Believe it or not this project yet lives! Ironic that a project involving the undead refuses to die. Despite the inconvenience of having to put my life on hold for a year, I’m now back home and still trying to get this team finished. It’s been a bit of a rough start as I was more than certainly a bit rusty with the old paint brush. Still, despite a bit of squeaky joints I made some noticeable progress.

If you are new to this epically long project you can see part one here, and part two here.

My original intent was to tackle the wights once the ghouls were finished as being used by both shambling and necromantic horror teams meant they served double duty. While I was overseas though I had watched some videos on painting fur and I was eager to try them out when I got home. I originally started with a brown color scheme which immediately put me at odds with the team colors as brown is a large part of the uniform. Another road block that I encountered was that my GW dry paints which I was going to use went ahead and gave up their last bit of moisture. At this point I think I’m done with dry paints as this seems to be an ongoing problem with them. So with brown fur out I made the switch to grey. Consulting the great color wheel it turns out grey is opposite of orange so I figured it would complement the uniform.

I’m greatly pleased with the werewolves. I tried to keep the contrast subtle on the fur to keep it looking more organic and I think it turned out well. The nice large size of the models was a pleasure to paint and probably the perfect size to work on when getting back into the hobby life. That nice easy feeling wore off when it came to the wights.

The fact they are armored head to toe meant the color scheme was a little different. I decided to go orange on the capes so the armor had to go brown. This lead to a bit of quandary on the loin cloths. Originally they were going to be white but that seemed overkill. I settled on the turd brown like the armor and I think that will work. All the orange on the cape left for little contrasting colors on the armor. I may tweak with some metal spot colors to break up all the brown.

Please keep in mind the wights are far from finished at this point as they are several more colors that need to be worked on. The white pants are sitting at their base color, leather straps need detailing, and I’ve yet to add stripes and metallic shading and highlighting.

Once the wights are fully finished it is the matter of basing them and then moving on to the mummies and golems. Once those four are finished I have enough models to field two teams but not enough for league play. I’ve gone back and forth on what to do from purchasing duplicate models or try some alternate models that are similar in style. I opted for different models. I set aside some Christmas cash and searched the internet for one skeleton and three zombies.

The easiest pick to make was the skeleton. It was done by the same sculptor as the Vortice teams so it had a lot of similar designs in it. The zombies on the other hand were more difficult. As most teams are using racial zombies these days it was tough trying to find a decent humanoid looking zombie in a football uniform. In the end I decided to go with a pack of the Meiko Miniatures zombies.

While not my favorite of designs I am going to give them a shot and see if they will work on the team. On the plus side they have some similar designs to the team and two of the three have football helmets. The downside of the models is that they are practically naked, certainly something that will make them stand out. I ordered all the models through Comixinos, which is a Spanish store that carries a large variety. I’ve used them several times and I’ve never had any problems with service or shipping.

With skeletons and zombies rounded out that pretty much wraps up the team. I do have a couple of items I am going to throw in. First there is the coach which I generally like to have a model for on all my teams

This handsome man is from Heresy Miniatures which is great little company that offers a variety of figures to include some fantasy sport models that are perfect for Blood Bowl. While the Dark Lord isn’t meant for Blood Bowl I think he makes a great coach model for any undead team. For an assistant coach I have an old West Wind clockwork butler model. I picked it up years ago after coming in 2nd place at a Blood Bowl tournament in Dallas. The man running the tourney was gracious enough to offer a store voucher for a prize so I picked him up on a whim. Sorry, but I couldn’t find a painted example of him so perhaps it’s out of print?

Since I’m still working on my fur painting I am going to paint this guy up just in case I need a star player Werewolf. Since he won’t be in team colors I’m free to experiment with the fur colors. The last optional pieces I have are a few markers that shipped with the team, but they are currently only optional at this point as none are really required. So how do all these additions look?

So there will certainly be a change on the metal models from the resin I have been working with. Size wise I think they match up well with the team.

Our new skeleton is a bit on the short side and the zombies have a bit more beef to them. We will see how they blend in once I get some paint on them! So I am over the hump with these two teams and hopefully I’ll be picking up steam as I get closer to the end. In reality once the wights are finished I’m only two models away (either mummies or golems) away from a playable team. That’s a good feeling! Fingers crossed my productivity keeps up!

Links:

If you are interested in the Vortice teams they have a new website here

If you know how to pronounce the name Comixinos, or not, check them out here

Heresy Miniatures is a solid one man operation so send them some love (and money) here

If you like the look of the star werewolf you can see the full range here