Reaper Vampire, Matthias the Twisted

I bought this figure with some other Reaper figures with intent to sell them, over a decade ago when I first started selling my painted figures and taking commissions. I did two or three others first and by that time had generated enough interest to keep the commissions coming in, and quickly found people were willing to pay something more reasonable for exactly the figure they wanted painted. I actually bought two of this same sculpt, though, one for me as I liked it so much. I started this one to sell and was off to a good start, but never got back to it. Now that I finally finished it it can be the one I keep for myself.

This is Reaper Dark Heaven 02867: Matthias the Twisted. My hat off to Bobby Jackson on this one, it's one of my favorites from him. That scary, hideous face is awesome as are his knock-kneed gait and his little rat friends. A classic vampire of the nosferatu ilk, or "necrarch," in Warhammer Vampire Counts lore.

I really took my time with this figure back then and it's up to my "competition standard." When coming back to finish it off I mainly had to just decide not to do a few bells and whistles I had originally intended like freehand on the red fringe, and do the metals, which were originally going to be NMM. I've always like metallic better for my own figures, but it only took painting a few figures for competitions and for cash to have the preference for NMM (at the time) show clearly. I take pleasure in the distressed ragged bottom of the cloak, the little green gem, the eyes, and the shading of his fingernails.

He is the leader of a Mordheim undead warband, BTW, and his minions are coming up soon. Three ghouls and two giant black dogs are already done and awaiting varnishing.

Heroes for Dungeonquest 'Eavy Metal

Here's the moment of realization for my Dungeonquest project!

Herald of Nurgle (Reaper Plague Harbinger)

Here's a bit of an interlude between my Dungeonquest and upcoming Talisman figures and a change of pace from the bright, candy look. If I could be satisfied with a single mode and a single collection I would be a lot saner, but I have to give expression to my grimdark side. :)

I started this figure about ten years ago, then picked it up again about five years ago and got it to about 90%, and then there it sat. Are you like me, with a shameful number of unfinished figures? Recently I've been bearing down on a some of these around the edges of other projects.

This is Werner Klocke figure done for Reaper, Dark Heaven 02804 Plague Harbinger, and you can see he was obviously in a Realm of Chaos mode at the time. The fly emblem on his armor (hard to see, because I didn't call any attention to it, but let it fall back into the muck) dispels any lingering doubt. I think this was before the concept of a chaos herald but he fits the bill pretty nicely.

I really like the palette I achieved on this figure and think it will be a good reference point for other figures. I've spent a lot of thought planning fantasy Nurgle projects and a few years ago I painted a Warmaster Nurgle army, but it was a surprise for me to realize this is the first 28mm Nurgle figure I've painted. I know it was before 1996 when I had seven champions that were among my favorite figures in my collection, but at the time I was too shy to tackle my favorite figures. I work like an assembly line these days prepping many hundreds of figures—washing, basing, mold lines, priming etc—and I just washed and based the tray of RoC figures in which those same seven reside, along with younger compatriots.

Like many a Nurgle paintjob before him, in essence it was a white prime, then black metals, gunmetal and highlights, then washes, washes and washes, and finally edge highlights. Brown, yellow, rust. I don't recall if there is any actual green paint. Black plus yellow is good for Nurgle, I think, and any greens here probably came from that.

This would be a good figure for a chaos warband, either old school Realm of Chaos or whatever people might be playing at the local shops, or "AOS28" or whatever. I've got more Nurgle on the workbench including some Heresy demons to use as plague bearers and some converted Gamezone chaos warriors. I just checked back and it also looks like I might not have shared my Warmaster figures here, it must have been an older blog.

Heroes for Dungeonquest: Ironhand the Mighty, Gladiator

Last one! May I present, Ironhand the Mighty:

This guy painted up fairly quickly as well. Nothing particular to this figure that I haven't spoken about in a previous post. Another great figure, though. Just after I finished him I scored another copy of this figure sans mace. This makes it that much easier for me to justify converting it to be a chaos thug. Anyone know fore sure who sculpted him? Goodwin, right?

Stay tuned for Talisman figures coming up soon!

Heroes for Dungeonquest: Sir Roland the Knight

I painted this figure in one sitting (except for base, done as a group before) in record time, under two hours. The armor has opaque paint mixed with Chainmail metallic, a simple wash and then Mithril Silver highlights. I wanted it to be distinct from Thargrimm. The armor here is cleaner and a lot brighter. The illustration has a slightly different leather and fur color (same color) as the other illustrations (or so it seemed to me in the time) and I adjusted the brown mix accordingly, and think I got it pretty well. The wine colored accents are my own addition to the palette as in the illustration the fringe (what you call it in this case?) is of an indeterminate gray or the same color as the amror, which wouldn't work on the figure.Echoed it in the weapon grip.

Last one is just around the corner!

Heroes for Dungeonquest: Helena the Swift

Today's hero is Helena the Swift.

Tiny hottie by one of the Perry brothers. Believe or not she was on the workbench almost done for over a year with just the shield to do, and I kept putting off the decision of whether to use a classic Citadel shield with hole in the center for the boss, or a shield matching the artwork. I had both. OCD, I know. I wound up going the first route as you can see. The next question was whether to leave the shield plane orange-brown as in the illustrationor add a design. And I strayed from the illustration a second time here, opting for a simple viking design.

The figure was primed gray and then "zenithal" white, but fairly strong on the white. The figure was painted light to dark with the exception of boots and hair. These days I like painting metallics over a light base starting with the lightest metallic color and then using washes.

Here's a little bonus, all the figures before Helena except Vikas. It was late when I took this and somehow I left him off. I'll try to get another group shot of all 12 to end on. That and I want to make an 'eavy Metal style sheet of them! I'm searching for a good background texture to evoke White Dwarf without copying directly.