Symrivven's Dark Elves and Vampire Counts

[thesheriff]

Fantastic progress on the mage on pegasus.

Stupid question, what site is that model from?

[Punk_in_Drublic]

Great plog, I'm looking forward to every update. The sorceress on peg is a gamezone dark elf mini, you can get it from maelstrogames.co.uk. Got it myself. It's a bit fiddly with smaller details than the GW models, but it's a great piece.

[LocaLicious]

Really beautiful... Smooth painting , and that blue color is so nice!

[Finn]

Fantastic progress on the mage on pegasus.

Stupid question, what site is that model from?

Gamezone is the original mini, I believe. They're based in Europe (Germany?), and have fantastic sculpts.

[Sully]

Gamezone is a Spanish company.

[thesheriff]

Gamezone is the original mini, I believe. They're based in Europe (Germany?), and have fantastic sculpts.

Gamezone is a Spanish company.

thanks!

thread returned

[Symrivven]

What they said, Gamezone miniatures. Beautiful dynamic models but a pita to assemble.

Here's some more from Gamezone miniatures, mournful knights, probably the best alternative to GW's bloodknights, unfortunately they have swords instead of lances so I had to pull out the green putty.







I'll make some better pics for the finished results.

[mdiscala]

Doesn't look like it was too easy to sculpt lances out of greenstuff. Good work.

[Finn]

Also, have you any pics of the GSing "in progress" on the bases? I had been wondering how to base mine...

[Symrivven]

Doesn't look like it was too easy to sculpt lances out of greenstuff. Good work.

I used the spears from the skeleton box as lance, 1 1/4 spear makes one lance. Clip (in one case grind) of the swords till the hands, then drill holes the size of the spears trough the hands and put one spear on one side and the other 1/4 on the other side. Then with green putty the lance can be made, I sculpt it in the general shape and then sanded it down (Contrary to popular belief green stuff can be sanded or filed without a problem, just use fine enough materials).
The pennants are made of iron wire. Bend it in the right shape and glue it to the lance. Then reinforce the part where its glued with green putty, wait for it to harden and span some green putty over the wire and sculpt it in the desired shape.

Also, have you any pics of the GSing "in progress" on the bases? I had been wondering how to base mine...

No wip shots, though its indeed tough to position them right, they are rather heavy mini's and most of them are only connected by one thin leg (basic physics fail).
To get them in the right position I first drilled a hole in the hooves then put some iron wire in the leg and benneded it in an L shape. This would give the grey stuff* something to hold on to. Putting the model on its back I attached the leg to the slotta base with grey stuf. (Putting the model on its back is essential, the not yet hardened grey stuf is not tough enough to support the model but its tough enough to support the plastic slotta base while still retaining its position.) Finally I used green stuff to fill up the holes give some extra stability and create some random terrain on the base.

*I used grey stuff (pro create) because when mixed right it's a lot stiffer than green stuff.

[Scythe]

Looking good! They do seem like a pain to get ranked up though

[silverstu]

Oh great you the mournful knights! Nice conversion for the lances- really keen to see you paint them up- bought one myself as a tester and I'd like to do a full unit. They are lovely sculpts but as you say a pain to build- hard to see what is detail and what is flash as well.
looking forward to seeing your work on them [don't forget the close-ups!] I'll be doing my lone knight over christmas - so I might be looking for some pointers!

[SoggyRizla]

The conversion of that hydra is seamless, and the paint job is excellent. I really like the use of colours in the army. It's understated yet it still really stands out. GJ

I need to learn how to do freehand like you!

[Symrivven]

Hey Everyone

Finally! I finished the most arduous part of the zombie project the first 20 zombies are done:




I wanted something else for the zombies, because I never really liked the rotting shambling horde thing (no I didn't choose the wrong army) so I had to find an alternative that more or lest matched the army. The army already contains a flying broom and I figured that an animated broom would be at least a match to a (GW)zombie in terms of combat effectiveness thus animated brooms where born. For those that didn't notice this unit is heavily based on the sorcerers apprentice (originally: Der Zauberlehrling) and specifically Disney's fantasia interpretation.

One more shot of the unit:




A closeup of one of the water bearers and water throwers:



The musician was easy, I can't think of a person that hasn't drummed on a bucket once in his life?



The banner bearer was a bit more difficult, the easy solution would be a broom or mop of some kind but it felt kind of awkward to have a broom carry a broom. I tried a long hedge trimmer but it didn't really match the cleaning/water theme.
Eventually I settled on an Umbrella. I really like the image of a broom that got a bit more aware than the rest of the animated brooms. So much that he decided he'd rather stay dry, while commanding his fellow brooms to drown everything in large amount of water, cleaning agents and other chemicals.



One more unit shot and a few wip pics in my next post.

[BeatTheBeat]

Genius! Really like that unit, fits especially well with that broom-riding Lahmian of yours.

Empire Soldier 1: These Vampires... We'll be lucky to survive this night.
Soldier 2: It's not the vampires you should fear, Soldier 1. It's the brooms.
Soldier 1: ...Brooms?
Soldier 2: You see these scars? You think a VAMPIRE made them? BROOMS! BROOMS AND WATER I TELL YE!
Soldier 1: Freak.
Soldier 2: At least we will have a clean death.

[Symrivven]

All brooms have been hand crafted. I don't have any pictures left of the work I did on the brooms as I made them more or less a year ago. but the principle is easy cut a toothpick in the right size, add green putty in the general shape of the desired bristles to the toothpick. After it has hardened add a thin layer of green putty in which the bristles details can be sculpted.
After that I put the project aside for some time as I didn't have a decent way to make all the buckets, simply cutting or sawing them from a wooden or plastic rod didn't cut it.
Eventually I crafted one detailed bucket and copied it many times with two instant mold's I made. By cutting of the top differently for every bucket they don't look to much like copies.




Eventually the arms of the brooms and the handles of the buckets have been made of iron wire and the water in the buckets has been sculpted from green putty.




Putting it all together resulted in this. The 'shoulders' secure the arms and all brooms have been pinned to the base. Finally the umbrella has two bases as as it skeleton glued together this create a perfect 8 pointed star in he right size, a few layers of green putty did the rest.




These are the "zombies" half painted:




And a final shot fully painted:




Eventually I plan on a bigger unit with 3 or 4 unit fillers and some more brooms. For now I have made enough brooms and buckets so there might be some blood knights next.

[Duke Donald]

I love your zombie-brooms! This is such a cool idea and the execution is amazing. You get my vote for the unit of the year!

[Scythe]

Very impressive work on the brooms! I wish I had even half of your green stuff modelling and painting talent. So, the new book retriggered your interest in Vampire Counts as well?

[Finn]

That, sir, is amazing. And infringing upon my idea of a "Darker side of Disney" Daemons army. Curse you!

[Ister Flersson]

Amazing! Awesome idea, sculpting and painting with the zombie brooms.