Knights of Blood

Greetings all, well, the super secret Christmas project is finished (piccies on Boxing Day or thereabouts) and you know what that means? Non-secret painting to share! This time it is the first in a unit of ferocious Vampire Count Blood Knights:

Now, before we go on, there is a reason that you will not see darker red-browns like this in the pages of White Dwarf. They are a swine to photograph properly. Mentally adjust the red brighter by about a tone and you should have it right. I wanted to give these Vampire Knights armour the colour of old dried blood. This colour has eluded me in the past but upon perusing my more military colours from Vallejo I espied Hull Red. This is technically the iron oxide primer that the Wermacht used on tanks in the second world war but it is perfect for this purpose. It is a really rich red brown that gives that perfect tone I was looking for. Highlights with Blood Red mixed in made it pop a little more and careful black lining dealt with the shading.

The horse needed to be black to fit with the whole eeeevil theme. Being an animal, the black would need to be brown highlighted as it would give a more natural tone. I was going to mix Scorched Brown and Chaos Black but then spotted German Camoflague Black-Brown sitting next to my Hull Red minding its own business. Given that it is already the right shade I just slapped that on! Two coats of Badab Black left it with a lovely subtle black. Mixing increasing amounts of Dwarf Flesh into the G.C. Black-Brown gave that fleshy look to the muzzle that is such an important part of making a horse look convincing. I toned it down with a thin wash of Badab Black. Finally, the eyes needed to pop a bit to indicate the semi-magical nature of the beasts. Faint glowing red seemed to do the job.

I wanted the armour to look archaic and well used so defined every edge with boltgun metal chipping. This, along with the black lining, helps to define the armour plates amongst the deep red and creates the right aged impression. The face on this one was a nightmare (badum tish) to paint as it is two tiny gaps in the helmet. I ended up painting the highlight colour as a basecoat and then carefully washing in the shading. Black eyes with a red pupil made him look inhuman.

The lance was a lot of fun, I didn't want to paint them red as that would have overwhelmed the model. Likewise, black would have sort of disappeared. I decided on a warm varnished wood tone. Starting with Khemri Brown as a basecoat I painted streaks of Bleached Bone trying to avoid regular patterns and adding knots and the like.To further define the grain I added a little black to the Khemri Brown and streaked again. To finish off I glazed the whole effort in thinned Chestnut Ink. I think it works. Well, until the next one is finished that is all from me folks.

TTFN