The hunting party of Lady Wilhelmina

[Cthulhu]

Hello everyone!

So I got the email announcement and remembered what a lovely place this forum was! I've been sort of out of the hobby for a while, since around the launch of AoS I suppose, but I kept an eye on what was happening... I was really tempted by the Nighthaunt and Ossiarch releases, but never pulled the trigger. When the Soulblight range dropped, I couldn't resist anymore

I sold all my old VC models years ago, so it's a fresh start for me. The idea for my army is a twisted vision of a noble's hunting party of knights and their trusty beasts out on a leisure hunt in the woods of the castle grounds, so thinking mostly blood knights and dire wolves. The first models I painted was the Underworlds warband, which will represent some of the highest ranking knights in my vampire lord's court. Let's see if I'm smart enough to work out how to post pictures...

Super fun models to paint!
I'm working on some blood knights next, and I'm also thinking about lore for the army. Might write something down eventually. As for the vampire lord of the title, Wilhelmina, I have a Lauka Vai conversion in mind for her...

Such fun to be posting on a forum again!

 

[Unas the slayer]

Welcome back to the fun!

Great models to start again VC.

 

[Raven Torrid]

Welcome back Cthulhu!

Really liking the theme for your army, as I am a sucker for both Blood Knights and all things wolfy.
The models are exquisite! Especially liking the armour and cloth all around. It's hard to chose what I like best but it's probably Prince Duvalle's black armour with magenta blends & highlights. Any tips on how you accomplished that/what paints did you use?

Looking forward to those Blood Knights and the rest of the gang.

 

[robtion]

Wow! That is some professional looking painting. Keep them coming.

 

[Cthulhu]

Many thanks Unas, Raven and Robtion!!

For the black/magenta armour! I used a zenithal prime, so black undercoat dusted with white from above, to get brighter highlights and darker shadows more easily. Then I think it was mostly a lot of back and forth between black and process magenta. I like to use artist's acrylics because they list the pigments used in the paint, so you can get one that has only one, pure, pigment. Gives stronger saturation and cleaner mixes than paints with a blend of pigments. They also tend to use standardized names so you can get for example process magenta from any of the artist paint makers. I also used citadel contrast Shyish purple to boost the saturation of the black (so not really using it as a contrast paint, just glazing it on in controlled amounts where desired) and added some bone white to the magenta for the sharpest points.

Still working on the blood knights, such cool detailed models. Also began writing some background lore, haven't done that for my projects before but it's really getting me invested in it! But I wrapped up something else; a trio of feral vampires overcome by their thirst during the hunt! I didn't buy Cursed City, but I picked up the bloodborn and vargskyr from Bits and Kits. Really enjoyed painting these three, kinda wish there was a full kit of like 10 of them

 

[Unas the slayer]

The one on the column is my favorite.
You'll end with a quality party!

 

[Raven Torrid]

Thanks for the writeup Cthulhu! Great work on the Blood-born as well, really liking your choice of colours all around.

Also, I loved your dioramas back in the day...has the Tilean town one ever been finished?

 

[robtion]

They look great. Very wild/savage looking. They would fit nicely into my evil forest theme.

You should definitely write some background lore, I do a lot of that in my plog and find it fun but it also gives me ideas for adding extra details when painting miniatures.

 

[Raizi]

Hello there fellow re-summoned! I really love the darker skin-tones you are using. Also the cloaks are smooth as gravesand.

 

[Loki Ragnarok]

This is beautiful. I'm usually not one for the blue or more "weird" skin color for vampires, but you really made it work and it is wonderful to see some awesome, really colorful undead. That seems rare.

 

[Cthulhu]

Thank you so much guys, and apologies for taking so long to update. I got stuck on the blood knights for a long time, found them really difficult with the large curved armour plates and at one point decided I didn't like the colours I had picked and basically started over. But now I had to stay inside for a few days and decided to finally get them done. Part of me wanted to stay away from red barding just to be different from the box art, but I can't deny it, these sculpts are just made for red!

Regarding the Tilean town diorama, Raven Torrid: I'm so happy you remember it! I didn't finish it unfortunately, but I ended up sending it to another CN member, so it's in their hands now

 

[Seneschal]

Outstanding work!

 

[Unas the slayer]

these are gorgeous!

 

[The Sun King]

I love your brilliant colour scheme and you have a really evocative painting style! Awesome!

 

[Cthulhu]

Thanks a lot Sen, Unas and Sun King!

As I mentioned in the first post, I've planned a Lauka Vai conversion for the titular leader of my hunting party. I bought the model on release not sure what I would do with it; I love the vampire part, and the monster part, but both together didn't really click for me, so it was perfect conversion material. At some point I decided what to fuse Lauka with, and now I got around to it! Is it even more nonsensical than the original model? Arguably! Do I like it anyway? Sure do! So here is the Lady Wilhelmina as she leaves the candle-lit halls of her manor and takes on her true form of the hunt:

I'll paint the head separately and four of the legs are blu-tacked so they can also be done separately. It's a pretty ridiculous model, I know... Absolutely enormous, and what has spiders to do with vampires? But as soon as I got the idea, it just felt right for the character! The arachnarok also came with a bunch of tiny (but still giant, from a real world perspective!) spiders, which gave me the mental image of her followed by a swarm of them, sorta like Aragog´s children in Harry Potter. I don't think I'll do a spider theme on anything else, so hopefully I can make her fit in with the paintjob. What do you say, does my spider waifu have a place in Gravelords?

 

[Seneschal]

That's brilliant! She certainly does have a place in the SG! Spiders fit the gothic horror theme very well.

 

[Unas the slayer]

Oh, nice! This is what happens when bloodsucking monsters take an even more extreme approach to the horror theme. Great idea.

 

[The Sun King]

That conversion idea is fucking fantastic mate!

 

[Loki Ragnarok]

Love this. Wonderful color scheme, brilliant painting and good use of Lauka. I personally love the model, but I honestly think your idea makes more logistical sense as the bat-taur makes even less sense than the usual, because wings on a centaur shape makes zero sense.

It does break from the bat theme of vamps, but I think creatures of the night covers spiders thematically and the spider-woman is a classic. Go for the Jorogumo, can't wait to see it painted.