British Trench Raiders

 The first band of soldiers. Brigade Games miniatures from the US.

Sculpted by Mike "Artizan" Owen. I think the colours and leather jerkins are historically correct like this.

Very pale skin done with contrast paint and medium.

Captain and pug dog.

Evil Undead

Amazingly a new post, first time since March.

Didn't do too much but enough to post. 

I finished my Dark Ages chaos warriors. Half of the group I did years ago, when Frostgrave came out. These are nine warriors in 11th century armour. Adding a leader it will be a perfect unit for Oathmark. Possibly chaos armour, grown into the bodies of these damned knights.

The idea is that in a setting with a 5th century dark age technological level, elves and dwarves have better armour. Resembling Norman armour more or less. At which point Chaos Warriors in magical chaos armour may have their entire body covered in chainmail.

 With a new Oathmark supplement released covering the Undead I dug up some old stuff and painted some new things.

And old Grenadier zombie barbarian makes a great Revenant King

But there's also old Slough Feg, an old Fantasy Forge miniature. It was supposed to be part of a Slaìne range that never got released. Available from North Star.

This morning I painted some maniac ghouls. All Citadel contrast paints as they are test models. I absolutely love the concept of ghouls. Insane, degenerate inbred cannibals. The concept of degenerate men seems to have been a trend in the early 20th century.

Lovecrafts ghouls, Edgar Rice Burroughs' apemen of Opar, Tolkien's orcs, Robert E. Howard's Bran Mok Morn Picts, Morlocks... In the end it seems they're all tapping from the same concept or metaphore implying moral degeneration leads to physical degeneration. Or uglyness and physical impurity is a sign of moral decline.

Something like that. In any case there aren't any ghoul miniatures that I really like. Believe me I've searched everywhere. So in the end I decided to settle with naked human fanatics. I'm a rather childish guy and the idea of hordes of naked men makes me laugh. These are test figures. For a full unit I will use Foundry naked Spartan hoplites, tribal africans and ancient germans. I tried to paint these as sickly and disgusting as possible.

The Western Lands

It must be the heat, but I'm totally into Dracula's America western stuff. Not just dusty Sergio Leone imagery but also Acid Westerns like Jodorowsky's El Topo and Dead Man by Jim Jarmush. I should watch Blueberry too again, actually. I vaguely remember it was pretty good.
I settled for "the Western Lands" as a working title for this project, after the W.S. Burroughs novel.

In any case I've been painting more miniatures the last few days. 

This is King Rat. Sculpted by Mark Copplestone in the early 2000's I think. Based on the title character of China Mieville's book but in victorian dress. I imagine King Rat has crossed the Atlantic from England to America to track down Count Dracula for revenge or to settle an old debt. Taking out any vampire, necromancer or harbringer on his path.

I absolutely love this sculpt. It's a bit bigger than the usual 28mm miniature but just look at his face:

Following are these two zombies. On the left 'Dead' Iggy Jenko. On the right an old Grenadier 'Fantasy Classics' zombie Copplestone sculpt.

Iggy is done with a black undercoat, highlighted with GW Wraitbone and painted with Contrast paint.
The coat became a bit grimdark Blanchitsu in the process.

 
 

Swamp creatures

Yay! it's been two years since I painted Dracula's America toys!
The other day I've been experimenting some more with GW's Contrast paints and I still like it. Some things would work better with traditional paints though. Contrast isn't going to save us all, it's not the utopian solution to our problems, it isn't communism as my mate put it. Paint to the People! None of that.
But some colours are pretty swell. Applied well that is. 

Anyway here are some of North Star's DA miniatures.
I've got some more Foundry old west guys coming in to complete my vampire and voodoo congregation gangs. Can't beat those old Copplestone faces.

A Temple Snake, a giant serpent with a slightly human head summoned by the voodoo rites.

A Ghost Witch

A Manitou by Mike Owen

A minor servitor of Dagon. I believe this is an old Harlequin Miniatures swamp-troll. Probably sculpted by Mark Simms of Crusader Miniatures.

A deep one. This is a conversion of a Reaper caveman with a deep sea fish as a head.

The Great Bubblegut

A little bit of Rogue Trader renegades and human reinforcements.
Here's the Great Unclean One known as the Great Bubblegut. The real power behind the renegade champion, Bubblegut's aim is to take over Tishtrya IV and destroy everything through corruption, decay and disease.

It's a classic daemon but after leaving it unpainted and trying different horns for years I decided it actually looks good and kind of disturbing with this plastic dark eldar helmet crest/mane. 

 Some generic cultists. This is a mix of humans muties and aliens.

 
Harlequin/Black Tree ghouls, North Star martians, Citadel halforcs (one K.O.-ed) and a Copplestone lady. The half naked african lady I had for ages but I had no use for it. In the end I decided the only plausible explanation for anyone going around naked like that would be adhering to a chaos cult. The daemon is Ral Partha, I think by Tom Meier.

This here is a techpriest. Orignially a space marine armour variant, or artifier armour. It's a Copplestone sculpt and the same height as the Imperial Guard.

I did some vehicles over the year that I didn't show.

Converted mouse, Penal Battalion APC:

Mantic Dropship with crew: 

work in progress Tau devilfish used as a human transport.
I really like the hard sci-fi design. I imagine this crewed by pirates, poachers and smugglers.

Congregation Voodoo Queen

As it happens one or two times a year, I got sidetracked by a new project. This time it's Dracula's America. An Old West Gothic Horror skirmish game released by Osprey with miniatures by North Star. Miniatures by Mark Copplestone and Mike Owen that is. Just as the Rogue Star game last year and Frostgrave before, I'm basically in it for the miniatures. Copplestone did some amazing vampires and voodoo cultists. The latter are called the Congregation in the game.
I'll probably never play it but that doesn't matter. I finlly found a way to repurpose some Foundry Darkest Africa miniatures I had lying around for ages.
Here's the Voodoo Queen with her following.

I also bought some Foundry Old West miniatures. Who would've thought. I really never cared at all for cowboys and indians and the only western movies I like for more than the soundtrack are Dead Man and El Topo. Return to Cold Mountain isn't bad either.

That said Vampires, zombies and voodoo cultists are pretty cool.
Here's a mexican vampire ready to waste a drunk moonshiner

I also found a purpose for this great Bob Murch Ghast from the RafM Chtulhu range.
A Wendigo, an evil man-eating spirit from native american myth.
The parallels between Lovecraft's ghouls and ghasts and indian wendigo are actually amazing. More or less the same thing really.

I even made some scenery, two (of three-) abandoned slave cabins on a devastated plantation. The hide-out of the Congregation guerillas. I'm very happy with the result but it really took a long time to built, cutting out all these pieces of cardstock. Boring!

Next (hopefully) another cabin, a big barn for the voodoo celebrations (with all the symbols painted on floor and walls) and maybe a burned down plantation house.