ACE01's Sigmar's Blood - Vampire Counts (and a bit of Empire)

[ACE01]

Prompted by Mr Mystery's thread - [URL="http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?40179-A-Tale-of-literally-some-gamers-Getting-started-in-Warhammer-for-all-ages"]A Tale of literally some gamers[/URL] - I'll be keeping a project log as I work through the Sigmar's Blood campaign book. You can expect to find plan, build and painting progress of the Vampire Counts side, along with some Empire characters I'll be painting for my regular opponent!

Updates should be at least weekly, but likely more often than that, as I'm counting on the pressure of the BOLS forum to force me to stick to schedule. Please assist me by cajoling, jeering, insulting, criticising, trolling, begging, complimenting or ignoring me as you see fit!

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First off 'The Plan':

My usual, 'buy what I like, finish whenever I have time' approach generally leads to me getting nothing completed for myself as I flit between projects for myself & other people. As a result, I've planned my purchasing to fit the campaign, with a few amendments to the suggested forces as below:

Chunk 1 - VC Battleforce - Status: Built!

Corpse Cart
20 Ghouls
20 SW w/ HW&S
10 Dire Wolves

Chunk 2 - Status: Purchased:

Count Mannfred
30 SW w/ Spears
3 Crypt Horrors

Chunk 3 - Status: Purchased:

Vampire on Foot w/ Shield
Necrarch Vampire on Foot
5 Hexwraiths
Black Coach

Chunk 4 - Status: Awaiting purchase:

FW Wight King BSB
5 Black Knights
20 extra SW w/ HW&S (Purchased)

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I'll eventually come back to this first post and edit in the completed force, but for now, a preview of what's to come by way of some photos of the first model I've done for the campaign, the Arch Lector from the third battlescroll:



Left Shot

Right Shot

Apologies for the average photography, shot from my phone rather than the camera + lights.

[ACE01]

Update # 1

Chunk 2 has been delivered, and assembly of the battalion box set has commenced in the form of Dire Wolves! Tomorrow is designated 'bring out yer dead' Friday...

[eldargal]

Always good to see more VC, will keep an eye on this.

[ACE01]

Bit of a shoddy weekend, managed to build the Corpse Cart, and the horses for my Black Knights. Necromancer on the cart awaiting details to make the spear into a staff.





Also, Kurt Helborg.



Hoping to get through Ghouls over the next couple of days!

[TheGreatFireDrake]

Wow, two of my favourite armies in one plog. I love this! I was seconds away from buying the limited edition blood of sigmar, im still tempted to buy it and dig out my own vamps and empire. Keep up the good work man.

[ACE01]

OK, so I went ahead and built my battleforce, and I have to say, although I was dreading the thought of building more skeletons (I've got a TK army...) the VC skeletons, while still fiddly, were not bad at all!

Sorry for the lack of visual updates, was away with work (and planning my forthcoming wedding) so will post some pics up in the next few days with the start of my somewhat unusual ghoul colour scheme. Will be interesting to see what people's thoughts are of the skin tone, which came to me in my head after discovering some paints in a carrier in my car that were intended for my Lizardmen force...

[ACE01]

Right so after a bit of a delay I've got my first of two or three test ghouls done. Given my tendency to have incomplete forces, I'm aiming for something of basic tabletop standard for this VC army, as the hobby hours I can spend painting are being somewhat diminished by a mix of work and RPG. As a result, this guy is painted purely with washes and FX paints, to allow for speedy replication. Missing stages from my test are feet detailing, hair, bandage and bone details, as I'm simply trying to get the skin-tone down.







My first thoughts are that there's plenty of texture, but the layering of colour has overpowered the paler look I was pushing for, so my second tester will use a more diluted wash mix and have more pale blue highlights. I've bought the necessary missing fleshtones so will post up version 2 in the next few days.

I'm not particularly used to doing 'dirty' flesh, so any feedback welcome. Thoughts on v1 anyone?

-A-

[The_Gonk]

The detail on that ghoul is fantastic and the blood effects are absolutely sick!!

Definitely will be following this one! Sorry I can't offer tips on the 'dirty' flesh you're painting way above my level mate!

[ACE01]

Cheers for the feedback Gonk, I will get round to updating this soon, promise!

A little distracted by RPG and LOTR elves...