DocteurQui's Undead Pirates

[DocteurQui]

Wow, that's quite a lot of styrodur! Drawing planks on it must take quite a bit of time - but I guess it's faster than building it all out of balsa or greenstuff - and it's probably quite meditative to do it too It's turning out great, it's really a treat to see it grow and grow. It would be nice to see some stairs there, I wonder how are you going to do them

One thing that I find strange is the direction of the planks on the main deck - while I think that this trick about putting them at an angle is interesting visually, but to shift the angle on a single plane? Some carpenter must have had a lot of headache to cut them up to such precise angles Similarly, those supershort, square-shaped planks - I could imagine something like this on the edge, but in the middle? That's strange. Still, it all probably won't be that visible with all the crew doing their pirate stuff on it.

Also, did you already see the pirate ship that @Nagash Worshiper did some time ago? I think he started doing it on the 6th page of his plog. It's also an undead vessel and he did a terrific job on bringing it and it's crew to unlife - and it was awesome to see all the progress and work he put into it. If you haven't seen it yet, you should check it out for some inspiration

First of all, thank you for your help! This is the exact reason I wanted to make a plog (it's a plog right?) of this project, to get better and make more realistic and likeable choices in building this ship.

Hahahaha yes, it definitely is a lot of styrodur. It's just really easy to work with and I like the fact that there's no holes and giant gaps between the planks if you make them out of this stuff. I love how that looks on the hull of the ship, but to have every deck be swiss cheese.. naahhh. And secondly, I'm planning on making the bases of the pirate models with the same balsa wood underground, so they'll look better when put onto the boat

I think I agree with you on the planks of the main deck, it may look cool, but it's in no way practical. I think I'll try to do straight planks on the main deck next "update" . And maybe you're right on the super-short-planks everywhere, I probably made too much of those. Another thing I'll be taking into account with the next update-thingy.

Thank you so so so much for showing me the Nagash Worshiper plog, it looks absolutely amazing and especially things like the sails and the overall detail of the whole thing really astound me. Really inspirational, thanks!

 

[DocteurQui]

Hey everyone!

Just a quick update, I worked around a bit with some of the new greenstuff sculpting tools that arrived today. I tried to make a "decorative trim" (thank you @Borgnine ) around the edge of the hats, and I also added a beard and moustache on the male Vampire Lord, which I'm pretty happy with tbh

I also added the chalice of blood I made to the female "vampire Lord", its not finished yet, and from this angle the chalice looks quite absurdly big, but in real life it's not that bad

And of course, no post on this thread is complete without a photo of the ship, which has now been equiped with a new deck that doesn't have the weird angular planks all over it. I think I like it better this way, at least it's a bit more realistic like this

And that was all for tonight, thanks for "tuning in"!

 

[Borgnine]

Wow, that conversion is awesome! You really turned that rather generic vampire into a truly salty seadog Without fangs it will be probably difficult to see that he's a vampire, but I'm sure you can make that apparent with painting alone Also, good call on those planks, the ship looks majestic as hell.

PS. And that chalice doesn't THAT absurdly big, it seems pretty ok here.

 

[Menkeroth]

What a nice thread! The ship is promising to be really awesome, I always envy those capable of constructing something like that! For crew I'd definitely use grave guard, spirit hosts and zombies (but, of course, not GW ones, they are awful). And yeah, it's too good to be put aside, even as a landscape piece. Size does not matter as long as you and your comrades are happy, use it as a ship on the battlefield!

 

[Farmer7574]

Progress on the ship is coming along nicely and the green stuff work on the vamps is great. Nice work!

 

[Theerteen]

If not otherwise, you should place that ship on your side of the table in the starting zone and count as empty space, but it has to be there, deploying death to the battlefield! I'm really fixed to see it painted mate! The pirate conversion also looks cool, I tried my modelling skills on a beard once, and absolutely failed. Looked like a child of ZZ Top and an 80's adult movie cast. Yours promises pirate-style

 

[DocteurQui]

Hey everyone!

Back on track I guess, last few weeks I had my final exams so I didn't really have the time to work on my project (or be on CN in general) a lot. Tonight though, I did get some things done here and there and in the past few weeks a few more parts for the ship arrived, cannons yay! Hope you guys like it, and enjoy!

Me being late and responding to people

Wow, that conversion is awesome! You really turned that rather generic vampire into a truly salty seadog Without fangs it will be probably difficult to see that he's a vampire, but I'm sure you can make that apparent with painting alone Also, good call on those planks, the ship looks majestic as hell.

PS. And that chalice doesn't THAT absurdly big, it seems pretty ok here.

@Borgnine Thanks! The fang problem is something I'm worried about a bit as well. I think I'm just going to stick to making his skin really pale and greyish like on the female vampire lord. Thank you for your comment on the planks as well! I really like them too, I haven't really made any of the nerves on them yet, as I really do not feel like putting another two hours into drawing those planks...

What a nice thread! The ship is promising to be really awesome, I always envy those capable of constructing something like that! For crew I'd definitely use grave guard, spirit hosts and zombies (but, of course, not GW ones, they are awful). And yeah, it's too good to be put aside, even as a landscape piece. Size does not matter as long as you and your comrades are happy, use it as a ship on the battlefield!

@Menkeroth Thank you! I hope you'll enjoy further postings as much! Definitely using Grave Guard as crew, as for the spirit hosts and zombies (agreed btw, everything but GW's zombies), I don't really know. I kinda feel like having the crew consist of only skeletons and Grave Guard (and of course a few cannons proxying as Screaming Catapult ), it feels more fluffy like that.

Really hoping I'll be able to come up with some rules to actually use the ship, I'd even be fine with it if it could move like 3 or 4 inches per turn, just the ability to have the cannons (which are basically always going to be planted on the ship itself) move by moving the ship they're standing on, seems really cool to me .

Progress on the ship is coming along nicely and the green stuff work on the vamps is great. Nice work!

@Farmer7574 Thanks! Really nice of you!

If not otherwise, you should place that ship on your side of the table in the starting zone and count as empty space, but it has to be there, deploying death to the battlefield! I'm really fixed to see it painted mate! The pirate conversion also looks cool, I tried my modelling skills on a beard once, and absolutely failed. Looked like a child of ZZ Top and an 80's adult movie cast. Yours promises pirate-style

@Theerteen Yessssssss, I'm definitely using it as a place for one or two grave yards (cause that's a thing now, yay LoN!), and having all my units deploy on or near the ship is so thematic and cool! I love this idea sooo muchhhhh

Hehehhehehe, thank you for the comment on the beards btw, really nice

The actual update

THE CANNONS, THEY HAVE ARRIVED. I now have five cannons, two shorter ones and three longer ones, combined with three pairs of wheels. Probably going to only use the two small ones as the larger variants don't really fit on the ship. I tried some weathering on the cannon and I'm pretty happy with the results so far, it does need some more work on the bottom, but I'll get around to doing that, some day....

The set I bought also came with some old empire crew! Time to do some more converting

Next up on my list was actually finishing the first Pirate Lord of this seafaring breed of undead, I can't really seem to be able to make good, sharp photos of my minis, so I guess we'll have to live with this "quality photo-taking" for a little while longer

One part I'm not really convinced by atm is the feather on her hat, it seems a little big? Please let me know what you guys think!

And the last part of this update is the fact that I gave the male Pirate Lord a sword, again, not totally convinced by it. But it'll do for now

Hope you guys liked it! See ya!

 

[Menkeroth]

I hope you'll enjoy further postings as much!

Of course! Just keep it up. And the cannons are very lovely, where did you get them from?

 

[DocteurQui]

Of course! Just keep it up. And the cannons are very lovely, where did you get them from?

They're OOP empire great cannons! No idea wether the shorter or the larger one was the official GW cannon, but they look very cool anyway

 

[Menkeroth]

Yeah, very good models, surprisingly enough. I also guess one could buy something similar from the likes of the Warlord Games and Wargames Factory and such companies.

 

[logan054]

I really like what I'm seeing so far mate. Ship is brilliant! The conversions look great so far!

 

[vg11k]

A. godamn. pirate. ship.
It's amazing, i can't wait to see it painted.

Will it go to the water ? Since it's made of balsa... (my dad build modern boat with it).
And is it an AoW model the bearded-converted captain ?

Also i got a friend who also is in vampirate. I talked to him about your thread, he's juste in love with your work.

 

[Borgnine]

That vampire pirate girl turned out great! That salty, cold shade of turquoise fits her perfectly - and in my opinion, the feather looks fine. I would consider painting some small accessory on her - like a belt, some pouches or the necktie - with a warmer color. Red would fit a vampire perfectly. This would make her stand out a little more and make her look more like a vampire. I'm just throwing an idea here - I love the scheme she is right now, but she can be mistaken for a zombie too. Maybe you can try to edit the photo, even with stupid old Paint and look how would she look like with a red necktie maybe?

As for taking photos - I don't know what are you using to take photos, but HERE you can see a good video about some basics when taking photos of minis with a smartphone. Even if you don't use a smartphone for this, the basic principles shown in the video should help a bit too

 

[DocteurQui]

Yeah, very good models, surprisingly enough. I also guess one could buy something similar from the likes of the Warlord Games and Wargames Factory and such companies.

@Menkeroth Yeah I think you're right! Only problem is that the wooden parts of the cannons are completely flat and without dwtail. So any nerves or structure to the wood has to be painted on and I'm not really sure if I'm good enough at painting to pull off such a trick

I really like what I'm seeing so far mate. Ship is brilliant! The conversions look great so far!

@logan054 Thank you so much! Really looking forward to working on it again, on vacation now (which is really nice as well ), but when I get back I'll definitely work some more on this whole project!

A. godamn. pirate. ship.
It's amazing, i can't wait to see it painted.

Will it go to the water ? Since it's made of balsa... (my dad build modern boat with it).
And is it an AoW model the bearded-converted captain ?

Also i got a friend who also is in vampirate. I talked to him about your thread, he's juste in love with your work.

@vg11k hahahahahahaha thank you!! Really happy with how it's turning out!

I don't think it'll go into real water, it could maybe float, but the cardboard that I used to make the bottom of the ship probably would not like that too much..

Yeah! It is that one new vampire model, I don't really like the unconverted, vanilla, model a lot. But when used for this purpose I think it works quite well!

Awwww thank you so much for your compliments, that's really good to hear and I hope you and your friend will like further updates as much!!

That vampire pirate girl turned out great! That salty, cold shade of turquoise fits her perfectly - and in my opinion, the feather looks fine. I would consider painting some small accessory on her - like a belt, some pouches or the necktie - with a warmer color. Red would fit a vampire perfectly. This would make her stand out a little more and make her look more like a vampire. I'm just throwing an idea here - I love the scheme she is right now, but she can be mistaken for a zombie too. Maybe you can try to edit the photo, even with stupid old Paint and look how would she look like with a red necktie maybe?

As for taking photos - I don't know what are you using to take photos, but HERE you can see a good video about some basics when taking photos of minis with a smartphone. Even if you don't use a smartphone for this, the basic principles shown in the video should help a bit too

@Borgnine thanks! I really like the coldness of the model ATM, but I think you're right that it could use some more piraty colours and details. I'm just a little afraid adding red to the model will make the coldness I'm planning on using on this whole army not work as much, idk though. Probably will try using something like Paint to try it out though! Thanks for the tip!

Hahahaha I'll quite definitely try using that tutorial on taking photos for further photos of minis! Thank you

 

[logan054]

I expect to see lots of updates then!! Enjoy you vacation with some plastic crack

 

[DocteurQui]

Hey everyone!

I'm back with another update after almost a month of inactivity, whooopsss. I had kinda underestimated the amount of time work after my vacation would take up. And seeing as the amount I work won't really decline in the following months, I'd advise not expecting loads of updates in said time-period

The ship

Whew, so quite a lot of stuff has happened to the ship in the past few weeks. I don't think it's really productive to sum up every little thing that has changed, so I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves!

Btw, the ship has been primed black with normal paint out of a far less expensive pot of paint than the GW ones. Everything about this works fine. The problems occur when I try painting the ship with a watered down brown colour. The brown just won't hold on the black (as you can see on the pics). I guess the actual problem is that the brown is watered down too much, but I'm afraid of destroying all the detail I sculpted into the wood when I paint the brown on too thickly.... Does anyone have any tips for overcoming this problem?

The Crew

Of course, every pirate ship needs a crew, and so does this one. I've almost painted up all the Undead Pirates from BlackScorpionMiniatures. I have had a slight change of mind though on how I'll use these minis. Whereas I used to want these to be fielded as Wight Kings, I've now decided to use them as Grave Guard instead. The reason for this change is that the normal GW skellies I had intended to use for my Grave Guard are, even when covered in piratey clothing and everything, quite weak looking, and I don't want my Grave Guard to look weak after all

I could also see some people being upset about the fact that I used normal GW skeletons as GW Grave Guards. So this will be my way of avoiding such conflict as much as possible. Oh, and a nice by-product of this change of heart is that I got to buy some more BSM Undead Pirates as I of course need more Grave Guard than just the four I have now

I now have a little issue with the fact that I no longer have any models to the Wight Kings in my army, which I do really want to field with their command ability . Does anyone know any models that would be appropriate for this purpose?

One of the two vampire lords has been given a new, temporary, base. As all normal GW vampire lords also seem to come with a 32mm base. Please note the current base is just temporary and I'll be using one of those plank filled bases you see on the previous picture on some of the Grave Guard.

The other vampire lord also got a little makeover. He's not finished yet, but I'm quite happy with the way the vampire's skin and sword are turning out! I'm not really convinced by the colouring on the VL's armour though, any suggestions would be appreciated! Of course, this model will also get a new and shiny base when everything is set and done

And here's one last picture of all of the (almost) finished crew standing together. I think I'm quite happy with the results and I hope you guys will like them as well!

Well, see you in a month or so

 

[Theerteen]

Neat-o!
Very good outcome so far, the crew looks stunning and menacing. The ships also is coming along great, maybe try the opposite of thinning, and go for drybrushing in slightly brighter brown layers?

 

[DocteurQui]

Thank you so much! That's actually quite a nice idea! I'll definitely try drybrushing the ship!

 

[Borgnine]

That watered-down brown paint, is it a paint for painting miniatures, or something cheaper? The pigment in the cheaper ones is not as finely ground, so it may just don't hold to the surfaces as well. Maybe you can experiment, trying out different ratios of water to paint? Besides that, drybrushing is also a good idea, would help with bringing that wood grain out, too. You would probably need a big brush to do it though, to get the drybrushed effect uniform enough and not patchy,

And the crew is turning out awesome! I really love that rusty/salty/decayed look on his armor, I wouldn't change a thing! As for the wight kings, maybe armored skeletons with pirate decor converted on? Like your vampire lord, only skeletal? I will think of some models that could be used for that, I can't think of anything particular right now, but I'll try to find something

 

[Sharkbelly]

Very nice work! I love anything piratical!

 

[Saikological]

Very nice, well made! Love the whole pirate theme.

 

[Shadespyre]

Always check out Reaper Miniatures (I don't get commission, sadly!) They have an undead pirate faction in their fantasy range. There models can be a bit on the large side, but that's okay for characters (and they show scale on all the minis on their website)

 

[Farmer7574]

Awesome stuff - love me some undead pirates!