Brainstorming - West African/Voodoo theme?

[Leithreas]

I spent some time in West Africa a few years ago and this has been rattling around in my head since then. I may finally have the time and inclination to be able to do something about it.

The idea is to base a VC army on West Africa, and the origins of voodoo. It wouldn't be the New Orleans feel of voodoo (where it went) so much as a more rustic feel (where it came from - Ouidah, etc), combined with some Muslim influences that came down from North Africa over the centuries. Jungle meets Savannah type feel. So there would be some headscarves as well as fetishes and machetes.

I actually found Carpe Noctem when I was looking for inspiration a year or so ago, and came across Baron Samedi's amazing Legend of the Cannibals painting log here. This would be similar but with not as much central Africa feel to it. More Dogon and less Zulu, basically.

So I'm hoping some people have interesting ideas to help me solidify my ideas! There are some things that are a bit obvious, and others that might be a bit tougher. I am also apt to get carried away and try to convert/proxy everything, which is a bad idea, so little tweaks that could be done to the basic models would be just as helpful to stop me from going crazy.

And of course models for use that people know about would be great too!

Some ideas I've had so far include:

First the leaders - a voodoo queen/priestess, of course, and a more nomadic-feeling Tuareg-inspired fella as a fighty vampire. There can be variations for necromancers as well as vampires here.

Voodoo Shrines. Originally I was going to use it as a Black Coach, but with the advent of 8th and the Coven Throne/Mortis Engine this is too perfect not to do. Smaller shrines could also be used as corpse carts, maybe? Or Corpse Carts might work better as themselves. They could be carried on the backs of serpents (easy to model) or spirits, which is an idea I swear GW stole from my brain.

Ethereal models would be painted a pale blue-green, I think, which would open up the really green green for warpstone voodoo markings. Or do people think I should stick with the classic white that's used in the real world? The markings can go on zombies/ghouls/skeletons/etc.

Dire wolves would almost certainly be hyenas, something Samedi pulled off perfectly.

Ghouls I thought for a while could be the mantic ghouls modeled with headwraps and (poisoned) daggers to give them a hashashin/dervish feel. But I might just use them stock with voodoo markings on them.

Special units like GG, Blood/Black knights (not sure which, or both?) and so forth could have masks like the Dogon use. It might be worth it to model them for all the skeletons, but that's a lot. Maybe just characters and the more unique units. And the straw or feathers that can go with them.

Voodoo paraphernalia could be scattered throughout. Fetishes tied to arms and chests, masks, stakes with offerings on them maybe. A problem is the removal of armor, since they really wouldn't have it, to be replaced with what - the power of voodoo markings giving them armor saves? It would fit the theme better but it takes away quite a lot of model options. Arabs used armor, though, mostly scale and chain more than plate right? I could bring more of that influence in, perhaps.

There are some west african myths/monsters I may try to incorporate but that's getting pretty esoteric. Ghouls already come from Araby, of course.

I'm sure I've forgotten some ideas but this is already pretty long. If anyone has any ideas, criticisms, encouraging words, I'd love to hear them. I really don't have the conversion OR painting skill for this, but I figured I could slowly improve as things went along.

 

[RoguePanda]

I am already liking the sound of this one! I am afraid I don't know much about voodoo, so I am not sure how much I can contribute. However, perhaps you could use the masks idea for the spirit hosts? Have the masks floating about on semi formed ectoplasmic bodies, to make a sort of eerie carnival?

As for armour, you could indeed use chainmail or scale armour instead of the normal plate armour - the chaos marauder horsemen models might be a good place to start. I am sure I have seen tutorials for both chain and scale mail somewhere - if I find them again I'll post you the link.

Best of luck with this!

 

[Johnny-Crass]

https://www.vampirecounts.net/Thread-The-Legend-of-the-Cannibals

 

[Leithreas]

Panda - I had a similar idea. Ghostly tendrils merging together to hold up a mask as spirit hosts. They could be very globular, or more person-shaped, or I could have a mix of both. Chaos marauders are a good pick too - with some fetishes tied around them and some of the chaos markings removed or covered, they could do some great Grave Guard maybe? Or regular skeletons/ghouls? With the proper weapons and masks attached, and so on.

Johnny, I mentioned Samedi's great work in my first post, and it's definitely a font of inspiration for what one can do. I'm not sure just yet whether I'll include all the animals like he did, or whether I'll go for odd voodoo constructs, or a bit of both. Definitely probably going to use his pictures as inspiration for the markings on folks, he did an amazing job with those for sure.

That's one of the places where I'm stuck, actually. Things like vargheists and crypt horrors. I could use the standard crypt horrors, they'd work pretty well marked up with ropes and wrappings of voodoo around them. And West Africa witchcraft is chock-full of stories about were-everythings, honestly. It is not uncommon to read a newspaper story about a goat being put in jail as a suspected sorcerer.

So take Vargheists and varghulfs: were-creatures? wolf-hyena-bats? Keep them as is? Or I could take some old war-hawk (or bat) wings I have and use them on some marauder bodies, or some old beastmen I have, or to get even creepier just bare skeletons themselves. Mock it up so their arms are roped onto the wings in some weird voodoo ritual way that gives them the power to act like vargheists. With living models they'd be people attached, and with the skeletons they'd be more akin to strange fetish constructs soaring through the air.

Yet another idea is to take dragon wings, or bat wings, and make it seem like a model is flying on entirely incorporeal shadow-wings. I'm killing myself with options.

 

[Johnny-Crass]

Yea posted the link for easy reference.

For varghiests I really do not have any ideas saddly

 

[Scalenex]

I'm workinhg on a Lustrian themed undead. I recently ordered two of this Pathfinder mini to field as Necromancers. They might work for your voudoun theme too.

http://www.reapermini.com/OnlineStore/Pathfinder/sku-down/60091

 

[Leithreas]

I like the idea of having someone with a voodoo doll riding something bigger, as if it's being unwillingly controlled to move forward and fight against its will. But I don't know what the big creature would be, exactly. Terrorgheist? Corpse cart in some way? Could it work on monstrous infantry like crypt horrors? With one "leader" or one on each monster's shoulders/behind like rat ogre handlers?

Just spitballing, really. But if anyone has a few thoughts, feel free to share them. I do think I want to work that in somehow, I just don't know how and what it could stand in for in the VC army. Maybe it could be a puppet-master type controlling an entire horde of zombies or something.

 

[RoguePanda]

I don't know if this helps, but I have had an idea of my own kicking about in my head for counts as crypt horrors that sounds like the idea you have there with the voodoo doll Leithras.

I had in mind to model some tyranid warriors with distended guts and hunched over as some sort of "rot eater" and put a little figure on top, as with the really old carrion from the first undead book. The little guy is a spirit that feeds on the destruction caused. That sounds a lot like what you have in mind there?

Have you seen the old Albion Fenbeast models? They are good models, and you could model a small doll riding on it's head I think? That might work. I would suggest using them as crypt horrors, rather than anything else. You might be able to use them as vampire bats however if you go with your earlier idea of flying/floating golems?

I will be looking forwards to seeing what you get up to. If you have some spare bits to play around with, try putting something together as a sort of proof of concept - it might help spark some new ideas Good luck

 

[Leithreas]

This idea totally fizzled out last year. I tried making a few masks, failed, and let it go completely. But I've gotten some motivation again lately, so let's see how far it gets now! Some ideas are going to be cost prohibitive - for instance, I love Baron Samedi's ghouls, but they are quite pricey for the number I'd probably need. So other options will be looked at.

I'm still working on ideas for each unit, and I'm largely being led by which ideas seem fun/possible rather than building an army list to create a working army, but I'd also love ideas regarding different units to voodoo/Africa them up, or stand-ins. Zombies may instead be mantic ghouls, or more plain african warrior models from a few different ranges, with voodoo markings on them to show they're possessed. Dire wolves will be wild warg models painted to look like hyenas (though I'm interested in finding other models that may work just as well!) Corpse carts are going to be a platform of some kind being carried on a swarm of snakes, or frogs, or rats, or a mix. I also thought about making a flock of bats carrying one, but that seems a lot trickier.

Anyway! What I'd really like in terms of help, besides general ideas, is help finding decent models for a few specific things. I'd love for my "ghouls" to be a horribly inaccurate mix of desert raiders from West Africa (berbers/tuaregs/etc) and the hashashin myths. Basically - turbaned, maybe cloaked warriors wielding dual poison daggers/swords with the appropriate voodoo markings on them (if possible). Fits the idea of a ghoul with poisoned attacks with voodoo as an excuse for hardiness, I think! It doesn't make sense to have a giant unit of "assassins" exactly, but if I change it a bit to whirling dervish types, maybe, or voodoo-possessed desert nomads, it could do a wonder.

So if anyone knows where I may be able to find models that might work as assassin/raider types with mostly daggers and/or swords, I'd appreciate it! I haven't found anything perfect yet, though I do like the plague monk arms and witch elf arms as possible options for some wacky kitbash. They have the right type of weapons, at least. I'm very new to all of this, but I do have some plasticard I could try to make weapons from as well, if I can work a model to look right apart from getting arms and converting that way. Ideally it would be a unit that would have dual daggers, either in their hands or on their person, maybe turbaned and/or masked (I can try to make the masks) but bare-chested for easier application of tribal/voodoo marks. So anything that I can base that on would be appreciated. I haven't found anything perfect just yet.

I'm also working on the idea for crypt horrors - right now I'm leaning towards just buying crypt horrors, since they seem pretty voodoo already, and adding markings and/or creepy masks to them. But I'd love to hear ideas about other larger humanoid types that are plain enough to be converted/mucked up a bit. I could take the original idea of the Al-Ghul, too, and work something about that for a bigger monster type, maybe. I don't know.

Ok! Enough chatting about my ideas for now, I know those are pretty boring. Just wanted to get this started again so I could motivate myself a bit. I'll add a couple pictures of what I have actually done in the next post.

 

[Leithreas]

Ok! Two pictures of what I've done so far. Bear in mind that part of my lack of impetus to work on this is that while I really like the idea, I have almost no conversion/greenstuff experience besides swapping an arm or a weapon here or there, and even that was a long time ago. But I'm going to try to barrel through, learn as I go, and pick up some new skills.

So with that said, right now I've started some work on a corpse cart equivalent. The idea is a platform being carried along by snakes, with voodoo rituals of some sort going on top of it. I may have a hyena pulling it, I may use a few bewitched voodoo cultist types to better replicate the zombies of the GW version. Or I could just add even more snakes slithering in front of it, though that idea is in last place right now.

So far: I've made 4 hand-made 50x100 chariot bases out of plywood and plasticard, because why not. I've made a bit of a bench for the top, and I will soon make candles and trinkets and rope for voodoo charms. I have some skulls to add already. Bloodstains and voodoo marks will have to wait for a paintjob, which is a far ways away at this point. Not much to see right now, but I have started trying to sculpt decent snakes, and have used Dr H.'s excellent sprues to boards tutorial to craft some decent wood out of sprues I have lying around, which I have a feeling will help quite a bit with a lot of this project!

I need to add even more snakes so there is more of a sense of holding the platform up. I don't know whether I should add normal wooden railings to the platform, or have snakes slithering up over the sides of it to kind of "imply" railings of a sort. I'm also very unsure whether I'm going to have an unattended voodoo shrine on the back of the platform and a driver-type in the front, or if it's just going to be a necro/corpsemaster stand-in actually "performing" the voodoo ritual smack-dab in the middle.

Snakes 1 by Caleddin12, on Flickr

Boards 1 by Caleddin12, on Flickr[/quote]

 

[Leithreas]

Hmm, maybe I should have started a new thread

So my ghoul idea right now is to use these guys as a start for my ghouls. I'll use the shaved heads, add some turbans, maybe a few more "charm" type things to represent the voodoo. I can paint the bare chested ones with either voodoo symbols or rip off Baron Samedi directly and use the bone-like markings. I can probably swap the weapons out/make new ones to be more dagger/sword-focused as "hashashins" should be. No shields will be used, and no armor (ghouls don't have a save anyway!)

Just a bit more background for the army: I want it to be ambiguously undeady, though not as non-undead as Samedi's army was. The idea is to play off of the Children of Maatmeses storyline, both the ambiguity of it and what The Pale Lady did with her story here on CN. Maatmeses went south, or west, or both. And hundreds/thousands of years later, something came north. The army will be focused on a strong voodoo queen with a more arab-influenced "marabout" warrior captain as her first in command. Does she worship nurgle? Are her powers that of nature unbound? Does she bring the power of the unknown Gods of the Southlands with her, or is she simply a daughter of Maat? (Probably the latter )

 

[Leithreas]

I don't really know if folks are reading - I know I don't have many pretty pictures up yet. Maybe I should start a different log for that? Yeah, it seems like I should. I'll see how far I get and then start a nice plog once I have more than two crappy pictures to share in the correct forum.

But! I really would love ideas regarding the bigger guys in a VC army - the varghulf, terrorgheist,crypt horrors/vargheists, etc. Still drawing mostly blanks for decent conversion/replacements for a voodoo/west-ish Africa feel.

 

[Dimreapa]

Just so you know people are reading your thread, I'll pop a note in. I have a few books on mythos that touch on voodoo (Dr Bob Curran's Encyclopedia of the Undead is a useful resource for those interested in Voodoo, Zombies and Vampires) so I'm looking through those when I have a moment (I'm brushing up on my Celtic anyway).

I haven't got much I can add at present, but there is a mention of this large serpent god called Dambala-wedo. Perhaps have Crypt Horrors that are large serpents?