Zombie Legion - Skaven

Part of the Zombie Legion

Some zombie batches are still left to post - this time, some Skaven. I didn't have any spare ratmen bodies in my bits collection, so these were all bought specifically to be used in the Legion - mostly for a bit of diversity and completionism. Being non-humans, it was difficult to zombify them, as I couldn't just change some bits around, so their conversions are rather simple.

The wolf-rat was bought near the end of the whole project, when I was looking through ebay for some last miniatures to fill some space - and someone was selling it cheaply. It's not only an interesting piece by itself, but it's also a Forge World model used as a lowly zombie filler - another thing to take off my bucket list, I guess!

Ratmen crawl underneath all the Old World and they sometimes resurface even in such forgotten places as Varsavia. Their clashes with the vampires are not very common, but their soldiers, as frail as they are, make it into the zombies’ ranks too. Once skaven launched a more organized attack, bringing with them strange rat-wolves - beasts specializing in forest combat. Sorin's Vilks countered them quite effectively and brought them down with numbers - since then, one of such creatures accompanies the zombie horde.

Sorin's Wolf Pack

I'm back to painting zombies! Well, sort of - I managed to finish a pack of Zombie Wolves from Gamezone Miniatures.

I wanted to have those beautiful miniatures probably ever since I started collecting undead - and got them cheaply some years later on eBay, that was quite a steal! Then I filled the gaps between the parts and then they lingered on a shelf while I was doing other big projects. I finally took them while I was working on Vaclav, because I wanted to post something new, instead of just spamming zombie groups and I hoped that I could squeeze a small project somewhere in between... and well, seeing as I am posting them now, that didn't work out that well! Still, I found some color schemes and basecoated them at that time, so I had at least that going for me! Painting them went really quick and I had lots of fun with it, unlike the last Gamezone model that I painted... that gives me great hopes about their Mournful Knights, which are also waiting for their turn for a long time.

Seeing as there is only one unit of them and they are much less generic than the current GW ones, I wanted to make them a little bit special - so I painted their fur differently, getting some inspiration from pictures of real wolves and dogs. It mostly got lost underneath the rotting flesh and blood, but I think it gives them an interesting feel and I think they turned out good enough.

Sorin, fond of using wolves in his plans, usually resorts to local ones buried under the Varsavian earth. Only on special occasions he uses his own, trained pack of undead canines brought from the far north. Bigger, stronger and more resilient than your usual raised wolf, they are very reliable scouts, pursuers and distractors. Sorin’s kennels are big enough that with some necromancy added, he will never run out of beasts to help him catch especially elusive prey.

First, the whole unit:

And all the dogs separately:

Zombie Legion - Beasts

Part of the Zombie Legion.

I am traveling right now, so for two weeks, I'll be posting some unpublished zombie batches, this time - beasts!

Most of them were painted and ready in October 2016, but then I added a boar to my collection and I didn't want to post them separately - and after the boar got painted I made a batch out of all of them. The small wolf was laying around my bitz box since forever, the boar was taken from under an orc rider I will probably never paint and the rest of them were bought specifically to be parts of the legion. They were really fun to convert and paint, certainly different that yet another human zombie.

Varsavia is full of dangerous wildlife and Constantin regularly adds animals to his zombie units. Wolves and boars are common here and they retain their ferociousness even after death - especially the so-called wolf-gods which can be twice as large as a horse. Those monstrous beasts are much prized by the vampires - if they manage to find and kill one first, that is. Besides them, battles fought with outside invaders bring truly an outlandish menagerie - elvish lions, lizards from the far west and other bizarre creatures are ready to be taken into an undead horde by a skilled enough practitioner of necromancy.

Zombie Legion - Giant Spiders

Part of the Zombie Legion

The unpainted conversions can be seen HERE.

Once I bought some cheap giant spiders from the Battle of the Skull Pass set when I was looking for some inspiration to get more diversity in my zombie legion. Unfortunately, they were all identical, static and boring - so I hacked their legs away and setting them in new positions - I saw many people doing that on the internet. The process was tedious, not easy at all with all the pins, so I build only 4 of them - out of 10 that I had overall - but I think that many of them will suffice in the horde.

All of them got at least a bit of gloss varnish on their bodies to make them look slicker and properly arthropod-like. Their blood is also green or transparent here to push that alien look a little bit further - it was a great opportunity to try out that trick with glue mixed with paint to make it look all sticky and disgusting. That and water effects mixed with green paint.

First spiders shown here were based on the most characteristic ones one can outside here in central/eastern europe - a Wasp Spider (called a Tiger Spider in Poland) and a Cross Spider (called a Teutonic Spider in Poland). The yellow one looks especially striking amongst all the other zombies in the unit - I will show that later when the whole horde will be done.

Forests of the Old World are teeming with giant spiders and Varsavia is no different - and they are also a good stock to use in undead armies. Raising them as undead proved to be slightly more difficult than it is with usual vertebrates, though - but Constantin eventually managed to do it after some experiments. Still, the process is somewhat faulty - spiders still try to hunt from time to time and their most common victims are other members of the horde. Vampires deem it an acceptable drawback, for they can crawl walls superbly and are perfect for terrifying their living opponents in battle.

And the second two spiders are just vaguely brown/yellowish - I tried imitating other spiders found here, but I didn't find more really characteristic ones so they turned out pretty generic in the end. Now I think that I should have build a long legs spider - that would really stand out!

Zombie Legion - WIP #11

And in the early December, I managed to build all the four units that I still needed for my great zombie legion. This makes 8 of them - 50 wounds each, 400 in total. Last ones are really plain - I was out of bits and ideas to make them look extra special, they are using standard zombie and Empire Free Company bits. But there are still the statues, that is. Last fillers that I did when I knew exactly how much I need. That gave us also the last spider.

When I built the last zombies in December, I actually lacked three more bases - they were reserved for a boar I wanted to zombify - and I needed to take that boar from home when I was visiting there for Christmas. Unfortunately, I didn't make a photo of it when it was unpainted so this sprayed version will have to suffice. I stuck a lot of weapons in it, covered it with boils and exposed some bone on the face and leg.

And here is the photo of those last 4 units completed, being ready to be based and painted. The stegadon got finished earlier because I used him in a competition on Carpe Noctem. You can see that undead dinosaur HERE.

And this makes it also the last post which isn't about my current work - I managed to post all my archived stuff and the blog is up-to-date. Now I am painting all those zombies - with one exception, they are being painted all at once - basing for all of them, then applying flat colors, then shading and so on - just a one long production line. I will group them up in batches at the highlighting step and post them here, batch after batch, like I already did earlier with the Minotaur or the Stirlanders, for example. There are some things that are on my CN blog that aren't posted here, as I need to reorganize them with the new stuff and then post them here again.

Blutmane von Nachthoof

And a spontaneous side project that I painted to enter a Halloween 2017 competition on Carpe Noctem - a vampire horse! I finished it few days before the beforementioned holiday. It was quick, but it was also a good excuse to try two things: copying a horse tail using greenstuff mould and painting glossy red armor - both of which will be helpful in the future.

Behold, Blutmane von Nachthoof, a genuine Blood Dragon horse!

Ever since the times of ancient Lahmia and first vampires, words were spoken about a mysterious terror galloping through the nights, searching for worthy challengers. He changed his names many times through the ages, but now he's known as Blutmane von Nachthoof, the stallion of blood. Countless men, women and beasts were felled by him and even whole empires crumbled because of his influence - and nobody knows how he does it because anyone that sees him drawing a sword, dies. If you ever hear someone challenging you using horse puns, know that Blutmane has come for you.

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.

Vilks

Standard Dire Wolves from GW painted in May 2014. Lots of gaps to be filled, but other than that, they are vanilla. The color scheme is also my usual zombie style with pale-green skin. They turned out to be quite the scavengers, painting-wise. When I was painting my ghouls I was left with too much bone color so I painted bones on them. Their skin was painted when I was working on the zombie ogres - add manes, gore and some details and they're ready. Simple minis but they performed so well on the tabletop.

Sorin always appreciated how well prepared for their roles were the nature's beasts. From tiny spiders to giant mammoths, animals fascinated the Manhunter. So it's no surprise that he's especially fond of raising wolves from the ground as his minions, their unmarked graves scattered across the Varsavian meadows and forests. Vilks - the Varsavian wolves with wide heads - helped him many times when hunting down an especially elusive prey. Often he takes a wolf form himself, leading the ravenous pack at the front of it. He's also more than willing to let them support his brothers' battles, flanking the enemy or acting as a bloodthirsty vanguard. While they are easily killed once again by any relatively capable soldier, there is usually much more of them in the ground to replace the losses.