This is a painting log about a Vile Vampire

[fbi_boy]

Im finally starting my vampire counts!!! I bought a bunch of the new models but before i could get started, I found a whole bunch of beasts of chaos that i had bought when they came out a few years ago..All i had painted from them was a beastlord, one beastherd, and 15 pestigor. So i wanted to finish those up first. I had to do 2 more beastherds, 10 more pestigor, 20 bestigor, 2 chariots, 10 warhounds, 4 ogres, 3 trolls, 10 centigor, battle standard bearer, shaman, gorthor the beastlord, and shaggoth! yikes that was a lot of painting. i took a much needed 2 week break and now started plowing through the VC battalion. Im painting them as part of warseers tale of fantasy painters, so I thought I would share them here too. The army will be comprised of 3 vampires. Kraven the Merciless, Varlek the Damned (winged bestial vampire), and Drugar The Vile. Varlek starts out as a necromancer for the first 1000 points. Eventually, he will be turned into a vampire by drugar, and become the wbestial vampire model, and will have some ghoulish powers, and be the more casty vampire. Kraven the merciless is the battle standard bearer blood dragon. Drugar the Vile is an all out combat blood dragon. Once the army grows and he becomes more powerful, He will then turn into the blood dragon on winged nightmare model, and wield the dread lance.
Besides that, I havnt thought about too much story for it yet.
Ive started painting a unit of 20 skeletons...i did them all very basic..no armour (except the command) plain skull heads, etc. I want them to look very regular and plain compared to the graveguard that I will be doing...
a RnF test...just need to pick out his teeth...

and..the champion

 

[The Dark Sheep]

You've given them quite a good paintjob, fbi. The best thing though is how you're gonna make the army "evolve" as you paint it... I've got to say that's a very original idea.

 

[The Dark Lord Mr Fluffy]

Looking well Tell me how your mind feels after a full 20 (I nearly lost mine)
I see you're making other models for your characters too! Hehe, very nice! I'm making wight kings that are completely "what you see is what you get", so if I want two hand weapons, I'll use the two handed weapon guy Then two battle standard bearers, one with a drakenhof, the other with a Blood Keep Flag Oh the fun of having cool models

Now how to add cold ones...

More skellys!

 

[fbi_boy]

So the unit of skellies is almost done! I just need to do the shields on them. ill get some pics of the entire unit tonight and post them tomorrow. The only thing im not entirely happy about is the red on them...i want red as the accenting colour, but when i look at the unit it seems like too much red. too much cloth on too many of the models, and i think it distracts from models...i might either make it a darker red, or paint some of the skeletons with grey cloth maybe? any thoughts? maybe i dont even like the red at all anymore...i dont know! ugh.
i also started work last night on my first vampire. I did a bunch of work on the horse, and the face of the vampire so far. ill probably finish him tonight. I did the barding to match blood knights, since he will eventually go into that unit when i get it assembled and painted.

 

[Crimson]

Looking good, I like the usage of red throughout, and an interesting idea of stripping the normal rank and file skeletons of armor, looking forward to more progress.

 

[The Dark Sheep]

Use grey. Personally I use dark grey (and red) for my army and I have to admit that I'm pretty pleased with the outcome. It fits perfectly with the pale bones of the skellies as well as with vamp skin.

 

[fbi_boy]

worked a bunch on the vampire last night. I did the face and a few layers of his armour. next i will highlight the edges of his armour with boltgun metal, as per the blood knight treatment. Im not sure about his cloak yet...if i should leave it black and highlight it with some greys...or paint it a different colour altogether...

and here is a few pics of the near completed skeleton unit

anyone else think there is too much red in the unit? i do like the idea of doing some of them grey..that would help to tone things down...

 

[The Dark Sheep]

After seeing this, I have to say... Yes. Use grey as a secound colour.

 

[robh]

I like the red, I think having a strong colour running through the entire army is a very good thing. I use also use red, but a bright scarlet, much stronger than the deep colour you are using.

But if you want to reduce its impact, rather than repainting or changing colours, I would suggest getting a box of the old "naked" skeletons and mixing the unit up so that half or less the models have the tattered robes, the rest without. Will serve to reduce the dominance of the red colour, and increase the size of the army.

 

[fbi_boy]

@ dark sheep:
yes, i like the look of the dark greys on your skellies. after seeing my skellies, with red, im not even sure i want red to be the accent colour through the army at all anymore...i was already contemplating switching the colour of the grave guards from red to something else..which grey do you recommend?

@robh:
arent the previous skellies bigger? I havnt had any of them for years, but i seem to recall them looking quite a bit larger than the new ones..

lastly, here is a pic of the vampire with some boltgun metal highlights. Not sure if i like how it turned out..oh well.

 

[The Dark Sheep]

First I have to say that the vamp looks nice. Much more realistic than the previous "edition".

Then onto the grey... I find that dark grey is the best option for skellies, but not too dark. I recomend basing the model with a mix of 1:2 Chaos Black and Adeptus Battlegrey, before highlighting up to pure Adeptus.
To make a little variation to some of the rags (which looks good on undead), you can add some Astronomican/Fortress Grey to Adeptus, or simply stop highlighting before you reach pure Adeptus.
...so basically I recomend Adeptus Battlegrey.

 

[fbi_boy]

im happy with how the red turned out the vampire...I think its the silver highlights im not sold on..maybe another badab black wash now that the highlights have been applied would work...

next i think im going to paint up the zombie regiment...however i still havnt decided on what colour scheme i want to use. I was thinking a little more greeny, since my ghouls will probably have more fleshy tones and i dont want them looking too similar.
Then after Ill probably do the corpse cart to take a break from the infantry. I really want to do the black knights, but I think I should get the core infantry out of the way first.

 

[Raziel]

Try Baal red on the vamp, one or 2 washes should knock the silver back a little.

 

[dictator]

I agree with Raziel about the washes. Any bright color will look even better with a weathered look by washes. Either that or wait till you matte varnish the model and it will mellow it out.

 

[The Dark Sheep]

Yeah Baal is a good idea, but if you use some Devlan as well (mixing it), it will give you more depth to your vamp's armour.

 

[fbi_boy]

I finished the shields on the skeletons. I did them gray, to help to tone down the unit a bit. I will also be baseing the movement tray.
Next up is the zombies...but ack! i was going to do them pale fleshy, starting with deneb stone, then a gryphone seppia wash to start...but i got home from the store, and realized i didnt even buy a deneb stone! i bought 10 other foundation colours, but forgot that one! and the only store that sells them is 2 hours away! i really want to try out the foundations, so i think ill just switch up the colour scheme to more greenish...which is ok anyways, cuz then i can do the ghouls in more fleshy tones instead. I have to do a test model still, but im thinking:
-knarloc green basecoat
-knarloc green+rotting flesh highlights
-thraka green wash
-knarloc/rotting flesh highlights working up to
straight rotting flesh sparingly on the most raised areas
I hope that will look ok...
I might try a devlan wash too
Next up will be the Corspe cart, and then maybe dire wolves.
WIP zombie shots up soon!

 

[quina2525]

That blood knight is cool

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

It is very well painted, similar to the way I have painted my Blood Knights (its in my painting log if you want to have a look for ideas). very nice and I want more pics.

 

[The Dark Sheep]

I wouldn't suggest using Thraka for skin (unless you're painting orcs or goblins :mrgreen as it is very... green. You'll lose that fleshy feel to the model. So I suggest you'd rather mix up a wash with some more yellow/brown to avoid this. Nice to hear about the grey shields as well.

 

[blood knight]

awesome i cant wait till your next update

 

[fbi_boy]

Here is a pic of the skeleton unit after the shields have been done. I think the grey looks pretty good in combo with the red...

not much to look at yet, but a fresh WIP pic of some zombies

Here is a test of the skin colour scheme i was thinking....

i wanted to go for a more old rotting colour, than a fleshy newly dead colour. I also tried putting tallarn flesh plus a couple lighter highlights over top of the dark green basecoat...it looked ok, leaving the rotting dark green colour in the recesses...but I think i like the green rotting scheme more. and i dont want my zombies and ghouls colour scheme looking too similar on the battlefield..so I will probably stick with the greens i think.

 

[The Dark Sheep]

Very zombieish skin on the test model. paint the eyes white, and you've got it.

 

[fbi_boy]

yah i was thinking of using the eyes I saw somewhere around the forum. paint them white, then do a red wash, then re-higlight white again. it looked really neat.

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

Hey! Thats my eye method!! Thief!

It is actually a really easy and simple method, you can see it quite clearly in my log on the nightmares eyes.

Your zombie is great, one of the best I've seen, I don't think you need to add anything apart from the eyes as mentioned.

 

[fbi_boy]

i knew i saw it somewhere on here! well since i now know whos it is, may I borrow it ? :grin:
thanks for the zombie compliment!
im trying one other minor touch to see how it turns out. after the green basecoat, and green wash, i did a wash of baal red. it looks pretty neat, giving a sickly deep rotting red colour into some of the recesses. Im going to do the highlighting tonight, and then take a pic, and we'll see if it turns out for the better...