Renaissance of the Dead

 Still in time for Zomtober!

I hadn't really noticed that this time of the year was coming, but a gentle post by mighty Dave Stone from Wargames Terrain Workshop served as a heads up. In fact it was a happy coincidence, as just a few days ago I had found some zombies in a box at the bottom of the shelf. The timing couldn't be better, so I knew I had to paint them!

They belong to the Undead ranges by The Assault Group, a company I had heard a lot about, but had never got the chance to try by myself. I can only say that the design and sculpts are amazing. They have that Oldschool quality that makes them so enjoyable to paint, they are a real pleasure to the brush.

Here you have the Landsknecht Zombies:

Or are they Zombie Landsknechts?

No peacock feathers this time

It's a quite straightforward paintjob, I think it's the kind of stuff that suits these minis. Their colours are still visible, I didn't want to desaturate them too much, as I believe that colour is a relevant part of the oldschool approach.

Yeah, I think they are in need of some directions

 I chose yellow and green for a couple of reasons. First of all is because I think the combo looks cool, not that I need anything else to base my decisions.

But there's another reason. In the WHFB world, those are the colours of the province of Stirland, a place bordering with Sylvania (well, formally comprising Sylvania), home to the Von Carstein and thus a likely place to find some decent zombies!

In support of this rationale, Stirland also shares borders with The Moot, home of the most thriving community of Halflings in the Empire.

Oh, anyone said Halflings?

Zombie Halflings!

I wouldn't dare to say Halfling Zombies

These minis are a pure joy to paint, totally different from my usual stuff, and it's the first time I see zombified Halflings, so extra points for that.

Clearly zombies come in all sizes and shapes

Once I was in the green and yellow mood I simply couldn't stop. It strangley suits them too. Stirland auxiliary militia? Mercenaries? You name it, I'm happy with the pattern.

Two and a half zombies

I don't really have any serious plans for these fellas, but I'm happy I've finally painted them. They can play as nice rivals in any skirmish game I can think of, I may even use them in a HeroQuest game or something of the like. For now this is it:

Halloween local parade 2023

These may have served as a palette cleanser, but I'm still open to new projects and different stuff, so now I have to decide what comes next. To be determined!

In the meantime, have a spooky Halloween and enjoy!

Lich Sorcerer

 Another single mini today, but a totally different one!

I got this Lich Lord from a kickstarter campaign by DieHard Miniatures (please go check their web in case you haven't. They have some awesome oldschool-looking miniatures!)

Like this one, for exaple

At first I was unsure of how to paint it. I made a few failed experiments, in fact, but I didn't find what I was looking for. Essentially because I didn't even know what was I looking for!!

All my attempts were mildly old school looking, but it took me some time to realise that I simply wasn't comfortable with the palette I was using. It was too colourful, there were too many colours and they were all too bright. I was making the mistake of confusing old school with colour explosion.

When I came to terms with myself I took a deep breath and simply painted by instinct. I was subconsciously expecting this Lich to look dark, so dark it was. But that doesn't mean grimdark. Well, let me explain with pics:

If I left it this way it would be grimdark

But different variations of the same colour made me feel better

I felt more comfortable this way, using only green. I had been using green, red and blue, and there was not a single combination that worked for me. Once I finally had an idea of where to take the mini, it all was pretty easier.

As an obvious powerful sorcerer of old, his ragged clothes had to look somehow rich, so I improvised some embroidery here and there.

Not too original, but worked for me

I finally thought this was taking me somewhere

I think he's even smiling, feeling fashionable

I think you should see more hues of green than the ones appearing in the pic!

The green lich sorcerer finally looked like this:

Boo!

How on Earth I made the camera focus on the feet but made the face blurry remains a mystery to me. I'm just noticing as I write this post.

Not spectacular, but enough for my skills

 

So let me show him alongside the other Undead character I have:

Undead leadership

Maybe I should start an Undead army?

 

Well, I don't think I'll start a new army anytime soon, but... what is time to such eternal creatures?

 

 

PS: I'm editing the post to provide a scale comparison shot. I'm afraid I'm just using what I have at hand, i.e. a HeroQuest mini, a Bretonnian (so you can see how the Lich stands beside a cavalry unit) and a Space Marine (i.e., the scale of all things warhammer):

Confusing and incoherent pic

It's maybe slightly taller than classic minis, but fits in perfectly, so I'm totally recommending it!

A little bit late to Halloween

 ...yet a skeleton is a skeleton!

I rushed a little to see if I could make it for this last Halloween, but it's been an impossible deadline. Haha, dead-line.

Ahem...

Skeleton, I was saying.

Booo

Well, what the hell, not that much delay :D

The original model is, of course, pretty well known.

Games Workshop Wight King. Insert legal disclaimer here

The mini is awesome, can't say otherwise. Of course I couldn't make mine look as great as the one above, but I could give it my own personal touch.

That means if I cannot do it look better, for sure I can do it look worse! But different!

The key was taking the so recognizable crown out

Not that it's very different, but I hope it makes it clear what I'm trying to do

The idea of an oriental-like undead, with a turban or a tunic, looked quite appealing to me. I'm not aiming to any specific historical looking, but only to the general Saracen vibe. Quite Warhammerish, I guess :D

In fact my whole plan involves doing this to the Shadespire skellies (I have that box waiting for ages to be painted, shame on me). So I'm showing the step by step here, not as any kind of tutorial, but more like a note to self for future reference.

Vallejo Dark Blue, Medium Sea Grey and Saddle Brown/grey. Metal is Silver/black/German med camo

The previous pic was unacceptably clean

Blue highlighted with hues of Ice blue. The sash with hues of grey

That's quite pretty much it all. It's but three colours, so I've managed to paint it relatively quickly.

A thousand and one nights -Warhammer edition

I don't have anything nearly close to a scimitar, so I used the only thing vaguely resembling one

I think there's still too much plate armour on him to make a proper Saracen impression, but I'm happy with the experiment, so I think it means a green light for the Shadespire warband. In the meantime, these are the only skellies I have avaliable:

Yeah, boss, we weren't told we had to dress for the occasion

I've enjoyed the whole proccess; it was a quick one too, so I can't complain at all. For the Shadespire ones I may have to tone down or desaturate a little that blue. Or maybe I'll use another colour. Well, anyway, that's a problem for the future me. For now I can move to another project!