Myphitic Blight Hauler #3 - WIP

Okay, the last one of the Myphitic Blight Haulers for my Death Guard.

This one is based on the smaller tractor from the Galvanic Servohaulers set - stripped bare and with most of the armor and weapons from the original crawler. Cables are really cool and here they play a big role, I could really go to town with all the various kinds and sizes. Besides, the mouth is pretty cool I think - with several tiers to it, with many smaller jaws inside - with some wire tentacles for extra fun.

I look forward to painting those - but first, I need to level up my vehicles painting skill. More info next week.

And here are all the 3 of them together:

Myphitic Blight Hauler #2 - WIP

Second Myphitic Blight Hauler. This one was based on one of the small machines that are part of the Galvanic Servohaulers set (sadly discontinued!) - military machines from WW2 are part of the inspiration, but industrial ones are very important for this project as well! Plows, tractors and other work tools coming to life because of an otherworldly red plague, all to kill the ruling class is very fitting for this commie-inspired army.

Much more kitbashing here, the original basis is barely visible underneath all that.

Sadly, this model is partially responsible for the length of the last break here - I wanted to have that meltagun on a technological arm, but I just couldn't find the box with it! There was no substitute and I just got angry at the whole project and shelved it. Only many months later I found it by accident and gladly resumed the work on them. Thus, you can see the finished model at last!

Myphitic Blight Hauler #1 - WIP

What I was getting into WH40k with the Death Guard, I was really looking forward to the machines that they use. I especially like the smaller ones that serve as infantry support, like Dreadnoughts or the Myphitic Blight Haulers. The latter ones are the topic of the current project. I would love to have 3 of them, but sadly, GW is offering only one sculpt. It really doesn't make any sense for such a daemon-posessed machine.

So, I did the sensible thing and hacked the original one to pieces and bought some extra plastic to kitbash the hell out of them.

1st Crawler is based on a 1:48 scale model of a BA-20 soviet armored car. This cheap piece was then covered with tech and organic bits to bring it into the 41st millenium.

In general, I am pretty happy with my first truly technological model - combination of machine and organics fascinated me for a long time and it's really cool to try i out for real.

Underworlds - Mollog's Mob - WIP

Seeing the approaching 4th season of Underworlds, I decided to buy the last of the expected-to-be-discontinued 2nd season warbands that I liked - the Mollog's Mob. When they first appeared, I disliked them, they were a bit too comical for me, at least for Underworlds. Then I got into Instagram and followed a bunch of AoS28 folks and the idea on how to convert them slowly appeared in my head.

As far as I saw, one of the easiest way to make a monster creepier is to make it more human, have human attributes when one would expect monstrous ones, make the weird thing that much closer to us. To achieve that, I gave every single creature in the band, a human-like face - the troll, the squigs, the frog, everything. Because of the scale difference, every face turned out pretty distinct and characterful, an unexpected, yet good feature.

With the main man here below, I wanted to go a small step beyond - which was inspired by the great menagerie of grimdark Giants which can be seen HERE and the manga/anime Shingeki no Kyojin - where the giants are not just big humans, but humanlike creatures that were scaled up to their size, unperfectly, like in an broken mirror, or by an unskilled creator. Those creatures carry certain human features, but they are all set up wrong - so my 'Mollog' has a very wide mouth and instead of a club, his whole left hand has way too many joints and is just generally too long. The original troll's uneven proportions were perfect for this. Someone may say that this is too small for a giant, but I like my giants on a spectrum - which starts from about this size, when it can overpower an average human with size alone and devour later, if not whole, then bite by bite.

And here are the squigs, little minions of 'Mollog' - those were nice and easy conversions.

Seigneur Crinierre

So, the hiatus is on, but I still want to fill the blog with something, so it's time to show off some of my older minis that I'm not too ashamed about. I actually made photos of them long ago and kept them in reserve for a time when I won't be able to post something new each week...

My first army ever was Orcs & Goblins in 5th Ed. WFB and the second was Hordes of Chaos in 6th Ed. - but those armies got either sold off or were stripped of paint. It's my third army - Bretonnia in the 7th Ed. that managed to stay in their proud forms, unsold, unstripped (and mostly unpainted). Today I am showing you a Lord on a Hippogriff, a metal model from the times when Bretonnia still existed in GW stores - and painted around 2010.

The shadows could be deeper, the highlights stronger, the little shields could use some tiny freehands, but I generally like the red color scheme and the pattern that I went with on the wings. It could be worse.

Most of the time, Earl Sagremor is able to manage with the undead menace in his realm, but when the forces of evil are too formidable, he can call upon his good ally, Seigneur Piers Crinierre. While such a call is against the old rules of seniority, Sagremor saved Crinierre’s life in a campaign many years ago - and the two were joined not only by this life debt but also friendship. That’s why the Lord can use his superior resources to help the Earl from time to time - which Sagremor pays off just as often, naturally. When he’s able to, Crinierre even shows up personally in battle, riding his trusty Hippogriff Marteau and wielding a formidable sword Radieux to serve as an especially terrifying, flying shock force.

Blood Bowl Big Guy - Sloth the Sloth, the Rotspawn

There was the WIP Post and a long Step-by-step sculpting process, now it's finally time to finish this project and post the painted version of my (mostly) scratchbuilt Blood Bowl Nurgle Rotspawn, the cute Sloth the Sloth.

I painted him in the same color scheme as his teammates, only this time flesh was the overwhelming majority of everything that was to paint. To make it more interesting, I tried varying the shades on him - with some parts redder, some greener, some darker and duller. To further that, I also freehanded some fine veins in some places, like on the boils and the bulbous part of the main tentacle. Then I applied some gloss varnish on all the swollen fleshy bubbles, tentacles and the eyes - especially the eyes - and he was basically ready. Green shirt, bony spikes and black armor were just accents here. In the end, I am pretty happy with him and I hope I can mess with some elven game plans with him now!

His name was taken from my version of Putrid Punters that I had in Blood Bowl 1 video game - the names are randomly generated there and the Beast rolled a coincidentally redundant name, so I decided to keep it because it fits and it's funny - also as a memento from those times.

All the design principles and ideas for this creature are explained in the WIP post, linked above but also HERE.

Weirdly named (Nurgle himself choose it, who are we to argue?) Sloth the Sloth is the Punters’ Rotspawn - and as his name suggests, he is always a little late after the team’s reappearance in the world. But once he shows up, the game starts for real - for the creature is known for his affectionate character, stealing the hearts of the audiences with his antics and gluing the opposing team to the pitch with his friendly licks. So determined he is in his need for pats and love, he can force his way through the blocks of less experienced players! Sadly, Sloth’s heart is really vulnerable to rejection, making him whine and sob in the middle of the field - so he almost always needs his teammates nearby to assure him that he’s a good boy.

Blood Bowl Nurgle Team - Rotspawn WIP

The mighty Bloaters, the 'fast' Pestigors and the fragile Rotters are painted, but a Nurgle team is nothing without the Beast (or a Rotspawn as it is called now)! There are the official one from Forge World, GW minis that can be repurposed and many other third-party options, but I couldn't find one that I really liked. The obvious solution in this situation was to make my own from scratch! I have been sculpting Nurgle guts on existing minis for a long time now, so this shouldn't be that much more difficult.

First design principle was to make it 'ugly cute', like HERE - the picture that inspired me the most. Beasts of Nurgle always had the background of having a puppy-like mentality and I wanted to show this quality, despite the 'official' art direction for new Rotspawn. To achieve that, I gave it large, round eyes - which will be painted glossy black - to get that 'puppy eyes' effect and a wide grin with tongue sticking out. During the sculpting process, I also decided to make its face flat and with many folds to make it similar to a pug. The arms are also posed like that to get that 'pet animal' effect.

The second design principle was to make the tentacle really important. In the game, the 'Tentacle' mutation that the Rotspawn possesses from the start dictates it's the whole role on the pitch and plays a giant role in the whole team's strategy - and most miniatures used for this creature have their tentacles stuck to the head or the back, almost like an afterthought. I wanted this sticky appendage to be an integral part of the whole miniature - so I designed it as an extension of the beast's head, the tentacle IS its head! Only from that main one smaller ones grow out to make the whole composition more wriggly and untidy.

Other than that, it was your usual Nurgle pleasantness, with open wounds, sucktion cups, toothy maws, spikes, boils and many similar. In the end, only the pauldrons, three spikes on the back, a nurgling on the side and two maws are made out of existing bits, all the rest was sculpted by me - I used all the greenstuff that I had on hand at that time. I am pretty happy with this result and now I can't wait to put some equally sick colors on it!

Before I started all the greenstuffing, I did a plasticine 3d-sketch, to get the scale and proportions right. I still had it after the finished model was done, so I made a comparison photo of them together - I find it interesting to see how different and yet similar they are.

Blood Bowl Dark Elf Staff - Mallerion the Team Owner + WIP

Back when I gave a name for my Dark Elf Blood Bowl team, the Dreadspear Dragons, I came up with the idea that due to some legal shenanigans, the team is officially owned by a real dragon, becoming a gimmick that makes them famous. This was just to give some more meaning to their name and make the whole backstory a bit more interesting but it would be waste if I didn't represent it somehow! So I digged through various dragon miniatures and decided on using a Shadow Dragon from Reaper Miniatures - it had the good style, pose and size for me.

Besides that, I also thought that I could do banners for my teams (because I love banners) - which could be then paired with cheerleaders and/or mascots. Thankfully I had a dragonskin (?) banner in my bits collection, one from Mournfang Riders, so I mounted it on a base, covered in various Dark Elf bits and added several skulls for the evil factor. Now the Dragon can stay with the flag on the sidelines and represent the team better than ever!

The painting scheme was chosen to reference the players' colors - purple, dark red and blue, pale green, with silver/bright accents. I used numerous points for shading and highlights on both instances of dragonskin to simulate the scales - and I think it was actually easier to pull off than trying to go for smooth blending. The wing membranes also got a lot of dots to make them more visually interesting.

I plan to use him in the game as the equivalent of 4-5 cheerleaders - and that's why there are two giant pompoms laying on the ground, just in case someone had doubts what is the dragon's role on the pitch. Maybe I'll come up with some additional rules for him - if so, I'll post them here of course.

The Blood-Bowl-enthusiastic dragon Mallerion, a mascot of the Dreadspear Dragons was a known oddity in on the pitch, but he became especially noteworthy only after becoming the actual, official owner of the team (due to some desperate legal maneuvering on the part of the previous one). Being a dragon, he was neither interested nor capable of all the bureaucratic work needed, so there’s a wide array of assistants and representatives who do all the legwork for him. They may even set their own salaries and working conditions as long as the owner is happy. Thankfully, Mallerion is perfectly content with having enough food, being able to cheer from the sidelines (heightened statistical amount of deaths correlating with him being on the stadium is a coincidence!) and taking part in photo sessions. Not only he makes the press more interested in the team, but his presence on the sidelines can also motivate the players and the fans into a glorious rage much better than a whole team of cheerleaders! The only problem is that he personally terminates the staff who’s he displeased with - after which the unfortunates often don’t find a new job. Well, this isn’t strange, since it involves fire breath and being eaten alive by the dragon, but nobody gets into the Blood Bowl business expecting a long life and nice retirement!

First, the scaly lad himself:

And the banner that I prepared to accompany him:

The conversion work that I did here was really minimal, but I've made a photo nontheless:

The Three Hunters

Today I have some Skin Wolves from Forge World. I always liked those models but I couldn't find a good excuse to incorporate them into my collection. Well, I could use them as Varghulfs, but I already have some of those and they are all bat monsters, having werewolves added to that mix didn't sit well with me. Then, when I started expanding my collection beyond just undead and came up with body-horror-themed 'Dwellers of the Bog', those wolves suddenly found their place.

They fit right in as they are so the conversions are minimal here - I added the Lady's sigil on their bodies ('painted' on with Liquid Greenstuff mixed with gloss varnish, visible at the bottom of the post) and filed off any Chaos iconography. The painting was pretty straightforward, I went with light human skin and dark wolf flesh for the contrast. Only on the hands themselves, I tried to go for the 'flayed flesh' effect to bring more attention to them and I think it turned out pretty good.

Once upon a time, there were three hunters, masters of their craft, who were trying to help their starving village during an exceptionally strong winter. Most of the game was already hunted down - everywhere but in the lush garden that belonged to the wise and beautiful enchantress. She forbade anyone from hunting on her grounds, but the hunters were desperate and they decided to try nevertheless. They fell down a great stag - but as they were rejoicing, the enchantress appeared before them. They shook with fear, but the wise woman told them that the rule was just a test to find those truly skillful and brave. In reward, she offered them a chance to become better hunters than they could ever be - strong, fast, resilient, with keen senses. They could also hunt in her gardens without restrictions and their village would never know hunger again. They just had to swear their allegiance to her. Three hunters agreed and they took the stag back home, where they were greeted as heroes. After a great feast, they woke up at midnight, horrifying transformation ripping their skin open and breaking their bones. Turned into crazed, grotesque man-wolves, hearing the Lady’s whispers in their ears, they killed and devoured every single person in the village. Ever since that night, they roam Varsavia on the Lady’s of the Bog orders, only occasionally turning back into humans to realize what they agreed to.

The Beast of Preytov

Today I bring you yet another miniature from my backlog - a Forge World Preyton bought a long time ago. When I started pushing the forest theme in my army I noticed that this particular creature would fit pretty well in my collection, but sadly, at that point, Forge World stopped selling those miniatures. Many months later I managed to catch one on eBay - probably a recast, though - wings were really thin, there were some difficult mold lines, etc. But well, it had to work for me somehow, better this than nothing.

My concept when painting was to create an impression of a mismatched, chaotic beast, so there are many different patterns and hues used (while keeping everything comfortably dark and dirty of course). When I was painting it I was rather unsatisfied with my work, but in the end, it turned out not that bad - especially the wings, the part which I normally dislike to paint, even if it took quite a bit of glazes to get the shade just right.

Living in the Varsavian village of Preytov has many advantages - there’s a small river there, the soil is fertile, there’s plenty of game in the nearby forest and the bandit raids are practically nonexistent. It would be actually perfect - if not for the Beast that made this area it’s hunting grounds. Never looking the same, the creature has some polymorphic abilities, changing into many different animals, though the transitions are never clean - the forms are always mixed and distorted in unnatural ways. Most often it lures potential victims looking and crying like a prey animal and then turning into a large predatory monster to run the unfortunate being down, sometimes growing wings, horns or other additional limbs if necessary. To make it all worse, the Beast is actively malevolent, killing its victims slowly, painfully and messily, without any care for its own injuries. Some brave warriors have tried to kill it - and many even succeeded - but it always comes back somehow. Nevertheless, a small number of people living there have accepted their fate, thinking that losing people to the Beast from time to time while profiting from the otherwise safe and fertile land is preferable to trying their luck in the dangerous, lawless lands of the rest of Varsavia. Because of that, some people believe that the Beast is a violent, but protective god of Preytov - and their blood is the price they pay for their fortune - but the truth is, naturally, unknown.

Great Basilisk

And I'm finally back to the basilisk. Like I said in the WIP post already, here I am going with monsters that are in no way usable in my army, but they fit the theme. Perhaps I will find some use for them later! Here I am starting with a basilisk - a GW cockatrice converted a bit to resemble a rooster a bit more.

When it came to painting, I also decided to reference roosters - the idea was to make it really just a giant snake-chicken with crazy eyes. That's how I chose the colors for the feathers, beak, face and the mane. The snake parts were then painted to resemble a viper commonly found in Poland, with a characteristic zigzaging pattern. When it came to wings and skin I had to think of something - so I referenced the colors I already used and made an organic pattern to make it a tad more interesting.

It was nice to paint a well-sized monster like this, not too small and not too big - but damn I don't like painting wings!

If asked about a basilisk, most Varsavians will tell you that it’s a snake-rooster about the size of a housecat, whose famous petrifying gaze will cause only slight numbness at worst. It’s a rather common pest. Only an unfortunate minority will tell you about a giant monster capable of easily tearing an armored man to pieces and easily petrifying anyone for long enough to be hauled back to the nest to be devoured. That is the Great Basilisk, a scourge that has been terrorizing Varsavia for many, many years. Wise men tried to deduce how it came to life - some say a beast like that is born once every 100 years from an egg laid by a rooster, while others say it’s just a chaotic mutation of a normal basilisk. No matter what’s its origin, this basilisk just appears from time to time to wreak havoc around the countryside, attracting foolish heroes to die while trying to kill it. Even those trying to turn its own gaze against it with mirrors discovered that the beast is simply immune to its own powers and can still use its beak and claws to tear and rend. Until someone manages to kill it once and for all, both villagers and armies marching through Varsavia have to factor in the possibility of a great basilisk attack.

Great Basilisk - WIP

And now something different - a Chaos monster! I bought him kinda like I did with my Boyar earlier - not because I intended to use it somehow on the tabletop, but because it would fit in my Slavic-themed collection. While a cockatrice isn't a particularly Slavic beast, a basilisk certainly is! It was probably the second mythical monster I heard about as a child - after the dragon from Krakow of course.

While it's a good base, I didn't find the GW Cockatrice to be 'basilisk enough', the rooster aspect of it wasn't as pronounced as I would like - and the most important feature of the beast, its eyes, were also way too small. So I made new eyes out of greenstuff and built all the fleshy parts around them to make it resemble a rooster a little bit more. I also didn't like the weird claw the original sculpt had on the end of the tail, so I just cut it off and sculpted a normal, scaly tail. I bent the wings a bit too, they were unnaturally straight and flat - thankfully it's very easy to do such changes in resin with just some warm water.

EDIT: The finished model can be seen HERE.

Vaclav the Red, the Dragonrider

Finally, after starting this project in November 2016, I managed to finish it!

It started with me buying an old model of High Elf Imrik - I loved that model ever since I saw it as a child! Then I wanted to incorporate it in my undead army - but I also wanted to avoid butchering the model turning it into a zombie. I decided to make it look scarier and more evil - a dragon befitting a vampire. To achieve that, I covered him almost completely with new, pointy scales out of greenstuff. It was a tedious task, but I managed to change the details while keeping the original form still there. Then I mounted on it a vampire that was leftover from the Terrorgheist set. The whole conversion process is documented in THIS post, while the base with the falling trees is documented HERE.

THIS photo and THIS artwork were the main inspirations, both for the sculpting phase and the painting one.

The painting proved no less tedious than the sculpting! I didn't consider the fact, that with those new scales, its surface area increased significantly. Other than that, it was really difficult to hold this spiny beast. I have been holding it by the wings the whole time and painted them only after I glued it to the base. One of them even broke off after all the turning and rotating. Then there was the fact that red is quite a difficult color to work with - I had to go several times with basecoat, shades, wetblended layers, glazes, hightlights - all that through every scale. Thankfully, after that was done, the rest was much easier and more enjoyable.

The base itself was quite a challenge too, but a welcome one - it was the first opportunity to use dirt mix on such a big base instead of the usual drybrushed sand. Besides, I bought a lot of basing materials specifically for this occasion after paying extra attention when I was biking through forests this summer. I even used my Johann (he would be probably more like Jan in my story) model to make it extra special.

One of the main reasons why Lady Ecaterina wasn’t replaced by another upstart pretender during all the years is Vaclav, known in Varsavia as Vaclav the Red. He’s unconditionally loyal to his mistress, ready to do anything for her - yet nobody, perhaps besides himself and Ecaterina, knows why is that so. If the fact that he’s one of the true Blood Dragons and has the skill to prove it isn’t enough to deter enemies, his giant red dragon - his loyal companion and mount - usually is. Together they impaled, incinerated and torn into pieces countless foes. Still, even they weren’t able to overcome the numbers and wit von Greifens brought with them - and Lady Ecaterina was forced to parley. But if not for him, she probably would be forced into unconditional surrender or killed outright. Their current cooperation with von Greifens is questionable at best, but Constantin is willing to improve it if only to get the dragon knight on his side.

And the second picture, because I couldn't fit all the views I wanted to show in a single one.

And a little bonus picture!

Such is the life in Varsavia - if the dead are not rising from their graves, if the witches are not kidnapping your children to make soup out of them, if the mythical beasts are not slaughtering your livestock, then it's the dragons that are dropping trees on your head!

Vaclav the Red, the Dragonrider - Finished Base

EDIT: The finished model can be seen HERE.

This is the project (whole WIP can be found HERE) that I shelved in September 2017 when I decided to focus on the Zombie Legion. When that massive project was finally done I could go back and actually make a proper base for this dragon. The problem was, the most important parts of it were two trees that the beast was supposed to be felling down - and I was completely sick of making those for the legion. So, the project waited more and more.

Only about a week and a half ago I moved my ass and actually sculpted the bark for those two trees and set them in the right place - one being broken and another being uprooted. When that was done, the rest of the work went really smoothly. I was supposed to paint my Blood Bowl Bretonnians first, but it was difficult to resist messing with the base. I just kept adding more and more stuff, changing, reposing things, checking the composition, etc. I wanted to create an impression of the dragon emerging from the forest and into the fray.

I did quite a lot of those trees for all the zombie fillers, but this was the first time when I added plastic branches to them. Real thin twigs I used for this purpose earlier are REALLY breakable - and for this project, I wanted to avoid it. They took much more time, but they should endure more too - I hope they'll look okay when painted. I will describe how I did those branches in an upcoming tutorial describing the process of making those trees.

Here you can see the base without the dragon on it.

And here it is with the dragon and Vaclav on it, everything ready to be primed and painted. I would like to say that this was my most elaborate basing project, but the one I made on Nagash was still way more complicated and took MUCH more time...

And now only the painting remains! Only if it was that easy... Currently, I am struggling with choosing the right color scheme. I know that he should keep my usual red-black-white scheme, with the red one being the most prominent. Below you can see some of my rough sketches. From those I am mostly torn between 2 and 5. 2 is a classic look, like a DnD dragon and looks the most natural, but 5 looks more sinister, more vampiric, so to say - and I still need to think what do I like more. Fiery belly on 4 is also an interesting idea, but adding fire to this busy composition would be disrupting in my opinion - not to mention that it suggests, that those belly plates are thin and/or open somehow.

Any ideas or opinions?

Gatzek

A Wolfbomination from the Zombicide game turned into a vampire monster, to be used in the game as an alternative Varghulf - you can see the conversion process HERE. He will be my second Varghulf, the first one can be seen HERE.

It was nice to finally paint a monster that wasn't a part of the Zombie Legion. I didn't have to rush everything, I could take my time and really enjoy the painting process, trying out things I've read about during this last year. Even the color scheme was already decided - light bluish skin and dark, reddish wings and fur - to fit together well with my other Varghulf. First, I painted its skin, wetblending light blue and dark blue paint to create areas of light and shadow - and then I kept adding many layers of glazes, both light and dark, to strengthen the contrasts and bring out the details. It was probably the first time when I really tried to think about zenithal light instead of just raised areas and recesses. When the skin was done I did the same with the red parts. After that, I added some subtle dark red glazes in the shaded areas to make the contrast between that and the cold highlights even stronger.

In the end, I think that he turned out pretty well and I enjoyed painting him. I like monsters of this size and the limited amount of colors also made things a bit less chaotic - especially after all those zombies! I'm thinking of doing some more alternative Varghulfs later, maybe this time scratchbuilt instead of converted.

Also, as I said in the WIP post, the word I used to name it, Gatzek (spelled in Gacek in Polish) is a Polish name for a family of bats - and also a kinda silly colloquial term for bats in general.

One of the most useful beasts used by von Greifens is the so-called Fledermaus - a vampire turned into an animalistic monster by their father, Laurentin. When a Necrarch scholar Eshnuu joined the brothers in Varsavia, he quickly became interested in replicating the process. Together with Lucan, they started catching - and if necessary - creating vampires to be turned. The experiments weren’t easy and many ‘applicants’ perished messily in the process. Only one of them survived - its past already forgotten, it began its new unlife as a muscle-bound bat-like monster with a distended jaw full of sharp teeth. Its mind broken and wiped, it is driven solely by its neverending, horrific hunger - with only commands of obedience burned into its brain keeping it at bay. Lucan named it ‘Gatzek’ - using a local, colloquial term for a bat - similarly to how Constantin calls his monstrous pet 'Fledermaus'. Only while Constantin says it with some kind of affection, for Lucan it's only a joke - he won't spare any feelings for mere weapons.

Gatzek - WIP

EDIT: The finished model can be seen HERE.

Okay, it's time for something that's not zombies! I took a short break to play Total War Warhammer 2, but it didn't stick - I went back to the hobby table rather quickly. Still used to the speed and amount of work that the zombie legion needed, I have about 5 or 6 different projects going on right now - and today I will share with you one that's presentable enough at this point. The word I used to name it, Gatzek (spelled in Gacek in Polish) is a Polish name for a family of bats - and also a kinda silly colloquial term for bats in general.

Some time ago I bought a Wolfbomination miniature from the Zombicide game (I didn't take a photo of the unconverted mini, so I am using one from the official website of the game):

I always wanted to have some werewolves in my army and this one looked good enough to be used, probably as an alternative Varghulf. Then it lingered on my shelf and in the meantime, I decided that I wanted to get some Skin Wolves from Forge Wold at some point. Now that Wolfbomination won't fit those (even less from a fluff perspective) so I started thinking how to use this miniature differently. The obvious way was to make it a vampiric monster, to make it really look like another Varghulf. I even had some extra Vargheist bits laying around, so that was actually doable!

I decided to give it a Vargheist head with a creepily long and wide jaw full of teeth - so I removed the wolf head, added the vampiric one and build some base for the lower jaw out of milliput. At this point I also I noticed that the Wolfbomination's arms were actually compatible with one set of Vargheist wings - so I glued those too. You can see that stage of the conversion below. Looking at it then I also thought that it definitely could use some more mass - especially on those tiny legs.

I rolled tiny, pointy teeth out of greenstuff first and then I set them in the creature's gums later. When I was doing Flying Horrors last year, I used needles for teeth and that turned out a bit artificial - greenstuffed teeth look much more varied and natural. While I was at it, I also made it's claws on the left hand longer - I envision them to be magically retractable, like vampires in Witcher have them. Then it was just a case of sculpting some additional muscles on the back, legs and one of the arms. Well, that and changing the tail too, of course.

Below you can see the finished conversion - he will make a fine companion to my other Varghulf, the Fledermaus. I also sculpted a fallen tree on the base, it will create a good framing composition together with the wings.

Zombie Legion - Mummified Drake

Part of the Zombie Legion

This time, a mummified drake. The miniature came originally from Fenryll Miniatures. I bought it cheaply on eBay to be used as a zombie filler - though I had to repose him quite a bit to fit neatly on a 40x80 base. Thankfully that is really easy with resin. The wings also had to go - they were rather small and awkward - and it still looks fine without them. I wanted to make its skin dark brown, kinda like real life mummies, but in the end, he turned out a bit flat and bland. If I had to paint him again, I would do some more striking colors underneath those bandages, that would create some interesting contrast. But well, for now, he'll have to do as he is.

Drakes - despite being weaker, smaller and wingless cousins of real dragons - are still the most dangerous predators in Varsavian wilderness. Similarly to giant wolves, those reptiles are deified to some extent amongst the local folk - they are believed to bring prosperity and good harvest. Because of that, every time one of them is found dead - not a common occurrence - people gather its remains, mummify them and store them in makeshift sarcophagi near their villages to keep its positive influence for ages to come. When Constantin found one of those tombs, he quickly raised the impressive beast and added it to his minions. Disliking such superstitions, the vampire left the villagers to fight for their own prosperity, rather than hope for a dead lizard to grant it to them freely. Not that it would help in such a place as Varsavia, sitting between undead, bandits, barbarian hordes and other monsters.

Zombie Legion - Chaos Gorebeast

Part of the Zombie Legion

I once bought some bits from the Chaos Chariot set to get those horses - and the sprues came with a whole gorebeast included. It was an easy decision to turn it into a zombie and add it to my horde. I mangled the beast's armor, added some exposed gore and stuck some spears into it's back - also to offset the front-heavy composition of the miniature. The color scheme was switched a few times before I finally chose this one with the light skin. Adding weathering on both steel and copper was pretty interesting - one with rust, another with verdigris - it makes for a nice contrast, I'll have to try to use it more in future projects.

The unpainted conversion can be seen HERE.

During one of the clashes with chaos marauders, von Greifen faced a chariot drawn by a gorebeast - ferocious and stubborn beast smashing its way through the undead forces. Surely, it made the chariot more dangerous than one drawn by horses, but it was also much less smart and it was easy to bait the vehicle into the forest. The chariot with its crew got quickly smashed on trees and roots, but the gorebeast kept charging. It was found dead, days later, many kilometers into the woods - after having fought with goblins, villagers, militia from Kislev, local wildlife and probably many others. Constantin knew that as a raised corpse it wouldn’t be just as effective as alive, but he was willing to settle for something close enough - even a fraction of that destructive power would be useful in his legion.

Zombie Legion - Undead Stegadon

Part of the Zombie Legion

And by the end of November 2017, I managed to finish painting the undead stegadon - you can find the WIP post HERE.

The beast being hollow inside, with all the zombies on top made it quite difficult to paint - it's really a wonder I managed to avoid sticking one of those pikes in my eye. I had some problems deciding what color should it's skin be - green would fit well, because most of my undead are green and red seemed like the obvious choice, but I was worried about it making the gore stand out less - and blue was also an option. In the end, I painted him this dirty reddish hue - somehow I wasn't able to envision him different than red - some strange stubbornness on my part. In hindsight, I think I could have tried harder making its skin less flat and maybe give those zombies uniforms in similar colors - but then I remember that it's part of a zombie horde and he looks good enough for that.

Nobody really knows how the giant carcass of a Lustrian stegadon managed to make its way into Kislev, but it didn't really matter - Constantin happily added it to his zombie horde, making it the crowning piece of his morbid collection. Mimicking the lizardmen way of combat, some zombies are ordered on top of it, but that's mostly just for show - they are not capable enough of both staying on top of the beast and fighting back. To add to that, this rotting behemoth is just a slow, lumbering wall of flesh - barely capable of dealing any real damage. All that doesn't matter though, for it is hellishly resilient and capable of stopping almost everything in its tracks and helped the varsavian vampires many times. It makes for excellent surprises too - vampires love the look on their enemies' faces when that beast arrives on the battlefield in the middle of a Varsavian forest.

Zombie Legion - WIP #8 - Undead Stegadon

EDIT: The finished model can be seen HERE.

And here's the conversion process for the biggest rotten jewel in my horde, a crowning piece of it all - an undead stegadon. I saw a crewless one on eBay and thought to myself "why not?" - this beast as a filler was sure to take a lot of space!

Here's the beginning of it all - in October 2017. I started with opening its belly, adding some Milliput ribs, breaking off one of the horns, adding some entrails he'll be dragging along and some other damages to the body.

Following a suggestion I got on Carpe Noctem I replaced the weird 'ladder' that was lodged in the beast's leg with a zombie nailed to it. Something like Captain Ahab and Moby Dick. Not only it is an aesthetic improvement, but also adds another zombie to the composition, making it fit a bit better in the whole horde.

And by the end of the month, I managed to complete converting the monster itself, leaving me only with basing still to do. As you can see, I added all the zombie crewmen on top of it, ready to stab foe and friend alike - one of them holding a chain - that element was tricky. The flag will bear yet another symbol of my vampires, adding more verticality to the horde. There is also some more damage and dangling skin and I turned it into a beast of burden by adding all the pouches, barrels, bottles and other clutter. All of that was to emulate the style of miniatures from the 6th Edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle when they all had those little bags, potions, scrolls and other such things on them. I really like my miniatures 'busy' - as you can see below.