The Varghulf

I'm writing this as the final hours tick down on the poll, but I don't expect the results to change much by the time it ends. Looks like Terrain still holds the lead, with the other contenders... dropping? The total votes cast has even decreased from what it was earlier in the week. Which is weird, because I see a way to change your vote, but not a way to cancel it altogether.

Earlier this week, I edited the old entries so all the text would match. Early on I was importing text from Word for some posts, and typing others directly into blogger. The result was a mess of inconsistent fonts and sizing. Now everything is uniform, larger and light grey (and hopefully easier on the eyes). Posts now have tags, and I've added a list in the sidebar to make things a little easier to find, especially when a featured model spans multiple posts, like the Varghulf.

Speaking of which:

The beast is finished, and he's already been in battle. The Terror-causing Varghulf forced a unit of Empire Greatswords to flee, and he caught and slaughtered them all. Kind of a shame, because I wanted to see how he stood up in actual combat. Oh well– Next time, Steve. Next time.

I painted this guy over the course of a few evenings, beginning with the base. The skeletons and tombstones followed the same scheme laid out in my Graveyard Bases tutorial.

The wing membranes were the most time consuming because I wanted smooth blends, and worked the color with a wet blending technique to get the desired shade. The base color is Beastial Brown, mixed with Battlefield Brown. (This went over the entire model.) Some highlights were drybrushed up with a mix of Bestial and Gun Corps Brown. 

Then, a wash of GW Brown Ink, Battlefield, and Bestial Brown, with some water and P3 Mixing Medium was applied over the wing. Before the wash dried, I pulled up some with a dry tank brush, and lightly brushed over the center of the membrane with thinned Bestial Brown, creating a blend that really softened the drybrushed highlights.

When the first wash was dry, I added a healthy amount of Armor Wash to the mix and essentially two-brush blended this into the recesses, using it to darken the membranes at the edges and closest to the Varghulf's hand. (I say "essentially" because I don't use the traditional saliva method, preferring a wet brush to soften and blend out the edges of the wash, and a dry brush to pull up the wash when it becomes too heavy.)

The skin on the fingers, arms and legs came next. This was highlighted up in layers with mixes of Beastial and Gun Corps Brown, and 'Jack Bone. The brown wash from above was used to shade the recesses and, at this stage, the fur.

When the wash was dry the fur was drybrushed with Bestial Brown and (very little) Snakebite Leather. 

The bones, claws and teeth were based with Bleached bone, washed with Brown Ink and Snakebite Leather, and then highlighted a bit with Bleached Bone and menoth White Highlight. For the finishing touch, I painted the bloody parts and eyes using Scab Red, Skorne Red, and a little Brown Ink. 

If you want to see the converted, unpainted miniature, check out the April 16th post "On Leather Wings."

'Til next time!

On Leather Wings

The poll appears to be going along smoothly (although there are still a lot of you left to vote). Looks like Terrain, Skaven, and Malifaux are in the lead, with More Vampire counts catching up quickly, and absolutely no love for the Necrons. (Even LOTR got a vote and I forgot to include them on the list!) I'm hoping to use this as a gauge to see where the readers' interests lie, so please vote even if it appears that your choice may already out of the running.

Bat Swarms

The swarms are finished. After looking at some images of bats, I went with a darker wing color. Many bats have an almost black, leathery wing with sharp contrast to their lighter (sometimes pink) arms and fingers. Once painted, the bats pinned into the tombstones rather cleanly, and only required minor touch up to the attachment points once the glue was dry.

Fell Bats

These Fall Bat conversions are a few years old, made back in my days at GW. They use the Vampire Bat bodies and heads from the classic range and wyvern wings from the Warmaster range.

Varghulf Conversion

To mount the Varghulf atop the grave marker in a leaping attack pose, I repositioned his legs. Each section of the leg is cut and rejoined with a single rod running through the length of the leg. The pads between each talon were clipped away, and the talons given a slight curl. The gaps and joins were repaired and resculpted with epoxy modeling putty.

As I worked on the Balrog wings, I discovered that the plastic is actually rather thick (almost 1/8"). In order to punch through to create the holes, I needed to dremmel the surface of the membrane to create depressions where the holes would be. This worked to create a stretched and tattered wing. Each surface needed to be scraped smooth to remove the dremmel marks. To do this in the concave areas I used the rounded tip of a palette knife and used a technique similar to scraping mold lines.

One of my pet peeves about fantasy bats is that the wings are rarely correct. The skin of a bat's wing connects from the wing tip, all the way to its tail. When stretched out, it forms a single membrane spanning the entire wingspan. Bats don't have a separate "tail" the way birds do. (A lesson I learned after finishing my fell bats, unfortunately.)

I took this into consideration when working on the Varghulf. The Balrog wings already had some wing structure extending back toward the tail. I removed the ribbing and added styrene card spacers to fill in the gaps. Even though it doesn't connect to the legs like it should, it's close enough to satisfy my obsessive mentality.

The sculpting was done in two layers. First was a "musculature" layer to fill in the gaps and block out the back and shoulder muscles. I also modeled the skin over the wing extensions. Once this was cured, the fur was sculpted on the arms, back, and sides. I also added some exposed muscle on the shoulders.

As of writing this, the Varghulf is primed and ready to paint. I can't wait to get this beast finished and on the tabletop!

'Til next time!

Swarm Update and a Poll

The swarms are coming along slowly but surely. Turns out it was only 41 bats, but every one of their pointy metal wing tips must have poked me about 100 times while I cleaned the mold lines and painstakingly pinned each bat together. These little "bat trees" will peg into the top of the tombstones on the swarm bases. I'm really satisfied with the way these are turning out, and I'm getting excited to see what they will look like finished.

It was perfect priming weather today, so I sprayed all of the stands. Each one is pinned into a dowel which serves as a painting handle. I'm hoping to knock them all out today as I catch up on GI Joe: Renegades on Netflix.

The Varghulf's base has been assembled. As with the swarm bases, I modeled skeletons rising from the graves, and used a combination of tombstones from different plastic and resin kits.

Poll

Once I finish off this batch of bats, I'll be painting up my dire wolf conversions and doing a piece on my skeletons and banners, but I'd like to know what all of you are interested in seeing next. As I mentioned at the outset of this blog, I've got a ton of models and armies for different games (and even more projects-in-waiting). So, in an effort to keep this from becoming the "Vampire Counts show" I've added a poll over on the sidebar to see what everyone is interested in. Feel free to make other suggestions in the comments section as well.

I'll leave the poll up through April as I finish off these other projects, and we'll see where we go from there!

"Til next time!

Kings and Wings

Commission work has been keeping me pretty busy, but I managed to squeeze in some time to paint the kings:

Attentive readers will notice the bracers on the one with the raised axe. After the initial conversion, I thought his thin, bony arms and the way the cape bulged out in the back was making the figure look a little portly in the middle. So, I shaved down the cape to give it a more natural hang, and bulked up his arms by sculpting bracers. I also concealed his sides a little more with some knives and pouches taken from the plastic Grave Guard kit. All this helps give him a more heavily armed and armored appearance, and further distinguishes him from the other king.

The red armor uses a formula I had discovered years ago while painting my battle standard– It's basically Scab Red with a (very) little Blood Red and Dwarf Flesh mixed in for the highlights. To keep things from going too pink, I apply a thin glaze of Brown Ink and Scab Red in the recesses.

The Varghulf is proceeding slowly, but surely. I've got the reposing and sculpting of his body finished. The Balrog wings have been suitably tattered, and pinned in place. All that remains is to putty the joins and add some fur on the arms.

As you can see, I'm simultaneously working on some bat swarms. I've never been too keen on the "official" bat swarm models. The bats are too large, and they all have the same, upright pose. I settled on Warmaster Fell Bats to use as swarms. They're small, posable, and separate, so each swarm base can look totally unique.

The bats and Varghulf will all be "airborne," pinned into tombstones to create a scenic base. I picked up the Garden of Moor hoping to cannibalize some posts or statuary, but there really aren't any large, solid pieces that would be good for mounting the Varghulf. After some searching, I came across a set of resin grave markers by Custom Dioramics at my local hobby shop.

Once the Varghulf's sculpting is complete, I'll model all the scenic bases for it and the swarms, and paint them all in one batch. I guess that will be sort of like a unit grind.

'Til next time!