Another Vampire Lord joins the Legion!

I love painting Vampires and can't seem to have enough of them! :D This time I've painted Konrad Von Carstein mini which I always liked and had him stashed in a drawer for a long time. Traditionally his armor is always painted in red but I decided to go for a darker look. I think he looks more sinister in dark armor and the blood dripping from the blades pops out more. Talking about blood, I decided to remove the modeled blood from the mini because I wanted it to look more realistic and did the UHU glue blood effect instead. First I put a small dab of the UHU Adhesive on the plastic and mixed a few drops of Blood For The Blood Good into it. Then I used a toothpick to stir the mixture together and applied it to the mini. It does have a pretty quick curing time so I had to move fast.

And here are the three legendary Von Carsteins in one picture:

Melkhior On Winged Nightmare pt.2

...and he is done! First I painted the Winged Nightmare in purplish colors, same that I used on Vengorian Lord but somehow it didn't feel right. In the end I decided to paint the beast in black which I think was a good choice.

After finishing the Winged Nightmare, only thing left to do was painting Melkhior's staff and mounting him on the beast. And here is the final result:

Melkhior On Winged Nightmare pt.1

I started working on one of the iconic Vampire Counts models from the 90's era: Melkhior the ancient on his Winged Nightmare! I really enjoy painting this model. Since Melkhior is truly an ancient vampire, the first vampire of the Necrarch bloodline I wanted to make his skin look very old, almost corpse-like. I like the final result. I also wanted to give him a magical blade, so I painted it in my signature green tones. :) I just realized while posting this that I missed to paint the stone on his necklace. Apart from that, he is done! Now it's time to paint his bellowed beast, the Winged Nightamre that he rides. 

Vampire Lady

I have finished the first countess for my Vampire Counts army! This model was sent to me by Axia Painting Studio and it hasn't been released yet, but it will be soon in their next kickstarter. I really dig the mini and think it's superior to recent female vampires released by Games Workshop. It is a bit absurd and over the top but in a good way. :) I used this opportunity to introduce a new color to my existing color scheme (black/red/bright green): Stormy Blue by Vallejo which I will be using sparingly on some of my characters, mostly females.

Vengorian Lord Showcase

I finally found some time to finish my Vengorian Lord! Painting this model was not a joyful experience for me. I struggled with skin color and repainted it twice. First I painted the skin in my standard pale skintone that I use on all my vampires. I wasn't satisfied with this choice because the beast blended with the base, there was no contrast between the ruin and the vampire, the colors were to similar. Then I went for more greenish tones and wasn't happy with that either. That evening when I repainted the model in green I was really frustrated and decided to put the model away and went browsing the YouTube to cool off. And then the Skeletor pops out in one of the videos and it hit me...I will paint the model in Skeletor skintones! :D Next day I repainted the model for the second time and I was finally really happy with the result.

Vengorian Lord WIP 2

Here is an update on my Vengorian Lord. Until now, I've painted all my vampires in kind of pale/yellowish/dead flesh color. This time I wanted to try something different and after some experimenting this is the final result. I'm quite pleased how it looks. I might use this color scheme for skin on some of my future vampire models. This is also the first time that I've painted the eyes in blood red color. I think it goes very well with blueish/purplish skin tones.

I also wanted to achieve the look of ancient weathered armor so I added traces of corrosion on the steel plates and some verdigris on bronze decorative elements.

All in all I like the way he is turning out so far. :)

Vengorian Lord WIP

After a quite some time I'm working on a more recent release from Games Workshop, the Vengorian Lord, which I am going to be adding to my main Vampire Counts force. It will represent vampire Kruger Wärgner when he takes the monster form. I think it's a really cool model and will look epic on the battlefield towering over rest of the troops.

It took me three evenings just to clean the model, fill the gaps and make the base. I decided to leave the wings unassembled to make it easier to paint the model.

I'm calling the base done. I added some bits from Tabletop World, like broken bell, candle holder and some decorative elements to make it look as tough the vampire is standing on a ruined church. I was thinking about adding some moss and small bushes to the base as well but decided that I spent enough time working on the base and want to move to paint the monster itself.

Now let's paint the Vampire! :)

Oldhammer Undead pt.9

With tenth warrior finished I completed the first two ranks of my oldhammer deaders! Since every warrior looks like a character rather than rank and file model I'm using different colors and not limiting myself with a particular color scheme.

Oldhammer Undead pt.8

Ninth oldhammer skeleton done! This is one was released by Games Workshop back in the 80's for Dead of Dunharrow from Lord Of The Rings series. One more skelie and I'll have two completed ranks for the unit. Can't wait to put them all together. :)

Oldhammer Undead pt.7

Another old skelie finished! This one is from 1985. I really like the pose on this one.

Oldhammer Undead pt.6

Quick post, I finally found some time to paint, so I finished another skeleton warrior for my Oldhammer Undead project. This one is from 1987.

Oldhammer Undead Queue

Since I've been way to busy lately to attend my beloved Undead, I thought it would be a cool idea to share with you part of my Warhammer Undead collection from the 80s. This selection of minis contains both slotta and pre-slotta miniatures of various skeleton warriors, undead samurais, night horrors, zombies, etc. dating between 1984-1987. I spent a small fortune to collect these miniatures and still miss some in my collection and plan to acquire them in the future. :)

Kehler's Skeleton Warriors

Skeleton warriors are horrid servants of mighty necromancers and vampires of the New Night Order and represent the backbone of vast undead army lead by Kruger. This unit of skeleton warriors risen by infamous necromancer Kehler Arhnoth is especially terrifying. Their standard bearer is carrying the magical Banner Of The Rising Dead. Imbued with dark necro magic by the necromancer himself, the banner is allowing the ghastly warriors to instantly rise again after being cut down by their enemies in battle. For this they are known to spread terror and desperation in the ranks of men.

I am finally done with another big skeleton unit! These 90's Warhammer skeletons are definitely my all time favorite. You can pose them to your liking and be creative. I also love their face (scull) expressions. Skeletons that followed were cool but to small. The newest ones with their Arabic swords and helmets don't fit the aesthetics of my army and have veird poses IMO. I couldn't decide which photos to post, so I'm posting them all. Hope you don't mind. :)