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A few minutes later his head was gone and so were the skulls. But what now? While googling I came across a copy of a portrait of Vlad Tepes apparently based on an original made during his lifetime. I am not entirely sure if this picture is in the public domain (pictures of two dimensional artwork may in some legislations still be copyrighted, even though the copyright of the original work did expire long ago) , so I changed this into a link:

Portrait of Vlad Tepes

He was a Wallachian prince that lived 1428/1431 – 1476/77.  Contemporary and later sources describe him as a cruel and ruthless politician, some go so far to paint him as a sadistic monster that reveled in drinking the blood from his impaled enemies. It does not come as a surprise that Bram Stoker got inspired by this historical figure for his Count Dracula novel.

I had this idea of a fictional family graveyard of the Drăculești for the base, going even further back to the House of Basarab. This would  allow to depict weathered gravestones that are a hundred years old, some tumbled over and overgrown, the walls of the graveyard in disrepair.  I imagine the entire family  to be cursed by the gods with vampirism based on Vlad's cruelty.  Embracing this curse, or ‘gift' as he likes to refer to it, he may have chosen the graveyard as a resting place. He cares little for its condition and revels in the decay surrounding him.

In my case the miniature's original sword was held at such an odd angle that its point was lower than the cast-on base. Instead of cutting off the arm and adjusting the weapon I kept the angle and decided to put the miniature on the edge of some stone steps. This works also very well with his raised knee and outstretched left arm. In the end I decided to replace his long sword with a Hungarian sabre or szabla, which I carved from a two-handed sword that was part of the Northstar plastic gnolls set using a scalpel. The historical Vlad Țepeș would most likely have used an european style sword, but his immortal counterpart may have adopted a saber when it became more acceptable among the nobility a hundred years after his "death".



To resemble more the portrait of Vlad Țepeș I added a new head and breast armor. Turns out Vlad's hairdo and mo was pretty metal back in the day. Anyhow, I used a head of the Gripping Beast Late Romans for this conversion. One of the soldiers wears a Pannonian cap which provides a perfect base for the Wallachian headdress depicted in the portrait. I still need to add the pearls and maybe a dragon emblem on the chest piece.





There are still some elements missing:



- As you can see the gap on the base will fit the graveyard wall. I think I will use a magnet to attach it to simplify transport.

- I also need to add the bat swarm to the background and another gravestone to the front left. This one was the bottom part of the bat swarm. I cut the Bones version in two pieces to be able to mount the swarm on some clear acrylic rod. Given the gravestone had a skull with batwings on it…*cough* I decided to add some new design with greenstuff. I had a flying dragon in mind to mirror the headstone behind it.

- I also want to add another hanging bat to the lower branch of the tree. This will most likely be the bat from the Reaper familiar set.

- A nice touch could be a tumbled over statuette that was originally placed in the little alcove of the gravestone on the front right. I'll see what my greenstuff skills can produce.

Here are some pictures of the base without WIP Vlad. If you are interested in how it was constructed head over to my blog, where I wrote a detailed step-by-step tutorial:

Unrested souls - How to make a graveyard themed diorama base

Generally speaking this should be of interest to anyone with an Vampire counts or undead army.



]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/716416/9177940.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/716416/9177940.page GMT http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/716416/9177997.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/716416/9177997.page GMT http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/716416/9279929.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/716416/9279929.page GMT http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/716416/9279957.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/716416/9279957.page GMT and the 'flexibly historical' angle - it's impressive, it's characterful, and, had you provided no additional info, I'd have still known it was Vlad "The Impaler" Tepes inspired.

I'm confident I can speak for everyone when I say this: WE WANT MORE!]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/716416/9280215.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/716416/9280215.page GMT http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/716416/9283686.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/716416/9283686.page GMT
work on Vlad is progressing. I decided to make three versions of him: The fantasy Vampire above, a historical interpretation of him and finally a vampire bat transformed version.

I worked a bit on the historical version using Perry Foot Knights and the head with Pannonian cap from the Gripping Beast Late Romans set. As far as I can reconstruct it this could be a likely appearance of the historical Vlad Dracul. Naturally I used the same face and will now sculpt the mustache and hair (potentially in a braid). He is accompanied by his retainers, one will hold a banner featuring a reconstruction of the coats of arms of the house:



I will also give him an amulet showing the symbol of the order of the dragon. (Vampire Vlad will get the same emblem on his armour):



The other retainer holds a contemporary Sallet Helmet, which fits the style of his German Gothic armour. He wields a sword not unlike the one that is attributed to Stefan the Great, ruler of Moldavia at the same time Vlad was around. It is a fairly common broad sword.

The retainer with the helmet will get a cap similar to the one Fantasy Vlad is wearing, without the adornments and a beard. The banner man will also get a beard.

I think this is a good compromise between hints to his identity and historical accuracy.

Finally, I may add a stake to the right side of the base as a further hint that we look at Vlad Dracul, getting ready for battle.








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I also added the amulet of the order of the dragon.

A bit more work on the amulet and maybe on the headdress and I can finally start painting him.


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