Black Griffon Rising.

[Vörlok]

Welcome Immortals!
I had introduced myself in the Fresh Blood section a while back in June, with the intention to start a project log to motivate myself to create and finish my Empire themed VC army, and i have held it off for faaar too long now! since then, i really have not progressed too much with my army either. If anything I had been brooding over ideas and hoarding bits like you'd never believe.
For now I only have a few units partially assembled, and of course some background story I will be adding to each update as I progress (I'm most likely not a very good writer so forgive me if it seems patchy!) to give you a general idea of how I intend the army to look. Keep in mind I do not actually play games of Warhammer, I do not even know how
So I do not have an army list to go by.

Grave Guards with Hand Weps
My skeleton helmet heads have come from the Empire Great sword standard tops.

Grave Guard with Great Weps (Halberdiers)
I have used some Empire champion heads in this unit, replacing the jaw with a skele

Unit Champions (Undead warrior priests)

Giant - I have seen a lot of Undead zombie giants around and that is what I was going to go with as well. But when I had seen the Beastmen Cygor/Ghorgon I thought it would make a perfect base for a Giant Crypt Ghoul! at the moment he is not fully assembled, the head (which is in need for serious greenstuff filling) is not glued on for easier painting later and also the loincloth and the rest of the hair on the back.

For now I have all the great wep arms and shield arms off, for easier painting later on. Which reminds me, I did not include the converted great wep/Halberd arms I had converted from the Empire state troop bits! In the background are my units of skeletons.

 

[Adam_Barrow]

You've been busy! Excellent conversion work so far. I'm stoked to see your Giant Ghoul.

 

[Devour the Cabbage]

I have to agree with Adam, looking awesome so far, the massive ghoul I am looking forward to seeing completed, I know the feeling with the hoarding bits and mulling over ideas, still there myself *facedesk*

 

[Vörlok]

I have shot off into another idea to have a bit of a break with the empire guys, I'm a bit of a perfectionist and its tiring preparing and trying to scrape off every single little mould line for 80 skeles argh, so I had a bit of fun with a new idea I've had. I have a neat pile of old metal Undead miniatures and I found this fella

An undead High Elf skele from the Cursed Company, which gave me a great idea for the unused scale armour skele legs i had piled up. I was super picky assembling the empire skeles with what unit having which legs, all legs with pieces of armour scabbards and swords were used on Grave Guards, legs with chainmail and rags was used on skele warrior priests, and bare bone and raggy legs for normal skeles. So i had no reason for the scale armored legs until now, as a unit of high elf skele spearmen.
But first i wanted to make some modifications to the metal miniature to better fit in with the new skeles

Spoiler

First of all the most annoying thing about the new models is the new pose with the opposite foot forwards argh! so I changed him around with a new head, and a new/better raggy banner and kept the spear top, I like to fly my flags high and gave it more height. I realise now in the pic it seems a little bent oops.
While I have some High Elf torsos, spears and shields on it's way, I will set this aside for now and get on with the others

Bit of a crappy picture, I also have a unit of black *empire* knights in progress, a corpse cart, mortis engine and some crypts *hungry old flagellant* Ghouls and of course the ghoul giant and some characters

 

[Vörlok]

Greetings Undying Ones,
I have been busy on the Skeleton spear men the last few days, and did a trial on painting bones/skeletons, which I am pretty happy with!

My plan on painting the skeletons and bones was to try avoid clean bleached bone and give them a real yellow-y dirty moldy bone look, as they have been marching through marsh and muck.
I was very happy with how this turned out, but i might do a light dry brush on top to bring out the edges.
Unfortunately you cannot really see the dirty greenish tinge it has in the photo (N)

V If anyone is interested in the painting process here it is V​

Spoiler: Painting Skeletons

Basecoat with Zhandri Dust - My spray can turned out a little fleck-ish but it added to the effect i was after ​

Heavy wash with Seraphim Sepia​

​

Pick out all bones with Karak Stone​

Highlight bones with Ushabati Bone​

HEAVY wash with Athonian Shade for the lovely green gross moldy look​

I feel like I had messed up in the faces/teeth a bit, I got a bit impatient picking out every bone and detail whoops! Might do a dry brush with Screaming skull or even Praxeti White to fix it

As you will notice I had snipped off all the spears, I had these assembled before I had my theme and ideas going on. These guys will be my skeletons w/ hand weps eventually instead.
My spear men Skeles now are converted using Grave Guards great weps hands to make them hold it in two hands to try replicate the poses of the empire state troops and the old empire spear men.
Snipping off the great wep blades and using the shafts and tattered flags of the Skele spears, I used Empire State troops spear tops. I pinned these together using 0.9 drill bit to carefully drill holes in the shafts (a huge pain in the neck and time consuming argh!) pinning all the pieces together with 0.9 wire. I also gave the spear a bit more length, maybe about 1cm more than original skele spears

Spoiler: All the spears (painstakingly) complete!

It was super difficult drilling straight and some of the spears are a bit wonky, but what else would you expect from old spears in the hands of skeles anyway
i did a dry fit test with my new converted spears, I also will be using the empire state troops shields for these guys, (the curvy type ones with the holes, not sure what to call them ;P)
The old blu-tack would not hold him perfectly in the pose i was after, i would make them hold the spear up more vertical.

One thing I have not decided on is a color scheme for the 'uniforms' rags and shields, I originally was going to go with Altdorf Red/blue as it's the empire color scheme everyone would recognise right away, I also was going to go with a super rusty armor color, but with the red in the color scheme is too similar to the orange rust. here is an old paint test I did with these ideas in mind

Any Suggestions? I think I will go with a less rusty armour color.

 

[Mad 'At]

Nice stuff you got here. I love that little tweak you did to the cursed company standard bearer, it really changes the whole appearance of the model.

Really like the look of those twohanded spears too. If I ever make some spear skellies I will definitely copy that idea if you don't mind. Would have to get some smaller drills though as the smallest I have now is 1mm, which can be used to drill those shafts but damn it's fiddly.

For the red on the shield you could try going for a colder red colour. Instead of highlighting it with colours drawing to orange (I use blazing orange and vomit brown on my warm red) you use greys. Highlight up to something like Wild Rider Red and ad light greys to that for final highlights. You could also try to shade it a little with green colours (I use snot green mixed with agrax earthshade) to make it pop more. The green could also help cause a rotten effect if used right.

 

[Undying Scourge]

Top tip: thin your paints down and apply them in thin, progressive layers. Don't apply a single coat because it looks chalky and you can see the brush marks.

Also keep your brushes completely clean. Don't let the paint build up on the bristles, and clean them in warm water. To maintain a point on the brush, and if you're using non-toxic paints, just use your lips to bring the bristles to a point, otherwise you should use your fingers or roll the brush on the palette.

Also if you want to do rusty / filthy armour you could try painting the armour the metal colour then recolour it to look rusty by adding thin washes of muddy, earthy colours. I also think that trying to highlight red on undead models makes them look too bright, so you might want to try starting with Khorne red then painting a wash or two of Nuln Oil on then just build up to a brighter red through layering and then not bothering with a final highlight. Highlighting isn't always desirable, just like any technique.

 

[Vörlok]

Thanks for the tips guys.
I'm assuming most of it comes from the shield test I did, which was just a quick thing I had done well over a year ago now. So it pretty irrelevant now really, but the brush stroke-y effect on the colors was to try imitate a paint peeling/cracking water damaged surface, I will most definitely not be going with a clean smooth paint job (they are undead! not girly elves ). Also I don't think I will be going with that color scheme.

I have finished putting together the skelie empire spear men unit! (except champion, banner, and musician)

Trying to pose the arms in roughly the same direction was a bit of a nightmare, as they needed to be positioned to not hit the fella in front to rank up nicely. I also have used a bunch of Empire Militia and State Troop helms, cutting off the helms and gluing chopped skele heads on them. Most turned out perfectly fine, only a couple turned out a bit derpy, but i left them like that anyways, see if you can spot one of them
- Surprisingly there was enough weight in all the pins in their spears that these guys are extremely prone to tipping over at the slightest touch so i will need a weight under their base

Here's some shots of some of the helmeted skelies with shields blu-tacked on

Pretty excited about all the surface to paint on an Empire color scheme shields/cloth/flags, but what colors I have no idea just yet, i was thinking brighter colors that would stand out but also as a chance to really dirty it up with grime and muck! I was thinking maybe yellow and (?) any suggestions ?

V - And now for something completely (not entirely) different - V

Spoiler: Undead High Elf Spear unit

These guys are being made pretty much the same way as the Empire Skelies. I bought a bunch of Elf bits to mix in. Some torsos to match the banner bearer, and plonked them on the scale armor legs from both regular skelie unit and Grave Guards. I used Elven spear tops, but since the original elf spears were quite thick they looked ridiculous on the skelie spears, luckily I (somehow) had enough skelie banner poles, which are a bit thicker. With these guys I will attempt to paint their raggy uniforms in white (as they would've been when alive) and then going all out on grime and dirt

Behind the scenes I have also been working on some Black Knights and Ghouls, including the Giant Ghoul. coming soon!

 

[TheTrans]

Dude, may I say those skele conversions are fecking awesome and I look forward to see what else you come up with. Keep up the good work!!

 

[frogboy]

Despite you saying that there are loads around I've never seen a ghoul giant before very cool...

 

[Vörlok]

Despite you saying that there are loads around I've never seen a ghoul giant before very cool...

Oops I might have worded it wrong, but I meant that theres a few zombie giants around

 

[frogboy]

Aww who cares how you worded it bud, the models speak for themselves. Great work

 

[Blutsauger]

Those spear skeleton conversions are great. Smooth, effective, and subtle, everything you want a conversion to be. Good work.