Borgnine's Log: Forge World BSB + BB Star Players conversions

[Borgnine]

RE: Borgnine's log with zombies and Completed Blood Knights!

@Theerteen - Thanks! I am really happy that someone not only finds them nice but also useful ;] Good luck with your knights!

And also - I'd like to show a short project I did when Blood Knights washes were drying and I had nothing to do - batsies! Yet another green minions of my bloodsuckers.

Backstory:

Spoiler

Bats were always drawn to those blessed with the vampiric blood and they in turn were fond of using bat imaginery in their visual arts. Thanks to that bond, even lowly vampires are able to summon some amount of them to help them. Bats of Varsavia weren't as big as those of Sylvania, but they are still eager to do their part by creating a chittering, biting and confusing cloud of creatures around the vampires' enemies.

Models are from Mirilton SG, little metal bats that I was able to bend a little to make them a bit less flat. I pinned them to the gravestones and made some scenery with bits and balsawood. Also, this is probably my most extensive basing so far [until I will get my hands on Terrorgheist I think], but what can you do when those gravestones take so little space ;] Additionally, this could probably fit as an unit filler in zombies - I'll try it sometime.

Current project - this guy

 

[Borgnine]

RE: Borgnine's Log: Blood Knights + Bats

All right, project finished! That was somehow quick - but well, etherals are not very difficult to paint..

Backstory:

Spoiler

This ghastly apparition was brought to unlife when several maddened spirits of swordsmen killed by Lucan melded into one furious spirit. It attacked the vampire in his own room, nearly slicing him in two with one swing. The warrior retaliated - the ensuing battle lasted for a whole night and resulted in great damage to the equipment and walls of the castle. Finally Lucan was able to gain the upper hand and bound the spirit using necromantic rituals. Being brought to existence by the hate it felt to him, now it was bound in servitude to him, a pitiful existence. Should anyone free the ghost of its servitude, it would make a nasty surprise to the vampire.

Picture:

It was just a one big training in blending colours with wet paint, especially on the blade - i surely learned a thing or two! But there is still a looong way to go!

This guy is from reaper - a 'spectral minion' [link in previous post][and a present from my GF] and will be used as a Cairn Wraith in my army. He's etheral and with a great weapon, so it fits and it's interesting to have something diffrent than scythes But I'll have scythes too, only later.

Current project - painting two Grave Guard warriors in two styles I have thought up and seeing which is better!

 

[Ustrello]

RE: Borgnine's Log: Cairn Wraith with a greatsword

Loving the cairn wraith man. I will be hopefully painting mine this weekend along with painting a lot of zombies. Also that freehand on the banner...Hopefully I can actually do something like that on my mounted vampire sometime

 

[Borgnine]

RE: Borgnine's Log: Cairn Wraith with a greatsword

@Ustrello - thanks man! I'm still curious how will your banner turn out ;]

Aand it's finished - painting only two minis was a test on my patience, as the thing they did the most was drying... I surely prefer painting more minis in one go, so I can actually have something to do when one is drying :]

Here's the GGs - the one on the left was my first idea and it mostly came out well and I only botched somehow the glowy green veins on the armor - probably because now I prefer the second style The second one I thought up recently and it was to imitate the old, patinated ancient armor and make my Grave Guard, as well as Black Knights, looking really ancient and not recently dead-and-risen ;] I think it looks kinda nice, but It could use some additional work. I can't decide on the cloth color and I need to think about it more..... I'll most probably paint them with this turqouise patina [even putting looks aside - it's about seven times quicker than the other one], but I'll gladly hear your opinion about them

And while we're at it - does someone have maybe a link for a nice dirt painting tutorial or know the right trick? I haven't much luck in finding a good one on google. I want to make the bottom of their 'skirts' dirty, but my endeavors with glazing were not satisfying....

And current project: paint all the Grave Guards and Black Knights!

 

[Bullhax]

RE: Borgnine's Log: Which GG do you like more?

Both look really really good. But I like the right one (patina) It looks more like an ancient warrior than the other one. But a horde of both will look cool as hell!

If washing/glazing doesn't give you the effect you want you should try weathering powders or pigments they have loads of uses and can be applied in a lot of different ways.

Using pigments mixed with PVA and water lets it dry and sticks really well, the more PVA to water the thicker and stickier it will be. Giving the mini a fine dusting and fastening it with a matt varnish gives a much more subtle effect. If you use gloss varnish or 'ard coat it gets a fresh mud feel. I use the first and last technique to great extent on my minis. I use vallejo's pigments 'burnt umber' for mud and 'burnt siena' for rust.

 

[Archean]

RE: Borgnine's Log: Which GG do you like more?

Just found this plog,

Love the Zombie horde! Ref the Grave guard, both are great! 55% of me likes the green one more as I think a unit of them will really "pop" on the battlefield and they are your elite troops

 

[Duke Danse Macabre]

RE: Borgnine's Log: Which GG do you like more?

The one on the right looks the better of the two but i still think you have been a little heavy with the effect, should really only be caked around joints, edges, rises and falls in the armour etc.
Trust me when i say, a little goes a long way.

Beautiful work with that banner as well mate, looks spot on.

 

[Klenval]

RE: Borgnine's Log: Which GG do you like more?

I like the turquoise patina. You could maybe add more highlights and more contrasts (warmer colour on the cloth ?).

 

[Seneschal]

RE: Borgnine's Log: Which GG do you like more?

Your freehand work is amazing!

I like the large weapons on the knights, they remind me of certain Final Fantasy characters.

 

[Theerteen]

RE: Borgnine's Log: Which GG do you like more?

I'll break a lance for the left one, ist more comic style - like, but this is why I like him better And to admit, I love everything that glows green

 

[Borgnine]

RE: Borgnine's Log: Which GG do you like more?

Thanks everyone for comments and opionions! I wanted to reply earlier, but I also wanted to post something while replying and then it all got delayed by real life and so on...

I took your comments into consideration and tried many variants with highlighting and making it less patinated and more metal - and it was really a battle of trying things and painting them over and again finally I left it in almost the same state as it was on the earlier picture.

I know that they are less shiny in this case, but adding gold highlights was making them too shiny in my opion - while writing this post I also experimented with tin bitz, but still something didn't seem right.... So it is now this:

Rather than this:

The second one looks nice and theretically would be better, but I just can't make it look good enough. And now I'm uneasy whether I should leave it as it is or maybe try to work further >.< I'll think about it.

So, the pics!

Grave Guard

And Black Knights

And another thing - the cloth! I read the comments and I also know that putting some warm colour there would make them more contrast-y - and I tried it on the BK champion - and it doesn't look fitting to me. I guess I like the green+black combination for the undead a little too much... Right now my idea for making those wights a little special is to paint the cloth black and then put some gothic ornaments there in white, borders, patterns or something...

Work with these guys is just one big fight between what - in my opinion - should look right and what seems to look right after painting. I'll think about it... I have an experiment with this patina stuff thought up already ;]

And @Seneschal - I also got this 'anime' feeling about them when I was making weapons larger and larger

 

[Muerto]

RE: Borgnine's Log: GG and BK WIP

Borgnine - your verdigris patina technique is powerful enough to have dislodged me from being a lurker and made me register an account after many years. It is awesome sauce.

Can you do a step-by-step tutorial please? Or at least list what paints are used?

 

[Borgnine]

RE: Borgnine's Log: GG and BK WIP

Wow! Welcome to the forums Muerto! I'm quite flattered by this and I will show what I can.

But before this I'll show my progress on those wights.

After yesterday I experimented and experimented and was severly dissapointed with most of the results. In the end, stippling and washing [I'll describe in detail below] gave me this effect:

Now the patina is not so heavy and it's only in creases of the armor - and the greyish, metalic colour is still visible and it's awesome - in my opinion, of course And tricks with stippling gave this worn out and unclean look.

Units as of now:

And now, tutorial time!

WARNING: The updated version with pictures is HERE

Verdigris Patina Tutorial

I'm not really able to provide photos for each stage and it's totally unoptimized, because I was just going along and the effect just happened one time - but I will describe what I did. And I use old paints so if it's unavailable - use THIS CONVERSION CHART

First - I mixed paints you see below, with TinBitz:Gunmetal ratio being about 2,5:1 or maybe 2:1 - i don't really know - but the effect was as pictured:

Not too watery consistency - single coat was thick to paint it all and watery enough to make it thin. Next I made some turquoise - I don't really have turquoise paint so I mixed it - as you see below.

DarkAngels+RegalBlue was 1:1 and GoblinGreen+EnchantedBlue was 1:1 - with a bit of white added to second one to get the colour pictured:

This time I tried to make it kinda watery - I don't know how much I added, but the final consistency was kinda like milk - it needs to flow but also be able to stay in some place when needed. I added some Vallejo Glaze Medium to both mixes to make it flow and dry better - and I don't really know how it'll turn out without it, but it should be fine - now it's not time to be completely clean ;] I was putting both colours on the minis, light on larger surfaces and edges and dark in the creases - both of them mixing while still wet. When this dried I painted them once again - this time with light turquoise only and putting it rather on raised surfaces and edges - and being untidy and quick with it - it doesn't need to be neat and clean. When this dried I tried stippling it - with this brush:

So I generally used some drybrush, drying the brush almost completely and then - rather than brushing - I poked the mini vertically with this brush. It leaves little, untidy points which makes it look quite weathered

And this is how I made minis on the yesterday post.

After this I went through some experiments and this is how the right one went. I took Tin Bitz [pictured earlier] and stiplled the mini with this - only this time the brush wasn't completely dry. It was leaving large spots and the brush 'hits' was leaving a rough texture on the mini, as well as colour. I left creases and dents in armor, and most was TinBitzed - roughly and unitidy. After this I stiplled it again - using white and really dry, the same as earlier. This left on the mini a mix of points in turquoise, tin bitz and white - with turquoise in the creases, tinbitz on raised surfaces and edges and white dots as little accents.

And finally - I used the light turquoise paint and watered it down little more - it need's to be more flowy. And using this, I washed whole armor parts completely. And this was the point when stippling turned out to be a great discovery! You see, all this stippling left a rough texture on the mini - and wash rather than just flowing into the creases, was also leaving it's mark on the surfaces, making clots and spots - all of them quite random and very weathered. And this is how the minis on the top picture came out to be. I was surprised and very pleased with the result

Sorry for the long rant, brevity in writing is not my strong point I think that when doing it later, one can just paint mini turquoise and leave the firt step with the TinBitz mix, but I'm just assuming. I don't have photos, but I could really make a good tutorial next time - after all I'll someday want to have 40GG and 10BK, not half of it like now ;]

I hope all my writing will help someone In the meanwhile - I'm going back to study for the exam :'(

 

[Klenval]

RE: Borgnine's Log: GG and BK WIP + Patina Tutorial

This patina is awesome ! Now you need a proper colour on the cloths.

And good luck for your exam.

 

[Rigor Mortis]

RE: Borgnine's Log: GG and BK WIP + Patina Tutorial

Youre free hand is wicked. Hope to be half as good at it one day. Now to a suggestion for you. Make the clothes on the GG mixed cuz right now the look a bit to alike one another just a mass of patina.
Hope you ace youre test.

 

[BloodbathMcGrath]

RE: Borgnine's Log: GG and BK WIP + Patina Tutorial

Cool work on the blood knights! I like the idea of converting chaos knights, others like to convert dragon princes, I've seen both look great. You did a lot of cool conversion work on these guys! I like the lance-great blades, pretty epic looking. Also, the patina effect you did looks nice, but the grave guard need some more color methinks.

 

[Borgnine]

RE: Borgnine's Log: GG and BK WIP + Patina Tutorial

Thanks for the comments!

As you said - GGs definitely needs more colour. Once I inteded to make their 'skirts' greenish, but I also saw that it'll be dull - and people everywhere saying that surely helped me with this decision Now I plan to paint them black&red with a yellow pattern on the edge. It surely 'livens' them - if there is such thing in this case ;] I'll decide it finally when I'll design the banner - I'm struggling with this right now and It'll affect the rest of the choices. In the meanwhile I'll try to paint the etheral effect on BK horses - this'll be fun! At least more fun than thinking about the banner...

@BloodbathMcGrath - thanks! Yes, I saw all those dragon princes and considered them shortly - but I both dislike elves and I have found cheap knights ;] And yes, conversion was surely lengthy and challenging, but it was fun after all and came out good ;]

And I passed the test nicely! Now I can paint some more - and without university stuff looming nearby until october

 

[Theerteen]

RE: Borgnine's Log: GG and BK WIP + Patina Tutorial

One more question to the Blood Knights...where are those batwing-applications from? I'm on that point where the chaos knights have to get a little more vampiric look :konrad:

 

[Borgnine]

RE: Borgnine's Log: GG and BK WIP + Patina Tutorial

@Theerteen - those are from the Grave Guard kit. Champion's helmet and top of the standard has nice and easily separable bat wings, and there are two of each in each box - so after assembling a champion and a standard bearer, those are just nice bits to use.

 

[Theerteen]

RE: Borgnine's Log: GG and BK WIP + Patina Tutorial

Ah I see, thanks. Looks like I have to get this box of GGs earlier than originally planned...Damn. Month did just start and I'm outta money already

 

[skullgrl]

RE: Borgnine's Log: GG and BK WIP + Patina Tutorial

Ohh I love Boltbitz! I thought of it as well, its a lovely base for a lot of things that will be weathered. Loving all your work so far and thanks for the weathering recipe!

For your sculpted faces, they look great but if I could suggest a trick... Once they are nice and dry try sanding them a bit to smooth them out a little. Again they really look great!

Also, I think you might want to up either the saturation and/or darken the images a little. Maybe its just this crappy screen though.

 

[Muerto]

RE: Borgnine's Log: GG and BK WIP + Patina Tutorial

Interesting - you've found use from the very reason I stay away from (old) GW metallics; I always found them too thick to leave an even layer and used Tamiya.

Thanks for the tutorial!

 

[Borgnine]

RE: Borgnine's Log: GG and BK WIP + Patina Tutorial

Here comes the long post! But first, some replies.

@Muerto - you're welcome. Good for you, but after some thinning even GWs are good to use.
@skullgrl - I'll try it next time when sculpting. And regarding saturation and lightness - I think those pictures quite accurately show them - so maybe really yours or mine screen is wrong
@Theerteen - oh yes, the money - always the problem in this hobby I've found some sweet discounted VC batallion and I hope to get my payment before the discount expires

And now, let's get to new minis.

Finally I have finished them! I didn't have much time to paint, had to repaint some things, try some other things and wetblending on the clothes was taking more time than I expected...

First ones - the Grave Guards!

First, some backstory for the curious:

Spoiler

After returning to Varsavia, von Greifens found out from the local countess, Ecaterina Sokolov, that many hundreds of years ago, a peculiar death cult was strong on these lands. Unable to research it properly, she gave whatever clues she had to the new vampires and let them dig in search of this cult. With the help of their allied necromancers, von Greifens finally found a tomb filled with dried skeletons of warriors of old, still in their patinated armor and with their weapons. Brought into unlife with the help of Alexander Hautfell, these wights proved to be much more than mere skeletons. Their grayed bones were unnaturally tough, their grip stronger than that of a living person and most of all, they retained some of their old thoughts and memories. They were the sworn warriors of a death god which name was lost to history and fought in Varsavia when there was no Empire or Kislev and beasts thought to be mythical roamed the forests. While they posessed their old wills, these sturdy infantrymen were more than willing to help von Greifens kill the enemies of Varsavia in the name of their patron. Their weapons, which still carried ancient curses made that task more than easy for them.

Picture updated on 11.03.2017

And a closeup of their banner:
Picture updated on 11.03.2017

First idea was to make their armor patinated - and then I decided to make them roman style, to make them seem more ancient. After designing the banner and some ornaments I thought that they don't look roman enough with their bat-style so I ditched that idea. Other ancient cultures also seemed not fitting enough and after much thinking I decided on making them styled after ancient slavs. Putting all the embroidery on their clothes proved to be a wasted effort - as it was difficult and didn't look good on this scale and in this colour scheme. So the laurel leaves are there finally - after the roman design. But the banner is totally in slavic style, with kolovrat and glagolitsa-styled writings. It may be a little clustered, but that's how I roll

And now: the Black Knights!

Yet another piece of backstory:

Spoiler

In another tomb the inquisitive Vampires and necromancers found cavalrymen of the ancient Varsavia. Buried along with their horses and barding, they rode again in unison after being raised. While warriors themselves were definitely substancial, their steeds shifted into some spectral realm, allowing them to easily traverse Varsavian forests and marshes. Each one of the warriors bore an intricate, yet dulled, symbol on their barding - these were like heraldry and signified honored soldiers in the armies of the ancients. Extremely loyal warriors, they demanded to be brought to one of their cheftains. In the absence of such, they settled temporarily with accompanying the vampires when they rode on their nightmare-horses into the night.

Picture updated on 11.03.2017

And a closeup of the standard bearer:

Here the big idea was to make their lower parts shifting into spectral form. Painting all this green and black was a pain in the neck, but I surely learned some things about proper highlighting and contrasts Only after finishing it all I thought that they seem to green for me and lack the proper amount of red their infantry counterparts have. I plan to repaint the clothes on the horses, but not right now - some time later. For now they'll do!

And a comparison of how I plan to paint them later:

And the current project: I don't really know It'll be either one of those gentlemen [I've got Kemmler at last! ]:

or I'll finally finish this baby [started in 2010]:

 

[Raven Torrid]

RE: Borgnine's Log: Finished GGs and BKs

Wanted to comment on the GG back when they were wip...they already looked great back then...but decided to wait until they were finished.

And now I don't have much to say, 'cause I'm speechless! Astonishing work, don't know what I like better: the patina, the red-black cloth and freehand on it, or the combination of both. Same goes for BK's.

And the GG banner is just...:O... ...nice touch with the Glagolitic alphabet as well.

 

[Theerteen]

RE: Borgnine's Log: Finished GGs and BKs

Ok, it's about time to ask this... Are you fu*** kiddin me?! Every time I think I have seen all of the hardcore painted stuff (that don't participate in the golden demon), (in the most cases) you come along with units and banners like that... I'm going to dig myself somewhere in my garden...:grave:

Seriously, how the heck do you paint those banners and symbols? My freehand skills are ok, but this..After one third of the banner I'd throw the brush away crying:|