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looking to make an Empire of Dust army as my Next Kings of War Army. I'm not a big fan of the mantic models but love the GW Vampire counts skeletons. So I am going to use them as the base.

I wanted flaming headed, Egyptian-esque, scarab worshiping ancient skeletons.




Leader Dude:



Inspired by this Thread , I decided to give my hand at it and use a similar basing style.








Till next Post,
~AA


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Little bit of work on a Worm Rider


A BSB/ Cursed High Priest


and some canoptic jars for counts as caskets of the damned.


Till next post.
~AA

Those multibases are looking epic. Love the stone work

My word! This is a cool plog!

Nice job, keep it up.

EDC

Great work so far - I feel you need some other stuff buried in the sand, though hieroglyphs are awesome!

A very good start, and i really like the cuneiform style base things

And i also like the blue head flames. i'm not sure why the blue head flames, but i like them

@Amazing Turtles: Thank you! The idea was that when an enemy army marches on the crumbling ruins they runes light up blue and a blue flame lights on the head of a skeleton to reanimate them.

@Kestral: I am glad you like it. Do you have any suggestions to add?

@EDC: Always glad to see EDC approval! Stay tuned for more goodness...

@Brushcommando: Thank you!

Added some glowy blue runes to the bases to add some color.


Started to add skeletons to the bases and get these bones raised up.







Some more work on adding ribs and vertebrae to the undead worm.


Finished (Almost!) the canoptic jars that will serve as casket of the damned markers


A weird project are these scarab bodies. I intend to use them as Enslaved Guardian Archers where they will be spitting blue flames at enemies. I'm in on this for the moment but could scrap this if it doesn't go where I want. Let me know what you think.


Secrte Update: I have a model in the background of these pictures that I haven't mentioned yet... I have been working on it for a bit and like how it is progressing. I'll reveal for a future update. Hopefully you can find it, and figure it out beforehand!

Till next post,
~AA

Little bit more work on Some Scarab Swarms and the Scarab Legs.





Till next post!
~AA

Those scarab swarms are looking good, and the jars are probably my favorite so far as i really like little details like those.

And the thing with the flames and ruins is very evocative.

@ Amazingturtles: I like them too! Whenever there is little unit markers I try to make matching ones to an army theme. For my Abyssals I used little Cut up tentacles for wavered/disordered markers. they are easy to make so I may work on more. For the Scarab swarms I have done some more greenstuff work so they "meld" into the base better. I eliminated blank space and sculpted extra legs. I have half of the scarabs left to go.



I have started work on the secret model which is a Bone Giant. I got his feet done and will show more as I make progress.


Till next post!
~AA

This is awesome. Are all of these built using the GW VC skellies?

Ember

Very cool.

How did you excavate the main body cavity of the scarab hieroglyphic without deforming the clay around it?

@ EmberlordofFire8: Thank you! The skeletons are just from the VC skelly kit.

@ Showtime: Thank you!

@ Lord Marcus: I used the flat end sculpting too to dig a small hole and then flattened out the raised edges. I also used Fimo clay (over bake or super sculpy it is also called) which doesn't deform as much as green stuff when you work with it.

Finished the scarab swarm.


Also made some mannequins for for balefire catapults. I am thinking they will be beetles with their thorax spitting flaming blue skulls at the enemies.


And made a bunch more bases for the 2k army.




Till next post!
~AA

I love that beetle idea for the catapults!

Loving it so far! I kind of wish that I had used multi-bases for my Undead. Your modelling work is awesome!

I really like the puppet-like pose that GW skellies have, it certainly adds to the spookiness. I would say that Mantic's skellies are more animated, crazy and have a less realistic look, but they're very fun models.

Keep up the great work!

 Cosmic wrote:
I really like the puppet-like pose that GW skellies have, it certainly adds to the spookiness. I would say that Mantic's skellies are more animated, crazy and have a less realistic look, but they're very fun models.

Ray Harryhausen vs Army of Darkness?

Scarabs look great AA, despite lack of flaming skulls Speaking of, looking forward to skullpoopers!

- Salvage

 Boss Salvage wrote:
Ray Harryhausen vs Army of Darkness?

Ah yes, I've heard the Army of Darkness reference before... did a bit of Google image searching, and you're spot on with Ray Harryhausen. I'm not that big on movies...

@Boss Salvage: Maybe I should have made a bunch of burning skulls! That would have been more Metal Skullpoopers inbound.

@Cosmic: I love the "ghostly wind" pushing the skellies forward and the VC box does a great job of assembly and conversion vs. metal models.

Little bit more work on the Bone Giant


and some sculpting on the cursed high priest/BSB



Till next Post!
~AA

Some great work on here, strong play. I am liking all the little conversions and some of the scratch builds are great.

Not that I am planning on stealing any of this for my Thousand Sons...

@ Thousandeyes: Please take these ideas! And thank you for the kind words. Is you make anything inspired by this blog please share.

A little bit more work on the Guardian Archers. On the end of the Wire will be a skull on fire spitted out of the mouths of the giant bugs.


Till Next Post!
~AA

Amazing army so far! Subscribed

Very cool, subbed!

@Steevefamine and @Nesbit: Thank you! if you have any suggestions to make the army please feel free to let me know!

I decided to make the character into a full BSB after his staff became to bedazzled. I finished him up over the weekend.






I also made the decision to mount both of my curse priests. I am bad at sculpting vertebrae so i went for a "Skeleton swarm" lifting the Priest above the ground. The priest is not added but will surf on all the skellies.


Worked on some more of the balefire catapults and made them more bug-like with a cockroach type thorax. the wires will hold flaming skeletons as the ammunition.


Till next post!
~AA

This is all immensely creative. Nicely done. The heads on fire and the cockroach style balefires are my favorite. Keep posting!

 Albanyadriel wrote:
I decided to make the character into a full BSB after his staff became to bedazzled.

I feel like that must be the origin story of most ASBs out there - some trooper stuck enough bling to a stick that general-senpai noticed them and plucked them out for bling-stick waving duty

Still a fan of Undead Human Centipede nightmare fuel. Excited to see what EOD does tomorrow!

- Salvage

@Shrapnelsmile: Thank you! I love the fire heads too. animating creaky bones to malevolent life.

@Boss Salvage: They are sticking around especially after last weeks game. I never had a mounted hero before.

For modelling I started to strengthen the joints on the Mounted Curse High Priests and make them more flamey


Also added another guardian archer scarab and a worm rider beetle to their respective units




Played around with some one off casting of the back of a flying scarab. These will hopefully become my Scavenger regiment


Also Started work on a Phariot (Pharaoh on a Chariot). This is just the skeleton but the concept is a giant hand made of skeleton bodies being ridden by Khalida.


@BossSalvage and I got a game in last week. We played with the known CoK rules and the unit strength distinction. I liked the rule changes and am happy with what I have seen so far. I lost the game but it was close. A lucky rout and Salvage's healing strategy saw victory for him. I have a few changes for the army in mind after this game but for the moment I need practice. I'll leave Salvage to recap the game if he wishes.

My list was:
Regiments
-Skeleton Spearmen
-Skeleton Spearmen
-Swarm
-Scavengers
-Scavengers

Horde
-Skeleton Crossbowman
-Enslaved Guardian Archers
-Revenant Worm Riders

Monsters
-Scorpion Husk
-Bone Giant

Warmachine
-Balefire Catapult
-Balefire Catapult

Heros
-Cursed High Priest (Mounted)
-Cursed High Priest (Mounted)



As always give me any suggestions you would like to see!

Till Next Post
~AA

Really got into the groove during the snow storm. I completed the second regiment of skeleton spearmen.


Added some Flaming Skeletons to the Balefire Catapult bugs. The concept is coming together much better.




Also started work on a Phariot (Pharaoh on Chariot of dead Skeletons) Next to the large base is more mock up work on the


And some more progress on the Revenant Worm Riders. I may scrap the giant bug thing and make them Scarab/Skeleton/Centaur Things. Who knows at the moment...


Finally a bit of work on these things, I don't know what I am going to do with them but I figure they could be in there somewhere. The greenstuff is supposed to represent very rough Mummy Wrapping.


Till Next Post!
~AA

Could they be enslaved guardians?

i'm really liking the progress of the catapult bugs! the detailing you've done now makes me feel like they're going to be quite neat and unique.

Nice progress man, way to put that snowstorm to work!

Meanwhile I painted a mutant gator thing and didn't make a batrep

- Salvage

Awesome conversion work. Very impressive stuff and I really like the colors you're going with.