The Dark Lord

A short break from Sci-Fi Dreddy stuff, I wanted a bad guy to go up against Van-Halfling and who or what could be badder than a Dark lord?  As with Van-Halfling, the Dark Lord is also from Heresy Miniatures and under that cloak he could be anyone, a vampire, necromancer, Emperor Palpatine or just somebody who likes long black robes.  

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I've kept the colour scheme very simple, the black robes were highlighted with Dark Reaper  and then Thunder Hawk blue which I then glazed with Nuln oil to keep the robes suitably dark in colour, to keep the flesh pale I used a base of Rackath Flesh with a thin wash of Reikland Fleshshade.  The highlights were Pallid Wych Flesh and then White Scar white, he has not been catching much sun.

I recently came across Frostgrave and I think he would fit quite well as a Necromancer, now I need to find him an apprentice.

#6 - A Late Christmas

This is a desperate attempt to not drop below one post a month, not boding well at all for the original plan of one miniature a week.  I'm sure January is not too late for a Christmas themed miniature either.

Plague Santa

I bought this guy from the Wargames Foundry, a company set up by Bryan Ansell of Games Workshop fame.  This was definitely a bit of Christmas painting fun, mostly done between wrapping presents.  I was short of festive decorations and I like the miniature a lot, this is not a santa that makes it on to very many Christmas cards.  He was one of four scary santa's from the Foundry, I'll post the others at some point if I manage to finish them.  In the meantime, a picture from the Foundry site, I'm sure they'll be back on sale in November.

Wargames Foundry Scary Santas

The Plague mask and corpse in a sack makes for a suitably odd Santa, I'm guessing he's visiting or possibly already visited somebody on the naughty list.  Doctors genuinely wore these masks in the 17th century, they stuffed the beak with herbs which were supposed to protect them from the plague, I checked Wikipedia  and so it must be true.

One of the more easy going images from googling "16th century plague doctor mask"

The number one thing I learnt from painting him was that slotta bases were a really great idea, I relied on just the tiny metal base initially, I glued it to an old pot so that I had something to hold and it fell off, repeatedly.  I then thought I could rely on the base alone only to find that stability was a problem and in the end to stop rubbing the paint off I pinned him to a slotta base and I think he looks all the better for it.  All of the fiddling around before I finally pinned him down did lead to the white trim ending up a little grungy due to all of the handling but I figure that he has a corpse in a sack and so a dirty trim is appropriate.

Meet Ivan

Ivan is probably what happens after one too many 'Bah-Humbugs'.


The second biggest lesson I learnt was base the miniature at the start, it so  much easier, cleaner and it is impossible to damage the paint work.  For the snowy base I used Citadels Mourn Mountain Snow, I've been dubious of the benefits of the textured paints but to be fair, applying it with a little scoop and spreading it with a brush worked quite well, it was very quick.

I'm not sure about the blue tinge to the dirty snow

I was a little surprised how at how much textured paint shrank when it dried but I did apply it very thickly.  I tried a blue wash first and wasn't impressed so then I used Agrax Earthshade to dirty it up, followed by drybushing it with grey and white.  Next time I might just apply a white drybrush.

#5 - Van Halfling

Today's instalment is the famed Vampire Hunter, Van Halfling, scourge of evil.

Scourge of the Undead!

I think that this is a great figure, lots of detail and plenty of character, it reminded me very much of the classic Citadel miniatures of the 80's and 90's.  It's one of a number I impulse bought from Heresy Miniatures a couple of weeks ago.

When the package arrived not only was there a hand written thank-you note from Minion Dan but also a packet of fizzers, top notch customer service and the detail and casting quality of the miniatures is excellent.  I've been looking forward to making a start on them and went as far as to taking the plunge and purchasing some resin bases to round him out.  No plain black finish this time.

Fizzer are an excellent customer service touch.

Back to Van Halfling, I was worried that with all of the brown he would be look too drab and I was going to try and add a it more colour but I think that by mixing between dark and light tones to create a bit of contrast did the trick and I could probably have got away with a brown hat and a darker feather but it does add a nice spot colour.

Presumably the feather was a gift from some rescued maiden, it doesn't really fit with the rest of the ensemble

For the coat I started with a Rhinox hide base, the boots, belt and straps are Mournfang Brown.  I then shaded the whole lot with Agrax Earthshade.  The layers were built up by mixing with the base colours rather than going straight to the next layer colour, this gave a more subtle highlight which I prefer.

No vampire is tall enough to avoid  a good stabbing of the ankles

The pouch and scabbard are Zandri Dust with a Ushabi bone highlight.  I thought that the obscured face had saved me from doing the eyes but painting the buckles and tip of the crossbow bolt more than made up for it.

He was pinned to the bases once painted

The base came from Fenris Games, they have their own website but it didn't have the Cthulhu bases on in so I used  their ebay shop instead.  I drybrushed Dawnstone grey heavily over the black primer and then stippled on some brown, yellow and green washes which you can just make out in the picture above.  I drybrushed Dawnstone again and then Administratum grey.  There was a final drybrush of Longbeard grey to bring out the edges.

This is my favourite miniature so far and I'm very pleased with the outcome, I'll have to look for a game I can use him in and more importantly I need to find him a worthy adversary.  I've been scouring ebay for old citadel Night Horror miniatures which I think would fit quite well.  I think a band of trusty comrades could also be interesting, maybe the start of a Mordheim witch hunter warband?