Farmer's Undead

[Farmer7574]

Krell is still in the works as I've been a bit indecisive about the colours I want to use on him. Here he is so far:

As you can see, I've gone off on a bit of a tangent here and tried a reddish-brown coloured fur. I figured that the armour will have enough blue on it from the verdigris that adding a contrasting colour would make the mini pop.

It would be cool to get some opinions on it. (It has yet to be washed with Agrax or something). Failing this colour scheme, I'd probably resort to black fur like on the other Wight King.


Thanks for your comments and feedback everyone. Regarding earlier posts:

@Irisado I mocked up a champion using blu-tac a few months ago and am pretty happy with it! I'll get a picture of him in the next update As for a standard bearer, I'm still thinking of conversion ideas.

@Borgnine I love the bone/ivory axe shaft idea and think I'll run with it! As for the blade, I'm probably going to go for an obsidian appearance with glowing white/blue runes.

As for the gigantic notches in the axe, I thought that was meant to be decay from time! I guess not, and instead just the decay in care in what GW passes as a quality product :lol: The holes have since been filled.

@Shadespyre No worries mate - I'm pretty excited about the 2-year shot. I've got a whole load of ethereal things I want to get cracking on with soon!

As for Krell, I've had his past alliegance in mind whilst thinking of colour schemes and this is where the reddish-brown fur has come from.

More in the works.

 

[Borgnine]

At last the pictures are working!

It's difficult to say anything right now, seeing as adding verdigris will completely change his appearance - but I don't see why such a scheme wouldn't work. I don't know how much verdigris you will be adding, but maybe he will be 'overbrowned' if there's too much of that brass showing - but again, it's difficult to judge at this point...

As for the holes, yeah, Krell suffers from them. Mine had holes on the heads he has on the back - maybe the quality wasn't as good when they did Krell. I ordered some finecasts lately from them directly and they are flawless

 

[Woodsie]

Took a look through your posts... Wow.. seriously.. wow... I have to pick my game up... The zombies are a real standout for me. really really nice work...

 

[Farmer7574]

Krell is coming together nicely:

Not too much left to do on him now. The fur has turned out a little redder than expected, but I'm happy with how it contrasts with the armour.

One thing I'm not too impressed with is how the dark blue cloak looks here - I think it's clashing too much with the other colours. This is probably going to be changed to black. Your opinions of how he's looking so far would be great

Whilst painting Krell's armour, I did a step-by-step of how to do my verdigris bronze.

Farmer's Verdigris Bronze Tutorial:

1/ On a black coat of primer, basecoat the metal with Balthazar Gold.
2/ Wash with Nuln Oil.
3/ Selectively wash with a mix of Warboss Green/Sotek Green/White Scar/Water at a mix of about 2:2:1:5. I aim to drop it into most cracks & crevices, and don't allow it to pool too much.
4/ Repeat step three, this time with a slightly lighter mix of about 2:2:2:6. Don't cover all areas you did in the last step, and instead focus on deeper areas.

5/ Repeat step four, but again with a little more white and water added, about 2:2:3:7 this time. Aim for the very deepest parts now. I usually don't bother with this third verdigris step on miniatures with a small area of bronze.
6/ Very lightly drybrush the higher areas of the metal with Balthazar Gold. This helps to give a smooth & gradual appearance to the verdigris. Don't go too far with the drybrushing or else it'll cover your nice verdigris effect.
7/ Highlight all the edges with a mix of Balthazar Gold/Runefang Steel. I used a 2:1 mix here, then another mix of 1:1. I usually just stick to the first highlight on miniatures with a small amount of bronze armour on them.

@Hardt von Carstein Hope this helps


@Irisado Here's the concept for that Black Knight champion:

No extreme conversions - just a mix n mash of BK, GG and Skeleton bits, but I'm quite happy with him.

@Borgnine Cheers for your feedback as always It really was quite tricky to tell before the armour got painted. The over-browning is something I definitely want to avoid as my basing uses mostly earthy tones. The verdigris has helped to cut the brown tones up nicely this time.

It's nice to hear Finecast's quality has improved. My first minis' quality really put me off buying them in the future (giant air bubbles in small important areas) but this is good news, there are a lot of cool FC minis.

@Woodsie Thanks a lot mate, the zombies were fun to convert and paint. Glad you like them

Your painting improves over time. I've looked at stuff that I did several years ago compared to what I do now and can tell quite a difference - straighter lines, tidier highlights, etc. Give it time and you'll see a difference in how you paint.

 

[Irisado]

That Black Knight Champion looks superb. I really like the ancient sword in particular. I can't wait to see how you go about painting that.

 

[Farmer7574]

Here's Krell:

I got him for Christmas from my parents a while back. After waiting nearly four years without paint, he's finally done! Here are some more pics of him:

He took a little bit of playing about with colours as I didn't want him to look like 'just another hero' in the army. I'm pretty happy with the end result. The runes on his axe got an ethereal glow - inspiration for this came from this weapon in WoW:

The glow and the verdigris seem to help tie Krell in with the rest of the army whilst the red, black and bronze colour scheme has given him a unique appearance (and also shows his past allegiance with Khorne).

After spending the first year building a nice foundation army, I've been thinking of fun stuff to expand it. Expect a vampire, more skeletons and a bunch of ethereals in the coming months!

Cheers for taking a look.


@Irisado Glad you like him - the sword is one of my favourite additions to him too

 

[Shadespyre]

Spot on Krell there, well done

 

[Nagash Worshiper]

That Krell is awesome! Thx for sharing the tutorial on the armor! I might try it out on a small project

 

[Lord Elpus]

After what you wrote on Da Warpath, I had to check out your Verdigris tutorial, that is one brilliant miniature! you should feel rightly proud. Bloody well done mate!! can't wait to see what you have planned for the Advent challenge!

 

[Adam_Barrow]

Gotta say, I'm Hella impressed with how you've treated the Black Axe. That looks awesome.

Ethereals, you say?

 

[Borgnine]

Krell painted by Farmer, now I can die in peace But seriously, that awesome!
His cold color scheme fits him so well, even the brown parts seem cold. Also the verdigris is very nicely done, good balance between patina and metal - if I were trying to make my subtler, I would strive to make it look like this. The colors for the axe was also a great decision, those blue runes nicely reflect the patinated effect on his armor, that single tone of difference between verdigris and that blue makes it work great together. The axe handle could also use such an effect - maybe a wash to make it a bit darker than the hands holding it?
Also a tiny thing - I like how the base's sides are so smooth, mine always look somehow off

All in all, great job - I have much anticipation for your etherals, remembering that glowing skull

 

[Hardt von Carstein]

The tutorial is definately helpful! I will make sure you see some verdigris on the bronze from this tutorial in my plog later.

 

[Woodsie]

Krell looks great... really nice job i especially love the axe

 

[Farmer7574]

@Shadespyre @Woodsie Cheers chaps, glad you like him.

@Nagash Worshiper @Hardt von Carstein Finding techniques for decent-looking metal online was hard, so I spent a while experimenting with colours to make my own. Glad you like this tutorial and I hope you find it useful.

@Lord Elpus Cheers mate! I don't have anything big planned for the Advent Challenge, but I am considering doing a few ethereal test minis to finally nail the colours for them. Other ideas are snotlings and some NG netters - all should be pretty easy to accomplish in a day spent in the man cave.

@Adam_Barrow I was worried that the axe was going to look a bit cheesy at first - these glowing things always look better on the screen than they do painted/printed, but it's turned out quite nicely. And yes - ethereals! Something I want to get cracking on probably over Chinese New Year. I'm pretty excited about them - I think the inverted scheme is really going to add a whole new appearance to the army!

@Borgnine Thanks mate, the elimination of blue garments has worked out nicely on Krell. The shaft does need something to vary it from the boney hands though. You, sir, have a very keen eye for colour!

Cheers for your feedback everyone, it's very motivating to get more done.

Currently getting an O&G side project squared away and still spending my work lunch breaks shaving mold lines off skeletons. Fun stuff!

 

[Farmer7574]

Things haven't been completely quiet on the VC front here - I've been busy with a lot of assembly and just prepping for paint. Here's a shot of the unit of skeleton spearmen in the works:

The single minis are all complete besides the command group. I've got two 40mm square fillers in the works too. Just forest basing and greenstuff left to do until they start getting some paint.

Got some test minis for ethereals in the works too, gonna hopefully start painting those tomorrow.

Cheers for taking a look, more coming soon.

 

[Borgnine]

Yet another skeletons! More goodies And this time with spears, even better

And those etherals - are those the mentioned hexwraiths only or something else too?

 

[Farmer7574]

Coming out of a busy O&G-heavy December, I finally got a few things ready for paint. Instead of focusing my attention on one thing like I usually do, I've been working on several things these days (mostly assembly-related).

The first batch of skeleton spearmen are based and ready for priming in the morning:

And here's a close-up of the first filler for this unit:

Much like the previous skeleton fillers, it has a fair bit of forest scenery. I also broke out the giant kit's vulture and perched him in the tree, gazing across a small distance to a fleshier candidate that will suffice as a meal.

I'm also in the process of converting a standard bearer for this unit:

Skeletons have such an awesome appearance as a unit that I think they deserve a better banner than the ragged bit of cloth that comes with the kit. I wanted something bigger, so I cut a black orc banner to size. He still needs a bit of green stuff where the banner joins the pole, but I'm pretty happy with how this guy's looking.

And then there's a vampire to join my army:

Vlad makes the perfect candidate for my first vamp - his coolness and gigantic sword is everything a growing army needs!

Other stuff in the works includes hexwraith test minis (still). Pictures coming later.


@Borgnine Skeleton spearmen definitely look awesome ranked up. My goal will be 50-60 for this unit eventually, but baby steps first And yes, hexwraith test minis are still in the works - I'm gonna play around with a fair few colour schemes before posting my concepts.

Thanks for taking a look and Happy New Year

 

[Nagash Worshiper]

LOVE the tree! It gives the unit so much character! I can imagine them marching out of a spooky treeline!

 

[Theerteen]

That tree reminds me of my chilling bones unitfiller, inspired by @Bullhax (he seems to have vanished from here ). Nice work!

 

[Borgnine]

That standard is a very good replacement - I only wonder how it'll stay steady - black orcs are about 20x beefier than skeletons Also, looking forward to your Vlad - he was my first vampire too!

 

[Farmer7574]

Here's the first batch of skeleton spearmen done:

And the finished filler:

The bird makes the filler look pretty interesting. I might add short branches to the other fillers' trees that I make in the future, it looks better than a single trunk sticking out of the ground. I'm pretty happy with how they've turned out.

I've got the next batch ready for paint:

Here's a few shots of the next filler:

And here's a small conversion I did:

Some of the skeleton legs have scabbards on them, so I thought I'd make this one have a sheathed sword as a secondary weapon while he holds his spear. I've actually done this conversion before for a skeleton in the sword n board unit - the guy with the leaf blowing in his face


@Nagash Worshiper Great! That's one of the effects I'm going for, so I'm glad it's working. This is the third infantry unit in the army so far and the tree fillers are starting to look pretty effective army-wide. I'm thinking a Citadel woods kit would look nice sat aside them in the display cabinet.

@Theerteen Cheers mate, I'll have to check out your filler later on. I've gone through your plog multiple times but can't remember the filler. You have some impressive work!

@Borgnine I've converted him to hold the banner pole with both hands, and it's just the cloth part of the banner that has been used from the Black Orc kit (which got cut down a bit too), not the other parts as they'd have looked far too big/thick being carried by a skeleton. Other parts are from HE and VC kits.

More coming soon, cheers for taking a look!

 

[Borgnine]

Yet another nice unit Those big logs laying on the ground beside normal trees look really nice, spices the scenery up a bit - I'll have to try it out too Also, that's a pretty deep attention to detail with that swords in scabbards - shame probably nobody would notice it without earlier info, especially considering the work involved in shaving the skeleton hand off that handle

 

[Theerteen]

Oh, like the rest, more cool spear skellies! The filler turned out very nice, now you got me fixed on another zombie filler I'll do. WITH A TREE! or maybe a waystone or something.

My skellie filler is on page 4, took me long enough to find it myself...

 

[Farmer7574]

Vlad's all done:

My first vamp, I'm going for pale skin for these guys. Here are some more shots:

I experimented with different schemes for his armour and finally settled on what you see here. Also, as he's a vampire, I didn't put verdigris/rust on his armour – I like to think that vamps would have their wargear taken care of better than their summoned minions.


@Borgnine Cheers mate. Those fallen logs would look pretty good on your fillers' bases as we have similar basing. The conversion was pretty quick, literally a 5-minute job whilst waiting for some glue to dry elsewhere. It's actually funny how small details are often less noticeable than the lack of small details...

@Theerteen Cheers! I checked out your filler with the skeleton sitting down & drinking, just brilliant! I look forward to seeing your zombie filler.

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

 

[Theerteen]

Dude, that Vlad is up to scratch! I really love your clean painting style, I'd never had the patience for that. Awesome mini!