28mm Blue Moon - Things that go Bump in the Night - I Had Such a Howling Good Time - Part 1 of 2

Only a handful of figures remain that will be predominantly in Citadel Contrast paints. It's been a fun experiment and, as I've stated elsewhere, has really improved my output for the year. The experiment may not yet be over though as I am torn between doing all the many gravestones I've been collecting or some 15mm buildings for the ECW. Not quite sure just yet. The remainder of the year however, will feature much more traditional entries.

Meanwhile, Things that go Bump in the Night is a one-pager set of rules designed for gaming the standards of the classic horror genre: werewolves, vampires, mummies, zombies, etc. Box 1 included these four miniatures, as well as four protagonists to oppose them. The latter, like the "Wolf Skins" in the West Wind - Empire of the Dead set will need to be painted up in the traditional way being standard adventurer type figures.

This one is Citadel Contrast Cygor Brown over Wraithbone primer. It is also the first appearance of Cygor Brown here. I was reluctant to get this color as I noticed it was very dark in all the preview shots online, but I always can use a dark brown for this and that so thought I'd give it a shot anyway. As as a one shot and done application (like so many of the other Contrast paints provide) I hated it immediately- way too dark. To fix, I went back in with a drybrushed highlight with Wriathbone to bring back some contrasts. Came out pretty good I think if not still a little flat.

For the next one, I wanted to try mixing that dark Cygor Brown with Liquitex Matte Medium to see how that would come out if I reduced the ratio of pigment to medium. It's good, but I think I actually prefer Wyldwood for this kind of fur instead of this rather ruddy result. Like the other wolf see above, I went back in and drybrushed with Wraithbone to bring back some highlights. 

Speaking of highlights - the Woodland Scenics clump foliage looks really flat here and could use some tonal variation.

This one is, like most of the other four legged wolves, simply Contrast Templar Black - no additional highlighting. Eyes, mouth, base, done.

The sculpt on the teeth of this guy though is a mess: looked like maybe gore, maybe slobber? In any event, the teeth were long and undefined. Let's try the gory route, says I. My first pass was terrifically bloody - so much so that I had to tone it down a lot for the final.

Oof that clump foliage is bugging me with it's evenness.

Easily the biggest werewolf I own, this one rolls the d20 and has to be the leader of all the lycanthropes in my collection. This head was the wildest of the three provided and is a little too straight ahead. But that provided the most secure fit, though I do think I'd have liked to see it as a crazy angle like seen on the box.

For bushes of this size I used the Dark Green clump foliage from Woodland Scenics and glued the light green Super Leaf over the top to give it a highlighted appearance. It worked out OK, I didn't think about breaking up some small trees to decorate the large empty base until it was too late. You know, as if he had just burst into a clearing.

For most minis, I don't care for the Blue Moon style of a finished and framed integral base, so On all of these I put on washers, built up the sides and slopes with some modeling paste then added model railroad ballast over the lot to being it together. It takes some doing, but it also adds a lot of real estate that needs landscaping.

A potential action shot featuring two West Wind figs! The four antagonists that came in the box, which will be Part 2 of this entry, are in line but not next.

I have a number of other things nearing completion to look forward to for Halloween (hopefully), so until then, thanks all for looking - questions, comments, followers are welcome and encouraged!

28mm West Wind - Empire of the Dead, Beast Lord, Pack Master & 2 Wolves - Pt 1 of 2

Believe it or not, I'm running out of miniatures requiring Citadel Contrast paints! Perfectly fine though with that - I did, or will soon complete, just under a hundred minis this year that would have lingered to some date far in the future.

I did West Wind's Empire of the Dead Kickstarter a few years ago and got a lot of great minis out of it. This pack is the Beast Lord and his furry retinue. (Not yet pictured are the four "Wolf Skins" or human henchmen type allies. Those will have to be painted in the usual way, being devoid of fur of any kind.)

These two bipedal ones (is this one the Beast Lord?) were done with Contrast Wyldwood over Wraithbone primer- I did go back over and dry-brush the Wraithbone back in then did the eyes and mouth and base details to finish.

Contrast Wyldwood over Wraithbone primer, the pants in Contrast Templar Black, with the vest in Contrast Basilicanum Gray. This whole model was again dry brushed with Wraitbone again. I did try a mix of Templar Black and Wraithbone to try and get a middle tone between the two but it looked like heck. I didn't use much of it other than to feather in some more highlights where the heavier black tones were in areas that should have seen more light.

Not thrilled with the green ink I put over the sculpted grass here - I don't think that will last the week.

I have enough of the black wolves from other manufacturers and thought theses needed a more traditional appearance. These are simply Contrast Basilicanum Gray over Wraithbone followed by a second coat of Basilicanum Gray over the tops again to give it the extra darkness there. I don't think I dry brushed these after.

No flash here or on the next

Those "Wolf Skins" henchmen I mentioned will comprise the Part 2 of this entry. They are in line but not next.

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

25mm West Wind - Gothic Horror: Vampire Wars - Loup Garou

For this game, this was the biggest, baddest werewolf available. Again - just a simple Contrast Black Templar over the lot - with no drybrushing after.

Tried something different with the bases using Woodland Sceneic dark foliage, covered with light "Superleaf" scale leaves. Same stuff I used on the ECW hedges.

La Famiglia - here's all the wolfy entries from this particular range. The newer West Wind EotD stuff is done up as are the Blue Moon versions as well.

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

25mm West Wind - Gothic Horror: Vampire Wars - Giant Wolves

More simple Contrast Black Templar results in one undiluted coat over Wraithbone. They probably should have black gums but I kinda like having their nasty orifices as the focal points.

At left are the Blue Moon "European Timber Wolves" for comparison purposes. This force will have about a score of models in it - a dangerous encounter in their own right or they could be parceled out as obstacles thrown up against the witch hunters from the local coven.

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

25mm West Wind - Gothic Horror - Vampire Wars - Werewolves

My Citadel Contrast paint experiment moved from ethereal creatures to the many wolfy miniatures I own. You saw the "European Timber Wolves", here are the Werewolves from the original West Wind,Vampire Wars line. For Empire of the Dead, West Wind brought out entirely new figures for this horror subgenre (those are coming soon).

Apart from the mouths and bases, I used exclusively Contrast paints. (L-R, Gore-grunta Fur, Wyldwood, Wyldwood, Snakebite Leather). Unlike a lot of models I've done with mostly Contrast Templar Black, I did go back here and dry brush with Wraithbone again over the whole model - the same color with which they were undercoated.

Pants on the end werewolves are Contrast Templar Black, belts in Wyldwood. Middle pants are Aggaros Dunes, with the belt in Wyldwood.

Some early WIP - I had to mark the bases with the color I used so I wouldn't forget S-Snakebite, G-Gore-grunta. Wolves of course are never blond and red like these, so I'm gonna claim, "it's fantasy - their fur would match that of the human who was accursed with the lycanthropy." Seems reasonable -, but also because I wanted to try these browns out on stuff.

 

Though brown can be found on wolves, it seems they are mostly grays and blacks and light tans and white. Nonetheless, I needed some way to differentiate these decidedly lesser "wolves" from the bigger, leader types. Wyldwood is the best of these alternative colors in my view.

These are before I went back and drybrushed over them with Wraithbone.

For the wolves on all fours I went with the red eyes, but here for these bipedal ones, I went with the more popular yellow. Not much to work with on these guys - in fact this one;'s left eye isn't even sculpted - a mot uncommon occurrence in these early sculpts.

I also found I had to touch up considerably the Templar Black on the smooth surfaces of the pants with more Wraithbone. i actually tried misixing the two together to see if i couln;t arrive at a middle color and it came out too strange to be workable: super thin and watery, and not quite the right color. so i did what I could with the final portrays revealing where I ended up.

The flash took a split second too long to kick in here, but I love the effect of this darker shot.

Fo minimal effort, I think these came out quite well. If I had to layer them, they'd still clustered in the wolf bin.

My favorite of this lot.

 If the quadrupedal wolves comprise the lower ranks, these are one step above in tabletop value, whatever that may be. Easily suitable for the game for which they were created (GH:VW) as well as EotD, CiC, the FFoL horror variant, or whatever else covers this horror subgenre.

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