Undead Skaven

[DarkDesigner]

So, I've been working on a Skaven Army with a Vampire Counts pact for Storm of Magic, the hook being that all the vampire counts models are dead Skaven (my reasoning being that if a vampire got hungry enough to bite a rat, it'd probably bite back). I've mostly got the Skaven side done, although I have a couple of models ready for the VC (I desperately want a second wave of Skaven with redone plague monks for zombies or skeletons - I can dream!).

Anyway, without further ado, here are the models with as brief a description as I can (well, you could always not read it. Assuming you read any of this in the first place...). This is just the pick of the pictures, but if you want more you can visit my Flickr account at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/65557562@N05/?saved=1

The Wraith is the first model I made for the army, upon which I tested the predominant army colours of red, purple and various rusted metals. I also tried out for the first time the verdigris effect which seems pretty popular at the moment, and I was pretty happy with it. It's inspired by the Death of Rats from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series.

The conversion is pretty simple, it's the plastic Wraith kit with the skull and spine taken from the Warlord Queek model, something I would have never even attempted in metal, so I am glad for Finecast, even though I had to resculpt the entire right side of his face due to a massive air bubble!

http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/971/deathofrats02.jpg http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/5889/deathofrats03.jpg http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/9165/deathofrats04.jpg http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/1850/deathofrats05.jpg

[DarkDesigner]

Up next are the core units of the army, a massive block of spear-rats and similarly large block of hand-weapons clanrats from the Island of Blood - 40 in each. I'm trying to decide between adding another 10 clanrats to each unit or a unit of 15 Stormvermin - so any Skaven players who fancy giving me some advice please feel free. The army is mainly story and look driven, but there's no harm in it being a viable gaming army too!

I haven't done much conversion work on these units, just a couple of rats in each unit that would have been command group from IoB, so I've had to improvise with whatever I had. Also the champions in each unit bear converted weapons from either hand of the IoB Skaven general.

I haven't finished painting them, for one thing the bases are completely bare. I plan on getting everything up to this standard before going the extra mile on everything at once. The bases will get the same treatment as the Vampire Count-come-Skaven general, which I'll get to soon!

For those who want to know, I paint all the base colours first (vermin brown or bestial brown fur, liche purple clothes, red gore wood, copper for weapon blades and black for armour plates), wash with ogryn flesh, drybrush all with the same colours except clothes with Warlock Purple and bare skin patches with bleached bone and paint details like ribbons in red gore, next wash with badab black, finally drybrush the bare skin patches with elf patches. And that's where I've left it for the moment.

http://img835.imageshack.us/img835/5377/clanratswithhandweapons.jpg http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/5377/clanratswithhandweapons.jpg http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/9484/clanratswithspears01.jpg http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/6486/clanratswithspears02.jpg

[DarkDesigner]

Ok, so this is my Grey Seer. Being a complete plastic-aholic, I wanted to use the Seer from the Screaming Bell kit, and after a bit of searching I found that he hung quite nicely off a steeple from the Garden of Morr kit. A tiny bit of sculpting and very little conversion work and here he is. You may also notice the flaming pile of skulls taken from the corpse cart on the inside of the building, which is my first attempt at object source lighting. At the moment I am not really happy with it, so I'll keep on plugging at it, but I wanted to share this while I'm uploading all the rest.

Painting techniques are the same as all the rest, but I switched purple robes for red to signify heroes, and they have some gold amongst their metals.

http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/1124/greyseer08a.jpg http://img804.imageshack.us/img804/6173/greyseer01a.jpg http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/1482/greyseer02a.jpg http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/796/greyseer06a.jpg

[DarkDesigner]

Saving the best for last, this is the leader of my Vampire Counts allies, my Vampire Skaven (Skavampire?) general. He's based on the Warlord Queek model, with the shield from the 2011 Games Day model and a banner constructed from an IoB standard, IoB warlord's banner and a brazier from the Screaming Bell. The branches on the base are dryad limbs, and the leaves are from a train modelling supply shop.

The paint scheme more or less follows the same techniques used on the other models, but I've taken it way past the level I left them at. I've lost count of how many washes and drybrush layers there are, but to get the tone of the skin, rather than using the warmer brown tones I used on the 'living' Skaven, I've used thraka green wash and camo green drybrushes along with bleached bone and kommando khaki. The armour is chainmail with a liche purple / Lahmian medium (Tears of the Emperor) wash. Other than that I think all the techniques are pretty standard, but let me know if there's anything else I can explain :3

http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/6007/vampireskavengeneral01.jpg http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/4561/vampireskavengeneral02.jpg http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/6299/vampireskavengeneral05.jpg http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/9543/vampireskavengeneral06.jpg

[DarkDesigner]

Last one for the moment! I thought you might like to see a close up on the rats at the bottom of the base. Due to another air bubble (like the one that decimated half the back banner's skull face on the Wraith), I had to resculpt the front paws of the head rat. Rather than try and emulate the original paws I decided to sculpt him clutching a lump of cheese, so it looks like he's running away with it with all the other rats chasing him for it. It undermines the seriousness of the piece in a way that pleases me greatly :3

http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/2595/vampireskavengeneralcu0.jpg

"Paws off ma cheeze!"

[Thiazi]

very nice. Love the wraiths.

[DarkDesigner]

Just the one wraith actually :) But thank you, I may consider some little ones for a retinue in the future.

[docbungle]

Looking good

[DarkDesigner]

Cheers :)

[ElectricPaladin]

Freaking excellent, man. These are great.

[DarkDesigner]

Thank you, I really appreciate all the nice comments :) I'll try get some more stuff up, currently working on Rat Ogres and Rat Swarms. The Rat Ogres aren't overly themed towards the vampire counts, but the rat swarms definitely have a corpse'like theme... wait and see!

[DarkDesigner]

Hey everyone, so I have finally gotten some more models to a standard that I'm happy to share them with you. I don't want to go on too much about them, but if you have any questions about any conversions or painting, or any suggestions on how I can improve, please do comment. So, without much further ado, here they are.

http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/4975/ratogresunit01.jpg http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/7106/ratogresunit02.jpg http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/1088/ratogresunit04.jpg http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/541/ratogresunit06.jpg

[DarkDesigner]

This is my Master-bred Rat Ogre. I will just say, you may notice that he is actually the smallest rat ogre in the unit. Well, as with much technology (DS, iPod, etc), it may be smaller, but it's twice as powerful. It's a Rat Ogre Nano.

http://img862.imageshack.us/img862/1345/ratogrea08.jpg http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/2363/ratogrea01.jpg http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/4842/ratogrea04.jpg http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/8540/ratogrea06.jpg

[DarkDesigner]

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/8094/ratogreb08.jpg http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/5647/ratogreb01.jpg http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/4485/ratogreb02.jpg http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/5951/ratogreb06.jpg

[DarkDesigner]

http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/8463/ratogrec02.jpg http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/5864/ratogrec03.jpg http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/9158/ratogrec05.jpg http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/9600/ratogrec07.jpg

[DarkDesigner]

http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/4488/ratogred08.jpg http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/6558/ratogred01.jpg http://img849.imageshack.us/img849/8086/ratogred03.jpg http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/3329/ratogred05.jpg

[DarkDesigner]

http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/1333/ratogree08e.jpg http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/6050/ratogree01.jpg http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/2295/ratogree03.jpg http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/3513/ratogree06.jpg

[DarkDesigner]

Here are the handlers for the unit. I mainly wrote this so you would know I am actually still here, uploading all this by hand. Yeah.

http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/5231/ratogrehandlers07.jpg http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/8518/ratogrehandlers08.jpg http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/3489/ratogrehandlers02.jpg http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/6086/ratogrehandlers04.jpg

[DarkDesigner]

And to finish off, my rat swarms. Cause I got over excited and showed all the cool stuff first. But I'm pretty damn chuffed with them all the same.

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/9053/ratswarms02.jpg http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/1549/ratswarms05.jpg

And, because I love you this much, an aerial shot (I bloody hate taking aerial shots):

http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/2980/ratswarms07.jpg

That's it for now, any comments, thoughts or advice are welcome :)

[DarkDesigner]

Wow, I haven't done anything for four months? I knew it had been a while but I had no idea it'd been that long.

Well, I'm afraid my Skaven have succumbed to my short attention span somewhat, actually I haven't had the hobby buzz to do anything for a while, I'm just finding it hard to get motivated. I have a couple of Doom Wheels, the clanrats and most of my characters waiting to be finished and pretty much the whole undead section not even bought yet, but at the end of the day I'd rather not try anything when my heart isn't in it as it just won't be to the standard I want.

However, this is what I have been working on lately - I picked up my Daemonette army again and have been tinkering with them, getting another batch ready to spray. When I start an army I pretty much always take a character model to test the paint scheme on, as I usually have a pretty good idea of the colours so I don't mind spending a bit longer on them to get it perfect so I can nail down the steps for the rank and file.

But I'm stuck again. I don't really know where to take the model, and I don't feel she's ready yet. I want to do something for the transition from red to white, but I don't know how to achieve it. Also I reckon black is the best choice for the eyes, but with a bit of a wet shine to them. So if you have any suggestions, please don't hesitate to comment.

Without further ado, here's the herald:

http://imageshack.us/a/img685/3645/heraldofslaanesh01.jpghttp://imageshack.us/a/img837/8693/heraldofslaanesh02.jpghttp://imageshack.us/a/img196/403/heraldofslaanesh03.jpg

[DarkDesigner]

http://imageshack.us/a/img534/3585/heraldofslaanesh04.jpghttp://imageshack.us/a/img405/171/heraldofslaanesh05.jpg

For the army I'm using the old Juan Diaz sculpt Daemonettes, which is why I tried to make the herald look as much like one of them as I can. I currently have Dark Elf harpy models for 'Slaaneshi' furies, although I'm considering selling them to buy some Avatar of War harpies instead. But then I think I'd prefer feathered wings and I'd probably swap the heads, meaning all I'm really using are the bodies... I think I need to think about it before I do anything rash!

Anyway, that's it for now, let me know what you guys think.