Picture the scene if you will. An old man shuffles back to his painting table after a 4 year break. He blames his deteriorating eyesight on 4 years without brush licking, and curses throwing out all of his old paints back when he decided he\'d \'grown out of it\'. Oh how deluded that thought was.
Ok, enough with the amateur (very) dramatics. After a long break I found myself getting that twitch again and decided to indulge myself and start painting. I went out and restocked on paints, then went out again and restocked on the paints I forgot to buy first time, then for good measure went out again and restocked on Vallejo paints and some Tamiya pigments (which I really like, even when compared to MIG).
Of course, this new lease of painting life required a project, but knowing my old eyes would likely be out of focus, and my old hands would likely be shaking I decided to just paint a few bits and bobs first to get my eye in. I won\'t post those here as they range from abyssmal, to, erm, abyssmal?
Having \'zero\'d in\' my eyesight, and empowered myself with a few weeks of brush licking I decided it was time to actually start a project. I\'ve always been a fan of painting tournament armies, so that\'s the route I\'m going this time. After much deliberating, and painting the odd piece from different armies I settled on Vampire Counts. I wanted something moody, and I wanted to start trying OSL and weathering, which are disciplines I\'ve never really indulged in before. I had a vision of a shambling horde with blue glowing eyes, and that remains the core concept.
I decided to start with my flagship unit whilst enthusiasm levels were high, not wanting to dilute that by painting 4989875 skellingtons, so I began looking at Grave Guard.
At this point 2 things happened. First I decided I hated GW Grave Guard, I\'ve seen rabbits that looked more intimidating! Second, I decided I really like the Chaos Chosen figures. It took a little while for these thoughts to blend in my head, but eventually common sense prevailed and I decided on some simple conversions.
Chaos symbols got filed away and replaced with skulls and such like, and new heads were built from green stuff so they didn\'t just look like Chaos Warriors.
Having finished painting the first one I decided to paint a Vampire just to establish an overall colour scheme and feel. Those 2 figures are now complete and will form the basis of this WIP thread, a starting point if you will.
A few things to note. This is table top standard. Now, I don\'t treat table top as a score between 0 and 10, rather I think of it as how much time I invest in each miniature to know I can complete the army in a sensible time scale. As a benchmark I like to spend 4-5 hours per figure for an army, with that reduced for core units and expanded for centre pieces (in this army hopefully a big corpse cart conversion and some undead ogres). Conversions are therefore kept simple, and blending isn\'t as smooth as it could be.
I\'m experimenting with 2 techniques I picked up reading Sebastian over at Guild of Harmony. The first was using GW metals, but washing them down to a dull finish. This seemed to work ok but left them a little flat, so I worked the metals back up on a couple of focal points to try and draw the eye and give a little diversity. The second was OSL glowy eyes. I\'m new to both these techniques and I feel the first figures I paint will end up in rear ranks as subsequent figures show more refinement, or at least that\'s the plan!!
Bases are greenstuffed, which is a diversion from my usual table top methods, but I wanted something moody, nothing to spoil the mood like the undead gaily dancing through green pastures hand in hand!!
Oh, and apologies for the photography, I must invest in a new fangled high pixel thingamy whatsit!
Right, enough waffle, here are some pics of the first completed figures. Judge not an old man too harshly for his eyes are not what they were!!
(p.s I\'m actually only 31, but by god does that feel old when I think I picked up my first plastic space marine aged around 11!!)
Ok, enough with the amateur (very) dramatics. After a long break I found myself getting that twitch again and decided to indulge myself and start painting. I went out and restocked on paints, then went out again and restocked on the paints I forgot to buy first time, then for good measure went out again and restocked on Vallejo paints and some Tamiya pigments (which I really like, even when compared to MIG).
Of course, this new lease of painting life required a project, but knowing my old eyes would likely be out of focus, and my old hands would likely be shaking I decided to just paint a few bits and bobs first to get my eye in. I won\'t post those here as they range from abyssmal, to, erm, abyssmal?
Having \'zero\'d in\' my eyesight, and empowered myself with a few weeks of brush licking I decided it was time to actually start a project. I\'ve always been a fan of painting tournament armies, so that\'s the route I\'m going this time. After much deliberating, and painting the odd piece from different armies I settled on Vampire Counts. I wanted something moody, and I wanted to start trying OSL and weathering, which are disciplines I\'ve never really indulged in before. I had a vision of a shambling horde with blue glowing eyes, and that remains the core concept.
I decided to start with my flagship unit whilst enthusiasm levels were high, not wanting to dilute that by painting 4989875 skellingtons, so I began looking at Grave Guard.
At this point 2 things happened. First I decided I hated GW Grave Guard, I\'ve seen rabbits that looked more intimidating! Second, I decided I really like the Chaos Chosen figures. It took a little while for these thoughts to blend in my head, but eventually common sense prevailed and I decided on some simple conversions.
Chaos symbols got filed away and replaced with skulls and such like, and new heads were built from green stuff so they didn\'t just look like Chaos Warriors.
Having finished painting the first one I decided to paint a Vampire just to establish an overall colour scheme and feel. Those 2 figures are now complete and will form the basis of this WIP thread, a starting point if you will.
A few things to note. This is table top standard. Now, I don\'t treat table top as a score between 0 and 10, rather I think of it as how much time I invest in each miniature to know I can complete the army in a sensible time scale. As a benchmark I like to spend 4-5 hours per figure for an army, with that reduced for core units and expanded for centre pieces (in this army hopefully a big corpse cart conversion and some undead ogres). Conversions are therefore kept simple, and blending isn\'t as smooth as it could be.
I\'m experimenting with 2 techniques I picked up reading Sebastian over at Guild of Harmony. The first was using GW metals, but washing them down to a dull finish. This seemed to work ok but left them a little flat, so I worked the metals back up on a couple of focal points to try and draw the eye and give a little diversity. The second was OSL glowy eyes. I\'m new to both these techniques and I feel the first figures I paint will end up in rear ranks as subsequent figures show more refinement, or at least that\'s the plan!!
Bases are greenstuffed, which is a diversion from my usual table top methods, but I wanted something moody, nothing to spoil the mood like the undead gaily dancing through green pastures hand in hand!!
Oh, and apologies for the photography, I must invest in a new fangled high pixel thingamy whatsit!
Right, enough waffle, here are some pics of the first completed figures. Judge not an old man too harshly for his eyes are not what they were!!
(p.s I\'m actually only 31, but by god does that feel old when I think I picked up my first plastic space marine aged around 11!!)
Keep it up :beer: B.