Gudvanger's Monster #13 - The Pegasus - WIP

Fifth new member of the Crypt Horror unit. This one went through numerous revisions before becoming what he is right now.

First, that was supposed to be a mockery of a vampire, with wings, a Vargheist head and claws. Then I noticed that I don't have any good clawed hands to use, so I gave him hoofs on the hands. Then it was mismatched either way, so I used horse heads, because I had some of them laying around. The wings were supposed to have some tattered membranes, but it wasn't looking very good, so I got rid of them. In the end, he turned into a mockery of a pegasus, rather than a vampire, which is also quite cool.

Gudvanger's Monster #12 - The Arm Horror - WIP

Undead stitched monsters are still going strong, here I am with more conversions.

In the original unit, there was one that I called a "head horror", covered with way too many heads. This one is continuing the theme, being an "arm horror". I gathered a lot of Crypt Ghoul arms and some extra chonky Cygor fingers to create this busy-looking creature. Simple and fun.

Gudvanger's Monster #11 - The Cannonman - WIP

Third one for the expansion of my ogre-ish Crypt Horrors. After the Skullman and the Moleman, it's time for the Cannonman.

I managed to secure some Leadbelchers and I always wanted to use one of them for this project - with some tentacles writhing inside, it's a close combat creature after all. The results are rather messy, but that is often the case with my minis, isn't it? The head was a spontaneous decision here, I wanted a tiny head on a tall neck, but during the sculpting I noticed that a whole body could fit there - so I added an extra arm there. Well, when their mad creator is stitching them together, he doesn't really have to keep the standard humanoid anatomy, anything goes.

Gudvanger's Monster #10 - The Moleman - WIP

Continuing with the unit from last week, I'm still in the build mode.

Lots of sculpting on this one! I wanted to create a mole-man of sorts, with giant, thick arms and hands, tiny head and using the Vargheist hairy back. Here you can also see my new approach to stitches - while in the olden days I just rolled a greenstuff 'thread' and cut it into small segments to be used as stitches, this time I'm using a brass/copper rod that's bent and cut. There is lot less of those stiches that way, but they are way more substantial and 3d. Hopefully a mix of two approaches will look ok in the finished unit.

Gudvanger's Monster #9 - The Skullman - WIP

Converting an Ogre Bull last week reminded me of a project that I wanted to start years ago - to expand on my 8 Crypt Horrors, which were all converted from ogres back in 2014. Since then the concept for my undead army evolved and I also could afford bigger units. Since I'm in the mood for converting, I'll try moving this project in the right direction, we'll see how many I'll be able to do! My skills also got better since then, so it will be a lot of fun to revisit the unit that taught me how to convert.

First guy here is based on an idea I had in 2014, lots of bones and that wicked Irongut sickle. Adding a skull instead of a normal head was a spontaneous decision and a one that I really like, one can clearly see it's an undead monstrosity and not just a Nurgle one.

Pegasus Knight #02

Switching a bit, we're back to pegasi.

This one is a unit champion - and when I was painting him back then, I was really into this small obscure book series called A Song of Ice and Fire. Inspired by that, I converted and painted him to emulate Robert Baratheon, with the big hammer, yellow color scheme and antlers on the helmet. Perhaps now, after the series, I would choose something else, but he still works quite well like that.

A big change from the original model was to turn the wings downwards - idea taken from GW's site, back when they still had hobby articles! This not only would make the whole unit more varied, but also allows them to actually fit together in a unit. Then, to bring even more variation to the model, I painted the horse itself in a brown color scheme, more like a sparrow than a swan. I think it makes them more realistic.

Just like the previous pegasus knight, I gave him quite a lifting right now, updating the base, adding deeper shading and sharper highlights. This is also as many as I managed to paint when I was younger. There are 4 more and I will tackle them now from scratch, once the weather outside will allow to me to put some spray on them!

Pegasus Knight #01

I apologize for the lack of the post last week, real life kinda derailed my plans.

At least this time I come with something fresher than those plague marines - a flying variant of Bretonnians! This model was originally a part of the batallion I bought for my 18th birthday ages ago and painted not much later after that. Wanting to refresh the whole project, I gave him a lifting of almost everything - improved shading, highlights, metallics, etc. The paintjob was quite thick to begin with, so his "spirit" of 2000s is still there. The biggest change was probably the base - perhaps you can recognize here, those slabs are painted cork. It was good enough for the young me, but now I just see ruined concrete there. To cover it up, I decided to make the base really lush with vegetation - not many options for that in my usual projects!

The whole idea for him was as basic as it gets. The pegasus is so white, he has a blue tint to him and the heraldry is based on papal white and yellow, to make him as "pristine" and "pure" as possible. There's even a cross on the crest! As you'll see on next flying knights, the next ones are much more "down to earth".

Sir de Treviers, the Questing Knight

I was a whole week away and the previous one was very work-intensive, I wasn't able to prepare something new - so here I come with another knight painted in the bygone ages, the musician for my Questing Knights. He's part of the same unit as the champion shown previously.

I still wonder why did I put myself through 2 yellow dudes in the same unit at the same time, but perhaps me-from-the-past was just a little more insane. Other than that, it was a rather pleasant project - questing knights are terrific sculpts and all the details really do wonders.

Some questing knights want to prove themselves as soon as possible, while others take their time. Treviers is definitely of the second category - he started as a rather young lad, and now, a man in his prime, he's still not anywhere closer to the goal than he was years ago. Unlike Sir Chiegane, he doesn't really make it longer on purpose, he just enjoys his life a little too much to focus on the Quest itself. Helping people along the way, fighting beasts, writing and performing songs about his deeds, and seducing all the lonely ladies left by their husbands. He's in no hurry to serve under a lord and be bound to a small piece of land. His compatriots warn him that death may find him earlier than the Grail, but he isn't particularly bothered by it. Better and worse than him have already fallen before tasting from the Grail, so he's content leaving his fate to the Lady's plan.

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Sir Chiegane, the Questing Knight

While I have some more of my usual programming ready and painted, I wasn't able to take any photos of them in time - so, we're back to some old Bretonnians again.

I believe I painted this Questing Knight champion around 2010, together with some of his compatriots. That was also the time when Game of Thrones / A Song of Ice and Fire was much more okay for me than it is today, so I was eager to put heraldry from those series onto my knights. Seeing as this guy here is wielding a two-handed sword and has a modest, but scary skull on his helmet, I decided to make him carry a Clegane emblem with three black dogs on a yellow background. Other than that, he's pretty unremarkable - besides the sculpt of course - it represents one of the best times of GW's creativity in my opinion, but that's not thanks to me.

While all the knights who are on their quest for the Holy Grail are removed from the traditional, feudal chain of command, Earl Sagremor can usually depend on some of them to lend their hand when a conflict arises on his lands. Those men come and go, but one of them has been enduring his quest for many years now and he's usually serving as a leader and mentor the others on a similar path - Sir Chiegane. While he tries to keep it a secret to himself, he enjoys his current state - without any seniors to lord over him, without any traditional duties or responsibilities - only the vague 'quest'. This allows him to enjoy his life a little bit more than many of his peers - so, Chiegane is in no hurry to actually find the Grail. Not that the Lady will be willing to grant it to him, seeing as his morals degrade with every passing year. Sooner or later, Green Knight will force him to decide what he wants - you can cheat the system, but not the higher powers.

Gudvanger's Body Puppets

Continuing with the Nurgle theme, here is my (somewhat) non-Nurgle take on the Putrid Blightkings. From the narrative standpoint, they are supposed to be botched clones of Haralamb Gudvanger and just like he, they are bloated and distorted servants of the Lady of the Bog, not Nurgle worshippers - so they keep the bodies and mutations, but all the chaos iconography is filed off. You can see the unpainted, converted minis together with some design principles HERE.

I had a lot of fun building them and painting was the same - it was really enjoyable to paint all the different hues, reddened, mutated flesh, discolorations, boils and lesions. The basecoat was wetblended to achieve a mix of various colors from the beginning, which were then brought together with shades, glazes and highlights.

The bases saw my second use of two-ingredient water effects and I'm pretty satisfied with the results. The resin actually seeped into the sand that I used as the first layer, creating a pretty interesting, muddy impression. I also stuck those thin, long strands into some of the tufts to imitate lone strands of long grass that I noticed in the wetlands during my last vacation - and I think they help to sell the 'bog' effect a little better - what do you think about them?

The horrific Flesh-stitcher Haralamb Gudvanger may be known best for his lumbering monsters, but he considers himself his best handiwork. For countless years he has been building replacement body puppets, which continuously replace him after each death. It all started when he was still learning the secrets of anatomy by himself, fruitlessly looking for a way to cheat death and achieve immortality. Only when he started to study under the Lady of the Bog he discovered that while he can’t stop his own body from eventual deterioration in any acceptable way, he could build a puppet, a duplicate of himself - one so perfect, it could replace him without any loss at all. Since then, every time his body died, a puppet woke in its place, identical to the original, with the same memory and intellect, continuing his work as if nothing happened - everything a secret he keeps from everyone but the Lady herself. Still, the process is difficult and some results are… botched. They are unusable as replacements but those flesh automatons have their use - Gudvanger arms them and commands them to patrol and guard his domain. Thus they lumber tirelessly through the mists around the Black Bog, attacking anyone they stumble upon. To some extent, they believe to be the Flesh-stitcher too, that’s why sometimes they will hack away the hands of their victims, or try to build gruesome compositions out of their victims’ bodies. Terrifyingly strong, resilient and unrelenting in following their creator’s (their own?) commands, they are almost as dangerous as Gudvanger himself.

First, the whole group of six fleshy automatons - a little from above to make the bases easier to see:

And some close-ups of the individual creatures, the first three:

The second three:

The Wight Warriors Host

A weird update today - not really something new, but rather more of something old!

Grave Guard from GW were the reason why I started collecting Vampire Counts a long time ago. I got my first, 20-wight strong unit of them pretty quickly and it was thanks to them I got the idea of making my army Slavic-oriented and started using the popular patina/verdigris color scheme. Only later I noticed that 20 Grave Guard wasn't that much - and pretty often I had to proxy them. After that, I started buying more boxes of them, planning to expand my unit sometime. And now, 5 years later, I have finally painted all of them - and my big bad death star of 50 wights is complete!

During those years I expanded the Slavic theme in my army, so when I was building these guys, I made a lot of pointy helmets for them. Some of them turned out rather crazy high - but I still have yet to decide if such exaggeration is good, or if I should tone it down next time. Like the old unit, they also have different blades on their weapons (swords from the Skeletons box), because I never liked the original ones. The painting side of the whole project was, of course, the same as 5 years ago, only this time it was probably much quicker and tidier.

Wight warriors are the most effective undead troops in Varsavia - but that amounted to nothing in the face of innumerable hordes of zombies and ghouls available to the vampires and necromancers, the wights’ rivals in the land. Zlyshko wanted to bolster his forces ever since he was raised, but finding the right tombs was difficult, especially if he had to stay beneath his ‘allies’ suspicion. Only when Daremnych joined him, they could strengthen their forces with new warriors - all of them skilled, clad in heavy armor and wielding the cursed blades of the ancient Varsavia. With this new host, they could start openly fighting for their rightful place in this realm.

First, the whole host:

And now some single warriors:

Varsavian Hermits

The unpainted version can be seen HERE.

As I wrote in the WIP post, I never really liked those old bedsheet Spirit Hosts that GW was selling before upgrading them in 2014. Even so, when I noticed some of them on ebay recently, I realized that I actually want them! They possessed enough oldschool charm to add them to the collection, but that didn't mean that I wouldn't convert them. To make them more Slavic and also add some variance to the unit, I decided to fashion them after hermits that lived in russia in old times. The whole idea, together with a painting that inspired me, can be found in the WIP post, linked above.

I painted them in the same way I did with my last banshees - only this time I wasn't sweating as much about detail. Well, they aren't as much detailed as the banshees too. I wetblended them first - dark green on the bottom parts and light green on the top parts. When that was dry I highlighted the top with a white paint and added several layers of black shade on the bottom parts, especially in the recesses. Then I added some Coelia Greenshade, mixed with Vallejo Glaze Medium on the middle parts to blend two extremes together. Then it was just a matter of some refining touches, like on the hands or on their faces. In the end, it was pretty quick to do, I remember that banshees were more labor-intensive.

Faith in the harsh land of Kislev values frugality and abstinence - and while common people remember about it only a few times a year, some people take it much, much more seriously. Those ascetic hermits can be found all over Kislev, but they are especially common in dangerous Varsavian forests, where they can really test their bodies and faith. Here they preach spirituality and peace, sometimes acting as quite effective neutral mediators between warring chieftains. The problem was, Constantin wanted the Varsavian chieftains to wage endless wars between themselves, to make them easier to control and contain - and to have a steady supply of dead to be raised in the vampires’ armies. Because of that, he had Sorin and Ioana hunt down every single hermit hiding in the forests. Violently murdered despite their innocence, their disturbed spirits were easy to shackle down, to serve their killers even after death. Vampires find them useful both on the battlefield and to haunt the countryside, ruining the hermits’ reputation for years to come.

Varsavian Hermits - WIP

While I have been working on the dragon, I managed to fit a small WIP project to have something new to show this week.

For a long, long time I really disliked those old bedsheet spirit hosts of old. That's why I used LOTR minis for my own ghosts. But about a month ago, when I was looking through eBay I noticed three bases of them being sold cheaply and I realized that I actually like those goofy bastards and I totally want some.

Seeing as they are dressed in robes, have bald heads and use ropes as belts, I wanted to have them as some kind of monks - and mix them that way into my story. But their remaining hair is long, so that theme wasn't perfect. So next, I thought of the Russian ascetic hermits of old - I would only need to sculpt some beards and hats. The picture that inspired me is below the photos. This idea was also great to add some differentiation too - for all their oldschool charm, those ghosts come in only three variants and are rigid enough to make them unposeable. Besides that, this also instantly gave them some Slavic feel and made them fit better into my army and story.

EDIT: Painted ones can be seen HERE.

And here you can see the painting that inspired me the most on how to make them - "Hermit fathers and the immaculate women" by Mikhail Nestrov, 1932.

Gudvanger's Flying Horrors

Heavily converted Carrions from the Tomb Kings range - painted in March 2017. This was a rather spontaneous project - there was a competition on Carpe Noctem, with the topic being "Special Unit" and I found three cheap Carrions on eBay. A quick burst of inspiration later I bought them and rather hastily turned them into what can be seen here. The general concept was inspired by this artwork. The mess in their bellies represents the first try of the visceral fleshcrafting / body horror I would like to add to the Bog Dwellers faction - think something like from The Thing.

The unpainted version can be seen HERE.

Built from strange varieties of bones, feathers and flesh, held together with steel and skin, the Flying Horrors are another mad creations of the flesh-stitcher Haralamb Gudvanger. What sets them apart from others, are their bellies - in which he planted seeds from the Lady of the Bog. Amongst all the dead, necromantic tissue molded by the stitcher, those writhing tendrils of the blooming flesh are the only living parts, twisted as they are. The hungry mass of viscera catches and consumes all nearby body parts - be they alive or dead - with unending appetite. As long as the Horrors won't devour themselves, Gudvanger can deem the experiment of joining dead mass with the living flesh as successful. When they are not fighting with Wretches over waste bodies, they are useful in flesh-stitcher's modest force for scouting and terror tactics.

Gudvanger's Flying Horrors - WIP

The painted version can be seen HERE.

A rather spontaneous conversion turning old Tomb King Carrions into a mix of something from this artwork and creatures from The Thing. The heads are scratchbuilt, teeth are needles, the fleshy sack on the middle one is made out of greenstuff balls covered with several layers of Liquid Greenstuff, the rest should be rather self-evident. It was a fun project, I plan to do more of such visceral horrors in the future.

First the three monsters together:

And some closeups:

Sirins & Alkonosts

Despite being quite distinct, my Slavic 'counts-as-Fell-Bats' are still supposed to be one unit - that's why I will show them together too. After some bad experiences earlier, I wanted them to fit together even when placed in direct contact with each other. It forced some larger variation in their poses, so that's a double plus!

There are also separate posts for Alkonosts and Sirins and the WIP post can be found HERE.

Sirins

Second set of my 'counts-as-Fell-Bats' miniatures - Sirins - my take on putting those mythical creatures on the tabletop. I didn't like any of the minis that could fit Fell Bats well so I converted my own - these are built around Wood Elf Warhawks from GW. The whole conversion process can be seen HERE. Those were even more interesting to paint than their light counterparts - bones in black hair, dark eyes, pale skin and how it connects to those dark-green feathers - I really like the style they represent, even if the shoddy sculpt made it a bit difficult to work with.

Those two together with their sisters Alkonosts can be seen HERE.

While very closely related and similar to Alkonosts, Sirins are never taken for a good omen. Their feathers are jet black and numerous bones are braided in their hair - they are believed to bring those deemed unworthy of a good death into Death God's embrace. Lurking in the dark forests, Sirins are vicious, bloodthirsty hunters and are often willing to support vampires or necromancers in their battles.

Alkonosts

First set of my 'counts-as-Fell-Bats' miniatures - Alkonosts. They are made after Slavic mythical creatures. I didn't like any of the minis that could fit Fell Bats well so I converted my own - these are built on bodies from Mirliton SG Giant Eagles. The whole conversion process can be seen HERE. It was quite interesting to paint them - the pale faces, very light hair, greenish feathers - very different from the usual undead standard.

Those ladies together with their much gloomier sisters Sirins can be seen HERE.

Alkonosts are the giant mythical bird-women from the Varsavian folklore, but seeing how tightly are they related to the Death God, they do respond to the right summons called by the practitioners of necromancy. While they may appear noble, closer inspection quickly shows something else. With their pallid skin and wicked blades posed as a mockery of a crown, they are the messengers of the Death God, fond of diving from high upon their unsuspecting victims. The folklore says that to see one and not instill its wrath brings luck.

Alkonosts & Sirins - WIP

You can find those painted HERE.

This is a project I started back in May 2014 when I wanted some Fell Bats in my army. I didn't like the ones offered by GW or other companies so I decided to make my own - and I looked into Slavic mythology for some ideas. There are numerous versions of birds with female heads in it and I choose two kinds of them to serve as my Fell Bats - THIS picture was especially inspiring for me.

I bought two kinds of birds for this - Giant Eagles from Mirliton SG and Wood Elf Warhawks from GW - two of each. Sawing their heads away was much more difficult than I thought - it was the first time I had to do such a conversion on a metal model. This is the first rough sketch of my idea for them.

Then I thought - I can make this even more Slavic! Instead of mounting them on gravestones, statues or other kinds of rubble I decided to make some Slavic sculptures for them, wooden ones, depicting mostly old, pagan deities. To spare on greenstuff I made the first rough shape out of plasticine and then covered it with two separate layers of greenstuff. Nowadays I just use cheap milliput for the 'core' part.

This is how they looked after I sculpted real bodies on those birds - still before adding eyes and other details.

And this is the final version, with details, hair, decorations, mounted on beforementioned sculptures. It was the first time for me to sculpt whole heads and that amount of detail - and while they look a bit wonky it was still a very good experience.

The Deadminder

A 'Chariot of the Harvester' from Gamezone Miniatures, painting finished in April 2016. Despite being rather small, this one took much more time than it should. The assembly was a bit demanding but it was nothing that greenstuff couldn't fix. The painting after that was just tedious - it was really difficult to discern what is what on the mini and my motivation wasn't the best at the time.

Either way, I am rather satisfied with it and it was an interesting experiment with basing. It's difficult to see it here, but I made a road with wheel-ruts on it and covered only the sides and the middle part with grass. This was the first time I used big tufts of grass and they proved most useful for this one.

A deadminder was a very important profession in the varsavian society of Death God worshippers. Wars were being waged, animals were being hunted in the forest, villages were being raided by bandits. All of that left many corpses - which left untended, were later eaten by animals, forgotten and unmourned. The deadminder was supposed to gather all the corpses - in whatever state they were left - and later perform the necessary rituals and send the deceased to the Death God's embrace. Many people had this profession over the centuries, but one particular was immortalized in the folk stories. He was a father pleading his loyalty to both his family and the Death God. He often spent many days far from home, burying the dead and then coming back to spend few days happily together with his wife and children. One time, he went away and weren't coming back for many, many weeks. Then the hard times came and the mother began having difficulties to feed the whole family. The youngest daughter saw her mommy overwork herself, only to get barely enough food for all of them. She decided to lighten her mother's burden - being driven with the love for her father and the devotion to the Death God, she ventured into the forest to find the deadminder, live with him and help him, for he surely had a lot of work. It's said that she found her father, worked together with him and for their devotion the Death God let them stay in the world of the living. Some think they both died in the forest, but others can swear by seeing both of them traveling slowly through Varsavia, minding the dead as always.