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Today I have decided to play around with some Ghouls that I have had sitting there for too long. I have never liked the way that they are positioned so hunched over and you cannot see that much detail on the models because of this.

Stage 1. The plan is to make these guys not look so hunched over by adding roughly 5 - 10mm of greenstuff to the body section shown. I have decided to start with the "Crypt Ghast" model and eventually move onto the other 9 "Ghouls". These guys come with 20mm bases which are real small and do not allow for much basing work. (25mm base positioned next to the 20mm base to show scale). So far I have cleaned the body / legs and have glued him to some basing slate.


Stage 1.5. Have chosen the Head Style, and Arm Styles that will be used on "Crypt Ghast". Next step is to clean these parts up and then add greenstuff to legs and position upper body. I am thinking that I will glue the arms and head on before attaching to the legs / greenstuff to make sure the positioning looks correct.


More pics to come.




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Stage 2. Upper body all cleaned up and glued together ready to be greenstuffed onto lower body.


Stage 3. Upper body positioned onto green stuff with a little bit of sculpting. (belly-button, shaping around upper body).









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Now time to finish off the base with a little sand and then paint him up.
More pics a comin.

Any comments, what do you think so far ?

I think it's a great idea and it's done well. Subscribed and looking forward to your progress!

Thanks Stalk Bloodaxe, Much appreciated.

Stage 3.5. The base has been finished off with a little sand and now ready to be undercoated.


Stage 4. Undercoated and the first stages of paint have been applied.





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The color that I aiming for on this Crypt Ghast is hopefully going to look like a purpley / blue sort of color with blue undead flesh for the trophy in his hand.



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More Paint.

He is starting to look a bit more ghoulish now. more pics when he has some more paint on him.

The second Ghoul to join the pack.

Crypt Ghast - more paint.




Crypt Ghast - nearly finished.

I love the Ghast, the purple was a great color chose. The green stuff work was good, you can't tell on the painted figure.

Thanks Grass4hopper, I figured because the Ghouls already have very scarred-up / cut-up bodies I could get away with pretty rough green-stuffing and not have to spend too much time sculpting the stuff.
I think on the next couple I will spend a bit more time with the greenstuffing. Still making it look scarred-up / cut-up but maybe a little cleaner where the upper body meets the greenstuff.
It is a bit overcast / cloudy here in Melbourne today (surprise, surprise) and the photos have turned out on the dark side, unfortunately not showing some of the detail.
Cleaner, Brighter pics to come.


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Slightly brighter image. (the sun came out for a second or two).



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O.K. That was weird, Lets try that again....

Kinda looks like he's gonna topple over backwards, but otherwise I really like how he's looking. Keep it up.

Thanks bunnygurl, He does kinda look a bit pissed or something doesn't he. (some would say he's blind).....Maybe he has been eating to many people down at the local brewery and their blood alcohol level's have messed him up.

Finished paintjob. (note: better photo's tomorrow in natural light).






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New Photo =natural light=


Well I am off to GW today to collect some Chaos Ogres that I converted / mucked about with. (they have had them on display). Also to buy some supplies, that is it though, no buying models... I am not allowing myself to purchase any models until I finish off some of the many projects that I have been lazy with and have not done much but look at them (o.k. I am allowing one more purchase but that is because I need some Chaos Warriors to finish off a Chaos War Shrine I am working on). But that can wait for another day.

Anyways, pics of the Chaos Ogres later today.


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Chaos Ogres.



I can't wait to finish painting these guys, heaps of detail has been added to them. (heaps of mutation, skulls, shield armor, greenstuff belts going through the various shield armour).
The Ogre Musician has a collection of bells hanging off him.

Question for "all yawl" ... Do you think a mixture of Ghouls standing up / hunched over would look better than all of them standing up ? ...... (I was thinking about it last night and I thought it could look kinda cool to have maybe three or four out of the ten that are hunched over very similar to their original positioning). I will still add some greenstuff to their bodies so that they are a little bit longer in the waist area and that way they would fit in with the ones that are standing up as the ones standing up will be 5-10mm taller due to the greenstuff. The idea that I was thinking of is to have the hunched over ones on a slightly higher pile of rocks (basing slate) than the ones standing up (majority). What do you think ?

This thread is 100% pure goodness and full of win!

I think having a mix will create a very unique look for your unit. I'm really digging on this thread. I have a bunch of Ghouls that I picked up on eBay when I was rebuilding my VC army and after I collected them together decided I wasn't going to use them anytime soon... now I'm buried neck-deep in a Nurgle Plague Marine army and I'm suddenly thinking... ghouls walking upright... Traitor Guard... hmm...

I say go with the mix of upright and hunched over ghouls. I think it will not only give them a little more character, but also make them feel less static. With several of them hunched over you're given the impression that they have a further range of movement, than say a zombie. Think of it like this: zombies that walk slowly, as in the Thriller video, moaning, "braaaains...." are not nearly as frightening as the zombies in movies like 28 Days Later where they run and scramble all over the place. With several of them hunched over and scurrying across rocks I think you could make a convincing horde of scary ghouls.

Skalk Bloodaxe = many thanks for your comments. Much appreciated considering I have seen your work (buried neck-deep in a Nurgle Plague Marine army) and it is some very good work, can't wait to see more.
Decision made.... "Marge The Foot Has Spoken" - We will have a mix of hunched and standing up Ghouls. Here is something for you to picture, not only will there be some hunched Ghouls but I am going to try and make some of them not facing forward, but facing slightly to the side (slightly twisted bodies). Hopefully the end result will look like the Ghouls have been disturbed while feeding and are spinning / twisting to start attacking / feeding.

I think that this will be the next thing to start mucking about with. (and maybe spend a bit more time with the greenstuff this time).

Moltar = thank you, the aim is exactly what you have said "to make a convincing horde of scary ghouls". I am a huge fan of crazy, horror films and "28 Days" is up there in the all time favorite crazy horror films list.
I want these guys to "hopefully" look pretty gruesome with the scars / cuts profusely bleeding with lots of red clashing with the purple / blue skin. I aim to make them all look very similar, with the exception of some of them having a slightly lighter skin color than their leader (Crypt Ghast).

Lord of Death Mountain wrote:
Here is something for you to picture, not only will there be some hunched Ghouls but I am going to try and make some of them not facing forward, but facing slightly to the side (slightly twisted bodies). Hopefully the end result will look like the Ghouls have been disturbed while feeding and are spinning / twisting to start attacking / feeding.

Great idea; something a simple as a changed pose can tell a narrative. Maybe you could have a few of the ghouls with flesh in their mouth, or even gnawing on a severed arm.

and then there were four.


I like it Grass4hopper, it would look so nasty to have them all eating / clutching severed body parts. The Crypt Ghast actually has an "optional" right arm which has a bone in his hand with flesh linked up to his mouth, pretty much as you have suggested "gnawing on a severed arm". I was very tempted to use this arm on him but went with the "trophy" option as it looked really twisted to have him running around carrying the top half of a corpse. I have looked at the "gnawing on a severed arm" head / arm option and have thought about putting green stuff into the eye hole (head is blind in one eye) to make an eye and using that on one of the ghouls (because he will be standing up it should look pretty crazy), the only bad bit would be removing the bone shard that is piercing through one side of the face, always fun cutting / filing those type of bits off I think it has to be done though.

O.k. The first "hunched over" ghoul in the photo has a skull in one hand and a sharpened / splintered bone in the other. The second ghoul (standing up) you guys have seen earlier in this thread and he has a bone in one hand (note: the skull on his back). The third is the crypt ghast (drunken fool that he is) carrying his trophy. The forth is "hunched over" and has nothing in his hands. Possibly not the best angle for anyone to see the work that has been done on the hunched over ones as it is showing the four of them lined up together.

Better, brighter pics tomorrow.

I look forward to see the new pictures
They look great so far!

New pictures.







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Thanks Linked,

Hey, nice Ghouls!
the mixture of standing and crouching poses really adds something different to the unit.

The colour scheme is nearer to the old 'pink' metal ghouls and so are some of the poses - not a bad thing IMO. Much better than the green 'anorexic orc' look that GW have gone for with the same minis.

Keep pics coming!

Thanks grantosjones, They are starting to look quite feral with the extreme poses. (I think that the finished unit will have them pointing / looking in different directions due to some of the twisted poses, but I think it will work).
The color is sorta close to the "old skool" studio painted metal ghouls, with more of a Purple / Blue to it. I think I will give the next couple a slightly lighter color to make the Crypt Ghast stand out more (darker color) but still keeping them looking uniform, well kinda sorta uniform anyway.

Anorexic Orc's, hehehe I like it, very good. (They do look a bit that way with the light greens). On the back of the original Crypt Ghouls box they show a selection of different color schemes, well mainly greens, greys and pink type colors but the main pics that you see of ghouls is always greens. (I like to try and be different and went for a purple / blue type of look).

I always thought a weird purpley pink colour was more accurate.

From what I remember (unless they've changed them) Ghouls are semi-humans who eat corpses and hang around with Strigoi Vampires a lot. They'd be damned pale from the lack of sunlight, and probably there's been generations of them to have evolved/inbred some way away from normal humanity...

Lets have a pic of some of the normal Ghouls with the Ghast to see how they compare/contrast!