Vash1313's Bretonnian Themed Vampire Counts

[Sniper_Killer]

Mean, Moody, Magnificent!
really well painted and i believe you caught the feel of the army perfectly

[Elazar The Glorified]

Your painiting on these minis is top notch! Really good idea and you've pulled it off well. It's amazing that you've managed to make the Bretonnian Knights look quite so evil with that paint job and I love the vampire lord from the very beginning. Can you put up an army shot as I imagine these look very impressive together?

[noeste]

Wow! Your conversions and painting is really amazing! You've really captured the look of an army which seems to have been on the march for a couple of centuries, heh. Wonderful! Love your vampires, agree that the five inch long fangs most GW-vampires seem to have, are a bit over the top...

Grave Guard

These guys are a bit of a mixed bag for me. I like the way they turned out but they just don't look Bretonnian. They don't stick out like a sore thumb but I would prefer something a little more in line with the theme I am going for. I might try mixing some of the Knights of the Realm plastics with the Men at Arms and see if I can make some knights on foot. You have seen my army up to this point - how do you think the current Gave Guard I am using look with the rest of the army?

I think the main issue is their armour, which looks kinda gothic, and the helmets of the Grave Guard got that famous Gothic/Preussian spike on top, which kinda screams 'Empire' and not french-influenced Brettonia.
But I think the unit would've lost their Grave Guard feel, if you'd put a typical Brettonian helmet on their faces, as the faceguard would hide their skeletal heads..
If you'd like a heavy sculpting-job, you could try to make Bretonnian helmets with their faceguards tipped up over their forehead, so their skeletal skulls would be visible underneath...

But on the other hand, you've done a flawless job at painting them, and kept to the unifing colourscheme and technique, so I have no doubts your Grave Guard fits into your army!
But yea, they could look more Bretonnian-like.

Good luck with it, have subscribed and I am waiting eagerly for seeing more of your progress!

[Jedi152]

Gorgeous! How did you do the armour and weapons?

[vash1313]

Thanks for all the comments. I have been considering shaving off all of the spikes and wings off of the Grave Guard helms and sculpting a nose guard to give them a crusader style helm, replace the sword blade with an axe head so they all have 2 handed axes, and removing the shoulder pads - that might make them look a little more medieval.

Gorgeous! How did you do the armour and weapons?

Armor and weapons were done by painting a layer of Reaper Uniform Brown first. Second I stippled on a layer of vomit brown, followed by a lighter coat of macharius solar orange, and finally reaper marigold yellow. This creates the rust color. Next I carefully paint either chainmail or boltgun metal on the edges of all the weapons and armor. Just think of anyplace the rust is likely to get worn off by wear and tear. This is a bit time consuming but worth it. I wash all the armor in devlan mud. You want it to collect in the recesses to give definition but you only want it to tone down the rust color and the metal. After it dries, go back and touch up the metals, but only a little bit.

[Punk_in_Drublic]

Great army, can you treat us to an army shot? Do you have any plans for more bretonnia influenced units? (Sorry if you have answered this already, I've been distracted by all the pretty pictures)

Laters,

-Punk

[noeste]

Mm, I think removing the spikes etc will help a lot on their look, and fit them together with the rest of the army.

Good luck with it, I'll be waiting most eagerly for the final results! And once more, thanks for an excellent thread!

[Malorian]

This looks fantastic. The green knight conversion is my favorite

[vash1313]

Thank you everyone for the comments.

Finally an update!

After finishing my unit of Crypt Ghouls I have come to the conclusion that I will never paint another unit of Crypt Ghouls. They were just a major pain in the butt to finish. I started out with a very vague notion of how I wanted them to look but I really did not have anything concrete so I couldn't formulate a process in my mind. So I pretty much dove right in and frustrated myself with a lot of trial and error. Several times I would get the flesh completely finished for the unit, step back and then decide it was not working and re-ink everything.

Just last week I finished working on 40 zombies. They only took about a week and a half and were pretty fun to paint. I am considering giving them one more brown glaze.

As usual I would love to hear some feedback, good or bad.

Great army, can you treat us to an army shot? Do you have any plans for more bretonnia influenced units? (Sorry if you have answered this already, I've been distracted by all the pretty pictures)

Laters,

-Punk

Right now I am looking at using the Grail Reliquary as a Black Coach but I have not worked whether to have them mounted on some kind of wagon or if I should just make them some kind of mob.

I am also looking at using the new LOR Army of the Dead figures as Spirit Host - and use the Barrow Wights as Wraiths, Warmachine Deathwalker that accompanies Goreshade for the Banshee.

The Bretonnian King on hippogriff would make a great Vampire Lord on Abyssal Terror.

Undead Giant Hawks for Fell Bats.

Would love to find a flock of crows set that I could use instead of bat swarms.

However I think I am going to take a bit of a break from VC and recharge the batteries on something else for a little bit.

Cheers.

[Daniel36]

This is, without a doubt, the best Vampire Counts army I have ever seen! I never liked the idea GW has with their Counts, how the skellies all have shields that don't belong to any army... Undead should always be themed to a specific human army. I always applaud people that do such a thing.

I don't think the Grave Guard look out of place. To me, the whole idea of these Guards is that they are so incredibly old, that their armour should reflect that... Normal skeletons shouldn't look archaic, but it works for the Grave Guard. For some reason, I feel the Ghouls are more out of place... They have such an Empire feel about them, though I can't really tell why.

Your knights are by far my favourites (Lords included). They look amazing. The whole dirty and dulled Bretonnian heraldry thing is just gobsmacking. You have to tell us how you go about doing such a thing. Your Lord, by the way, looks VERY Undead on it's own. He has an unmistakable vampirical look. He looks more Vampire than the "real" models.

Details I enjoy are your banners. Well done!

One last thing I would like to remark. I HATE the Zombie models, I think they look ridiculous, but your paintjob just brings these models to a whole new level. The way you painted them makes the models in itself look good, and that is a feat that should not be taken lightly!

Criticism? Well, alright. I don't like the green light coming from the Knights. The horse eyes are alright, but the light coming from their nostrils doesn't look good, and the light coming from their helmets doesn't seem to work either, in my eye. I think it's because the entire models have a greenish hue. Perhaps blue would work better... But that might just as well be a matter of opinion.

Now, instead of praising you into heaven, I could be painting my own stuff, which perhaps I should. Keep it up, great army!

One last tip. Army shot!

[sainthale1988]

fantastic paint job, you have set the bar for my black knights. truely subbed.

[wascloud]

loving the fabrics, excellent work, very realistic weathering as well.... you know, as realistic as long dead peasants re-animated by necromantic power can be... :P
good work!
wascloud

[The Syko Ward]

These are awesome looking troops! I'm not into the VC's but Brets are cool. And combining them is actually pretty darn neat looking. Keep up the great work!

[vash1313]

Thank you again for all the comments.

Army pics!

[8bitMummies]

Your army is unbelievably cool. The atmosphere it creates is perfect! It is nice to see a VC army that actually feels cold, dead, and merciless.
I'm trying to paint my Beastmen in a similar murky fashion, and this log is very inspiring.
You managed to make the GW zombies look frightening!

[Anardakil]

Wow. Your army looks awesome! Let me play against it

[stonetroll]

splendid looking army!

Having recently started an alive Bretonnian army, I definately know how much work it is to paint even a single Knight to a decent standard. I applaud your theme-ing and hope you will return to this army soon!

[Demrush]

Fantastic army overall. I especially love those black knights and the red knight; two great conversions. The free hand stuff is also very well done and gives the army a very unified look. Perhaps the ghouls look out of place because they don't have any clothing pieces on them that allows you to really incorporate them into the army (although that is in no way your fault). Also, a note on the zombies: your paint job has made them look more than acceptable and as was mentioned, that's no easy feat. Plus, their positioning on the bases really gives them the whole "shambling horde of mindless brain eating zombies" kinda look!

Also, if you wouldn't mind, could you please give us your recipe for the ghouls? I'd like to add variety to my ghouls and I'm thinking of painting another unit in different colors.

All in all, I'd say you created an army worthy of a thousand praises! (O.K....maybe just 100).

[vash1313]

The ghouls really were a lot of trial and error so I'm not really sure how I would replicate my method. I kind of got lost between beginning and end. Here are the basics that I can piece together:
Start with Reaper bloodless skin
Wash with brown wash and purple wash
Bring up the skin with a light coat of Rotting Flesh
Wash with a thinned down mix of purple and brown wash you may have to use multiple coats and never apply it thick enough to pool
Highlight with very thin coat of rotting flesh
VERY light glaze of purple and brown wash - you may have to use multiple coats and never apply it thick enough to pool

[zigoR]

cool army & painting very dark and evil... as VC should be