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Hey guys,
I'm building my vampire counts army and decided that I don't like any of the vampire models that are available. First off they are all ugly as heck, I thought vampires were supposed to be able to walk normally in society if they chose... There's no way the vampires that we have available could do that. I think the only vampire model that I like is konrad. Second off not one of them has a shield and I would like to give all of my vamps shields for protection, on foot and on horseback. One of the great things about the vampire lore is that any character (only humans maybe?) could be turned to a vampire so I could easily rationalize using almost any other model

Here's a few that I was considering:

sigvald: (generic shield and magic weapon)
http://www.games-workshop.com/en-CA/Sigvald-the-Magnificent

astorath: (great weapon)
http://www.games-workshop.com/en-CA/Blood-Angels-Astorath-the-Grim

lelith hesperax: (2 hand weapons)
http://www.games-workshop.com/en-CA/Dark-Eldar-Lelith-Hesperax


Can anyone think of other models that would look good? I would really LOVE to get a wolfy looking character that I could use as Jerek Von Carstein (vlad's last created vampire/ former grandmaster of the knights of the white wolf/ total badass able to defeat older vampires than himself) Also does anyone have any suggestions for mounted vamps? Preferably with a shield/ lance and also preferably plastic but I'll deal with more failcast if I have to... just suffered mightily with warp spiders

I agree with you wholeheartedly about the current vampire models, they look like demons/monsters.

You could have a hunt on ebay for older vampire models. Plenty of the old metal 'bloodlines' models are great. The Mordheim Von Carsteins are favourites of mine:
ly human

They don't look quite so monstrous as their modern counterparts.

Otherwise, vampires Reaper are always a good be as they've got a bunch of vampire models, here's a couple of my faves:


But, they've also got endless human and elf minis that could work depending on what you want


Avatars of War do a great Vampire Countess model:

http://www.gamezoneminiatures.com/tienda/en/vampires/334-caja-de-caballeria-lugubre.html

I have this one http://www.gamezoneminiatures.com/tienda/en/vampires/313-caballero-lugubre-i.html

The cast is a little off in spots, you'll need some green stuff. Also some of the detail is a tad soft.

Also orc vampires

http://titan-forge.com/fantasy_miniatures_drakskulls_menace

Zomblins



Also reaper minatures has lots of great mini's (look for yourself)

https://www.reapermini.com/miniatures

I actually have the one guy in the first pic that you posted (the guy on the right). And I do like him a lot better than the modern vamps. The thing is though that most of the games I play are at my local gw store and they don't allow non-gw models unfortunately :(

I bought sigvald since he comes with the sword and shield and looks pretty badass. I changed his base to the smaller one used by vc models. I'm not going to do any converting at all. The sign on his shield, to me, isn't so iconic that when you look at it you immediately think chaos and that it would be blasphemy as a vampire count.

For painting:
skin:
going to do his skin pale with a purplish hue. I've already given him a wash of carroburg crimson mixed with blue paint. It looks pretty good on the white base coat as it is, but I'm still going to add the fleshy tones. Oh and I'm painting his front armor as skin. It has nipples so hey why not, it looks natural enough.

Armor:
going to be a dark blue.I've given it a wash with drakenhoff nightshade, it looks too light right now over the white base coat so I'm going to paint it up in some darker colors leaving the drakenhoff showing in the recesses/design on his armor. Any suggestions doing this? I was thinking a black+ mix as a basecoat, letting the drakenhoff recesses showing, then another layer with more blue and less black, then some very blue line highlighting on the corners

Hair:
The hair is going to be red. I've already painting it evil suns scarlet and then washed it with carroburg crimson. Now I'm going to dry brush the whole thing red so that it's not shiny anymore, except maybe the wash in recesses. Then I'm going to highlight by dryrushing a mix of evil suns scarlet and orange (troll slayer? I forget what its called but its at home) and then with just the orange, and then with orange mixed with yriel yellow. The idea is that it looks vibrant and a bit out of place on a pale skinned/ dark armored vampire.

sword/chain mail on upper arms:
I'm going to keep this one simple, leadbelcher/ iron breaker with a nuln wash. I'll highlight the sword with leadbelcher

Cape/tabbard:
This is going to be black. Nuln wash mixed with drakenhoff nightshade as a wash. then highlighting with eshin grey mixed with abbadon black and some kind of blue dry brush over it. with dry brush layers increasing the amount of grey and decreasing in blue and black

shield:
still undecided. I wanted to do like a really dark shield with a greenish glow? It might be a bit too much though to have red, blue and green all on the same model. especially with purplish skin tones to tie the blue and red together.