28mm Reaper - The Ghost Bride

Day 2 of my ethereal creatures project with Citadel Contrast paints yielded up twelve completed figures. I do like this ghost bride model- she could work in either a fantasy or a horror setting. I may even pick up another one to do in a more traditional manner. I thought about doing white eyes to suggest benevolence, but decided a gal wot dies on her wedding day is not gonna be too happy. Red eyes it is. Stones done with Contrast Basilicanum Grey.

I also lightly dry-brushed white over the bridal bits, but it may be too suble to notice here.

I'm no wiz with the visual effects, but I tinkered with some filters in Picasa to a mild degree of satisfaction.

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28mm Reaper - Harkus, Ghost King, Ghost Queen & Ghost Warrior

Day 2 of my ethereal creatures project with Citadel Contrast paints yielded up twelve completed figures. These three were blistered individually, but now comprise a single "classic" set. They are thematically similar so I put them together. These were also the low hanging fruit in that they required no detail work apart from the bases. Each done in a couple minutes with one undiluted coat of Contrast Aethermatic Blue.

Harkus, the Ghost King - (I didn't vote for him.)

On complex minis like these, one does have to take care to cover it completely - missed spots are glaringly obvious - especially with the Black Templar. Even here I found spots I missed that I went back and filled in.

The Ghost Queen - it did occur to me that I could make a good chess set with all these - just enough duplicates for the key rear-ranking figures fronted by the miscellany as pawns.

The Ghost Warrior - In a world where ghosts don't exist this could be frightening, but in fantasy settings his "weapon" is somewhat less than threatening - Beware The Tickler!

The stones under this one and Harkus were done with Contrast Basilicanum Grey. I doesn't get simpler.

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25mm WOTC - Silver Anniversery - Lesser Vampire

Day 2 of my ethereal creatures project with Citadel Contrast paints yielded up twelve completed figures. These are among my least favorite - I already have two more totaling four now, having picked them up cheap at store closures years ago. The other two are painted as I think intended, as lesser vampires. But they seemed ethereal to me with the floating heights of the model. Hard to tell here, but the eyes are glowing red; there's not a lot of real estate to work on for the eyes but it's evident up close.

Stones done in Contrast Basilicanum Grey, hair on the figure at right in Contrast Templar Black. It's tempting on this one on the right to do some other part on it like the cloth or the skin but I know I'll never get around to doing it. I probably will do the stones that got kicked up in the shroud - there's no reason why they would be ethereal.

Here's my first attempt at this model in what I guessed was a burial shroud.  I have another finished one around somewhere too. This one was finished and photographed in the early 00s.

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25mm Ghost Miniatures - Wizards 4/6

Reminds me of a 70s Kung Fu character. I did the black trim on the robe (it's not sculpted).

Got sidetracked on ghosts (and witches now too) and still have just the fine details on the remaining two Ghost Miniatures wizards. They're coming along.

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25mm Ghost Miniatures - Wizards 3/6

I hit this guy twice with the Testor's dullcoat and can't get the shine off. Before that I did use a home brew wash of Pledge and ink on the robe, but after sealing it seems to still poke through all over the place.

I kept referring to him as "the Assyrian" as I painted him - the ringlets in the beard inspired that methinks.

He was finished a few weeks ago but I was hoping to seal a bunch of figures at once so he had to wait until I did so. Some of the dynamism was lost on the robe after too.

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25mm - Figure ID?

Day 1 of my ethereal creatures project using Citadel Contrast paints yielded fourteen completed miniatures. A lesson from this one is to make sure you prime close to perfectly. Typically, because I prime in batches of a dozen, some crevasses, nooks and crannies don't get covered. When layering it's no problem, just fill it in with black or whatever. I used the recommended Citadel Grayseer primer spray as it has a formulated surface ideal for the Contrast medium. I also bought the Grayseer gray in the bottle knowing I'd have to touch up and fill in here and there.

Well, it behaves quite a bit differently and the Contrast paint is weird exactly where I had the brush on gray placed. The front was good, but the back has some issues. These do take some experimenting - a lot of things didn't seem to materialize until they had dried. I was also batch painting so didn't pay as close attention as I otherwise would. In any event, I'm certain I could have painted all these better in my layering way, but not in the 30-40 minutes it took me to finish them.

Time is iffy in the next few days so it's not clear how many I'll finish of the 25 remaining figures for Day 2. In many ways, Day 1 dispensed with some of the low hanging fruit if you will. Easy miniatures with no difficult decisions. Onward.

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25mm West Wind - Gothic Horror - Gollum

 

Day 1 of my ethereal creatures project using Citadel Contrast paints yielded fourteen completed miniatures. In West Wind's original Gothic Horror range there is a pack called "Gollums - Animated Statues". The other three do look like statues but this one didn't and so got the ghost treatment. He one came out pretty good having lots of broken up areas for the paint (Contrast - Aethermatic Blue) to play on. This is the first of the fourteen who is morally ambiguous: all the rest are decidedly evil in nature. (Or simply misunderstood?)

This was another where I thought I'd put in the pupils first rather than leaving them blank. Mixed results. Incidentally, this miniature is clearly a rip off (tribute) to an early Citadel mini who is identical in all respects except has a sword and scabbard at his waist.

On the broad back, a large unbroken surface, I went over again seeing how my first pass was too light, now it's too dark. Try not to double back f you can avoid it. Like some others, I did do a very light white dry-brush on this one to get a bit more pop in the details. Ah well - another mini done.

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25mm Archive Miniatures - Nightwraith

Day 1 of my ethereal creatures project using Citadel Contrast paints yielded fourteen completed miniatures. This one is from a long forgotten Lord of the Rings range. Don't let the kids chew on this one- it's very heavy and contains far more lead than modern figures.

This was a single undiluted coat of Contrast Black Templar and the results remind me of a garbage bag what's blown away.

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28mm HackMaster - Astral Seracher

Day 1 of my ethereal creatures project using Citadel Contrast paints yielded fourteen completed miniatures. Here's an odd one I picked up cheap at a store closing. To me, the sculptor was watching too much Deep Space 9 and decided to put in an Astral Ferengi. 

I don't know what I'll use this one for, but he's out of my misc blister box forever. This is after one undiluted coat of Aethermatic Blue - less than two minutes work.

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28mm Reaper - Ghosts 1 of 2

Day 1 of my Citadel Contrast paint trials yielded fourteen finished figures. Here's three of them that Reaper has called simply "Ghost". They have several others I'll post as I finish them.

As with all of these miniatures I'm wondering if maybe this figure or another shouldn't be all blue  - wouldn't it have been better to have painted up all those dangly guts in all their red gory horror? Isn't it enough that there's a torn in half corpse floating around without making it ethereal? Quite possibly here.

Stones were done with Contrast Basilicanum Grey -one undiluted coat. Those came out nice, and quite fast too.

Basilicanum Grey for Vorn's grave. Bah - I see now, I should go back and color the the mold patch there.

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28mm Reaper - Haunt

Day 1 of my trials with Citadel Contrast paints yielded fourteen finished models. Here's the Reaper Haunt over which I put one undiluted coat of Aethermatic Blue - about two minutes of work. On this one, I did a very, very lightly dry-brush of white to see if I couldn't make it even brighter. Meh - not sure it's an improvement or not.

What am I going to do with all these? Haven't the foggiest. Get it? Get it?

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28mm Reaper - Spirits

Day 1 of my experimenting with Citadel Contrast Paints - This was the very first one I applied paint to. I'm not thrilled with it to be honest. I was trying to "paint" with it in strokes before changing midway. In so doing so I went back over spots a second time which really darkened it up quickly. I found I had to move quickly start top to bottom to keep ahead of it.

I had made a note to not let it puddle, but the lack of details left no place for the paint to go - especially on the lower half.

I also don't care for this model much to begin with but since I had two I thought I'd try blacking in, in advance, the darkest recesses. I'm not sure if it's an improvement or not.

 

I also tried to do Object Source Lighting on the one at right here, but didn't put anything on the base for light to reflect off of so made a halo on the ground instead. I clearly don't have the skill for this!

Which one do you prefer?

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28mm WizKids - Horrorclix - Skeletal Maiden

On Day 1 of the Citadel Contrast trials I finished fourteen figures including the basing. This one is one of the better ones. She started out in transparent red plastic, and light always hit it in a way I could never make out all the details. After a Grayseer prime and a single undiluted coat of Contrast Aethermatic Blue she's done and looks great.

Apart from Space Marines, I think these work best on models with a lot of nooks and crannies.

The original

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25mm Citadel - Misc Ghosts

Day 1 of the Contrast paint trials begot this set of three Citadel ghosts. The "ghostly" bits are all in Contrast Aethermatic Blue over Grayseer. As advertised, I used one, undiluted coat.

The "nun"  (everyone needs a horrific nun) was, I believe, a single when originally released in the C Series ca 1984-88. The habit is one coat of Contrast Black Templar - two minutes of work. I left the white bits mostly Grayseer and just highlighted with Vallejo Off White.

Spirit Host - I don't have the full pack of these and don't play Warhammer so I was fine with making them all single figure encounters.

A common enough figure from 1988-89 - 1304 Night Horrors

I completely finished fourteen figures by Day 2 including the basing and these were among the most straight forward to do.

    Thanks for looking - questions, comments and followers are welcome and encouraged!