Sersi's - Armies of the Night

[Trevy the Great]

Army of the Dead as zombies, huh? That's a interesting idea, as I've only seen them before as spirits.
I, like Sheep, would like to warn you, however. These models are 25mm rather than 28mm, which makes them a tad on the small side, which can make them look pretty bad on the battlefield.

 

[Sersi]

So, I finally got my shipment of Unit Boxes and bits orders. I cracked open the Army of the dead box. These are so nice, especially considering that there basically a single piece of plastic.

Comparison:

Here's a comparison with a TK Horseman Skeleton. Despite the TK skellie being much larger than the current VC skellies it doesn't seem to be noticeably out of scale. My AOW Vampiress does tower over them, and all of the other VC core troops though.

I could of course cut them just above the hem of their "skirts"? :tongue: And use Aves epoxy putty to extend their height a few millimeters. It'd be a simple conversion, and the way the made It'd be easy to mold the converted sculpts.



Carin Wraith: (5x + Banshee)

I decided how I'll be doing my Wraiths. I'm ripping off these conversions:

Super simple really: I bits ordered three Corpse Cart Driver's and two Empire wizards bodies; along with scythes from the Zombie box, and a few Skeleton heads. I fill and/or carve holes into the robes of the models, so that they will not all be identical.


Black Knights: (15x)

I finally decided to base my Black Knights, will be based off theses. Well at least the riders will anyway.

I bits ordered some TK horseman bodies. I really like the exposed bone legs; but I be sculpting on some shin armor. The upper body's will be Grave Guard. The heads and spears will come from the skeleton box. They'll also get Aves capes and Arabian-style sculpted scarves.

Their Skeletal steeds will be Scavengers of Ancheon steeds, with sculpted barding inspired by the Gamezone Mournful Knights.

 

[Jerek]

Great work so far. I cant wait to see your progress

 

[allabang]

I hear about people making moulds all the time on this board.
May i ask what you use with the moulds to make the models? assuming its not hot plastic lol
Is it affordable?
Time consuming?

 

[Sanai]

How about some of you guys make us a molding tutorial on this website?

 

[The Dark Sheep]

What an awesome unit of black knights. Too bad I can't praise you for your models just yet... XD. Looks like those Army of the dead models are even better than I could dare hope for. You've convinced me that they are a good buy.

 

[Trevy the Great]

Ooh, I really like those wraiths and the progress your making on your Black Knights. Now paint them! I want them painted!

 

[Sersi]

Well here's some progress:


Zombies:

Looks like my zombie idea will work out, here's a comparison with a Grave Guard and a partially converted Black Knight:

I like the archaic looking armor on these guys, once I clip the bat-wings and horns off the Grave Guard and Skeletons, they should look rather uniform. The models are actually on the same scale if you measure them by head heights. Fair superior to the cartoony and disproportionate WHF zombies. I will probably convert up a few with Grave Guard and Skeletons bits, arms & heads, etc. I'll also be poaching some other LOTR troops to add to the mix as zombies. I'm going with 60 zombies to start.

Painting:

I plan on painting the dead with a gray-ish dead flesh color for the skin, and various muted earth tones for the clothing.

Black Knights and Blood Knights:

So, I'm shooting for 20 Black Knights and 10 Blood Knights mounts. Yes, I know no one needs that many Cavalry. :mrgreen:

Barding:

A couple of changes: I'll be making the barding for the Black Knight steeds from metal foil, and Aves sculpt, with rotted and tattered cloth similar to the Blood Knight mounts seen above.

Riders:

I thought the Tomb King horseman legs would be to robust looking, but their not to far out of scale. He does look a bit naked. How about some sculpted shin armor, a mail skirt, or cloaks.

Basing:

I'm thinking about going with muddy bases, for cavalry models their would be splashing water effects, and splattered mud of the steeds legs. etc.

Painting:

Both the Black and Blood Knights will an airbrushed layer of rust, before masking with hair spray and salt to created chipped paint and rust on their armor.

Black Coach:

Still working out the design for this, it will be scratch-built. I may use one of the coffins available from Reaper; but the occupant will be a topless female vampire...because I can!

Design:

It will be incorporating winged skeletons similar to those seen here.

Nightmares:

Another Idea I've was to sculpt some custom horses and mold them, then insert some pre-painted plastic horse bones into the model and pour tinted clear resin into the molds. That would give me ghostly transparent spectral horses to draw the coach. :| I could then airbrush the models to vary the transparency.


Molding and Casting:

Oh molding and casting questions? Er..those gray-ish models they're just primed...yeah that's it. However, I do have a fairly complete rundown of the materials and techniques here. And an in progress tutorial here.


More Later!

 

[The Dark Sheep]

If this turns out as good as it sounds...

 

[allabang]

Lmao, theyre crying for you to post mroe over there
Converted to the counts!

 

[Trevy the Great]

Hey, those Army of the Dead look great! They are going to make awesome zombies! I'm glad that they work out.
Those molds look like they turned out well also. The Black Knights are going to look awesome. Now, are those Blood Knight steeds the Games-Workshop ones or are they from another source?

 

[Sersi]

The Dark Sheep:

Here's hoping...:mrgreen:

Allabang:

Their all good eggs. Slaanesh just makes people a little addictive is all. I have been neglecting my other projects though...this weekend maybe I'll update.

Vekarin the Dark Bladed:

The steeds are Gamezone's Mournful Knights. Great detailing and sculpting. To bad their best sculptor left for Enigma Miniatures. I don't expect much in the future from them, but they still have lots that I want...nay, need to buy.

 

[Boo]

Holy sh*t. :|

I want to jump four weeks in to the future to see what your models will look like painted. But I guess I just have to wait...
Blast!

I have great hopes for this thread! Keep it up!

 

[allabang]

meant to say earlier,
The one black knight horse thats charging looks absolutely amazing, you should do more similiar to that!

 

[Sersi]

The Devils hand's have been busy.....

Oh yes they have.....

very busy...

So, I finally got my Vampiresses'?

And here is a scale shot of the various models:

Oh and I built myself a new paint rack, yeah!

 

[The Dark Sheep]

If he doesn't start painting soon I'll rip my hair out..! Or in other words; this looks too promising to be true.

 

[Trevy the Great]

Hey, nice rack!

These models look awesome, but, like Dark Sheep insinuated, they'll look better painted!

 

[Sersi]

I've been looking for a Banshee to accompany my Cairn Wraiths, and I think I've found her.

I'm not keen on the knives but that's easily fixed I'll just cut off the hands and replace them with Crypt ghoul hands like I did here:

I'll still have the blood on her hands thing though as I like the visual.

Wait, aw...hell, maybe I'll just use a modded Daemonette, instead and save $15. :| I can get a Daemonette head that's already screaming/shrieking, swap in some ghoul hands, and sculpt a dress similar to the above mini pretty easily, even make is more tattered and torn looking.



So, what you all think?

 

[Jerek]

You have such great ideas. I can't wait to see how your army grows

 

[Sersi]

Updates:



Zombies:

Hey these guys look even better than I thought they would. After clipping off the tab on the bottom, used plastic glue to add a 0.5 mm strip of styrene to the bottom of the mini; then positioned them more upright so that they would rank up. As you can see the mods makes them taller than the current Skeletons & Grave Guard. So, not small at all...yeah! :mrgreen:

Oh, I also figured out how do add some variety to the zombies. I bought another box of Army of the Dead and a box of Rohan Warriors. The Rohan warriors look most similar to the Dead.

They'll be a simple conversion to make: drill out the eyes with a pin vise, then cut off the nose an carve it out with an x-acto knife. Other that just use the pin vise and knife to tatter and add holes to the garments and your done.

Wight King:

I improvised this guy in about an hour with my bits boxes. He's got an Empire Generals Sword; which makes a great "Sword of Kings". I'll be jazzing him up some more with some head and bells hanging from his saddle. From his waist will be hanging a short sword and dagger, along with an hourglass. Don't mind the bald head he will be getting a crown made out of a loop of wire soon enough.

Black Knights:

Here's where the Black Knights are at the moment. I took a Grave Guard Standard and flipped it sideways to make a flayed banner. I'm still working on their barding but it will involve styrene, modeling chain, metal foil, and Aves. Pics soon!

Other Stuff:

- I also assembled 40 skeletons and 20 Grave Guard, so many tiny pieces...argh.

- I started seaming and cleaning up the steeds for the Blood Knights.

 

[Sanai]

Love those black knights. The steeds look awesome.

 

[The Dark Sheep]

I agree, the Black Knights look awesome. My only complaint is that they seem to be leaning a bit too far back, and this makes it look as if they're staring at the sky (the same goes for the Wight King (and perhaps even more so)).

By the way I just bought those Army of the Dead models myself and I just can't express how nice those models are. I don't think the Rohan models blend in that well though, so I wouldn't go for them myself.

 

[Sersi]

I agree, the Black Knights look awesome. My only complaint is that they seem to be leaning a bit too far back, and this makes it look as if they're staring at the sky (the same goes for the Wight King (and perhaps even more so)).

By the way I just bought those Army of the Dead models myself and I just can't express how nice those models are. I don't think the Rohan models blend in that well though, so I wouldn't go for them myself.

You might be right on the Rohan army not mixing well, but I figure not all the zombies will be from the same battlefield. My main concern was that my zombies would look to uniform looking if I just bought 3 boxes of the same models. Their are still the metal "Army of the Dead" models that I can pick up, and I may be the "Army of the Dead" calvary models as well to use as unit filler.

 

[Sanai]

I was looking on the GW website and the army of the dead steeds look pretty good. Any idea how big they are in comparison with warhammer steeds?

 

[Sersi]

Those "Dead Steeds" are the same scale as the WHF horses except for being more realistically proportioned, and skinny looking. Which works for zombies!


Black Coach:

I finally choose an occupant for the coffin in my black coach. I going with this girl.

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Really she's already in the perfect pose. I'll have to remove the headstone and do some relatively minor re-sculpting on her. Then sculpt a some pillows for her to recline on.

I'm going with the crypt seen in this picture.

Its much larger than the official one and should work fine. The coffin will made out of styrene sheet based off this one:

I also go my bits order for those 4 marauder mounts. I have to ideas for them.

1. One, would be to cast them in clear resin with a painted skeletal insert for a more ghostly effect.

2. The other would be to replace the heads with tomb king horse skulls. Then paint the heads bone white, with black bodies. I have some Empire feathers that I could make a bridle and head-dress from.

In either case they would get custom sculpted barding and rigging similar to what I've done here:

This was a test for sculpting the barding for my black knights, its still needs work, and detailing but it proves the concept.




So, what do you all think?