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@Theerteen - xD Now that's one hell of a comment. Every freehand can be done with enough patience and practice. I work my ass off on those banners and freehands because [as some say] I have crazy amounts of patience and some skill in normal painting and they surely take people's atention away from rest of my painting [that's the reason I also collect bretonnians and paint crazy banners and heraldry]. I look through some plogs here or somewhere - people's blending and shading can be so sharp, crisp and contrastive [for example mentioned above Constant Drachenfels'] - and my are quite flat and/or messy, especially when seen on photos. Until I learn this - and I am trying - I am putting much of my effort into freehands - and as you can see here - it works! Patience and practice - and it'll all work out.
@Adam_Barrow - thanks! Looking now, my army surely looks barrow-oriented :) Even when I'll buy other units, I love wights so much it will always be kinda barrow ;] And regarding skaven - sorry, this is my one and only skaven piece :rolleyes: There was a time when I was bored of my bretonnians and I wanted to do something big to paint it using my skills to the fullest - and the doomwheel is the effect. But besides this, there's nothing more.....
And seriously - I need to work a bit on my photos... It's all to glossy and grainy...
I'm really liking the Black knights, just got to look fowards to seeing them all ranked in a nice big block. Tgat blue pitting on the armour really goes a long was as well, brings so much to the unit. :thumbsup:
All right... this was surely a long pause. But earlier I was at vacation and now I have university and two jobs to keep me busy... But let's get to the business!
From the range of options presented above I went with necromancers - I painted by then-new Kemmler model and baby necro that was laying somewhere waiting to be painted.
Kemmler - or as he's named in my fluff - Alexander Hautfell :rolleyes:
His backstory:
While the Vampires lack in magic skill and excel in combat and politics, Hautfell is the opposite. Hiding in Varsavia to study and perform experiments, he was found by Constantin and two creatures of the night soon forged an alliance. This powerful necromancer helps raise more powerful and more numerous undead servants while enjoying safe haven provided by the Vampires and using them as commanders for the reanimated troops. Hailing from the Empire nobility of old, he still retains an aura of confidence and arrogance, and is secretly looking for an opening to wring the control of the ripe land of Varsavia from the hands of von Greifens.
I had fun with the model - I like it very much and I tried my best doing him - there would be some flaws for sure, but I think he's my best whole model so far ;] He's not as good as the freehand on the Knights of the Realm Standard, but as a whole he's still better :]
And the baby necro - Rado Krebs as he's on the army list ;]
Some fluff text:
Haunched journeyman of necromantic arts to his master, Alexander Hautfell. Kicked around and ridiculed most of his life, he have seen necromancy as a means of revenge and is nowadays a bitter and vicous person. Busy scribing down scrolls and rising up skeletons, he isn't clever enough suspect that his master would probably - at some point - frame him for some rebellous act against their protectors.
Not as fun model as the earlier one, but still good. While painting him I learned that I really prefer to paint old people - it's just like drawing them - It just works better for me. Another thing I noticed is how 3dimensional is this model. Kemmler has front and back basically, but this guy looks interesting from many points. Newer model, I guess.
And that's it for now. But regarding the future - whoa boy!
Not only I have my vampire generals and leaders to paint, after paypay I was able to buy really a bunch of new stuff. I got - 20 new skeletons - so I have a whole 50 right now - also, something I'll paint now. 30 ghouls - at last something kinda good for core in my army! 10 dire wolfs - nice looking, but faulty models as I've seen so far - lot's of green stuff will be needed. 1 corpse cart - this will be fun to paint! Or I hope so ^^' 6 ogres - and now I have 8 of them - to be turned into Crypt Horrors - that would be a hell of a conversion work - look forward to it! 3 vargheists - I want to convert them to look flying [kinda like Theerteen did it], but I'm having some problems with deciding on right poses, so now they wait. 10 warriors of the dead from lotr - 3 spirit hosts and one bonus! Also painting right now. And a Dark Elf Dragon! - which I got for half price on auction site - I will turn him into a zombie dragon - that'll be a hell of a project! Sometime in the future...
The only sad thing about having this much is that now, with as little time as I have now, It'll take forever :thumbsdown: Luckily I'm patient, so one mini at a time, I'll paint them someday!
@Sir Geheimnisnacht - Big thanks! I'm also eager to paint ghouls, but right now I still need to buy mantic box of ghouls, an then paint them simultaneously. I need to wait for some spare cash with this ;] They are next on the shopping list and it will happen someday. @Sanai - Thanks to you too!
All right - this time the break is short! I found some bonus time to paint and decided to paint my ghosts - and etherals being easy to paint as they are - here I am done with them ;]
Backstory:
All around the world one can find restless spirits that were denied the pass into the afterlife for one reason or another. They roam many abandoned places, just beyond the notice of average mortals. For a necromancer it isn't difficult to call upon them and instill them with a new purpose. Von Greifens learned themselves to summon spirits of the kislevite warriors of old - nameless, forgotten beings felled during one of the countless battles here. They still brandish their old weapons and armor, believing to be fighting for their lords once again. Still, their weapons are no more dangerous than their own hands - for it's the cold promise of the grave that they carry with them that does the killing and not the steel or valour they may still believe to possess.
I used LotR Army of the Dead - which I've already seen countless times here and there, so it's nothing original xD The painting is also nothing extravagant, just glazing and drybrushing. Nontheless, I think that the 'quality of painting'/'time of painting' quotient is very high here ;]
So, easy things are done... now, skeletons. Seeing that there are 50 of them... It won't be so fast ;]
RE: Borgnine's Log: Kemmler and Necromancer + Spirit Hosts
I bet you hated the fact that both of the skelliehands on Kemmler's base are right-handed xD As usual, great paintjob! I vote for the corpse cart...While I wanna have a second one, cause I just love the fluff of the cc, I'd love to see what you will create there (;
RE: Borgnine's Log: Kemmler and Necromancer + Spirit Hosts
Okay, this is going really slow.. let's raise this thread back with a little WIP!
I paint my skeletons in my free time so it's only a little thing, one at a time. Now I kinda reached some point between another longer period of work and travelling, so I'm posting a little bit here.
My unit of skellies. The base, bones and the metal parts are done. The green clothes still to be refined...
And here are the shields and a closeup. While I'm happy with my rust effect, the green is still flat after one session of washing&highlighting. I need to make it more pronounced, probably with black and white - and I'll glaze it green afterwards. I hope it'll work out - I have many problems with getting the green hue right, this thing now still doesn't fit well.
What's left to do [besides more playing with green] is wood, spear shafts and belts. It baffles me how much unoptimized effort I put in the skellies, their clothes and metal... I went easier with zombies and now I try harder than I should with yet another core unit ;]
Other news: I finnaly got Krell, hell yes! And also my parents gave me an engraving set - this little device will let me do some nice damage and conversions on the ogres ;]
Thanks! Well, the green will probably change a bit in the future and we'll se how much of the swampiness will be there in the end ;] But now I see it too and I kinda like it.
And the guy on the right xD well, I've been collecting my skeletons for a long time and getting them from various sources. One ten was bought cheaply off some guy - and the set lacked one left hand [easily replaced from GG set] and a pair of legs. And I used legs from a TK skeleton I found amongst my old minis and used the rest from the normal set. All skeletons have legs in the same pose, and only him was different - in the end I have this 'party hard' guy whose unable to keep in steady formation and who probably forgotten his spear at the cementery. He'll be this little flavor in my unit and most probably the guy I will be replacing when putting a character here ;]
Ok, here, at last, there are the skeletons! It surely took some time, but nowadays it's just harder finding spare time.
I made some improvements to my on-desk photo studio, so the photos are a little better than usual and I don't have to rely on sunlight ;)
Backstory:
Preferring law and order whenever possible, Hautfell rose to be a specialist in raising skeletons rather than other undead. Unlike zombies or ghouls, skeletons easily form row upon a row of uniform soldiers ready to obey any order necessary. Reminescing the empire troops he was used to, necromancer outfits his skeletons with matching colours and long spears, pushing them forward as a hardy block against their enemies. They make also good, non-smelly servants during calmer times.
First, the whole unit.
And some individual guys on close ups
So many layers I did on them, that they don't matter anyomre ;] but I learned a thing or two about proper contrasting and other stuff, I hope it'll prove useful! Also - I learned how a little difference in tone of green between skeletons and the rest of the army can make me disturbed :rolleyes: I glazed them into right hue just before taking photos -.-
As a little bonus - Krell design! Mini painting is serious business, you can't just go without proper plan xD So I made in photoshop an outline and then dry-painted it - it surely isn't awesome, but shows how colours sit on the mini. Maybe it'll change...
Next project - Corpse Cart! It's already undercoated!
Wow, so very well painted. And I love the color theme, definitely the best one I've seen on skeletons. Very nice. I can imagine the warm fuzzy feeling inside when you drop these onto the battlefield. :)
Big thanks for the comments everyone! Even when it's just simple skeletons, it nice to read it.
@Theerteen - Don't do this! You have many more things to build and paint I still want to see xD
@seejaypee - thanks! Is it really that massive? I thought that in our army 50 is the number to go for skellies ;)
@ObliviJohn - I'm glad you like it - and such comments make me fuzzy. Someday they would see battle, surely ;)
And some news - I'm painting the CC. It is a blast! It is a 'lovely' model - and I managed to paint it nearly whole during the sunday afternoon and monday evening. I used washes excessively for the bodies, clothes, wood, steel... well, most of things - and I was surprised how good it looks. I'll refine it a little, but as of now I have everything done and based and ready - only the corpsemaster is still only undercoated. The spookymobile is close to being done!
Hahahaha... Love the omg I'm a skeleton guy! Well done! And awesome paint job as well... I love seeing a good unit of skeletons. That green is perfect! And amazing job on the rust.
Thats a great looking unit there. I think the rust effect just adds so much to the models themselves and gives it such depth. keep up the good work! :thumbsup:
Once again I thank you for the kind comments - I'm glad you like my work. Kingside_Bishop - thanks for the rep! :)
Okay, here it is, the Corpse Cart, the Spookymobile, Livio Heim the Corpsemaster with his Rottingwagon.
His backstory:
Once an assistant to Haralamb Gudvanger, Livio Heim got once into a heated argument with his mentor and left him to pursue his own ambitions of creating monsters from dead bodies. Having a peculiar talent for invigorating the undead, he build a cart drawn by reanimated corpses and started roaming the cementeries in search for adequate cadavers, giving birth to more than one grisly myth on the contryside. After all the years his grip on sanity is getting looser, but he's still eager to ensure that his greatest creation will shock everyone sooner than anyone expects. It's quite easy to convince him to tag along and support the undead bands in exchange for having a full battlefield of bodies to search later.
I know I said 'soon' and it came out rather 'soonish' - I hadn't as much time during the weekdays, but I managed to finish it today.
I'm very pleased with the outcome - the model was fun to build and to paint - and washes were more useful than usual and helped me a lot during the painting - especially with the corpses. I'm also getting a little better at normal 'dry' blending and I even managed some OSL! It's such a nice model, a shame that it isn't as useful on the battlefield :rolleyes:
And now - most probably Krell... just after I somehow bend his axe back into straightness... Well, that's finecast for me ;) I'll look for some help how to do it, maybe there are some vids on youtube. After Krell I think I'll paint the vampire lords at last... But we'll see!
Well I have to say, those skellies are a work of art! They look amazing! How long did it take you to paint the unit. As for the Corpse Cart. It looks stunning. Simple yet complex, de-saturated but somehow colourful.
I take my hat off to you! :thumbsup:
This is a plog I will be sure to keep a very close eye on. I can't wait to see what you do next.
Love it Borgnine I had an inkling your CC would come out great. I love the tone on your zombies aswell, and the green lighting affect has come out wonderfully! Subtle but eriy still!
Great work. Would love an army shot at some point to see them all together!
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