Farmer's Undead

[Lord Elpus]

Bloody lovely work on Vlad mate!! Everything ties together nicely!

In fact you have inspired me to take up my undead again.

 

[Nagash Worshiper]

Wonderful Vlad there! Kind of reminds me of Vlad in Total War: Warhammer. Been getting some inspiration from there maybe?

 

[Borgnine]

Your Vlad is simply outstanding! Black cape is as awesome as someone who spent half of their life on painting night goblins can be and those red eyes thrilling! That white hair fits very well with his pale complexion. And the little gems are also very good accents. I expected him to be bluer tough, a bit like your wights

 

[Farmer7574]

More skeleton spearmen:

A few shots of the second filler:

The fallen trunk is one of the weapons from the giant kit.

And here's the unit so far:

That's 20 down, just over half of the unit done so far. The infantry in this army is shaping up nicely.


Thanks for your comments chaps:

@Theerteen Painting details & putting in some extra time can drag a little at times but really pays off.

@Lord Elpus Looking forward to seeing you crack on with some more undead.

@Nagash Worshiper I looked at a few pics of Vlad on the net for colour inspiration and the one from Total War stood out. I like the white hair & gold armour combination and went for this on my mini, but decided to swap out the black for silver.

@Borgnine I went for black on the cape in the end as I think it goes better with the silver & gold armour. The red eyes/pale skin combo was inspiration from another Warcraft character; Sylvanas Windrunner. I'm going to continue this scheme on all my vampires.

Cheers for taking a look, more stuff coming later.

 

[Borgnine]

Another solid band for your army Just like with your black knights, those little blue pieces of cloth on their spears really adds to all the blues that bind your skeletons together.

Also, I noticed that tree trunks are getting lost amongst the spearheads - similar problem to mine with zombies. Do you have higher tree trunks? But that may just as well be too high - well, see for yourself

 

[edwardvlad]

Really nice basing and spot on neat painting as always! Congratulations love the vultures btw.

 

[Farmer7574]

Here's what's next on the painting table:

My competition spirit host ready for paint:

Hopefully I'll get it done before the deadline! Got a fairly busy week ahead though… so we'll see what happens!

And the three spirit hosts together:

I'm a bit unsure about the basing for these. I'm wandering if the tall trunks look OK or out of place here...

I'd heard these were a chore to put together but they were pretty straight forward (the instruction book was necessary though) and a nice break from skeletal units. They are quite fragile though

Now, there are a few new things for me to paint here – glowing ethereal colours, fire, OSL... So I did a few experiments between painting skeletons & other stuff.

I've tried a few ways of painting standard and blue fire:

Completely new to this, I'm still not content with the majority of my efforts. Getting the colours in the wrong places can completely alter the appearance of the flame, making it look too intense or not intense enough, or even a bit cartoonish/pastel-looking if the 'highlights' are off. The third scheme is more or less what I'll be using on my spirit hosts.

While this looks kinda fine for things like fire and spirit hosts, I tried something similar on a skeleton (since they have harder edges) and I'm not too sure what to make of it – it made it look like a negative and didn't translate as I'd hoped for. It was also quite time-consuming and left little room for error:

After seeing @Borgnine 's spirit base for his Coven Throne, I asked him how he went about painting it and decided to try his scheme out a little after swapping the washes to suit my army:

I went for a slightly darker blue wash and a thinned light blue glaze.

After trying out the light ethereal scheme, I went about using it on (half of) a wraith and applied the dark inverted scheme to the fire to see how they'd look side by side, and this is the result:

Right now I think my flames need improving and perhaps the bones could use a slightly lighter glaze (see the flaming skull on the right for comparison).

I've left the robes black for now as I'm not sure how I'd like to paint them. Black or dark blue would definitely break up the light ethereal colours at work here, while brown would add some warm colours to the miniature...

Let me know what you think, suggestions & comments welcome!


@Borgnine Cheers buddy! Yeah, the trees do seem to be buried in spears in this unit. They are actually a little taller (about 1cm more) but I have to chop an ugly part off the top. I think they could be taller though, so I'll bare this in mind for the next filler I make

@edwardvlad Thank you, kind sir! Glad you like them Before starting this army I'd been thinking about something different for the bases, and so went for autumn forest bases - they contrast nicely with the blues in the army

More stuff on the way, cheers for taking a look!

 

[Borgnine]

Holy cow, that's some nice experimenting! Salutes to you for trying it out so bravely That blue fire looks hauntigly good and it would fit much better than standard one. That etheral skeleton is also outstanding, I've never seen something like this. He looks terryfyingly unnerving - a whole force like that would probably as awesome as much chore would be painting them all like that..... It may be also a bit overkill - all the better then that those glazed 'normal' spirits look great too. You really worked nicely with the contrasts and it makes them really glow with that cold fire - difference in technique also makes that fire stand out better. Definitely keep it up!

As for their robes - I think that you should leave them black or blue - definitely cold. Browns may add some warmth to it - but 1. that may not be what those spirits are about and 2. it may make them look more 'real'. That hellishly strong blue scheme makes them otherwordly and I think it's fitting as hell for hexwraiths

BTW - maybe the deadline for the competition can be postponed a bit? Twose two days on weekend can make the difference - maybe the Competition Master would allow it After all, the more entries, the better.

 

[Farmer7574]

I spent my free time today painting the unfortunate guy on the base of the spirit host.

I decided to play about with the inverted scheme again and see how he'd look with light from the spirit hosts glowing inside his chest. Here's the result:

The first shot is with standard bone and the second with darker bone around the light area (since things appear as more of a silhouette depending on how strong the light is behind them). Not really sure which looks better...

Let me know your thoughts Now the layering of the ghosts commences!

@Borgnine Thanks a lot mate! I tend to spend a while experimenting with things that are new to me. This inverted/fire scheme has been something that I've been messing about with for a while now, and it's been holding me back from ethereals. After doing a whole miniature in inverted colours, I found that it would be too tedious to replicate across an entire unit of Hexwraiths. I'm still determined to use it on the spirit hosts though as their details should allow for it quite well

Good call on the wraiths' robes - I may go for the dark blue (like on my Knights) but use slightly different highlights and washes to make them a bit more vibrant rather than worn & aged.

Regarding the competition, the submission date's all good. I actually work over the weekends and have time off during the week, so I'll spend next my next 'weekend' off powering away with this and see what happens!

Cheers, more coming soon.

 

[Borgnine]

God damnit, that effect is awesome! How did you manage to get a visible gradient on something that much hidden between those ribs? Respect! Personally I think that such a subtle light inside that ribcage wouldn't make that silhouetting effect - your second attempt looks a bit as if that's skeleton got burnt on the front. First one draws the eye a little more in my opinion too.

Make good use of those free days

 

[Farmer7574]

This is where I got with my spirit host by the end of last week:

The lighting doesn't show the transition of blues very well, but it's coming along quite nicely. A solid day of painting to finish the last few layers and the base should get it squared away.

I picked up a few bat swarms the other day on eBay too (the Slyph is something I'm doing for the missus):

They were a bargain (or maybe I'm just too used to GW prices)! I plan to chop the gravestones off and position them around trees later on.


@Borgnine Cheers mate, glad you like it. Looking at the comparison, I think I'm more of a fan of the standard bone colour against the rib light too. The light was just the 7 or 8 layers I'm using for the spirit hosts layered up. Actually, quite quick and simple!

 

[Adam_Barrow]

You're onto something good there. I'm so stoked you're at ethereals! I think any ticks I might have with it will be gone by completion. Looking forward to it!

 

[Farmer7574]

Some layering later and the first Spirit Host is done:

Not as tidy as I'd hoped for but I'm pretty happy with it. The layering of blues got a bit tiresome towards the end but I think the effect is worth it - the miniature holds quite a unique appearance and catches the eye amongst other units in the army whilst still fitting in.

Inspiration was from Rafal Maj's (AKA Bloody Beast) Halloween Spirit Hosts I saw a few years back right HERE.

Now it's time for something simpler - I'm looking at you, Mr. Cairn Wraith!

All primed & ready but I'm toying with the idea of sculpting some small flames in his eyes or perhaps on his scythe to make him look similar to the Hexwraiths... Thoughts?


@Adam_Barrow Cheers mate, I'm happy to finally get my ethereal schemes squared away and start working on them - my army needs some ghosts! They're mostly what's in the near future, save for small O&G projects here n there.

Cheers for taking a look, let me know what you guys think

 

[Borgnine]

Awesome work! Shame they didn't get to participate in the competition You really got them similar to Rafał's version. As for the Cairn Wraith, flames are a good idea in my opinion, but I would make them only on the scythe, eyes could be too much of a hassle and they are pretty hidden most of the time.

 

[Farmer7574]

Got the Cairn Wraith all squared away:

Some more shots:

I stayed away from black and went for dark blue robes instead of 100% ethereal colours to break up the miniature (the plan is to also do this on the Hexwraiths that I'm currently working on). Cairn Wraiths have a 'Grim Reaper' appearance to them too, so I wanted to emphasize that in the colour scheme.

The robes lack a final glaze at the moment but he might get a mix of Guilliman & Waywatcher to bring out his ghostliness. I'm also going to improve that fire as I hone my skills to make it a bit more convincing

Overall, this was a thoroughly enjoyable miniature to paint - I'll be picking up a few more in the future!


@Borgnine Thanks for your feedback, kind sir! Yeah, it would've been great to have got the spirits done for the competition but some other things got in the way of my painting schedule

I took your advice of only applying flames to the scythe, it has turned out well.

Cheers for taking a look, more in the works.

 

[Shadespyre]

Beautiful work on your blue ethereals, it's a very striking look that rewards all the work you've put into that careful blending.

 

[Adam_Barrow]

The orangey base sets off that blue so well. What an unexpectedly cool trick. Awesome job, Farmer!

 

[Lord Elpus]

As always my friend, your work is truly outstanding.

 

[Borgnine]

That's truly an awesom wraith! That monochrome style fits him really well and you managed to make that dark blue really deep

 

[benvoliothefirst]

Your experiments with color are stunning. I personally like the version with the darker bones above the interior burst, but I think you could go even further with the effect. But as I said in the Show Us Your Etherials thread, your coloring is beautiful. Love your work.

 

[InkubPendragon]

Excellent painting and I simply love effect of ghosts bursting out from skeleton's chest. Outstanding. Your whole army is very well-painted.

 

[Menkeroth]

Aye, very good work! I especially like the ghosts, simple but effective and not so monotonous as by GW. And I like the idea of your very dark blue, more still on the black.

 

[The Gunslinger]

Jesus those ghosts look amazing!

Someone remind me to come back after work and take notes

Really great stuff as always!

 

[Farmer7574]

A small update on progress with current things:

First up is the basing on the second spirit host:

The wires are where I'll be sculpting roots to create an uprooted tree (like on my skeleton and zombie fillers). I went for normal stuff here and employed the same basing tactic as with the skeleton warriors – trees wherever they fit comfortably.

I'd toyed with the idea of basing some spirit hosts to have them seem as though they're moving through the trees, but it seems like quite a bit of work so... maybe if I get another box in the future!

Next up is the Hexwraiths:

Still under construction. I got the majority of the horses' bones painted before assembly and just need to greenstuff over those ugly joints before finishing the assembly. I intend to do some greenstuff flames on the mounts' eyes and snouts too, to make them look wild and crazed.

Then we have the final batch of skeleton spearmen all ready for paint:

And a close-up of the converted command group:

Thanks a lot for your kind comments & feedback everyone:

@Shadespyre I had my sight set on every ethereal being done in inverted colours in the early days of my army, but I'm pretty satisfied with having used that colour scheme only on the spirits and created a different scheme for the wraiths – it seems to unify these units quite well whilst still making them look unique.

@Adam_Barrow I'd intended a nice contrast of blue & orange at the start of the army but it seems to have gone a step further on the ethereals (probably due to monotone schemes). I'm quite surprised at it's effect!

@Lord Elpus High praise, mate. Cheers for checking out my work! This army is slowly but surely shaping up nicely.

@Borgnine I'm pretty content with this colour scheme. (Mostly) staying away from black in this army is paying off and creating results I hadn't previously envisioned. Kudos to you for your very inspirational work!

@benvoliothefirst I get quite indecisive when it comes to doing colour tests and whatnot, but once a unit or just a few minis are knocked out in the chosen scheme I'm pretty happy with the choice. Thanks again for checking out my work, mate.

@InkubPendragon Thank you! Glad you like the glowing skeleton – I'll be repeating that on all the Spirit Host victims The modeling/painting side of our hobby is what interests me the most, so I like to put in a nice bit of effort when it comes to painting my minis.

@Menkeroth Thanks a lot mate. I had considered doing the wraith in all one colour for a moment but wanted something to cut the single colour – the robes served perfectly for that.

@The Gunslinger Cheers buddy, they weren't the most interesting thing to paint but the effect is really rewarding once finished

I'm going away for a three week holiday soon so things will be quiet here for a while. Catch you guys on the flip and cheers for taking a look!

 

[Irisado]

That Wraith turned out very well. I really like the choice of colour for the robe and the different approach with avoiding going entirely ethereal with the colours. It looks old school, but in a modern way, if that makes any sort of sense?