Various Questions + More

[Oracle]

Well, after taking a rather long break I'm back. However, having decided to change the direction of my army completely, I suddenly find that most of my painted units are no longer needed, and I need quite a few more. Being a poor student, I've been looking at different ways to avoid paying lots to get the new units (i.e I didn't want to pay the $180 Aud for Blood Knights, or the rather expensive per unit price of fell bats) but I have run into some trouble with my converting and have turned to you guys for help.

First off, is the blood knights. As you can see they are simply chaos knights with the chaos insignias filed off. I have worked out a good paint scheme to keep them in with the army, however I have a problem. The helmeted heads just don't fit, and with they they look just too much like chaos knights. I poked around for some replacements, but I don't know what to use. To distinguish them from the black knights I want to use bare heads (i.e. not helmeted) but I don't know where to get them from.
Tlr, What kit should I get some vampireish non-helmeted heads from?

The headless soon-to-be blood knight for reference

Next up my black knights. I basically coppied a paint scheme I saw on here a while back, which is normal bret knights with rust and ghostly eyes. I haven't quite finished, (Need to do the glowing eyes) but I have some questions.
a) Of the two below, which rust version looks better?
b) How would I go about 'streaking' the cloth to make it look slightly more ghostly?

Rust version 1; More brown, no ink

Rust version 2; Less brown, lots of old school brown ink

Again taken inspiration from someone on this site, I took my old gouls and started converting them into fell bats. However I am having trouble finding poses for them, as the existing goul pose is pretty obviously walking, and unless I fold the wings up and make them walking bats, i'm in trouble. Any ideas for making more dynamic poses?

Only blue-tacked together

Lastly more of a 'what do you think' model, made to be a casty vampire that sticks with units, so I shoved his base onto a 40x40 base to create a little bit of a diorama. Question is, What do you think? and Does it need anything else?

Thanks in advance for any help provided, Oracle out.

 

[Lord Reginer]

With out a massive hack job on the ghouls, you could just have them posing atop various things. Like perched on the corner of a ruin ect.

 

[Nikos]

Personally, I think the green knight has the better rust affect. As for heads there are a few bare heads in the dark which may pass as vampiric but wether or not they will go well with the big KoC bodies I dont know, so maybe thats not that helpful! Any human head will do I guess, it's all down to your paint job. Good luck!

 

[Lord Reginer]

Sorry i missed the rust question, if your open to a suggestion on painting rust there is a really easy way to achieve it. Personally i perfer weathering powders but since you mentioned price i'll recommend my second favorite method.

First off mix up a suitable rusty color, i suggest two tones a Red and yellow mix kinda like mustard and brown and red mix.
Next step, know all those blister foam pad things you have laying around, Use them to apply the paint like a sponge, you'll get some great results.

 

[Mannerheim27]

What you could do for the cloth is to grime them up a bit. You nailed the aging of the metals perfectly so you're pretty set there. I think if you just work on dirtying up the cloth a bit, it should all work really well together.

Keep it coming!!

Jake

 

[Oracle]

Thanks for the comments, after scrounging through my bitz box I found the perfect heads - the helmetless heads that come with the bret kit for Knights Errent, which have the appropriate size and facial features/expression, I'll post pic if you want, but I now also need suggestions on how to make them different, as I could only find 3 different types, so have two doubles, which I would like to break up a little in looks, apart from some basic nicks and scratches.

That rust method Reginer is what I used on the red knight (THe pics seem to have disappeared?) and I used ink for the green one, which one do people prefer?

Thanks Redarmy, I plan on painting the lot before i get to dirtying the cloth, so that will have to wait for a bit.

 

[Lord Reginer]

Hmm the ink, though i don't like the shine ink gives, maybe combine the two?

 

[Oracle]

Well, I'm stuck atm. Rust is fine, I've hit a good medium by combing the two (thanks ) but now am very stuck with the Chaos Knights/Blood Knights. I thought I had found good heads, but, the bret bare heads are just too small, only one of the five I found looks even close to proportionate, but, the chaos night heads look too, well, chaosy. I won't post pictures as it doesn't really need explanation, but I can get them quickly if anyone wants to show the point.

But does anyone know what heads would look good and are the right size? (or what I could do to the chaos knight heads to make them more vampirish?)