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Borgnine

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Jun 15, 2013
2,036
Pruszkow, Poland
@Farmer7574 @Adam_Barrow @Mad 'At @robtion Thanks for the input! I was brainstorming about that pile some more and a surprise idea struck when I saw something on ebay - if I'll manage to get it and see if it really works, I'll show it here, it should be pretty cool :)

@Sessioni Thanks! Those boring zombies will be perfect to fill spaces between those interesting ones, makes it much more diverse :)

---------------------------------------------

Okay, a new update - finally!
Separated into two posts, because it's two things for the index. Alkonosts and Sirins, by slavic stand-ins for Fell Bats - or Carrion if I ever get so crazy to use my guys as TK army. They were sculpted more than two years ago and never got painted - life got in the way - but not anymore! They were built together and painted together, but two kinds of models I used for the bases were so different, I made them into two kinds of bird-women.

Faces are a little off, the sculptor wasn't so good ;)

WIP pictures: WIP1 WIP2 WIP3

First, the Alkonosts, with their fluff text:
Alkonosts are the giant mythical bird-women from the Varsavian folklore, but seeing how tightly are they related with the Death God, they do respond to the right summons called by the practitioners of necromancy. While they may appear noble, closer inspection quickly shows something else. With their pallid skin and wicked blades posed as a mockery of a crown, they are the messengers of the Death God. They are fond of diving from high upon their unsuspecting victims. The folklore says that to see one and not instill it's wrath brings luck.

nyNIJcx.jpg


Continued in the next post!
 
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Borgnine

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Jun 15, 2013
2,036
Pruszkow, Poland
And now, Sirins, also with flufftext:
While very closely related and similar to Alkonosts, Sirins are never taken for a good omen. Their feathers are jet black and numerous bones are braided in their hair. They are believed to bring those deemed unworthy of a good death into Death God's embrace. Lurking in the dark forests, Sirins are vicious, bloodthirsty hunters and are often willing to support vampires or necromancers in their battles.

FzZezVu.jpg


As I said when I sculpted them, Hair decorations are cute!

And a group picture. I posed them carefully, so that they can be ranked up together, without any wings bumping into each other xD I really like this photo, they are so clear and nicely shown.

VJll5cY.jpg


And with this I finally have minis for all the Special Unit choices from the 8th Edition Armybook :)
 
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Sessioni

Black Knight
Dec 29, 2014
300
Very nice, I like the dagger crowns especially. Any WIP pictures of them? Did you sculpt them from a scratch? They fit well in your army, and I think you should post an army pic again, to see just how well they actually fit with everything else :)

BTW, I have always found the woman faced bird thingies scary, so I guess I wouldn't be granted with good luck if I happen to see them some day ;)
 

Farmer7574

Vampire Count
True Blood
Dec 10, 2013
1,587
England
@Borgnine Great work on them, you're an awesome sculpter and have crafted yourself a really diverse bunch of fell bats here! Lovely paintjob too, the wooden statue things make for much better supports than those clear plastic rods that are usually used.
 

Borgnine

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Jun 15, 2013
2,036
Pruszkow, Poland
Sorry for not replying earlier, I wanted to have that thing to go with my corpse pile, but it just kept being delayed... Ok, but first thing's first.

@Sessioni thanks! I added links to the WIP pictures at the beginning of the post - but all the links can be also found in the index on the first page :) I bought the bird bodies, then I had to saw their heads off and sculpt their heads - those are made completely from scratch. As for the army shot, unfortunately it's not going to happen right now - the bulk of my army is back in Poland, here I have only small part of it. Someday they will all be reunited and then I will post a big shot ;)

@Adam_Barrow yeah, now the rare section, that will be more difficult ;) Glad you like them!

@Shadespyre big thanks! :)

@robtion only now I have a lingering feeling that I need more of them, a pair of each types seems rather meagre ;) Thanks!

@Farmer7574 thanks! I dislike those rods ever since I saw Pegasus Knights mounted on stone ruins instead of those - and the statues help get the right feeling ;)

@Raizi thanks! It was only greenstuff. Right now I use milliput to make the bulk of the mini and then cover it with greenstuff detailing, but back then I used only the green one.

----------------------------------------

The corpse pile thing first. I bought a steam tank for it! And it even kinda fits!

wZVzso5.jpg


The idea came when I was browsing ebay - got this one rather cheap (unfortunately it's mostly glued) and got it finally today. An awesome idea for a conversion and will actually fit quite good the Empire-themed subfaction of my army that I'm planning for the future. I will add much more zombie parts on it, this is just a rough sketch xD I don't really play the game anymore, but I can't stop wondering how could I actually use it? A third corpse cart? Just a steam tank? Something custom? I guess time will tell ;) Surely it won't be a filler for zombies - it's way too cool for that.

And the next part of the post - a completed converting work for the Vampire BSB. Probably this one will go on the competition.

Bx1avKR.jpg
 

Adam_Barrow

Sleepless Knight
True Blood
Dec 25, 2010
3,068
Nashville, TN
Hot damn, homie. I can't wait to see you paint all that metal. Sickk. Run the Steam Tank as a Steam Tank but let it buy balefire or loadstone. And perk, your Spirit Hosts suddenly fill the job of being the STank's bodyguards. Blocking redirectors like damn.

That Vampire is serious. I don't see much of your theme in him, but that big empty space on the big shield gives me hope for it. Certainly looks promising.

Amazing work as always.
 
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Farmer7574

Vampire Count
True Blood
Dec 10, 2013
1,587
England
@Borgnine The corpse pile idea has turned out to be pretty awesome! xD I would've never thought of using a steam tank!

That BSB looks brilliant too, great work. I'm a big fan of gigantic banners. I'm looking forward to seeing these WIPs all painted up.
 

mousekiller

Grave Guard
Aug 16, 2009
211
@Borgnine Absolutely beautiful birds here, the colorations, particularly on the brighter sisters, is perfect! Also a big fan of the converted steam tank and the banner, these are going to be excellent!
 

Theerteen

Cheerful Cranium
True Blood
Aug 20, 2012
1,503
Germany
Man, you still continue freaking me out with that stuff. Just when I think "ok that's it now, he can't be reaching higher in cool stuff", I see that banner vamp. Hate you Bro, still hate you. :D
 
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Raizi

Vampire Thrall
Oct 16, 2011
999
Really liking that BSB idea. Might snatch that for my ghouls, now that 9th age has the option to include a standard bearer for them too. Splendid work, you really are a very talented sculptor. (And painter too, ofc)
 

Borgnine

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Jun 15, 2013
2,036
Pruszkow, Poland
@Adam_Barrow Glad you like them! Yeah, all that metal will be interesting, especially when it won't be just verdigris ;) And I'll try that, making my own rules for those - it's not like I'm participating in tournaments xD The Vampire will get the same theme as the rest of my vampires - greyish blue, black and red. Not everything will be pointy hats and verdigris ;)

@Farmer7574 Thanks! Well, I wouldn't have thought about it too! Ebay is there to help - the amount of ideas one gets when looking through all the unwanted minis is staggering ;)

@mousekiller Thanks! I hope so they'll live up to the expectations ;)

@Theerteen But at least I made you reply! ;)

@Raizi Thanks :) I have to credit my own inspiration first - THIS banner done by @Dibidoolandas - I only expanded upon that idea ;) My own is also ghostly colored.
 

Theerteen

Cheerful Cranium
True Blood
Aug 20, 2012
1,503
Germany
I'm floating around from time to time, the last months were quite busy with finding new job, moving back to cologne, getting a lot of stuff done that was laying around for way too long... but yeah. When I'm curious what's up here, you are in the top 5 of threads I always check ;)
 

Borgnine

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Jun 15, 2013
2,036
Pruszkow, Poland
@Theerteen then maybe at some point we will see you back here posting ;) And here, you know, I want to stay up to date with everyone's progress :)

------------------------------------------------

Some small progress painting and big progress hoarding!
Last weeks I can't get a free weekend to get some good painting done, so I am painting little by little every evening - I managed to finish the banner of my BSB. Well, everything except metal. It turned out surprisingly well on the photos, but it still needs some highlights - it will be done together with the Vampire's armor. Doing it was nice, it was some time since I painted a skeletal gryphon - the first original theme for my army ;) The back side has some green glow for the ghostly banner there.

ATK7dia.jpg


Next, my big, big shopping. Wedding present from myself ;)
Once a while I regretted going with a green theme for my army, seeing cool red/black armies - or having normal Grave Guard instead of converted Greatswords. Recently I realized that nobody will stop me from doing all of this ;) And to keep the plot coherent, I decided to split my army into several subfactions, not unlike how Age of Sigmar does it. I won't even fool myself that's it's about creating a playable army, it's about cool models and units foremost ;)
They will go as follows:
- Von Greifen vampires as the main heroes, with zombies, bats, wolves and other vampiric units
- Ancient Varsavians with heavy slavic elements, wights, skeletons, constructs
- Necromancers, mostly mages and skeletons
- Court of Lady Sokolov, small army with empire/kislev theme, kept in black/red/white color scheme
- Dwellers of the Bog, nurgle-inspired monstrosities like my Crypt Horrors and other strange creatures
- Spectres, ghosts that may fit together with anyone else actually.

During that big shopping spree I wanted to get as much as possible before GW will rebox them and take away square bases. There's Demigryphs (stone gargoyles idea courtesy of @Malisteen ), Warrior Priest and Greatswords for the empire themed faction, additional wights to get Grave Guard to 50 men and black knights to 20, Skeletons to make weapon variant units, Ironguts in the white box for some additional Crypt Horrors, Putrid Blightknights for my corpse-stitcher lord and a finecast Mannfred for a certain conversion. And some grass tufts, because why not ;)

Other that that, Cursed Company command group and Forge World Wight King came from ebay yesterday! Relieves the bitterness after a Green Knight got somehow lost with the oh-so-reliable german post office :mad:

eUFquPY.jpg


And a little last thing, also because @Mad 'At asked for it so nicely ;) We finally got the wedding pictures - also the ones with my special wedding minis on top of the cake :) They turned out rather small, but with such a minimalistic cake, they still stood out nicely ;)

UXxDUYD.jpg
 
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Irisado

Ancient Vampire Lord | Siphoner of Spammers
Staff member
True Blood
May 22, 2010
718
Nottingham, UK
You have some very impressive creations that you're working on here :). The banners, in particular, have caught my eye, so I'm going to enjoy seeing those progress. As an Empire player, in days gone by, that Steam Tank creation is both interesting and quite bizarre at the same time :D.
 

Theerteen

Cheerful Cranium
True Blood
Aug 20, 2012
1,503
Germany
Somehow I feel cutting the cake with an axe would have been appropriate. :) Very cool thing, and congratulation for the wedding - I kinda missed that part D:
I hope that I will find time the next week to finish what is undying around here, and start my Blood Angels. Got pulled into 40k by a friend, and while all my other friends quitted Fantasy since AOS, I'll give it a try. In worst case, I'll get a nice diorama with fighting Dreadnoughts and stuff :cool:
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
Glad to have been some inspiration, though I've personally become a bit vexed with my gargoyle knights, due to the size. I'd probably use them as black knights after all, if it weren't for how terrible that unit is. I've kind of shelved the project in frustration - and indeed my entire army with it, as it became a big blow to my motivation. I didn't have a hundred bucks to spare on a unit I wasn't actually going to use...

If size is likely to be a concern for you as well, and you haven't opened your boxes yet, I'd actually recommend returning them, and getting stormcast dracoths to base the conversion on instead. They look even more like gargoyles, though there's a lot more sigmar iconography to fix, and the riders would probably require more conversion work. Honestly, though, I completely forgot they existed, and would have used them to begin with had I remembered.
 

Borgnine

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Jun 15, 2013
2,036
Pruszkow, Poland
@Irisado I'm happy that I managed to get your attention ;) There will be much more empire-inspired undead in the (far?) future, so stay tuned :)

@Theerteen Thanks! It's a shame to see another one lost to the 40k side of the river, but one does what one has to do ;) Good luck with that

@Malisteen I saw your post about comparing their sizes. I still don't know what bases will I use, but if it's much bigger then it's just more place for cool basing, I think I'll manage somehow - but big thanks for the consideration :) I already like their idea too much to return them - if not Necropolis Knights, then they will be normal Demigryph Knights for an undead-themed empire force or something homebrew. Still, for me it's good that you shared the Demigryph idea and not the Dracoth, as I wouldn't think of it myself probably - and buying Dracoths would mean supporting Sigmarines so that's a no for me ;) All in all, I'm still thankful xD
 

Mad 'At

Dumb enough to work
Staff member
True Blood
Apr 2, 2011
2,378
Grödinge
Yay, cake ^^
Thanks for the picture. The minis look worderful on top there. Nice work.

The banner looks ace too. Great built and sweet paintjob. Looking forward to seeing what you can do with all this new stuff.
 
Nov 20, 2008
70
Stockholm
Wow such cool wedding-minis, I congratulate you both! I sometimes feel that green is not as royal or powerful a theme as red and black but I think you made a very unique feel to your army which is better than almost all other vampire counts armies that I have seen!
 

Farmer7574

Vampire Count
True Blood
Dec 10, 2013
1,587
England
@Borgnine I'm a fan of your black & green scheme and considered doing my VC in a similar scheme at some point back when I was new to CN.

I prefer the greens, blues, purples, etc. to red & black - it's cool but overused. Your WIP banner however is looking good, you're awesome at freehand! The ZD skull is also nicely painted.

Great bunch of goodies you've got yourself there! Congratulations on the wedding and looking forward to seeing all that come to unlife.
 
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