Ecaterina Sokolov

The Coven Throne, a rather big vampiric chariot finished in March 2017 - plastic from Games Workshop. That was a hell of a project, took quite some time. Challenge for the mini was to really push the red-black-white scheme to the max. It works for the carriage itself, but it gets lost in all those green spirits. But still, in the end, it was all kinda worth it. You can see the WIP post HERE- with the subassemblies and some techniques described.
First are the photos of the whole model.

After returning to their ancient homeland in Varsavia, von Greifens found themselves at odds with another vampire that rose to power during their long absence. A small, bloody court was held here by Lady Ecaterina Sokolov - once a wife of a Kislevite Boyar, now a vampire countess on the lands of Varsavia. Yet despite her pride, her position and forces seemed weak, which provoked brother’s attack. They came out victorious - only barely, though. She kept her own domain in which she still rules unquestionably, together with a personal army - and von Greifens were obliged to defend that land. In exchange, Brothers were free to govern and expand Varsavia as they liked. Before both parties concluded their meeting, the Countess shared a secret with the newcomers - information an ancient Varsavian death cult, which much later led to unraveling the story of wights and their Death God, changing the local balance of power forever. Ecaterina herself, when enraged by something personally, brings down her wrath from upon an exquisite throne loft upon by ancient spirits and accompanied by her two most loyal handmaidens.

And some close-ups.

Ecaterina Sokolov - WIPs

EDIT: The finished model can be seen HERE.

In December 2016 I slowly started putting the Coven Throne together. The whole model is impressive enough, so the conversions I planned were rather small. 

First, I gave the Countess a new haircut (inspired by THIS picture) and her handmaidens got some fur trims on their clothes. The plan was to make them look a bit like old russian nobility.

The project kept growing while I was working on it. While looking for inspiration on russian noblewomen, I noticed that they used a lot of pearls. So I ordered 1mm ball chain and used it to add pearls to the whole carriage. ALso, the commoner scythe in the skeleton's hands was replaced with a much more noble halberd.

Then, the base. I wanted the Countess to be both connected to the forest theme the rest of the army has and also be somehow more civilized. So I planned a stone path coming from her palace into the forest - the idea with the bent fence came a bit later. I joined some bent and cut nails with drilled sprue pieces and then held it carefully over fire to make the plastic bend too. Maybe it's not as wide as a proper entrance to the forest, but it works much better than my first idea - having the ghosts phase through the fence. That doesn't really work without translucency.

Next, the spirit horde. It was a big challenge to make the normal ghostly parts different from the metal parts while still keeping them distinctly uniform. In the end I painted ghostly parts white, metal parts light silver - and then glazed it all with blue and green. The effect is subtle, but that's what I needed. There are some freehands on the robes, but that's also very light. The whole thing was quite a pain to reach everything with the brush.

Now, the carriage itself. As most of my vampires, Countess and her entourage are kept in the black-red-white colour triad - except any special effects that is. The whole carriage was thus a one big excercise in painting everything in those three colours. It was a bit demanding, but turned out okay in the end.

And as the last WIP picture, the Scrying Pool. I wanted to paint an image there, because the background in the book describes it like that and I never seen anyone doing it on this model. My first attempt (above) was rushed, sloppy and flat. Next one took much more time but also turned out much better.

>