart from some sculpting tools 12 inches of greenstuff for only 3,50 there! I've got no idea why gamesworkshop can sell theirs for so much more money. Probably because people like me who once bought it without knowing there's other manufacturers who make the damn stuff as well.

Anyway, thank you for your tip! Not really sure if I'd ever need a meter of the stuff, but it's nice to know nonetheless

 

[Theerteen]

You seem to sculpt quite a bit, and GS doesn't age so fast...one day, maybe not tomorrow or the day after, you WILL GET YOUR METER! *insert evil laughter*

 

[Borgnine]

You are certainly keeping yourself busy! The work on the ship is going on wonderfully! How are you going to do the sails?

The pirate hats are superb too, especially those feathers! You are good at this! I would consider adding some decorative trim on those hats, like little notches done with tweezers, but it's too late for that at this point Or a gem on the front? Maybe then they would turn out too fancy, not enough old, decayed and rotten, so it's all good

As for the chalice, yours look really good, but maybe it's really too big for this purpose. I actually thought a bit how one could do such a small chalice efficiently and I thought of something like this: roll a long blob of greenstuff and then try to give it a thin 'waist', for example carefully rolling it with a toothpick or a pen. When that's cured and hard you can just cut off the excess and you'll have a perfectly serviceable, simple chalice - and it can be easily made pretty small. It's not empty inside, but it can be painted as if there's blood inside, for example. You can even add some decorations to it later. See the picture for some explanation:

I never tried this, it's theoretical, but that's how I would start going about this...

The color scheme looks good, that teal shade fits both verdigris and reminds me of seawater somehow. That wight looks serious! Black and white with some additional color always work great

Also if we're talking about greenstuff Once you get used to it and start converting more and more, you get more ideas and you use it up faster - like a snowball. I went through 3 or 4 such amounts during my last 5 years of hobbying And it does expire with time - but you have something like 1,5 or 2 years before it's bad, so you have some time still

 

[DocteurQui]

You are certainly keeping yourself busy! The work on the ship is going on wonderfully! How are you going to do the sails?

The pirate hats are superb too, especially those feathers! You are good at this! I would consider adding some decorative trim on those hats, like little notches done with tweezers, but it's too late for that at this point Or a gem on the front? Maybe then they would turn out too fancy, not enough old, decayed and rotten, so it's all good

As for the chalice, yours look really good, but maybe it's really too big for this purpose. I actually thought a bit how one could do such a small chalice efficiently and I thought of something like this: roll a long blob of greenstuff and then try to give it a thin 'waist', for example carefully rolling it with a toothpick or a pen. When that's cured and hard you can just cut off the excess and you'll have a perfectly serviceable, simple chalice - and it can be easily made pretty small. It's not empty inside, but it can be painted as if there's blood inside, for example. You can even add some decorations to it later. See the picture for some explanation:

I never tried this, it's theoretical, but that's how I would start going about this...

The color scheme looks good, that teal shade fits both verdigris and reminds me of seawater somehow. That wight looks serious! Black and white with some additional color always work great

Also if we're talking about greenstuff Once you get used to it and start converting more and more, you get more ideas and you use it up faster - like a snowball. I went through 3 or 4 such amounts during my last 5 years of hobbying And it does expire with time - but you have something like 1,5 or 2 years before it's bad, so you have some time still

@Borgnine Thanks for awesome reply!

Thank you! Working on the ship is one of the most relaxing things I've ever done, and as I like relaxing, it's going a bit faster than I thought it would XD. As for the sails, making those is probably going to be kinda hard, as I almost want them to have that same teal colour as the verdigris on the pirates to make it all look alike. But I do think that could eventually look pretty comical and ugly. Maybe just a yellowish, rotten, white colour would be better for the sails? Idk though. I'd probably try to use some cloth and tear it apart a bit to make it look more ghostly, do you by any chance have any tips for that?

And thank you for the comment on the pirate hats too! I had already practiced those quite a lot on some older models using this tutorial

. It's a really easy and fast way to make pretty decent looking hats!

As for the decoration, you totally read my mind there. Although they look neat, having such a decorative trim on the hat would make them look a bit more detailed. I do think though, that it might actually be possible to put such a trim on it still. In the following days/weeks, I'll be probably try my best at creating some more details for the hats. As you said, maybe a gem would work too! Of course that would make them look a bit more fancy, but they're vampires, and although they left their enormous keeps and palaces for a more adventurous life at sea, they'll probably always like some glamour

Omg, your little tutorial of the chalice looks amazing, I really like its simplicity and how good it should (in theory of course) look! I'll definitely try to replicate this and show you the results! Maybe after some testing this would be a cool addition to that one tutorial compilation post? I think you were the one who actually made that, am I right? Anyway, thanks for putting so much effort in helping me with this!

I'm really getting comfortable with the colour scheme as well! I am kinda afraid it won't look as rotten and dark as I once envisioned my Vampiric Pirate Ship to be, but on the other hand, I'm wondering if that even really matters cause this looks pretty fine as well!

Your comment on the greenstuff is really assuring, thank you! I'm so looking forward to getting some new tools so I can finally move the stuff around as precise as I'd like! I love working with it, it's amazing

Again, thanks for your reply, hope this clears up your questions and I'm definitely going to use your tips on the chalice and pirate hats!

 

[DocteurQui]

Hey everyone!

It's pirate ship time again!

First of all, I just wanted to show the detail (unclear photo, but still) that goes into the styrodur planks of the ship. I basically start of by carving the blue lines in it with a pen, and I then use a very sharp pencil tip to make all the nerves in the wood. After that (haven't done that yet on this photo hehehe) I put in some holes where the planks connect to each other to create the illusion of nails being there, holding everything together. Not an incredibly hard proces, but still quite nice and good looking when drybrushed

Next up is the back of the ship, some more detail went into this, the cabin at the back now has walls and even some windows with some decorative skulls on them (cause who wouldn't put a skull on top of their window, duhh). I also extended the "balcony" or "pathway" next to the cabin, a 25 and even 32 mil. miniature can now stand there and look intimidating, I guess

Next up are some photos of the ship as a whole (note, the front mast isn't there on the picture, I kinda forgot putting it on before making the pictures and I was too lazy to reshoot every singly photo).

As you can see, the ship finally has a main deck, it's not finished at all, all the nerves and nails have yet to be drawn into them, but I did not at all feel like doing any more of that nervedrawing tonight so I kept it at this.

The front part of the main deck which will eventually have a staircase going downstairs into the front "cabin" of the ship. As for now, there's just some empty space down there XD

And for the last picture, the main deck is (just like the front and back cabin) detachable as well! This does mean I'll have to put in even more effort in making the belly of the ship look good as well, but I like myself some customisability, so a detachable deck couldn't be missed from my ship. A pirate that isn't randomly stabbing his sword up into the air can even stand tall underneat the deck!

Thanks for watching these photos! Your comments and tips and tricks really make my day!

 

[Borgnine]

Wow, that's quite a lot of styrodur! Drawing planks on it must take quite a bit of time - but I guess it's faster than building it all out of balsa or greenstuff - and it's probably quite meditative to do it too It's turning out great, it's really a treat to see it grow and grow. It would be nice to see some stairs there, I wonder how are you going to do them

One thing that I find strange is the direction of the planks on the main deck - while I think that this trick about putting them at an angle is interesting visually, but to shift the angle on a single plane? Some carpenter must have had a lot of headache to cut them up to such precise angles Similarly, those supershort, square-shaped planks - I could imagine something like this on the edge, but in the middle? That's strange. Still, it all probably won't be that visible with all the crew doing their pirate stuff on it.

Also, did you already see the pirate ship that @Nagash Worshiper did some time ago? I think he started doing it on the 6th page of his plog. It's also an undead vessel and he did a terrific job on bringing it and it's crew to unlife - and it was awesome to see all the progress and work he put into it. If you haven't seen it yet, you should check it out for some inspiration