Don't stop here! This is bat country.

This is my old project log from the excellent Carpe Noctem. I'm reposting it here because I realized that you have to be logged in to Carpe Noctem to see the full sized photos, and while I think that forum is among the best places on the internet, I don't think you should have to join it just to see pictures of my models.

I started painting these models during 7th ed Warhammer Fantasy. I'm still happy with them, but I'm starting to see things about them that I know I could do a better job of now.

Bat Swarms:



There's a lot of hate for these models. I had a lot of hate for these models, until I inherited some from a friend cleaning out his closet, and I realized how adorable they are. Also, they look like muppets. Adorable muppet bats. I definitely considered painting some up in bright primary colors.











Fell Bats:







My Varghulf. I love this model. When I did this I was completely sick of the limited number of zombie heads, so I decided to try changing them up a bit by sculpting hair onto them. I'm pretty happy with the results. Various other parts of the corpses are also green stuff: one arm and shoulder, both feet, probably some other things I can't remember at the moment.

Awesome! That Vampire Lord is one of my all-time favourite GW models noce paint too!

Those are some sexy vampire models, Anne Rice would approve lol

Thanks!

By coincidence, I've just leveled up my techniques for flesh tones and had some success with painting veins beneath translucent skin, so it's tempting to go back and repaint all those wings. I think I'm going to save it for Scourges instead though.

Here's too many pictures of classic Dire Wolves. Unfortunately, like the Varghulf, they predate my current habit of photographing green stuff intensive conversions before painting them, so you'll have to take my word for the fact that there's a lot of green stuff in there.

Don't you be telling me where I can or can not stop!
I'm a grown ass man. I ain't afraid of no damn baAAAAAAAAARGH MY FACE!

I must say I enjoy seeing the old WHFB models still getting some care and attention. Great paint jobs as always, good photo technique and some lovely conversions.
How did you do the bases on the swarms? I suppose the pile of bones is from the skeleton warrior kit but how did you do the lose femur and the well?

Thank you!

The femur is from the Ghouls sprue.

The well is a plastic bottle cap covered in green stuff.

Skeletons!

Everything looks pretty cool, but we've come to expect nothing less from you.

Thank you!

I think this was the first Lahmian model. It certainly predates the beautiful 6th ed sculpts.

When I painted this model, I initially set out create a translucent effect with the fabric, and it absolutely didn't work. (I'm reasonably confident I could manage it now though. Learning!) I ended up abandoning the idea and reworking it with the freehand designs.

(I have a tendency to try to compensate for my shortcomings as a painter with unnecessary amounts of freehand.)

I often think that the most important thing in miniature painting is a willingness to correct mistakes until there aren't very many mistakes, but maybe that's just part of a willingness to keep messing with something until you get something you like.







And here's my vampire BSB. And look! I have a WIP picture of the conversion! He's basically the Mordheim vampire I didn't like as much with the Wight King BSB's banner and some green stuff details here and there, but I'm quite pleased with him.

Incompetency? Good Lord if you're incompetent then I mustn't even rank on the scale!

Lovely work, and lovely freehand, regardless of what you think its purpose might be

Ynneadwraith wrote:

Incompetency? Good Lord if you're incompetent then I mustn't even rank on the scale!

Lovely work, and lovely freehand, regardless of what you think its purpose might be

And I must be in the negatives range on that scale!

Utterly awesome!
Even though i am usually not a huge fan of the Vampire models, yours look very impressive, you really make them work.

And i love that BSB, great banner!
And that Vampire cliché stance, i can almost hear him hissing in my head:
CCCCCCHHHHHH!!!

Thank you! I don't think I said "incompetent," but there's lots of techniques I'm not good at, and lots of the things I try don't work out very well. I consider myself an above average painter, but I also have the internet, so I'm aware of what incredible things some other people out there are doing.

Mostly, I think that any evaluation of how "good" I am isn't up to me to make - it's up to you, and anybody else looking at my models. I just try to focus on making things that I like, and getting better at things I'm not good at, so I can make other things that I like even more.

Anyhoo. Here's a pair of older-than-dirt Wights. I painted them as experiments in rust and verdigris, respectively. (I've since learned to paint rust much better than this, but I still like both of them.)







Based on that, I went with verdigris for my Grave Guard.



















And here's a Wight King.









It occurred to me today that at the end of all of this, once I've run out of photos to post and mentioned all the projects that didn't get finished before the end and now probably never will be, there will likely be a bitter and heartbroken tirade about Age of Sigmar. So that's coming.

Necromancers!



This was one of the first models I did for the army. I like the idea of the original, but the skull in his hand was just too cartoony, so I ground it off and replaced it with a (much more reasonably sized) plastic one. I think the gem came out a bit too bulky, but I'm happy with the scroll I made out of putty and a bit of skeleton's rags.







I was a little sad when they brought back Kemmler, only because it made my feel like I couldn't use the model as not-Kemmler anymore.

Again, I replaced the skull with a contemporary plastic one. I also sculpted something boiling out of it; in the original model, there's just an egg-like dome emerging from the top of the skull, and I'm not sure what it's supposed to be. Plus I toned down his hat a bit, and gave him a flower. Flowers are cool.







I took step by step photos of the conversion process for this Necromancer. I don't remember why.

It's very nice, if you hadn't shown the sculpting on the last mini, I would never have guessed it all wasn't a natural part it.

I always enjoyed Vampire Counts too, do you still work on the army or has it been shelved? What are your thoughts on the Undead mini's released around the End Times/ AOS?

The army's been shelved, despite containing a number of unfinished projects. Without a reasonable hope of being able to play a game, I just can't motivate myself to work on it (instead of working on models that I might actually be able to use).

This project was cut short when its game was ended and its setting was destroyed.

Even if I didn't dislike Age of Sigmar as a game, setting and lore are integral parts of the hobby for me. This will always be an army that lived, died, and rose from their graves in the Old World. Nobody can take that from me, at least.

It's possible that some day I'll find a group of Oldhammer enthusiasts who will want to play Warhammer Fantasy with me. If that happens, I will happily start working again where I left off.

As for the End Times models, I think they're fine. I like Nagash. The Spirit Hosts are nice, and I would have bought some if I hadn't already converted my own. The Mortarchs and Morghasts don't excite me. I think it's because they're (intentionally) ungrounded, aesthetically. Their armor looks conjured, not made. They don't look ancient, they look eternal, and they don't look like they're connected to a place or history. They look like demigods out of mythology, rather than looking like they were once people, with lives. All of that is absolutely perfect for Age of Sigmar, but not particularly interesting for me.

Here are those Spirit Hosts. They're the classic models with modern Skeleton heads and Ghoul hands.



And my Banshee, Mimi the Scorned.

A comment of mine from the original plog:

Von Calyptra wrote:

I do not like assembling ghouls.
I do not like it in a box.
I do not like it with a fox.
I do not like it on a train.
I think it is a giant pain.
I do not like it in a bank.
I do not like it in a tank.
They are impossible to rank.
My enthusiasm drowned and sank.
I do not like it on a fjord.
I do not like it with a sword.
Why did I think I need a horde?
I do not like assembling ghouls.
I do not like these plastic fools.

That said, one of the great things about rank and file regiments are unit fillers, which create all sorts of great conversion and hobby opportunities. (Unless your unit filler is a big rock or something, which is just lame.)







These guys packed a boxed lunch.









And here's the painted horde.

























And here's the Ghasts. There are two so I can split the horde into two non-horde units if I want.

Both your freehand and sculpting/conversion work in this thread have been awesome! You've definitely got talent!

Thank you!

I know I'm condensing years of work and updates here, but it's still a little weird that we're still on the first page.

These two models were my entries in Carpe Noctem's Golden Bat in 2014, and they both took second place in their respective categories; I'm enormously proud of that. (The Solitaire I painted for the Harlequin competition on this site is the only other time I've participated in a painting competition. I'd love to do more of that though.)



The original model (I think it's still in print?) is palming a skull with attached spine in her left hand, as if to say, "Hey, look what I found in the back." Even though it let me make that pun, I'd wanted to do a model holding magical fire, so I dremeled the spine out of her sleeve and the skull out of her hand, flipped the hand around, stuck a plastic skull in it, and sculpted the fire out of green stuff.





This is the original model for Mannfred, before he was redesigned to look like a Buffy villain. (I think there's a lot to like about both models.)

The old mounted undead heroes are all sitting on mounts which are significantly smaller and less interesting than what the Blood and Black Knights are riding around on. I wanted to try making a Nightmare that was both the right size, and worthy of being ridden by a vampire lord.

The metal bits of the Nightmare are from the original mount.







This model never got painted. (It's actually lying on its side, because it's not glued to its base, collecting dust on a shelf two feet to my left.) I wish I'd gotten to it. I know that I still can, but I estimate it would take me a month or two, and that's a lot of work to put into a model that isn't likely to be used and looked at, especially when I have so many other things to paint.

I want to come kidnap you and force you to do my armies, haha. Kidding about the kidnapping(but only because it's illegal).

...and maybe I should start working on escapes again; I can only do straitjackets and handcuffs.

We're getting close to the end.

Zombies.

I have 75 or so painted Zombies, and I have not taken pictures of them. It's not because they're not done - you're never done making Zombies - but because the standard isn't painted (even though the standard bearer holding it is). I even sketched out the design. I just have not painted it on the flag.

This is a thing I think I can do. This army started with Zombies; they were always its groaning, meaty foundation. They should be included in its record.

Most of the Zombies were speed painted at around two hours per model, but I would put more work into them when I felt like it, giving them more time consuming paint jobs, quick and easy conversions, or extremely involved conversions, pretty much as I felt like it. I don't think I can stress enough how much fun Zombies are, because they don't need to be unified or consistent. I actually went out of my way to make each Zombie unique, although some are significantly more unique than others.

Seriously, as a hobbyist, Zombies are their own reward.

Around the time I entered in the Golden Bat, I felt like I was running out of combinations from the Zombies kit, even with tossing in bits here and there from Empire models or Skeletons. I did some research, did some drawings, and then went a bit overboard with these models. These have not been painted.

Haha! I absolutely love the zombie clutching the cannonball with a hold through his chest. Absolutely perfect

I also agree wholeheartedly with the 'zombies are their own reward' thing. Anything that lends itself to the level of individual customisation as zombies is good by me

@Ynneadwraith

You, specifically, should be making Zombies. Find an excuse. Find someone to play Fantasy or 9th Age with. Make a Mordheim warband. Whatever. Make Zombies. Seriously. Zombies.

Also, check out the plogs on Carpe Noctem by Mad 'At and Borgnine. (You'll need to sign up on the forum to see the full size pics, but I think it would be worth it for you.) There's a lot of fantastic work posted on that forum, but those two people in particular have a ton of really mind-blowing conversions.

For whatever reason, Carpe Noctem has a disproportionately high number of incredibly talented hobbyists posting over there, and more of a focus on painting and modeling than other wargaming forums I've been on. I learned a *lot* when I was active over there from other people's plogs and tutorials. I always thought it was a little surprising - Vampire Counts were a top tier army in every edition following the Divorce (when Undead were split into Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings), and I tend to associate the phrase "top tier army" with unpainted, poorly assembled models.


Here's my Mortis Engine, which I described as "the most oversized, overwrought, precarious Jenga tower of gaming plastic I've ever attempted to hobby."



















The Mortis Engine's blasphemous tome conferred a +2 to spell casting, and it became a thing for Vampire Counts players to paint "+2" onto the pages of the book. This is my take on that.

That is just... dayyyyyum.... that is a beautiful Mortis Engine. Any plans to tackle big daddy Nagash? Also any advice for painting that model? I'm having trouble getting the spirits right on mine.

I've never seen the Nagash model in the flesh, let alone tried my hand at it. I like the model, but I have zero plans of ever picking it up; Warhammer's dead, so I'd be unlikely to get to use it, and even if it weren't, I don't like using special characters. After all, making your own characters is an integral part of this hobby.

But it's a pretty, pretty model. Good luck and have fun with it!

There's a bunch of ways to paint ethereals, but what a lot of people do is fade the model from dark grey at the bottom to light grey/white at the top, and then wash/glaze the ethereal color (blue/green or what have you) on to it.

Because the fade is going to sit under a glaze, you don't have to be as careful with the transitions. Divide the model into bands (maybe 5 for an infantry-sized model), going from dark to light, and basecoat and highlight each band. The base color for each band should be the highlight color from the band under it.

It's a technique that works really well on infantry models. I tried it on the Mortis Engine going back to front, and I don't think it was as successful, though I think it worked out ok on the banshee swarm at the top.