• It's time once again to ferret out those murderous vampires in a new VAU - Vampires Amongst Us. A cross between Cluedo and a roleplay, sometimes gory and often hilarious! Find out more and sign-up! here.

Borgnine

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Jun 15, 2013
2,036
Pruszkow, Poland
@Unas the slayer Thanks! It also reminds me of the old times when you had to take those death stars to be competitive!

@Menkeroth Thank you too! It is quite a lot, but thankfully I have the technique perfected and they are all the same! A tedious, but very simple production line. Zombies were much worse! ;)

@Sharkbelly The freehands was indeed the most difficult part, I couldn't get myself to do it weeks! Thanks too!

@Farmer7574 Please go and borrow as much as you'd like ;) Using Grimghasts instead of Cairn Wraiths lets you avoid the clone problem, but then you have to rank them up and keep them upright! As you don't use trays, you'd have to weigh their bases somehow to make them stand. Besides magnets, I glued a lot of lead pieces underneath the bases, so they can stand even without that magnet - but they still trip if someone as much as looks at them too hard! You'll have to weigh your options ;)

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Yet another living addition to my collection - a vampire hunter! I always liked this model, but only recently I realized that it could get discontinued by GW at some point - so I decided to order him from the webstore at the earliest occasion. He will complement my undead very nicely.

Painting him was interesting to me because of two things. First one, I painted him from start to finish in a single day - something which I didn't do for a long time. Nowadays I work on several projects at once and they are all spread out over several/many evenings, but for this guy I wanted to try being more focused - thankfully I had a free day to do such experiments! Second thing, I tried out some new techniques - like wetblending the basecoat, making later shading and highlighting much easier - or painting 'fake' scratches on the leather instead of leaving it as smooth as the sculpt itself.

I inteded him to be from the Ostland province of the Empire - and while he indeed has some black and white clothes under his cloak, they are kinda lost on the finished piece and way too similar to each other - something which I noticed especially well on the photos. I will have to work on those two colors some more in the future.

Some backstory:
After Sir Baranowski’s escape, Kislev authorities finally learned that all the undead in Varsavia weren’t just rumours. But before any organized action could be made against them, the boyars wanted to collect information. They already had informants there, but recent events proved them to be ineffective. To remedy that, a vampire hunter from the Empire province of Ostland was brought. He was to gather information about the undead, look for ways to divide them and make their un-lives in Varsavia difficult - mostly by dismissing false myths about Vampires and informing the locals about real ways of fighting this menace. While extremely competent, only time will tell if his extremely dry and serious conduct (as expected of an Empire citizen) won’t discourage the locals and make him just another weird outlander spewing ‘western nonsense’.

 

Farmer7574

Vampire Count
True Blood
Dec 10, 2013
1,587
England

Hah! Love the pun. I've had these issues before, my skelly spears standard bearer comes to mind - lots of metal stuck to the underside of his base. I've got the Harvester from Sepulchral Guard in the works as a wraith conversion, but other than that it would've just been cairn wraiths. Expensive and, as you mentioned, clone issues.

Great job on the vampire hunter - definitely wouldn't have expected to see one of these here. The wear & tear on his clothing is particularly stunning!
 

Borgnine

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Jun 15, 2013
2,036
Pruszkow, Poland
@Farmer7574 Now that you mention it, that Harvester would indeed make for an awesome wraith! But again, he's a single dude... Thanks for the comment too, the cloak took the most time easily and I am also pretty happy with it :)

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

Back to the zombies! I am not posting this next batch because I don't have anything else to post, but rather that I want to be done with them at last!

The whole idea about those guys started with the one holding a scroll here. He was supposed to be a champion of one of the units and I was trying to come up with an idea to make him more interesting. Putting up a pointy hood with bleeding eyes seemed good enough. Then, when I was expanding the horde and I needed even more bodies, I started covering their heads with such hoods to keep the theme. It was especially useful on some bretonnian bodies, as those robes and coats are more difficult to damage and zombify than Free Company bodies, for example. Then I came up with a backstory for them, how they were blindly hunting undead, heretics and witches, not really bothering with trials. Not only it gave my horde some asshole victims but it also made one of them perfect to accompany the Pain Tree.

The tree idea came to me when I noticed that I have those cages from the Giant kit and I was wondering what to do with them - and then I decided to just hang them on a single tree, also using one of those hanged zombie torsos really as a hanged zombie torso. The twins, on the other hand, were an interesting way to use two extremely similar Flagellant bodies and two multi-ended whips I bought some time ago.

After finishing the horde I kinda regretted that I didn't get that Frostgrave Cultists box to really make a lot of them. Maybe I'll build and paint them as living humans - they would make good villains for my vampires.

Some backstory:
When von Greifens still lived in Bretonnia, white hooded cultists with red emblems were their common enemy. The local nobles, not wanting to engage personally in the vampire-hunt, founded a group called ‘The Order of the Lady’s Tears’. It was composed mostly of younger peasants - desperate ones who couldn’t hope to inherit the land. In exchange for every found and/or executed vampire, undead, witch, etc. they were recompensated with money. They still had to pay all the taxes and undead weren’t as easy to be found, so they soon started hunting just about anyone disagreeing with them, forcing confessions, burning people - all to get their enterprise going forward. Vampire activity actually waned because of their hunts, so the nobles didn’t care about a few burned peasants. After moving to Varsavia, von Greifens were happy to run away from those thugs, but they were coming after them still with every small Bretonnian crusade that found itself in the land. They make zombies just as good as anyone else.

zombiecultists_small.jpg
 

Farmer7574

Vampire Count
True Blood
Dec 10, 2013
1,587
England
@Borgnine Those are awesome once again! I love how your zombie horde is composed of all these cool sub units: beasts, cultists, etc. Very creative and inspiring.
 

Borgnine

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Jun 15, 2013
2,036
Pruszkow, Poland
@Farmer7574 Big thanks! Keeping some diversity was the only way to stay sane when building all of them xD

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

Today, something only kinda-undead.

Not long time ago I wasn't feeling like painting, but I really wanted to build something. I looked a bit through all my boxes and found some Putrid Blightknights. I bought them about 2 years ago to accompany my other Nurgle model - Haralamb Gudvanger. They have lots of bits and are big and bulky, everything that I wanted at the moment.

My concept for them was to make them similar to Gudvanger - they are supposed to be failed replacement bodies for him. To achieve that, every single one of them has a covered face and some kind of horns. Any Nurgle iconography was scratched off - though I left any fleshy disturbances, they fit very well both the concept for them and the 'The Thing' motif I am trying to push with this faction. I got another Johann from the Giant kit, so that the central one here could hold him by the neck, screaming and handless. Their bases have also some depressed areas to put some grimy puddles there, another thing to tie them together with the flesh-stitcher. There are 6 of them instead of the usual 5, because I wanted to have a 3x2 block of them - I bought one additional torso to round up their numbers.

I heard many good things about this box and I wasn't dissapointed - it was a lot of fun to work on them. Every single one is distinct and interesting, there are no guys who are only there to take space and I could build probably another 6 of them. I had similar feelings when I was working on my undead ogres. I think I will get another box of those to build players for a Nurgle Blood Bowl team!

 

Borgnine

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Jun 15, 2013
2,036
Pruszkow, Poland
@Sharkbelly many thanks! :)

@Unas the slayer thank you too! I'm really glad I had some spare wheels, because it fits perfectly ;)

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

Today, my own take on the Sepulchral Guard

As you could already see in one of the previous posts, I bought Shadespire and started assembling the teams that came in the box. Besides those two, I got the Sepulchral Guard too, of course - I am collecting undead after all! I liked the miniatures so much, I would get them even if I wasn't planning to play the game.

Ever since I saw the previews of this band, I wanted to paint them in my usual patinated color scheme, like all my other WFB wights. But, on the other hand, I wanted to integrate all my Underworlds bands into AoS setting somehow. So I came up with my own little land in Shyish which would be a twisted reflection of the Old World - set in the Mortal Realms, but also still vaguely connected with everything that I invented for my WFB army. Now I could paint the same patinated armor and yellow freehands, like always! I actually painted them parallel with the Grave Guard, but seeing as they are more special and not a horde, I added additional layers of shadows and highlights, which took some extra time.

All in all, I enjoyed painting them - now I need to finish the two main bands and try out the game!

Backstory for them:
Vechernya is a land in Shyish, ruled by a plethora of warring princes, tsars and dukes - but held together by the influence of the local god - the Withered King. He survived the Wars of the Dead, but since then remains in a weakened state, slumbering, beneath the notice of Nagash and his Mortarchs. Still, he affects the land by forcing his dreams into reality - dreams of a realm otherwise forgotten, perished in the bygone times. Although the inhabitants of Vechernya have free will and progress through their own histories, their lives and events tend to reflect the Withered King’s memories - trapped unaware in cycles of deadened existence. Even death isn’t a release from it, for dead Vechernyans are known to raise from their graves - all to continue one of many existences lingering in their god’s mind. One of such groups of undead is the Kiril’s Retinue, roaming the land, wishing to rejoin their old unit and leader. No matter how many are destroyed, new ones always seem to come and group together. All of them are driven by the same purpose, one they often cannot completely recognize as their own, yet still hopelessly following the Withered King’s dream.

First, the individual wights:



And the whole warband:

 
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Farmer7574

Vampire Count
True Blood
Dec 10, 2013
1,587
England
@Borgnine Those undead ogres are a beautiful piece of conversion work, excellently fitting for your army. I'm looking forward to seeing these painted up. Are they a counts as for crypt horrors or just a stand alone unit themselves? I recently picked up a few chaos warriors with the intention of using them as 2-base fillers for my zombie units but think these guys work a lot better :)

Nice SG too. GW have done really well with this Underworlds team and you've done them justice with your paint job. Do you play Underworlds by any chance?

Keep up the awesome work mate, always a wealth of ideas and a pleasure visiting your PLOG!
 

Irisado

Ancient Vampire Lord | Siphoner of Spammers
Staff member
True Blood
May 22, 2010
718
Nottingham, UK
That's an impressively painted warband. I particularly like the effects on the weapons from the pale blue through to the rust effects.
 

Borgnine

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Jun 15, 2013
2,036
Pruszkow, Poland
A month of inactivity! Shame, shame on me! I have to catch up!

@Farmer7574 Thanks! They are going to be their own unit, not really fitting with my undead army at all. Undead Ogres are something else and they will be coming probably this year too, a unit expansion of my old regiment ;) I didn't play Shadespire yet, I am waiting to finish converting and painting the Stormcast team before I start.

@Irisado thanks! Glad you like them!

@Unas the slayer Thank you too :D

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

Now, the posts proper. First, one from December the 16th.

It's been some time since I finished painting my Blood Bowl teams and since then both me and my wife got into it very much. We got the video games, learned the rules, tactics, leveling schemes and generally got much better in it. Thanks to that, we also noticed that the basic team found in the box were somewhat lacking, not having the optimal amount of some useful players, like Orc Blitzers and Black Orcs. Thankfully, I had a phase when I wanted to start collecting an Orcs & Goblins army - so when I was back in Poland I looked through all the unused boxes in search of some new players to recruit.

Black Orc Blockers - those were easy, I just took some bodies from the Black Orc Warriors (Arboyz) box. Unfortunately, all the minis that are used in Blood Bowl are slightly bigger, so those old Black Orcs were actually smaller than normal Orc Linemen from BB! To fix that, I gave one of the Black Orcs longer legs, while the second one got a bigger torso. As for the Blitzers, I built them out of Savage Orcs - they have more dynamic poses, so they fit quite well. I just took off their weapons and glued some bits on them.



And something for the Dark Elves too. The team is not painted yet, but I am working on them at the moment - I bought them because my wife really liked their playstyle. She tried them out in the video games first and there she had a player that really stood out - Torles the Unlucky. He was injured several times and had some significant disadvantages, but she kept him on the team still - both because she has grown fond of him and because he still had some useful skills. Seeing that, I decided to kitbash a tabletop model for poor Torles, preferably on a wheelchair, but still able and eager to play and score! Thankfully I have a lot of Dark Elf bits, so it was much easier than expected!

The seat and the wheels are out of plasticard, the rest of the chair is either sculpted or taken from a Dark Elf Noble on a Black Dragon kit and Torles himself is mostly made out of Corsair bits. Skeleton shields were used on the wheels for the manual propulsion - with corsair spikes for extra menace. I also added a flowing dragon hide on the back of the chair, both to tie him with the rest of the team and to give the model a sense of speed.



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

And then one from December 23rd, some zombies again!

Some zombie batches are still left to post - this time, some Skaven. I didn't have any spare ratmen bodies in my bits collection, so these were all bought specifically to be used in the Legion - mostly for a bit of diversity and completionism. Being non-humans, it was difficult to zombify them, as I couldn't just change some bits around, so their conversions are rather simple.

The wolf-rat was bought near the end of the whole project, when I was looking through ebay for some last miniatures to fill some space - and someone was selling it cheaply. It's not only an interesting piece by itself, but it's also a Forge World model used as a lowly zombie filler - another thing to take off my bucket list, I guess!

The background text for them:
Ratmen crawl underneath all the Old World and they sometimes resurface even in such forgotten places as Varsavia. Their clashes with the vampires are not very common, but their soldiers, as frail as they are, make it into the zombies’ ranks too. Once skaven launched a more organized attack, bringing with them strange rat-wolves - beasts specializing in forest combat. Sorin's Vilkscountered them quite effectively and brought them down with numbers - since then, one of such creatures accompanies the zombie horde.

zombieskaven_small.jpg
 

Borgnine

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Jun 15, 2013
2,036
Pruszkow, Poland
And some more catching up. A post from December 30th:

After Blood Bowl proved to be a great game to us, the next logical step was to paint the big guys. The first one after the essentials was the Troll - I actually got interested in the whole game because I liked this particular model!

At first, I wanted to paint him blue like the Stone Trolls of old, but then I thought he would differ too much from the rest of his team, so I painted him green for some uniformity's sake. Still, I tried various greens together with some ivory colors on different parts of his skin to make him more interesting and I think it turned out pretty good. That, together with the blue back-plates, clothes, armor parts, the goblin, some leather and spikes, made for some really interesting painting process.

Background text:
Chompa is one of the very rare smart trolls - well, relatively speaking, at least. He can use simple words (he even gives interviews!), is capable of some strategic thought and gets his salary like everyone else. One could think that this makes him an effective and focused Blood Bowl player, unlike other Trolls, but that’s unfortunately not true. After becoming a star, Chompa found himself with more income that he could use simply for food, so he got into interior design - his cave is really an eclectic wonder to behold. The trouble is, he is thinking about new wallpapers and carpets so much, he can still stand still in the middle of a match, completely unaware of the carnage going on around him - so functionally, he’s not that different from a typical troll! Of course, he punches and throws goblins also as well as other trolls, so his position in the team is safe (as well as his salary!).



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And January the 6th:

And now for something different, once again!

Some time ago we visited our friends here in Berlin and they always have a whole pile of new board games to try out. That one time we tried something called "Monster Slaughter" - a game by French company Ankama that got funded through Kickstarter in 2017. It centers around a "cabin in the woods" horror movie plot where a group of teenagers explore a creepy, abandoned shack with monsters trying to murder/eat them - with the players controlling the monsters. Everything is represented by pretty good miniatures.

Each monster group is a family - a dad, a mom and a child - and there is a crazy amount of them: vampires, ghosts, clowns, werewolves and many others. I played Tritons, the fish-people, the ones you can see below. After the game, I asked if I can take them home to paint because I got to like those guys. That, and they are also probably the least stylized family of the whole bunch, which also was a plus for me. Most of them are pretty comical, which fits with the comedic style of the game, but it isn't really my taste that much. Besides, they are green and dirty, and that's exactly how I like my miniatures!

They were pretty fun to paint and our friends were happy with the results. The only thing I didn't like about them was the material, which is kinda soft and bendy, like the ones used by Reaper Bones. It was a real challenge to get the mother's trident straight and removing the mold lines was also pretty tough - but besides that, they are fine minis. They were also first board game minis that I painted, so that's something too.



And here are the cards with their stats that are used in the game - I used them as instruction how to paint them. This picture was taken from the Kickstarter page.

cards.jpg


Later today I will be posting the most recent stuff.
 

Borgnine

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Jun 15, 2013
2,036
Pruszkow, Poland
And the most recent stuff, a finished "Khorne" warband for Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire.

Second Warhammer Underworlds warband is now ready - this time, one based on Garrek's Blood Reavers. You can see the conversions HERE. The whole idea was to get rid of all the ornaments and make them look more like low-fantasy Vikings, turning them into raiders that do worship Khorne and believe is piling skulls for his throne, but know him under a different name and don't know anything about the 'mainstream' cult.

Besides simplifying their sculpts and changing some bits, I wanted to differentiate them from normal Khorne warriors through paint too. I choose pale, desaturated colors and painted their clothes in many different hues, not only red and brown. Their weapons are also simpler and dirtier than the ones proposed by GW. To make them extra special I freehanded some Norse- and Celtic-inspired tattoos on them.

In the end, work on them was a fun experience and I think they turned out pretty well. It was also probably the first time in my life when I painted so much human skin! Now all that remains is the Stormcast warband - they are easily taking much more effort than both other teams combined, several times over!

Background text for them:
Another reality that’s reflected in the Withered King’s dreams is the appearance of the barbarian hordes living on the northern coasts of Vechernya. Speaking an alien language, warlike, unwilling to cooperate and worshipping Khorne in all but name, they are almost always at war with their southern neighbors. Sometimes they are pushed back and brought to heel by an organized effort, but they always come back under one name or another. The newest ones are just starting on their own Path to Glory, as warbands rampaging through the southern lands to earn the favor and respect of both gods and their ancestors. One particular group, all sons of a great warchief Skalv is particularly successful. If they will prove their worth and survive, future Vechernyans will tremble before hordes of bloodthirsty raiders, all claiming to be descendants of Skalv.

First, all the brothers together as a whole warband:



Next, the singular warriors, with Garrek Gorebeard and Bloodbeast Sarrek going first:



And last, but not least, the rest of them - Karsus, Targor and Arnulf:

 

Farmer7574

Vampire Count
True Blood
Dec 10, 2013
1,587
England
@Borgnine You’ve been working on a variety of cool things these days. I really like your work on the converted Reavers - really makes me want to get to work on my Underworlds stuff!

Those Triton fish monsters look great too - and the game sounds cool, I’ll have to take a look into that :thumbsup:
 

Theerteen

Cheerful Cranium
True Blood
Aug 20, 2012
1,503
Germany
How the heck did I miss the wheelchair guy xD beside all the other crazy and usual awesome stuff, this one sticks really sticks out, for the scrapbuild alone! Awesome, gogo paint it ;)
 

Borgnine

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Jun 15, 2013
2,036
Pruszkow, Poland
@Menkeroth Well, if one forgoes social obligations, many minis can be painted quite fast xD Thank you very much!

@Farmer7574 Thanks! I try to have as many different projects started so that when I don't feel like doing one of them, I can jump to another one, rather than don't paint/convert anything at all.

@Theerteen Thanks! I am painting him at the moment, but his turn on the blog is far away from now, so I'll send you a PM with him when he's done ;)

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

I have yet another batch of old zombies to show, this time under a vague description of heavy containers / scenery pieces that zombies stand on or try to move. It was mostly a way to use some of the larger bits that I had laying around and without any good use for them - making them probably the most classical 'fillers' that I have in the legion.

The giant ogre cannon belongs to this batch, but I will skip it, because it was already shown here. There are two fillers still!

Some background text:
People in Kislev say sometimes, that Varsavia is a perfect place to lose something. By means natural and unnatural, people, armies and whole cities can disappear without a trace. Remains of those can be then found much later, their original purpose already forgotten. Using his zombies’ eyes, Constantin patrols Varsavia for those lost treasures, because sometimes they can be really valuable. If not, they can be used as vantage points - or at least as a curiosity for Eshnuu, who really likes to deduct how some of those artifacts end up in Varsavian forests.

Here is a dwarven wagon, a scenery piece left in the forest - taken from the Battle for the Skull Pass set. I decided to try out some water effects resin at least once in the legion, so I prepared a shallow hole in the base, filed off some of the wagon's wheel and submerged it in some sickly green 'water' - with a ghoulish zombie on top. A mini-diorama, I guess.



And the last one, two zombies dragging a treasure chest, because who said undead couldn't be used as menial labor? This piece is meant to be used in the legion together with the Stegadon. The monster's tail sticks out a little further than the base and it was difficult to find a zombie that would fit behind the monster without it looking weird - so I placed a small chest on the ground with two zombies beside it. Now the tail doesn't interfere with anything. Besides, I could use that rather cool-looking chest.

 

Farmer7574

Vampire Count
True Blood
Dec 10, 2013
1,587
England
Those are cool - I like the idea of the wagon left in the forest. Perhaps it was a group of dwarves stuck in the woods surround by mist, and as time went by dwarves were mysteriously going missing until too few remained to care for their wagon. Eery.

I’ve tried the multiple project tactic but start losing attention if I have to many things on the go. A healthy balance works well though, especially when working on something that will take a while.

Great work mate, keep at it.
 

brr-icy

Skeleton
Jan 23, 2019
80
Ontario
love all the conversions. I only have a few of other races put into my zombie and skeleton horde. There's some fantastic work in this thread
 

Borgnine

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Jun 15, 2013
2,036
Pruszkow, Poland
@Farmer7574 Thanks! I really like your interpretation of the dwarven wagon :)

@brr-icy Tthank you too! :)

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

Damnit, it seems I accumulated some backlog again! I'm sorry, last weeks were a bit hectic. Time to catch up a bit!

First, a Blood Bowl Big Guy, Sir Blubb the Ogre!

While I was painting the other Blood Bowl Big Guy, Chompa the Troll, I decided to paint the ogre for the human team too. And because I stylized them as Bretonnians, the ogre had to be converted a bit - you can see it HERE. The rest of his team can be seen HERE.

The painting was somewhat unusual and interesting to me because it was probably the first time when I had so much human (not-decayed, not-vampire) skin to paint! I even had to buy a paint pot specifically for that reason. It was also a good opportunity to try painting some stubble, as well as some chest hair sticking from underneath the shirt. The rest was the same as on the rest of the players. Overall it was an enjoyable model - and looking at our last game, a true MVP too!

Some backstory for him:
While it is widely known that no Bretonnian will ever stoop so low to employ mercenaries, there’s nothing wrong in being a bit creative when wrecking peasants is on the line! When the Cavaliers found themselves a bit overwhelmed with some of the more ‘aggressive’ teams, they decided to add some more serious muscle to their team. Using famous Bretonnian pastries, they convinced a brutish ogre called Blubb to be knighted - after which they promptly incorporated him into their ranks, bypassing the rule about unhonorable mercenaries. Sir Blubb may lack a bit in his manners and knightly conduct, but as long as he keeps playing this well and keeps answering every question with ‘FOR THE LADY’, no one will suspect a thing!



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

And then, a post from February the 3rd, The Faceless, my conversion of the Stormcast warriors that come in the Shadespire box:

Finally, the converting part of my Warhammer Underworlds Stormcast team is finished - now it should be much easier.

The idea went through several stages and evolutions, but the source of it was Ana's (from Gardens of Hecate) brilliant take on the same kit, which can be found HERE. I wanted to do something similar, but also not copy it blatantly. Then I saw THIS artwork and I realized that I can make heavily armored counterparts to the cultists that I made for my zombie legion. At that point, I decided to get a Shadespire box to try this idea out. There are only 3 Stormcasts there, a perfect amount to test out this idea. Besides, I heard good things about the game itself, so trying it out was a bonus. Then I spent several months developing the idea in my head, sketching various options and looking for inspiration on the internet.

The Faceless were the final result of all that deliberation. Heavily inspired by Dark Souls aesthetics, I made my Stormcasts into creepy, otherworldly knights that hide their faces and identity behind elaborate, sculpturesque armor. Each one has a leading motive, starting with the helmet which then affects all other parts of their equipment. As their name suggests, there will be no faces on their helmets - only animals or geometric/abstract shapes, the more inhuman, the better. I have many, many more helmets/themes planned, should I someday decide to expand on this idea.

As a side note, this was probably the first time when I was doing so much precise sculpting on such (relatively) small infantry miniatures. It required different methods and I learned a lot during this whole work. Hopefully, future projects will benefit from this.

The whole warband, the Faceless:



As a comparison, the original ones, as envisioned by Games Workshop (not painted by me, pictures taken from GW's website).

facelessteam_originalwhite.jpg


Now, the individual knights. First comes the leader, the Crusader. He is obviously inspired by thePyramid Head from the Silent Hill franchise (especially the movie version) and the artwork I linked above - but he was also thought as a knightly variant of my zombie cultists. In the beginning, I wanted to make the whole team look like that, but I had too many interesting ideas for other knights to just dismiss them like that - the Crusader remains as the only one left from that first idea.



The second one is the Bull. It was this idea that made me scrap the concept of making everyone a pyramid head. He was partly inspired by Smough from Dark Souls, especially the part with the 'fat armor' and helmet visors being hidden in its 'neck'. The rest are my original ideas.



And the third one, the Vulture. This one I made the last and was inspired by THIS and THISartwork. I had the least ideas for her and made her last, but as the sculpting progressed I was getting more and more into it and I am pretty happy with the final result.



And a bonus, here are the renderings of some of the more geometric helmets that I have in mind for the future, mostly the ones that I could model digitally. Many of them are taken from various pictures found on Pinterest. It's also a quick example of what color I have in mind for the Faceless - well, maybe a bit rusted than that, but you get the idea.

 
Last edited:

Borgnine

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Jun 15, 2013
2,036
Pruszkow, Poland
Then, a post from February the 10th - Haughr of Förghann, a mounted necromancer.

Now, this was a tough project. Converting it was fun and quick, but then it lingered on the shelf quite a while. When I finally started painting it, I just applied the base colors and then it lingered again when I was getting distracted with other projects. Still, the deed had to be done, so recently I sat and finished the damn thing - and actually enjoyed it in the end!

I think the biggest problem was that I didn't have a concrete idea how to paint all those flat areas on his robes - whether they should just be dirty, covered with runes or something else entirely. In the end, I went with some subtle, washed-out runes and a lot of dirt - I think this fits the character quite well. Almost all the blending and shading on this model was done by stippling it with the brush - both to reinforce the necromancer's dirty, non-smooth aesthetics and to make the blending on such large, flattish surfaces much easier.

The whole model is a converted Chaos Sorcerer from GW, which I turned into a mounted Necromancer (kinda inspired by Doctor Doom, with his green robes and metallic mask). The pictures of the unpainted, converted model can be found HERE.

His background text:
When Alexander Hautfell was at the turning point of his life, before he murdered his own sisters, when he could still turn away from the path he had taken, he was found and contacted by a strange, hooded figure. This… creature called itself Haughr of Förghann and offered help with the young mage’s situation. It was from this being that Alexander learned about Necromancy and the dark arts - and since then, the wizard would just keep going further that shady path. Haughr didn’t take anything in exchange - it only promised to collect the debt later. The creature showed up again when Hautfell fell from both the vampires’ and the wights’ graces in Varsavia - but instead of collecting the debt, it offered even more help. Alexander knew that it wasn’t a good idea to trust the hooded monster, but he went with it anyway - sure that he will find a way to subvert it somehow. After all this, very little is known about the creature - only that it is ancient, clever and very skilled in necromancy. Beyond that, nothing is sure - not even if Haughr is its personal name or a name for the whole species...



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Then, a post from February the 17th. Blood Bowl again, this time the Dark Elves from the Dreadspear Dragon team:

The third Blood Bowl team is finally painted, here are some Dark Elves! The assassins from Forge World and star players need some more attention so they will come later.

Like I mentioned in one of the previous posts, I bought them because my wife really liked their playstyle in the video games and we wanted some diversity in our teams either way. The team was also quite recently released when I bought them, they looked sharp and I certainly didn't mind painting some Dark Elves for a change!

If I were to paint them as my first team I would probably choose black and red for them because I really like the druiichi in that scheme, but Orcs were already sporting those colors. So I choose the official paintjob - that makes them stand out really well amongst the other teams and it was a good opportunity to paint something purple. Last time I used that color in any appreciable quantity was with Tzeentch Horrors, around 2006 - so it quite refreshing to try that out again. It was also the first time when I decided to cheat and "paint" their eyes using a 0.05 pen instead of a brush - I expected wonders, but in the end, it was almost the same - it's just too damn small! I really admire people that can paint irises and reflections there.

I'm glad how they turned out and liked working on them, even if the elven cleanliness and the striking colors aren't really my forte.

Their backstory:
The Dreadspear Dragons were founded several years ago by a Dark Elf noble Slyther “Sly” Maldevs, who was lucky enough to find a young dragon that enjoyed watching Blood Bowl. Sly used it as a team mascot, cheering from the sidelines, sometimes rampaging through the stands or the pitch - guaranteeing high popularity of the team thanks to the gimmick itself. Unfortunately for him, he completely neglected the players - and when they started constantly losing and the novelty of the dragon wore off, Sly was forced to get into more and more debts to support his new, lavish lifestyle. When the situation became dire and the creditors were (literally) ramming down his doors, he transferred the ownership of the team to the dragon mascot, all to avoid the legal responsibilities of his debt. Still, this being a Dark Elf society, nobody gave a damn about such tricks and Sly got ritually tortured and sacrificed as anyone else in his position. As for the Dreadspear Dragons, the new draconic owner quickly “found” a new sponsor, manager and a coach - all the players were changed and the team rushed strong into the new season with high hopes. Not unwarranted too! The new players are much better than the previous dregs and there are two gimmicks now: the team mascot is both a live dragon and also the team owner!

First, some photos of the whole team:



And all the individual Dragons:



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And the most recent post, zombies again, this time, Two Creeps:

The penultimate sub-part of the legion, the two creeps. I separated them from the rest because they don't really fit anywhere else and are still too distinctive to lump them together with the 'miscellaneous' group. They are from Reaper Miniatures and are known there as Dreg Devourer and Slinker. I bought them when I was looking for more bodies to fill space with - they are good sculpts and fit the rest of my undead pretty well.

Their backstory:
One night, two mortal humans approached the vampires in Varsavia. They told the story how they have been traveling between the villages and towns, exploiting them, cheating and stealing. Now, they found about the undead rulers in the land and they wanted to offer their services, as guides or spies - hoping for protection in exchange. The small one was even trying to concoct some sort of agreement, which just reeked of loopholes and precise wording for them to use later. Constantin killed them, raised them as zombies and only then answered that he didn’t need any more help in that matter - not from such nasty human dregs as them and especially not from someone trying to cheat and manipulate him.

 

Farmer7574

Vampire Count
True Blood
Dec 10, 2013
1,587
England
@Borgnine Loads of stuff to drool over as usual!

The Shadespire Stormcast team is phenomenal - converted so well and so much that they're unrecognizable as Stormcast now, which is nice as you've turn the typical 'hero' team of Underworlds into something dark and menacing. Going by your description I'm looking forward to seeing them painted up. I've yet to start any of my WHU stuff as I'm knocking out old stuff, but your work is twisting my arm to get something going.

Great work on the Bret-style ogre too - the stubble effect you've tried has turned out excellently, and you've achieved an all-round brilliant paint job (as always!).

Nice paint job on the Blood Bowl elf team - purple seems to be a popular choice for dark elves. Your paint job reads really well on those minis - a wonderful looking team.

That necromancer/chaos sorcerer conversion is excellent. I remember this mini from the early 2000's (I think) when GW were on their chaos revamp rampage (revampage...?). Beyond Valkia I haven't really looked at converting many chaos minis for undead, but your PLOG is making me realize that a fair few minis actually have VC potential.

Nice zombie filler too - is this a new one you've added to your hundreds that you finished last year or are you showcasing the many points of interest of already-painted zombies? Either way, it's nice to see these individual fillers in your posts as some could be overlooked among the horde of dead bodies.

Stunning work mate, keep at it!
 

Borgnine

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Jun 15, 2013
2,036
Pruszkow, Poland
@Farmer7574 thanks for such a lengthy response! Glad you like the stormcasts, I'm also wondering how are you going to tackle that box ;) And the chaos warriors have plenty of potential - after filing off their symbols and cutting off the tentacles, one is left with rather normal-looking evil guys, perfect as fodder for undead evil guys conversions ;) And the zombies are still the part of the original horde from the last year - I am finally getting close to showcasing every single one sub-batch of them.

@brr-icy thanks!

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After getting into Blood Bowl both me and my wife played the video games to try out various teams - and while she did choose Dark Elves, I really liked the Nurgle one. Soon after that GW released their own take on the team and I was lucky enough to get a box of them later for Christmas. I don't want to use the team as-is, there is a lot of converting to be done before I'm satisfied with them, but it's a great base to build upon.

I started with the small ones, the Rotters. Our house rule is to give every player a single level-up at the beginning - to give them some skills and make the game more interesting - and with those guys, I chose mainly those upgrades that could be interestingly depicted on the mini itself. This is one of the reasons why I like Nurgle (or Chaos generally) in BB - all the 'Mutations' skills are just perfect as conversion potential.

Here they are all together with their upgrades:



And the close-ups.

The first two here have Kick and Guard. The left one was also the first one that I leveled-up, I really like having one kicking specialist on the team. He got reposed a bit to show his skill. I wanted to put a nurgling in front of him, but the base was getting way too crowded at that point.

The one on the right rolled doubles when leveling-up so I gave him a skill that will make him useful even if he's just standing passively. For quite a long time I wasn't sure how to represent his skill, unsure how would it work in practice. I considered covering him in spines, but later I just opted for shields - it is clear and obvious at least. That and I had some cool Nurgle-themed shields from the Putrid Blightkings kit to use.



Smiling players now, one with bonus Agility and another with a Big Hand. Agile one was fun to create - with that lucky roll, he suddenly became as dexterous as an elf, while still being a decomposing Rotter! I set him up in a fancy position and gave him long ears - to drive that elf analogue even further.

The second one here was also enjoyable to build, I got to use some of those Crypt Horror and Ogre bits. Weirdly enough, only after converting him I looked up that this mutation affects only one hand, not both! Well, that makes his skill even more recognizable and also look more interesting so I will keep it.



And the last two - Thick Skull and Prehensile Tail. Firstly - yeah, I know that Thick Skull isn't really a terrific skill option for Rotters, but I just really wanted to sculpt a turtle shell on one of their heads. I also gave him some additional greenstuffed nastiness to make him even more different from another rotter that uses the same plastic sculpt.

The one on the right was probably the simplest conversion, just a wire covered with greenstuff and boils - but not only looks nice, but he's also very good on the pitch too!

 

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