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Hey folks.

Since I managed to finish my 2k Skaven recently, I decided to start another army and the decision became Vampire counts. Now after painting millions of clanrats and slaves, I wasn't going to aim for another horde army in WHFB, so my eyes turned to the ghouls and their twisted kin for this army.

Vampire counts can be considered the "wet undead" so blood and gore is going to feature heavily on these models. I also plan to do a little more work on the bases of these models, and having read the armybook, it seems these ghoulkin armies tend to flock around mausoleums and crypts, so I'll be theming their bases to that. The first unit to paint would be a unit of crypt horrors.

I just purchased this box yesterday, but I have been having such a blast with these new WHFB kits, that one ghoul is almost finished as the tester model:





Hope you like it and feel free to comment with feedback. This army is going to be build and painted a lot more slowly then usual, also because I plan to make this on my entry for armies on parade for next year...

Enjoy!

I love the blood effects! Amazing job.

How did you do these? Acrylic resin, varnish, or white glue?

The painting and the skin tones in particular are very nice. Great to see some more undead on Dakka Dakka!

The blood was done using a mix of "Velpon" brand universal glue (I think that's roughly the same thing as UHU universal glue).

You know, the clear, colourless kind that goes all stringy if you actually try to glue something and get some on your hands.

That was mixed with a few drops of vallejo model colour transparent red and a small amount of scorched brown to darken it a bit. It's then applied randomly in blobs with a toothpick.

The skintone itself is nearly all airbrush work. Basecoat of blue-grey mix, first highlight with pure light grey (vallejo air). It's then given a liberal mix of blue and black wash and then rehighlighted with the airbrush using pure light grey again.

Ahh yes, sounds exaclty like UHU! Stringy and messy and stinks!!!

Horrible stuff! Looks like you actually found a good use for it!

Very interesting to hear you used airbrush for this. I will probably be using my airbrush for the large skin areas on my Warpfire Dragon as well. Excellent job!

Yeah, that would be the type. The stuff smells horrible indeed and it won't go anything properly...

Fantastic! That gore is lookin' amazing! I quite like the Crypt Horrors (and Strigoi Ghoul King/Terrogeist model), but can't figure a way to integrate them into my samurai VCs.

And props for going after Armies on Parade. Planning on doing the same with mine. Consider me subscribed, and I can't wait to see a whole unit of these guys.

-Remi

Exalted! Love the blue-grey look on the ghouls, I imagine it coupled with the rich red of the gore will look striking when entire units are done.

That's going to be the main colours for the ghoul elements yes.

The added ethereal creatures won't have the guts and gore added to them, but they'll have a more distinct green OSL on them in scorpian green. That's why the ghouls will also have a very subtle green spot colour in their eyes to tie the elements together.

I have already done 1 ethereal creature too, a cairn wraith... But he doesn't really fit the strigoi theme I'll be aiming for (for the armies on parade anyway)



That last shot was nearly complete. I can't upgrade the shots, because it's currently sitting in our local GW for the official GW benelux painting competition (lage landen).

I continued the work on the crypt horrors. Somebody pointed out to me that it was strange to have bloodstreaks go all the way to the base while the model looks rahter dynamic, so I added some bodyparts on base to similate a "walking dinner"... Anyway, some more WIP shots of the first trio. The blood needs some refinement and some thickening in other places, but the resin glue to make it is quite fickle from time to time, so It's not easy to get it right in one go.

Some more updates on the crypt horror unit.

Added some extra shading after the airbrush highlighting of the skin did away with some of it. I also picked up a few of the swollen boils on their backs and head with dead flesh, washed with a mix of sepia wash and asurmen blue to tie it into the grey-blue skin a bit.

Covered the model in a dullcoat and had to re-aply a bit of glos varnish over the gore to increase contrast with the now dry looking skin. I also finally finished my permenent setup for my photostudio, so updates are now easier to do. :grin:















Untill next time!

Update on the crypthaunter:

I cut down the blooddrips to the base to mesh in better with it's more dynamic pose:





And the unit as it stands right now, getting nearer to completion every day



Cu next time.

NIce, any specific plan for this army? I see the theme is Ghoulkin, will we be seing Strigoi Vamps?

That's going to be the main idea, yes.

I'm not really making this army for pure gaming, but more as a themed force to enter in armies on parade next year. I'm just experimenting to get the coloursheme right for ghoul creatures and their associated strigoi vampire.

The idea is to make a 2 by 2 board using bits from the guarden of Morr from GW. Those individual sets will be scattered along the boards and as unit filler for regiments. I'll also be adding a lot of tombstones from this company: http://www.tabletop-world.com/tombstones.php as basefiller for a regiment of ghouls.

Reading throught the new vampire armybook, the creatures that tend to "band together as pariahs within the vampire culture are:

- Strigoi vampire (I'll probably leave that one on foot on an ornate base or crawling over tombstones)
- Crypt Ghouls (decrepit creatures that lurk around graveyards to cannibalise human meat)
- Crypt Horrors (basically ghouls that were fed vampire blood, seen as a last ditch effort resource by desperate vampire, wich the strigoi sort of are)
- Varghulfs
- Terror gheist.

I'll be focussing more on the "troglodyte" elements of the army. I might include a corpse cart and a few direwolves to keep up the red gore theme throughout the army.

I don't think I'll have more space on the board to include more. I'll be taking out pen and paper soon to scetch the layout and overall planning of this piece.

I think you've got the right amount of gore on those crypt horrors now, perhaps even a little bit too much. I'd stop adding it to them, if you haven't already

Theme wise, it's one of my favourite ideas for a themed VC army, but I don't like the ghoul models enough to go for it. Consider also including Fell Bats- the models stink but there might be some sort of conversion possible...

Are you limited to GW only?

Da Boss wrote:I think you've got the right amount of gore on those crypt horrors now, perhaps even a little bit too much. I'd stop adding it to them, if you haven't already

Theme wise, it's one of my favourite ideas for a themed VC army, but I don't like the ghoul models enough to go for it. Consider also including Fell Bats- the models stink but there might be some sort of conversion possible...

Are you limited to GW only?

Pretty much limited to GW models here. The scenery won't be as much as a problem, but these models will be entered into GW's official painting competition for the BENELUX. So that limits the options somewhat.

I will definatly stop adding more gore to these models right now. I've actually been more busy removing some of it in the last steps. I don't want red to become too much of a dominant colour in here, I just wanted to offset the cold bone and blue-grey with something eye-catching... I guess it's a tricky balancing act. This unit is one of the more "gore heavy" ones, at least more so then the ghouls will be. I think the only thing that'll most likely have even more gore, will be the corpse cart if I do decide to add it.

Very nice work indeed!

Although i must say the blood is slightly too dark for my tastes.

Small update: I decided to add a bit more highlights to the ghoulskin to make the models stand out a bit more compared to the bases and the scenery that will be on the board.

I've seen a few armies on parades today in our local shop and noticed that you really do have to do something to make them "come out of the terrain" whilst still blending in to the board somehow. Anyway, this should make more sense after I've done the first pieces of terrain for this. I purchased the garden of Morr yesterday and will start to paint a few of the pieces of that set before buying more infantry for the army.

Meanwhile, here's a shot of how the ghouls now look after some highlights on the skin:



Untill next update.

Your Crypt Horrors look pretty god, all I can say is that maybe you should try making slight varyations to skin tone when you do your regular Ghouls. Like, ones slighty pinker than the guy next to him, and maybe ones a bit dark. It adds a bit of realism to the army. On Youtube there is a video made by Miniwargaming that tells how to paint different shades of Ork skin, it really showcases this.

Basically, its using different shades of the same colour with the same technique to make different tones of skin. They had some 7 Foundation paints in varying shades of green and greenish yellow, then three washes, then another 6-8 actual paints. They picked a Foundation at random for each mini, applied it, and if it were a darker colour (Like Orkhide Shade) then they would pick a random regular paint to layer over it. If it were a brighter colour (such as Tausept Ochre) they would pick a random wash (I think they were using Thrakka Green, Gryphonne Sepia and Devlan mud.) to go over it, then a random colour to layer over. They got some stunning results.

I don't think I'll end up doing that... I know it's a lot more realistic to give every individual models their own tint of skin BUT this army will already have quite a few different colours used in it. There will be the grey-blue and red of the ghould elements, the green-brown look of the ethereal creatures and maybe even some bone with dark blue if I decide to add skeletons. I'm afraid it might look a bit too "patchy" already with 3 different elements within one army...

Anyway, I got another update of stuff I'm working on for this army:

I already mentioned that this army is designed mainly for Armies on parade next year. So I'll need to design a board to go with it. Now I'm spoiled for time on this project, so I decided to make it scratch build.

It will feature quite a few pieces of the GW premade fantasy terrain, most noticably the garden of Morr kit. I just love the look of all the fantasy buildings, and I'm particularly fond of the big slabs of slate used in their architecture.

So I'll be connecting most of the buildings, mausoleums, fences, etc... using my own tiles made out of plasticard. It'll take a while, but like I said, loads of time for this project.

Here's a few shots of what I mean:



This will be the central entrance to the castle/graveyard that the ghoulkin has taken refuge in. I plan to connect all the pieces with the white bits. They are ground down pieces of plasticard (using my dremel and sanding paper) to make recreate the slate pavement using in many of the WHFB terrain kits.

A close-up:



And finally a WIP shot of the statue of the Garden of Morr:





Cu next time!

Some small update on the scenery and a layout plan for the board that is in the make:



the base of it still needs doing, it'll be integrated on the board with some polyfilla, so it'll be messy! No point in doing too much detailing on the bottom now...



You'll notice I carefully dremeled out the tombstone in the bottom right corner of the statue. That tombstone is going to find itself on the corner of one of the unitbases, so it integrates fully into the gaming board.



And finally, using my ultraleet MSpaint skills, I make this little layout plan for the future of this project. The 2 mausoleums from the guarden of Morr will be integrated on a base wich will have the terrorgheist looming over it.

The courtyard will have a unit of 30 cryptghouls in it, climbing over some tombstones. The tombstones used will be dremeled out of the bases of the garden of Morr scenery. So far, this is going quite well...

The idea is to place all the units inside 3mm thick foamboard that will cover the surface of the tripple layer board. Bases will be placed "in the scenery" to be less obvious. The wall sections will be covered in plasticard and will have similar stone structure sculpted on them (to mesh in with the garden of Morr kit).

Hope you like it.

Update of some more WIPs:

I started this centrepiece for the army:



And a shot of the legs and one wing assembled, posing with his crypt horror buddies...



And here are some WIP shots of the ramp I was doing to connect the lower tier with the higher tier of the presentation table. It's almost finished now, but the paint is still drying, so pictures will be added very soon.

I really like how the board is turning out. What are you going to be adding to the sides of the ramp again? I find it a tad dificult to read the text. Will there be any re-posing on the Varghulfs, or are they going in as-is? I can't wait to see what you do next.

Hope this answers your question... It's always tricky to explain these things... I included some pictures that have the finished ramp in them. Some flock will be added once it's on the board itself to make it blend in a bit more, but that's only the very final stages of the project.

More WIP of the board itself. The ramp is finished in these shots and I started work on the coverplate that is made of 3mm thick foamboard. This allows me to fit in the bases so the surfaces sit nice and flush...



And how it looks on the actual displayboard:





And a little preview of how the terrorgheist will look when mounted on the base.



The left wing will be completely upright in this pose and looks quite impressice (height wise). I'm quite happy with how it's turning out. Both feet are solidly on the buildings this way, and the right wing is clamping onto that little "tower" quite nicely this way!

I'm not sure about the varghulf yet, the model isn't exactly that good (they fit in perfectly fluffwise, but the model is a bit of letdown compared to the new stuff). So the varghulf might not make it onto the board in favor of more scenery

Those flagstones are looking awesome!

Thanks, it did take a while, because every tile was dremeled out of 3mm plasticard individually.... But I was happy about the end result as well.

It is looking very good thus far, Elmir.

The ramp looks very impressive, excellent attention to detail. I think the blood looks a bit purple-y, though that's maybe just the light in the photos.

Oh, that purple tint is more of a camera artifact and white balans then anything else. It's more of a crimson deep red then a purple-ish red.

I made some more progress on the board today. The front 2/3 of the board is now done concept wise, and this is what I'm planning for lay-out:





And a shot of the bases to mount the crypt ghouls on (once I get my hands on a VC batallion, our local GW was out of those).



I also decided to give the horrors a new location on the board to flesh out the front a bit more, while keeping the back more "scenery heavy". Their original position will quite likely be reserved for Vargheist.



I then proceded to cut out the foamboard so the bases of the models will sit nice and flush with the surface of the display board. Similar to the lower tier.



Same deal for the wraith:



And then the base of the terrorgheist, wich will be used to "flesh out" the other flank of the display board.



Untill next time!

WOW, at first I thought the ghouls were a little bright, and not gritty enough, but they look really good under normal light. Your terror-dragon-thing looks great the way it will be mounted, very natural.

Haven't seen a wip of one of these display boards before. Hope you update lots =) Really intrigued

I don't play WHFB, but this breaki down creation of board and models is excellent. Love the Terrorgheist. That would look good in a Night Lords army.

Mat