Undead update
My shameful lead mountain is looking particularly insurmountable right now. On Thursday I received my minis from the first Greenskin Wars Kickstarter (they’re excellent), and on Friday I bought a load of old Citadel Night Horrors via eBay auction. They’re a pretty collectible range, and ‘buy it now’ prices are generally ridiculous – the final auction costs were about 25% of the normal list price, so well worth bidding. Luckily, for the first time in a while I also had no plans this weekend, so I’ve been able to make some small progress with painting and modelling.
First things first, I cleaned, sanded and assembled one of the units from Greenskin Wars – the ‘Doom Goblins’. I plan to paint them as part of my Cult of Sargonas. There were a couple of rough edges to file away and a very slight casting error on one goblin’s tunic, but being single-piece models, by and large they were pretty easy to assemble. I added a few giant mushrooms from The Battleforge (best known for halflings and I believe currently the biggest giant on the market) to some of the bases, to give them some extra character. I also did some work to repair and gap-fill some bigger minis. No photos of any of them yet.
Next up, a little freehand practice. Last year my wife asked if she could paint a mini. “Of course! I’m glad to share my new hobby!”. I had a spare zombie, but in the end she didn’t enjoy it much. I painted a shield for him in what I hope is a classic Oldhammer style, when he’s finished. It hasn’t photographed well.
Continuing with the undead theme, I finished one of my oldest minis – a Citadel C18 zombie, one of the greatest zombie minis ever in my opion. The colour scheme was inspired by the wights in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones, and I think it came out rather well. I only have two minis remaining from my old collection now – the rest were all bought within the last 6 months.
I’ve been in the habit of photographing minis in batches of six for my portfolio, so I needed a small, quick undead to wrap up the last couple of months work. I bought a vampire halfling when I ordered some bits for base details from The Battleforge, and he seemed to fit the bill. It’s a little bit of a rough sculpt – especially when lined up with the ethereal Games Workshop spirit host – but quite a fun, characterful little fellow. And a bit of a rarity – non-human undead are quite uncommon. He came with an integral base, but I glued that onto a 20mm square to keep consistent with the rest of the undead legion and added some red flowers to compliment his cape. I expect that even dead halflings enjoy a spot of gardening.
I’m going to be away for a couple of weeks for work and then I have study deadlines, so I expect that’s some of the last painting I’ll get done until mid-June. I’ve not really achieved everything I planned for April, but did make some progress.
Shin High Terror! 