Armoured Vampire Lord (Reaper)

Well I've been meaning to post this figure ever since I completed him a few weeks ago. I picked
up this mini a few years ago when I was just considering buying non-GW stuff for the first time. He's a reaper figure, (you can find him here) and at the time my Vampire Counts were 100% Blood Dragons so he was a perfect fit.

The rules have changed a bit, but I can still field him exactly as shown, or use him as a vamp in a different gear/vapire traits with my gaming group's permission.

With the current warhammer rules rewarding hand weapon and shields with such excellent saves, its worth considering this chap as he looks in most games, provided it doesn't sap your overall magic level too much (its a bind that there's no combat traits available to a hero level vamp if you make him a level 2 mage).

So painting him. Well although I recently finished him, I started over a year ago, significantly before the foundation range was available anyway. This means the red was done with progressive layers of blood red over the black undercoat. I rather like the effect, although I prefer to do this over the red foundation paint now to save a couple of layers.

The cloak is dark angles highlighted up with increasing levels of goblin green mixed in then washed with the old green wash (which is why its shiny, sigh if only I knew!).

The shield is hand painted (lol like you couldn't tell).

There's no metal paint on the figure, I've made a rather poor attempt at the metal effect technique (next time I will use picture references - I was in a mobile home miles away from an internet connection when I completed him).

To get a similar effect on all the 'silvers' I used standard greys from the citadel range so I could repeat the graduation. It was a hot day and blending didn't work very well as my paint kept drying, so its more of a layered effect on the axe, but the belt and skull rim work ok. The axe is actually quite nice from a little distance, but on these photos you can see my noob effort for what it was.

The axe handle has no texture on the model so I painted it on, starting with dark horseflesh (Coat d'Arms, my standard dark brown now) and working up through vermin fur and vomit brown. Quite like the end result.

The few skulls dotted about the model are done with the detail bone technique I use when I'm not drybrushing bones (same as on my Varg). Its dark horseflesh, bubonic brown and then bleached bone in highlighted layers.

The base is sand with PVA. Base coated goblin green and then thrakka green wash, then a couple of gobbo green and then gobbo green/skull white highlights.

Shame about these photos really, it honestly looks better than this, however after several attempts I realised the shiny paint finish seemed to muck up the camera no matter what I tried, so I used the best shots I had!