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Made in fi
Cackling Chaos Conscript





Helsinki

After making decent amounts of jungle scatter terrain, I cleaned my working desk and the whole of my Hobby Castle. Had been a year since I've done proper and thorough cleaning here. And I've watched quite a bit of zombie stuff from Netflix recently. The Black Summer (season 1) was awesome! Now going through the Z Nation which is also turning out to be great. Inspired by them and the new Soulblight Gravelords book, I decided to make an Army of the (Un)dead for myself!

I really like the shambling hordes of Zombies (and Skeletons), so went to a local gaming shop and bought a box of Zombicide Zombies since they were on sale. Was thinking about buying loads more, but after a quick search through my bitz boxes and recent purchases from the FB marketplace's local miniature group, I noticed that I already had around 120 miniatures suitable for Zombies. Way to go! Only need lots of wolves / dogs / random animals to act as Dire Wolves, maybe a Mortis Engine, one or two Corpse Carts and a few characters.

I looked through some tutorials on Youtube about batch / speed painting zombies. I made the decision that I would NOT be using 5+ different browns to paint all the different pouches, leather straps, wooden shafts, hoods and clothes, then go picking up the skin parts with different pale greens and go grazy with rust effects on weapons. NO. I just wanted to have a strong horde effect. Not so much emphasis on single rank-and-file Zombies. Something very moody. Night, dirt, blood and death. Then I looked at the beautiful cover of the new Soulblight book. Just a pale mostly blueish scheme, with bright red guy in the middle. Super effective. I'd be making blood-stained dudes rising from the ground in a pale blue moonlight. And I'd be making them fast because I want to get an absolute horde of these guys done, rather sooner than later.




























Here's a quick summary of what I did:

1) Matt Black spray primer. When dry, spray Wolf Grey, Desert Yellow or Army Green downwards at an slight angle, and finally Matt White directly from above.
2) Wash everything with Drakenhof Nightshade.
3) Drybrush Voidshield Blue, concentrating on the upmost parts, protruding hands, faces and edges.
4) Wash with Aethermatic Blue, not much needed on the legs and lower parts.
5) Drybrush Pale Grey Blue, concentrating even more upwards than with the Voidshield Blue.
6) Wash Fuegan Orange on the legs and undersides, where the shadows would be.
7) Gently drybrush Off White, mainly on heads, shoulders and hands.
8) Spray everything with Matt Varnish.
9) Splatter all around with sepia, brown and blood. I made a few different random mixes along the way. The final mixture was mostly Blood for the Blood God with some Agrax Earthshade Gloss.
10) The bases were covered in a thick mix of PVA glue, Burnt Umber paint and some sand, then immediately dipped in a jar full of Mixed Pizza Herbs.
11) When dry, heavily coat the bases with a mix of PVA, water and a little Seraphim Sepia, Athonian Camoshade & Nuln Oil washes (doesn't matter if it gets on the legs too). Just a dark & murky coat to seal the tiny bits of herbs in place.
12) Paint the base rims Matt Black.
Most of these steps took only around an hour to do for the whole bunch. Some were even faster. All in all, painting this whole horde of 60 Zombies took around 9 hours of work, spread over the last week or so, an hour or two a day. So it's 9 minutes per miniature. Not bad. And I absolutely LOVE the end result. It worked out even better than I expected.

Here they are:







   
Made in ca
Grisly Ghost Ark Driver






Nice looking zombies! That blue-white looks really good, without making them look spectral!

See what's on my painting table Now painting: Kruleboyz Gutrippaz 
   
Made in fi
Cackling Chaos Conscript





Helsinki

Thanks Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll!

Can't believe it's over a month since my last update! Much holidays and vacations and very painful leg situations. Also enjoying family times & sauna at the cabin. And of course adamantly mustering more undead creatures to the hordes.

I wanted to include a Mortis Engine in my army, but couldn't find one from the friendly local gaming shop, the always awesome Fantasiapelit. They had one on the upper shelf, as I later found out. Dammit! I even went as far as to visit the local official Warhammer shop, but since they don't accept regular honest cash money, I couldn't buy anything from them. So I had to make my own version of the Mortis Engine. Had an idea that it could be a tree / gallows pole type of configuration, growing out from a shambling group of Zombies. I'll be adding more of the Zombie / root growths, as well as a ghostly figure that's hanging from the gallows and kind of pulling the whole thing forth menacingly.














Automatically Appended Next Post:
Assembled some Dire Wolves & old Chaos Hounds (without their mutated horns & tails). OMG these new Wolves are slow to clean... About thrice the time that it takes to paint them. But they look great, and I need lots! I painted the wolf packs outdoors at the cabin. The impact of the weather conditions were surprisingly formidable. One layer of Drakenhof Nightshade wash took several HOURS to dry, as it was so moist and cold. On another day it was so hot that drybrushing became difficult. Even the PVA got glumpy and non-cooperative.





I also bought the new Vengorian Lord kit. It's among the very few modern GW miniatures that I actually like. Way too much tiny trinkets and useless detail nonsense everywhere. But the look on this guys face, coupled with the positioning of the crooked fingers - I was TRANSFIXED immediately as I saw this miniature. Pure awesomeness. Not sure if I should paint some areas in different colours (than the pale blue-grey with blood splatter everywhere). VERY bloody sword or talons? Blue or white skin? Work and thoughts in progress.



Browsing through the Soulblight book I started to lean towards the Vyrkos Dynasty. So I just had to get Belladamma & Radukar join this army as well. Was going to convert Belladamma from some Reaper Bones miniatures, but in the end just went lazy and bought the actual GW kit. It's okay. Had to save some money on Radukar though, so invested three euros on a nice Bones Werewolf, who was accompanied by two little Vampire lackeys (Lord of the Rings Goblins). Mysterious incident occured, as I was spray MATT varnishing Belladamma (with a brand that I had successfully used for years). The end result wasn't matt for sure. Too thick layer? Too hot weather? Never happened before. Maybe I'll just throw this one away.



This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/07/23 22:18:19


   
Made in fi
Cackling Chaos Conscript





Helsinki

Back from the cabin! I had another 13 "Dire Wolves" and a Werewolf dude who will be used as Radukar the Beast with me. Not forgetting the necessary 14 paints, brushes & mixed pizza herbs required to paint this army. It was nice and relaxed session, and I really enjoyed taking time "speed" painting these wolves.

The ones made from Chaos Hounds (that are just emerging from the ground) were actually 50% Blue Stuff mold copied. I only had pieces for 5 full Hounds, but needed to make a unit of 10, so I Blue Stuffed each separate half of the Hound, filled the molds with Green Stuff & stuck them on the "real" halves of the plastic Hounds. Then I did some minor sculpting on the seams to disguise the joints. This worked VERY well. I also super glued some cotton wool to hide weird gaps and provide nice texture.

Accompanying these half-wolves are two Barrow Rats & a Warg from Reaper Bones. I just bought a couple more of these Barrow Rats today, as my Skaventide army could also use their attendance. Anyhow, here are the 13 Wolves and Radukar the Beast painted, along with WIP shots of Vengorian Lord & Belladamma Volga. Next up will be the Mortis Engine and a duo of Corpse Carts.


















   
Made in ca
Fixture of Dakka





Surrey, BC - Canada

Wow Mutant Modifier,

You start an army and most of it painted by the end of the week. Like you Marine force.

Cheers,

CB

   
Made in fi
Cackling Chaos Conscript





Helsinki

Cheers Captain Brown! Yeah, I try to get a playable army / gang / terrain done before getting interested in another project.

Raising the Army of the Dead (pt.5) - WIP Corpse Carts, Mortis Engine & Vengorian Lord

I've been blessed to have lots of hobby time this week, so continued working on the Undead hordes. Just when I thought that I might be able to finish this Soulblight Gravelords army (a bit over 2000 points with the updated points costs) today, I realized I still need to come up with a Necromancer and a Vampire Lord on foot. And oh, maybe some Gravesite markers as well.

The Vengorian Lord & Corpse Carts are pretty much done now. Just waiting for the glue/brown paint mixture and pizza herbs to dry on their bases. After that I'll seal the bases with a mix of diluted PVA glue and some Citadel Washes (Seraphim Sepia & Athonian Camoshade have usually been the chosen ones) and paint the base rims Matt Black. The Mortis Engine (walking zombie tree / gallows / ghost -configuration) still needs one or two layers of drybrushing, some orange wash for shading and maybe a little detail work here and there. Then matt varnish, followed by dirt & blood splatter.












   
Made in fi
Cackling Chaos Conscript





Helsinki

Not much to show this time. I just completed painting the army, and decided to separate these few last WIP pics in their own post (the finished miniatures will be in the next). Pretty much the same paints & techniques used as before with other Gravelords. Just a bit glazing with Carroburg Crimson on the Necromancers details to get slight differentiation from the regular zombies on him. Any idea about the manufacturer of this wonderful Necromancer miniature (the metal one with finger pointing up)? There's also some fine line / scratch highlighting on the Vampire Lords robes for a change. Oh, I did a simple conversion on a standard Necromancer miniature by replacing it's staff with an enormous clawed hand from a Crypt Ghast and look - now it's a horrible and evil Vampire Lord!








Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here's the finished army!



More pics can been seen at this Dakka thread & at my blog.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/08/06 16:12:58


   
Made in us
Omnipotent Lord of Change





Albany, NY

Nice work on the army, another fun speed paint / salvage job Dig the mix of very old and very new minis in particular. Also shoutout to all the pizza seasoning that gave its life so that these undead might stalk the world of the living.

KOW BATREPS: BLOODFIRE
INSTAGRAM: @boss_salvage 
   
Made in gb
Ancient Venerable Dreadnought






Great work MM, super rapid paint scheme that looks great! No idea on the metal Necromancer I’m afraid, he’s neat though

Goberts Gubbins - P&M Blog, started with Oldhammer, often Blackstone Fortress and Void Panther Marines, with side projects along the way 
   
 
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