Empire of the Dead: Painting Wallpaper

I had to pop down B&Q this morning to pick up some superglue for ongoing October War project and whilst there had a quick peruse at the textured paintable vinyl wallpapers, not for any DIY project mind you...

Many moons ago I used some of this for the grass and ploughed field parts of some Aeronef terrain to pleasing effect (see photo above) and I was wondering whether they would have some patterns suitable for the cobbled streets of Empire of the Dead.

I have found two different patterns that could do the job. The first is pretty much perfect for cobbled streets as can be seen from this (rather small) sample I have quickly painted. I think this will do for the rougher areas of the East End...

The second sample I was somewhat unsure of, the pattern is not quite right when looked at closely but from a distance of about two foot I think it looks pretty good. This said do I really need two different styles of cobbled street?

Penny Dreadful

I managed to catch up with the first episode of Showtime/Sky's new Victorian Gothic drama series Penny Dreadful yesterday. Using a mix of public domain literary characters from C19th fiction (rather like Alan Moore did with League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), it is great stuff for Empire of the Dead/IHMN players, interested in some horror gaming in the demi-monde between the real world and the supernatural.

Empire of the Dead: Vampire Clan II

Kicking off this year's fun and games I spent some time yesterday working on the three Thrall figures from West Wind's  EOTD02 - Vampire Clan...

I wanted to paint them in black cloaks and red scarves to reinforce the vampire link, painting the rest of the clothing in some mix of brighter gypsy style clothing. I'm not 100% sure I have got the effect that I was looking for but I am happy enough with them.

2014 Painting Target: 3/1000

(Victorian Month) Vampire Clan I

I started on the second Empire of the Dead faction today painting the Consort and Bat Swarms from EOTD-02 Vampire Clan set.

I decided to paint the Consort in a green dress with dirty white gloves, the idea being she is some Victorian Society Lady that the Count has turned. I am pondering adding some blood around her mouth for a splash of contrasting colour.

The Bat Swarms come attached to gravestones which was a bit of a bugger as I wanted to base all the EOTD models on street bases so this necessitated a far bit of hacking away and some repair work, but in the end I got there. A bit of Google image searching led to me painting them brown rather than black/grey which I think looks a bit better...

(Victorian Month) Gentlemen's Club VIII

Blimey it's wet and windy outside! After braving the ravening hordes at ASDA to buy the sprouts and parsnips for Xmas dinner I finished the last of miniature from EOTD-01 Gentlemen's Club from West Wind. This set has been much more fun to paint than I expected as I hadn't been too taken with the initial four sets of Empire of the Dead miniatures and it was the Requiem Kickstarter that hooked me.

Here are the second batch of four Gentlemen...

And here is the Club ready to go into action and thwart threats against the Empire! Vampire Clan next Gad!

(Victorian Month) Gentlemen's Club VII

Bit of a busy morning today as I manfully fought against a runny nose and aching sinus to not only finish off my second Orcs in the Webbe Advent Calendar contribution (Sharke's Barsoom, should be up tomorrow) but also paint the seventh member of the West Wind Gentlemen's Club set...

This one is a right character in his hunting jacket and fez. I have seen some wonderfully painted versions of this miniatures in tartan trews but I'm not up to that level of skill so went with a green hunting jacket and brown lounge trouser look, which seems to have worked.

Ok, time for a Lemsip!

(Victorian Month) Gentlemen's Club VI

Happy Solstice everyone, grabbing a few minutes earlier I managed to finish off the sixth miniature from the West Wind Gentlemen's Club set, just two more to go...

(Victorian Month) Gentlemen's Club V

There were a couple of things I did not resort to the internet for that I wanted to buy SWMBO for Christmas so after dropping her at work I popped up to The Mall. Even at just gone 9am the car park was filling up with people and I was reminded what a miserable experience Xmas shopping can be. I enjoy hunting out, buying and giving the presents, I just dislike the lemming process of shopping. To make things worse the things I wanted to buy weren't there so in the end I went home and bought them off Amazon. They'll be here Monday...

So to cheer myself up I painted another of the Empire of the Dead Gentlemen's Club miniatures...

(Victorian Month) Gentlemen's Club IV

Beautiful sunshine in Sunny Bristol this morning so I cracked on with the West Wind Gentlemen's Club with this wonderful masked vigilante type. As he is wearing a mask I decided to go with a largely black look, using blue to lighten the colour.

Half way through the set now, great miniatures...

(Victorian Month) Gentlemen's Club III

The latest miniature from West Wind's EOTD-1 Gentlemen's Club set, inspired by some of the more colourful coats worn by the richer characters in Ripper Street I went with this fetching lilac coat. I did enjoy painting it but with hindsight it does seem a tad vulgar for a British gentleman, perhaps this character can be a guest of a club member, maybe visiting from America? :-)

(Victorian Month) Gentlemen's Club II

Having enjoyed painting up the first of the West Wind Empire of the Dead figures at the weekend I decided to paint another from the Gentlemen's Club set! I hadn't planned to paint them one at a time but it is fun. They are beautifully sculpted figures and it is enjoyable to paint something slightly different than the Copplestone school of Foundry (not that I don't like this particular sculpting style, but a change is as good as a rest etc.)

(Victorian Month) Gentlemen's Club I

Despite a host of festive preparations needing doing I was determined to grab some time to slap a bit of paint on something despite the horrendous light today here in Bristol.

As Victorian Month had ground to a halt I picked on one of the undercoated West Wind Miniatures from the EOTD-01 Gentlemen's Club box.

A nice simple figure I went with a green-grey coat to contrast a slightly red-brown beard, with odd splashes of colour like the blue-grey scarf. Hopefully I will be able to grab some time to paint the rest of the set by the end of the month.

Big Box of Requiem Arrives!

As Wendy promised, the big box of Kickstarter Empire of the Dead: Requiem arrived from West Wind today and I spent most of my lunchtime rooting through it and trying not to drool too much! :-) There are a lot of lovely miniatures here though I haven't added up how many in case SWMBO reads this! Suffice to say Lead Mountain is now substantially higher!

Of course I need a plan to paint them and rather than jump in and paint the ones I like best first I have decided to paint them one pack at a time, in code order, starting with EOTD-01 Gentlemen's Club and working my way through.

Additionally rather than dedicate a month to Empire of the Dead I will slot packs into gaps in other projects to help relieve any monotony that might strike. Well that's the plan...

I have decided that all the miniatures will be based on urban cobblestone or paved bases, as I have done with my previous Victorian figures, so today ordered a pile off Fenris Games as I only had seven left which I have used on the Gentlemen's Club.