Thirteen Dancing Skeletons - Bearded Troll Lady / Gobbo Heroes / Bell Ringer

[jediguru]

RE: Thirteen shades of black - Spilled blood

Next time you paint eyes try it this way. I find it to be immensely easier. Before painting any of the face, paint the eyeball black. Then using an off white color like bleached bone or something equivalent, paint the edges of the eyeball leaving the black center for the pupil. Then paint your face color to frame in the eye to the desired shape. Does this make sense to you? It's WAY easier than trying to "dot" the pupil without messing everything else up.

 

[Theerteen]

RE: Thirteen shades of black - Spilled blood

Hm, ok..the trick is you can try it few times if you waste it in the first round, right? I will give it a try next time, if I have it in mind correctly, Santa posted a tutorial doing it this way

 

[BloodbathMcGrath]

RE: Thirteen shades of black - Spilled blood

Great job so far, really cool conversions and the skeleton unit filler made me laugh -even the undead need a break from all those chores!

 

[jediguru]

RE: Thirteen shades of black - Spilled blood

Hm, ok..the trick is you can try it few times if you waste it in the first round, right? I will give it a try next time, if I have it in mind correctly, Santa posted a tutorial doing it this way

Yes, being able to easily try again is one of the benefits but also it's much much easier to get it right the first time and you can be pretty messy with adding the whites of the eyes because you don't have to worry about getting it all over the face. It doesn't matter because you painting the face after.

 

[Theerteen]

RE: Thirteen shades of black - Spilled blood

Times have passed, main problem of the last time was: I got no camera (and nope, not even a good smartphone cam ). But today I took a few pics...

First, the last eBay shot I did...I showed two of them in the "Dying to help" already, but here is the assembly. I paid 20€ ($26), and I think you can imagine the price I'd have paid if I bought them new
(ok I have no idea if my sentence is grammatically correct ) Will be fun to paint them, especially Konrad is one of my fav models!




Then, I finished my first mounted Vampire, including the flag work. Satisfied with it, there is room for more









And, the irony is great, the last unit of freaks I purchased is one of the first I finished
Cannibalistic, fleshreaping, bloodslurping ghouls! As mentioned in another thread before, they are a mix of GW and Mantic ghouls, an order of bitz (GW ghoul heads) later, they have become a nice looking horde of raging, pissed off creeps erv:


















The ghast



Atm working on converting Chaos knights into Blood Knights, like the great stuff Borgnine presented on his plog. Secondary repainting the Hex Wraiths and Banshees...Hope the rest of the month will be productively

 

[Borgnine]

RE: Thirteen shades of black - Spilled blood

Outstanding ghouls dude! Just wonderfully bloodthirsty! And the idea of mixing GW parts with mantic also came out great - I would try it myself if shipping mantic stuff wouldn't be as expensive as a box of ghouls ;] But the blood, the savage style - definitely something to be inspired by! Do you cut your own bases from something or are those just bases from another manufacturer than GW?

On the vampire lord I like the dulled colours and clever design with the banner - this skull-snake-thing nicely fits on this triangle ;] Sword attached to the horse is also nice. I have mixed feelings about his cloak - it's too bright and saturated compared to the rest of the horse, but it's also a nice focal point of the mini ;]

And thanks for the mention! As I've probably said already - good luck with them - I'm looking forward to seeing some progress

 

[Bullhax]

RE: Thirteen shades of black - Spilled blood

LOVE the freehand banner really well done I would very much hone that!!

The headswap make the mantic ghouls fit in much better!!

@borgnine, the bases you are seeing are the mantic ones, they are perfectly square with a straight edge. Their models are attatched to a round disc that you insert into the "mantic base" which makes it a hassel to get them onto regular bases. Plus the added expense of getting extra GW bases is a factor too

 

[Theerteen]

RE: Thirteen shades of black - Spilled blood

Thanks you two, a great reward getting such words from painters like you
The idea behind the mix was to show the degeneration process of those corpseeaters...I think it was a success

@borgnine Ye, you're right about the price for shipping mantic, the Ghouls were from Wayland Games and it was a special free shipping offer.. if I assume right (from the texts on your banners ) and you're from Germany too, you have to wait on those free shipping actions too, cause as you say, it's definitely too expensive to buy there regularly

 

[Borgnine]

RE: Thirteen shades of black - Spilled blood

Thanks Bullhax for explanation - this and the fact that those mantic ghouls looked kinda familiar I know from where is the guy I got with some bits off the internet ;] nice to know, thanks!

@Thirteen - close! I'm from Poland, but I visit Germany regularly and plan to move there in a year or so. Names derived from there are nice and usually fit into the Vampire Counts theme. Maybe I'll look into those actions one day - thanks! Now I'm hunting for deals on local bidding sites - it's cheap but it's like looking for a needle in a haystack

 

[Theerteen]

RE: Thirteen shades of black - Spilled blood

Ah ok, Poland really isn't so far away. I remember you posting that your girlfriend lives in Berlin (is that correct?), so maybe have a look for this shop: Battlefield Berlin . You can get Mantic stuff there too, or maybe she can purchase a box and send it to you...Hunting for pearls on auctions or local site is a frustrating thing, indeed :silent:

 

[Borgnine]

RE: Thirteen shades of black - Spilled blood

Yes indeed, she lives in Berlin - you have good memory and/or reading comprehension

Thanks for sharing the site. I knew Gamers HQ in Berlin, but the selection here is even better! And now buying some ghouls here and making a horde together with GW ones seems like a good and also possible idea. I'll surely consider this and should I decide to make such ghouls - yours here will definitely be a great inspiration for this ;]

 

[Theerteen]

RE: Thirteen shades of black - Spilled blood

Cool thing on the Mantic stuff is, you pay way less than 1€ / model...not like this GW bullshitting about more than 2€/model...:slapface:
Looking forward for your ghouls but do not dare to paint them better!

 

[Theerteen]

RE: Thirteen shades of black - Batman!

Finished Vargheist positioning today:

 

[Constant Drachenfels]

RE: Thirteen shades of black - Batman!

Wow that is impressive! First of your Vargheists I saw I was like 'looking nice, but it will NEVER rank up' - but that the whole unit is assembled it looks really dramatic and dynamic. Me like!

 

[BloodbathMcGrath]

RE: Thirteen shades of black - Batman!

cool idea on the ghoul kitbashing! Also I was thinking the same thing when i saw the vargs that they would never rank up, but you thought about that too
Personally, I like the mantic ghouls better all in all, and if you buy the army kits, you get a ton of minis for even cheaper than $1/piece, plus free shipping after $75. Their minis aren't all quite as handsome as GW's but the cost and quantity is more than enough reason for me.

 

[Theerteen]

RE: Thirteen shades of black - Blood Knights wip

After cleaning a lot of chaos symbols and goofy spikes at places where they won't do anything useful, the main bodys of the Chaos Blood Knights are ready for a first pic

 

[Borgnine]

RE: Thirteen shades of black - Blood Knights wip

Damn that's some sweet vargheist there! I also thought of setting them like that and that's some nice inspiration ;] That's the problem with flyers - either they need to keep their wings close to them, have problem with ranking up or be on diffrent heights. Pegasus Knights are especially guilty of this.... and vargheist, on the other hand, while ranking up nicely, are kinda awkwardly posed. This is very nice work you have there.

And I also see that your Blood Knights are coming up nicely, even without the Grave Guard parts! The guy with ungor head seemed strange on the first glance, but after a while he fits well - he's just a little more savage and closer to this beast-side of vampirism than others... Oh! Strigoi Knights - that would be a neat idea to do one day Keep up with the good work there dude!

 

[Theerteen]

RE: Thirteen shades of black - Blood Knights wip

Yay, thanks buddy
the ungor-headed one was exactly meant so. Kinda between savage style and something like the ZD rider...

 

[Theerteen]

RE: Thirteen shades of black - Blood Knights wip

While the blood knight discussion in the Masterpieces took a little...unfitting direction, I finished my banner for my BK unit with new enthusiasm today:

The unconnected chain is meanwhile repaired, the miliput broke during the chain connecting process


And the blood train :

 

[Sir Geheimnisnacht]

RE: Thirteen shades of black - Blood Knights wip

Love your work -- have you done anymore with the gallows you were building a few pages back?

And a little off topic (and ranty), but you posted a song sometime back called "I Walked with a Zombie". I wasn't familiar with the band doing it as I thought it was the Roky Erickson song of the same name that I hadn't listened to (or any of his stuff) in some years so it took me back, ha. His stuff is older and more psychedelic rock so not sure if you'd dig it. Really interesting fellow though. Dealt with schizophrenia, drug problems, the music industry taking complete advantage of him, and a strange phase where he became obsessed with the mail and got in trouble for stealing other peoples' mail and hanging it up on his walls (as well as writing letters to dead celebrities). I hear he's doing better these days. This is all totally random, but you made me remember an artist I'm fond of so I figured I'd tell you about it -- ha. :konrad:

 

[Theerteen]

RE: Thirteen shades of black - Blood Knights wip

Thanks a lot I havn't decided yet for a colour, or even worse, for a method of hanging the condemneded (is this the right form..? ) on the gallow. Not sure what to take for the rope/noose, this blocks my progress on this one

I think the Wednesday 13 I walked with a zombie isn't meant so deeply, most of his work is more tribute and inspired for/by classical zombie and horror movie stuff
Some songs are a little bit more profound than they "look" after first hearing, but the Roky Erickson thing seems way more dramatically.
I'll listen to your link later, and I don't be miffed about anybody showing me new music

 

[Sir Geheimnisnacht]

RE: Thirteen shades of black - Blood Knights wip

I've found greenstuff to be pretty good for making rope just by rolling out long thin pieces and then twisting them slowly around each other. So far I've only made greenstuff rope for my Beastmen modeling which has allowed me to not worry about consistency and uniform thickness along the rope since whatever a Beastmen made would be pretty crude, but I'm sure with some just a little extra care, more "civilized" rope from greenstuff shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Another route you could go is just using actual twine or painted bankline or something. That way you could just tie the nooses and they'd actually swing from the gallows. You'd probably have to be more careful with the poses of the condemned so they wouldn't look weird when they were in motion, but I think it could be pretty cool.

 

[Adam_Barrow]

RE: Thirteen shades of black - Blood Knights wip

Somebody told me they use tea bag strings for rope a while back. You water down some white school glue and apply it to the string to stiffen it up. He was using it for bindings on a monsters wrists, but the effect worked well. So that's a really inexpensive option if your looking for something like that.

 

[Sir Geheimnisnacht]

RE: Thirteen shades of black - Blood Knights wip

You'd probably have to double up tea bag strings for a hangman's noose though as I'm not sure it'd look thick enough.

Personally, and I've never experimented with actual cordage for modeling so take what I say with a grain of salt, I think I'd go with twine assuming you can find some thin enough.

That just looks like rope for a noose to me.

I do wonder how something like twine or tea bag strings would take a wash or ink or something to dull it down enough to not seem an entirely different medium and out of place.

 

[Theerteen]

RE: Thirteen shades of black - Blood Knights wip

Ok ok, I will work on the gibbet as soon as I'm back home, where it rests at the moment
Thanks for your tips guys, I will check out what will look and work better. Not quite sure about the condemned, I was thinking about hanging a human and an elf (HE or DE, dunno), but it would be more realistic to have a model without armour...I will have a look in my bitzbox