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Farmer7574

Vampire Count
True Blood
Dec 10, 2013
1,587
England
Here we go - batch #1 of my Grave Guard:



I figured the current competition was a great motivator to whack out a fair-sized batch of these guys (hats off to you @Borgnine and @Theerteen ), so I decided to set to work on 19 bases of them. They took a bit longer than expected but here they are, finally done. Below are some more pics:



These were done in the usual wight paint job, just like the Black Knights and wight kings in the army. I've done some tree fillers once again too to add to the environment.

My favourite guy in the unit just had to get painted in this batch - the champion:



I'm happy to get this guy finished - there's always an added pleasure in seeing a conversion go from random bits to completed conversion then to fully finished project. Really pleased with how he's turned out.

A few more shots of him:



I've already got the second batch of Guard on the go but I'm hearing those Vargs calling in my sleep - I think they might need some attention before finishing the total three batches I've planned for this unit. Either way, my display cabinet now needs rearranging as the start of this unit has pushed the undead beyond one shelf now :)


Regarding earlier posts - cheers for your feedback guys:

@Irisado Cheers - I'm quite happy with how the champion of the GG has turned out. As usual, I want my command group to be noticeable whilst still staying uniform with the unit. I think this guy is my favourite unit champion in the army as of yet.

My goal this year isn't too ambitious - to get this unit of GG, the 6 Vargs and the winged vamp lady done by October (just in time for the annual army shot) - I'd be happy with that :)

@Borgnine Thanks a lot man, your weapon conversion idea has worked out nicely! And I'd love to see this command group in your army colours :D

Cheers for your comments chaps - the work continues.
 
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Irisado

Ancient Vampire Lord | Siphoner of Spammers
Staff member
True Blood
May 22, 2010
718
Nottingham, UK
Fantastic painting and modelling. I really like all of the models and they have the appearance of an implacable advance. This is one formidable unit of Grave Guard.
 

Borgnine

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Jun 15, 2013
2,036
Pruszkow, Poland
Congrats on finishing this batch :) There's nothing better in this army than Grave Guard :D

The painting is stellar as always and that large amount of metal looks really good on them. I really like that champion though, really good idea with changing his legs. GGs all have the same pose which makes them look very automaton-like, which is fine, but you breaking that up with the champion makes him really stand out as the commander, as the only one with his own mind, out of synch with the rest. An intimidating leader issuing a challenge against some meatbag ;) Very nice!
 

Farmer7574

Vampire Count
True Blood
Dec 10, 2013
1,587
England
Hey guys, back for another update. It's a shame to see TinyPic has gone and closed up shop and all my pics are no longer viewable - luckily I've got them all backed up so I'll have to start the process of slowly getting them all back up here.

Anyway, here's my recent work - Batch #2 of my Grave Guard:



Not much to say about these really - same job as the last batch. The unit is shaping up nicely now but I haven't taken a shot of them together thus far.

The final batch is now on hold while the Vargs get some long-overdue attention. I'm currently putting layers on their skin, which will take a while but I have 4 weeks to get them done in time for our current competition.

I also found a cheap box of Citadel Woods online, so am also in the process of making some scenery to match these guys while I'm not around my painting stuff.


Thanks for your earlier comments;

@Irisado That's always been one of the appealing things of Grave Guard for me; a block of heavily-armoured dead dudes just marching forth into whatever is in front of them.

@Borgnine I share exactly the same opinion there mate - I always want champs to stand out, and I've always loved that stance of issuing a challenge. After looking through my kits that I bought for parts, these legs made that stance possible here. Very happy with this guy leading my GG :)

@Theerteen Thanks man! More to come...

@Sharkbelly Cheers mate - the colour scheme was a thing I put quite a lot of thought into prior to starting this army. I'm glad it's working out!

Cheers guys - more in the works.
 

Farmer7574

Vampire Count
True Blood
Dec 10, 2013
1,587
England
As mentioned in the previous post, I picked up some Citadel Woods to make some scenery to go alongside these guys in the display cabinet:



I opted for these rather than the newer Sylvaneth Wydwood because they look all gnarly & messed up - they totally suggest the atmosphere of a creepy twisted forest whereas the others are pretty vanilla.

Here are some individual shots:



I've been working on these whist away from my painting stuff. I decided to base them on individual 80mm round bases so I can move them around as I please.

The trees are completely bare right now but I will use some of the leaves that come with the box. I won't be using many of them, just enough to add some colour to these single scenic bases. I've also since picked up another box of these trees.

The Vargs - they're coming along, slowly but surely. I'll hopefully have a progress shot to share around this time next week if I stay motivated to get the skin layering all done.


@brr-icy Thank you, kind sir!

That's all for now. Cheers for looking.
 

Sessioni

Black Knight
Dec 29, 2014
300
It is so good to see the amount of activity in this Forum! Your VC is growing nicely, like they should!
 

Irisado

Ancient Vampire Lord | Siphoner of Spammers
Staff member
True Blood
May 22, 2010
718
Nottingham, UK
That ice blue really evokes that ethereal and other worldly feel of the undead, so while you may say more of the same, I enjoy seeing more of the same :).

I look forward to following your progress with the trees. A small undead copse could be very much in the making.
 

Borgnine

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Jun 15, 2013
2,036
Pruszkow, Poland
The GGs are amazing as always - the weathering on the metal looks soo good. And those trees, it seems like you repositioned some of the branches, didn't you? They always seemed pretty flat and uninteresting to me, but you managed to make them look pretty rad. They will fit perfectly with your army :)
 

Farmer7574

Vampire Count
True Blood
Dec 10, 2013
1,587
England
Fresh off the table, here's the first batch of Vargs done:



With our current competition being a big motivator to make some progress on these, I naturally opted for the conversions first as they're the more interesting ones to work on. Alas, having these three done is now a massive motivator to get the others done.

Here are some more shots of the Vargoyle:



Probably my favourite of the bunch, I'm happy with how he's turned out. I'm glad I opted for him being on that rock base also, as he definitely works as the centrepiece of this unit. It also adds to his 'lift-off' pose.

Here are some more shots of the other two conversions:





The colour scheme for these came about after seeing Total War's Vargs. Last year at some point I experimented with using the reddish brown fur (from Krell) alongside the dark grey skin (from the zombies) on the wings, then set to work on the pre-assembly painting on the membranes. Here's my early inspiration shot:



Painting all the skin was a bit of a chore, so in the end I resorted to working on one at a time at this stage. Once that was out of the way, the rest of the mini was enjoyable to paint. Once again, thanks to @Mad 'At for the conversion inspiration. I'm happy I went and borrowed his ideas :)

Next up; I currently have the final batch of Grave Guard on the painting table - I'd like to get these guys done before taking this year's army shot. I'll also be working on the winged vampire soon too.

Whilst on the subject of characters; my missus gave me this mini a year or so ago:



I'd like to add him to the ranks of the undead... Any ideas as to what I could do to convert this guy up for the VC army? I was thinking of decaying up his armour and perhaps adding some skull trophies to it.


@Sessioni Long time no see! Thanks for stopping by and taking a look mate. The army is growing but not as fast as I'd like it to (I suppose most of us have the same feeling when working on our armies).

@Irisado That's awesome news – more Grave Guard on the way :D

I've since picked up another box of trees, so I'm thinking 3 vanilla and 3 with some conversions a bit more suited to the army. Dead dudes hanging from/nailed to the trees should work nicely!

@Borgnine Cheers buddy – glad you like the GG, the unit is shaping up nicely. The tree trunks themselves come in two parts; just having those two parts put together does make a pretty flat tree. Gladly the kit comes with more branches so I added them where I saw fit to make the trees spread out more.

Cheers for taking a look gents, more in the works.
 

Irisado

Ancient Vampire Lord | Siphoner of Spammers
Staff member
True Blood
May 22, 2010
718
Nottingham, UK
The Vargheists are superb. Looking at them really is akin to viewing the in-game models for Total Warhammer. They strongly resemble my Vargheists as they appear alongside Isabella Von Carstein in game.

Slambo's picture is identical to that of the Chaos Warlord model from Advanced Heroquest all those years ago. If you have a copy of the game, take a look at the monsters section in the rulebook and you will see what I mean.
 

Mad 'At

Dumb enough to work
Staff member
True Blood
Apr 2, 2011
2,378
Grödinge
Thanks for the mention mate!

Your Vargheist look awesome, I especially like the hair :)
 

Borgnine

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Jun 15, 2013
2,036
Pruszkow, Poland
Ah, the Vargheists are finally here! How long ago did you start them? Still, I think it was worth it because they look absolutely ace! The paintjob is as smooth as always with you and their poses look great - I would set them up in the same way if I had to do another 3 of them :)

As for Slambo - I don't know how willing you are to cut him up - but I thought that giving him the bat wing ornaments from GG champion's helmet instead of horns would make him look much more VC-like, like a heavily armored wight king of sorts.
 

Farmer7574

Vampire Count
True Blood
Dec 10, 2013
1,587
England
It's been a little while since I've made any updates here but I thought I'd drop by and warm up the forge before posting my recent work.

Last year I spent the majority of my hobby time (which wasn't enough) working on this army, and I'm pleased to say that I finished the Grave Guard unit around 3 hours before 2020! A small achievement but I'm happy to have been able to add an entire unit from scratch to this army within the year.

I also managed to finish those three trees and am in the works of putting together a relatively simple yet different unit as my 'counts as' for bat swarms. I ended up selling my Reaper ones (as I just couldn't work with their soft plastic), I'm actually quite happy about that as the I believe what I'm working on now is a vast improvement on the Reaper bats. No spoilers, but pics coming soon.


Regarding earlier posts:

@Irisado Thanks a lot mate, that's what I was aiming for. I'm very happy how they've turned out and will slowly get the other three done alongside other projects - that grey skin takes patience xD

@Mad 'At Great work deserves recognition - your conversions were too good to pass up on these and have resulted in way better poses than the GW's.

@Borgnine Yeah mate, I think I started them during summer 2018, and they're still only half done. The grey skin is laborious to do so I'll do one at a time in between the masses of infantry I still have left.Thanks for your comment mate and I'm glad you like how they've turned out.

As for Slambo - I'm willing to butcher him but am second guessing incuding him in the VC army now as he's massive and stands out like a sore thumb, not to mention difficult to fit on a reasonably sized base. Plenty of stuff to do while I mull on the idea :)

@robtion Cheers bud, the winged vamp is in the works and the crypt horrors remain in need of claws. I wanna say they'll be done soon but you all probably know by now that when I mention a rough date you can probably easily add 6-12 months to it xD

Cheers chaps - I'll have some pics straightened out and up here for browsing in my next post. Farmer out.
 

Farmer7574

Vampire Count
True Blood
Dec 10, 2013
1,587
England
Here we go, I've finally got around to taking some photos of my work that I haven't shown yet. Let's start with those trees...



One finished old school Citadel Wood. I opted for basing them on 80mm circular bases rather than using the scenic base it comes with because the main purpose is to add decoration to my display cabinet.

Here are some individual shots:



I'll eventually add some small bunches of leaves to them, but I'll wait til the others are finished and just paint a the eaves up in one go.

Here's batch #3 of the Grave Guard that I completed right before 2020 hit:



This includes the converted standard bearer, which took a little bit of time due to the fact I'd forgotten my blue fire painting recipe and had to experiment a little before painting that firey skull atop the banner pole.

Next up is a shot of the command group:



I'm happy with the overall result of these guys - I wanted a command group that stood out more than the other skelly commands, not just because of their armour but also their importance, and I think they've obtained that appearance.

And here's a shot of the completed unit:



Instead of doing a very belated army shot for the 4th year I figured I'd just take a pic of the things I'd completed instead. Here they are:



Not my best year in terms of painting progress, but I'm still content to have finished an entire unit of infantry :)

On the table right now: some Ravening Flocks from Beasts of Chaos' Endless Spells box are being used as 'counts as' for bat swarms. I'm currently putting them together to make their basing a little more interesting than straight out of the box. The winged vamp is also getting some paint. Stay tuned for more.
 
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Irisado

Ancient Vampire Lord | Siphoner of Spammers
Staff member
True Blood
May 22, 2010
718
Nottingham, UK
Superb :). The trees look great and the completed units are outstanding. The colour scheme has turned out really well on all of them.
 

Farmer7574

Vampire Count
True Blood
Dec 10, 2013
1,587
England
I've been working on my 'Bat' Swarms these days and have finally got them ready for paint:



6 Ravening Flocks from the Beasts of Chaos Endless Spells kit. I wanted to have these flying swarms interacting somehow with the scenery in my army, and so had the idea of using a tree as the centre piece of the unit which spreads over the entire unit.

I've done my best to chop a Citadel Wood tree down to size so it could fit on one 40mm squared base then have roots extending onto adjacent bases. Here are the back three bases separated:



Looking at my completed trees, I figure there are going to be a lot of warm tones at work here, so my plan is to go for a blue/purple hue on black for the birds to contrast them with the scenery. Here's what I'll be aiming for:




@Eduard Bernstein You're too kind mate, thanks. I don't think my minis reach the same caliber as the 'Eavy Metal team but I do spend a bit of time on them to make sure they look at least half decent.

@Irisado Thank you! It's been a long process but the army's coming along nicely. I'm playing catch up now and trying to get a lot of my remaining infantry done this year.

Cheers for your comments guys, more in the works. :)
 
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Irisado

Ancient Vampire Lord | Siphoner of Spammers
Staff member
True Blood
May 22, 2010
718
Nottingham, UK
The swarms are already off to a very good start. I look forward to seeing how they develop. Also, a swarm of crows is just as apt for the undead as a swarm of bats, so I really like this concept.
 

Farmer7574

Vampire Count
True Blood
Dec 10, 2013
1,587
England
Quarantine is kind of over here and work has started again, so now I'm back to my normal snail pace xD

This month I've managed to get the tree done in the crow swarms, and I've also put a bit more work into my Crypt Horrors.

Here's the tree:

https://postimages.org/] [/url]

Nothing much to say here – it's a tree, but progress nonetheless. I'm toying with the idea of dry brushing the birds, but might just get my head down and layer them as I won't get the sharp highlights I'm after with dry brushing.

Next up, recent additions to the tree monsters (my version of Crypt Horrors):

https://postimages.org/] [/url]

I've added the claws since my last time working on these. The claws are a mix of Dryad hands with additional long bits to scale them up and suit them to a larger miniature. They'll get some liquid green stuff later to tidy up any rough joints.

I'm pretty happy with their poses thus far. You'll notice one guy is without claws right now, I won't tell you why just yet but he'll be getting a bit more attention in the future to differentiate him a little from the others.

Here's a close up of one of the Horrors so far:

https://postimg.cc/YLcWdQgj] [/url]

My plans to finish these off are...

-use converted Bloodletter skulls as their heads
-add spiky branches in various areas, maybe some vines and fungus too

I'd like your advice on the shoulders. Right now they kinda look like fantasy tree transformers, and I think adding some branches coming off the shoulders could make them more treeish. Thoughts?

I appreciate you checking out my work and any tips you may have. Cheers


@Irisado Gad you like the swarms. Thanks for your feedback mate, much appreciated as always!
 

Irisado

Ancient Vampire Lord | Siphoner of Spammers
Staff member
True Blood
May 22, 2010
718
Nottingham, UK
The Crypt Horrors are reminiscent of Lurchers from ESO in some ways. I really like the concept that you have devised of reanimated or haunted woodland creatures. These are very well suited to the Sylvania of old.
 

Farmer7574

Vampire Count
True Blood
Dec 10, 2013
1,587
England
I spent my days off in early May painting my 'Bat' Swarms and have finally got them done. They were quite enjoyable and simple to paint (save for their eyes!) Here they are:

0231.jpg


I like this front shot of the unit. I find it reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock's 'The Birds'. Speaking of which, I opted for birds instead of bats as they're just as sinister for this army and I wasn't completely sold on any of the bat swarm minis that I found.

Here are a few more shots:

0232.jpg


The birds are entirely made up of blue tones (save for the Nuln Oil wash), which show through far better here, and I think they've turned out pretty well when comparing them to my inspiration shots I posted earlier. I gave the beaks and talons an extra highlight to draw attention to each bird's head.


@Irisado I haven't played computer games in a long time so I had to google 'ESO Lurchers' to find out exactly what they were :)
After seeing them, they are quite similar. I'm currently experimenting with several things with these guys; adding branches extending from the front of their shoulders pointing up & outwards, and using a combination of pieces of their heads to make them a bit more of a focal point. We'll see what the next few weeks brings.

Thanks for your feedback and comments, much appreciated!

More in the works...
 
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