Greetings Terrans, how goes it? Huge apologies for being so shit at blogging of late – I’ve been a bit burned out for various reasons & just haven’t had the bandwidth to post regularly… That is not to say I haven’t been painting though, and I have a bit of a treat to share today.
Now, a few months back I completed the rather excellent Cursed City box – as good a set of minis as GW have ever produced I reckon. This box was originally released in April 2021, and controversially, it sold out mega fast. At a similar time as this was released, a whole slew of Vampires were also released – seemingly without much fanfare or strategy. I have since heard that these Vamps were originally planned to be expansions for Cursed City, and that those plans went tits-up when Brexit kicked in… I don’t know about all that, but net-net, we had a sudden shitload of very cool Vampire minis. I was on a bit of a roll with Cursed City, so I went on a bit of a splurge.
Here is the first of these Brexit Vamps – I figured I’d start big, so here’s ‘Lauka Vai, Mother of Nightmares’:
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Wow, what a mini – more of a mini-diorama actually! She is a really weird amalgam of giant Vamp (think 54mm scale), bat thing and dragon… The official fluff explains all this as the unfortunate side effect of tangling with a sorcerer, (it’s always bloody sorcerers!). It’s all a bit daft really, but whatever – she is an absolute belter of a thing to paint. I did have a little play with metallic red on some of the armour plates, but otherwise she was painted in my go-to ‘contrast first, shade & highlight’ technique, though the large expanse of skin meant that I could really go to town with the blending. The only bit that didn’t really click for me was, unfortunately, her face… despite being a bigger scale, (or perhaps because of it?), I found the detail to be strangely soft and I just couldn’t really get my teeth into it… It’s good enough, but not quite as good as I would expect. Still, I’m really chuffed with the whole piece, and she is the first of many Vamps to roll off the painting desk – more to share soon! :-)
Leadballoony - It's a lead thing 
The pale body works great on this model, I really like the contrast too with the warm colours on the vampire’s torso… um… upper torso?
Haha, yeah, you know you’re dealing with something confusing when there are two loincloths involved 😂
Glad you like her mate, she was a very satisfying painting project.
Excellent work Alex, I think the pale skin tone over both halves really helps the other sections stand out, and the metallic red really pops.
Cheers mate, glad you like her – I really wanted to get a feel for using Contrasts to produce coloured metallics… an ongoing experiment I must say!
Wow, she looks excellent! I find painting these larger minis (monsters, vehicles etc) very different from regular 28mm-ish scale people so I hope you enjoyed it. I definitely agree with you that the mini itself is mental, but that seems to be par for the course in Age of Sigmar!
Cheers dude, she is a bonkers thing & no mistake 😂 Great fun to paint though, I’m glad you like 😊
Fantastic mate – I really like this range so I’m very much looking forward to seeing what you do here. I’m a big fan of the Mother of Nightmares although like you I’m not entirely sure about her face. You’ve done a nice job with it though. As for what went wrong with the Cursed City release I’m increasingly convinced that someone at GW had a falling out with a sorcerer. Given that we’ll probably never know the full story that’s the one I think I’ll stick with!
Cheers dude, yeah, great range with some pretty amazing minis in there – glad you like this one dude!! Your guess is as good as any with all this nonsense 😂
Jeez man, you cant be quiet like that and then just wow us all with a great work of atr like this.. You spoil us. Hope you are doing oke though, lots of people I know are near to feeling of utter burnout in the past few weeks, just remember, you are not alone. Let us know if there is anything we can do.
Thanks mate, glad you like her & that is really kind of you to be concerned. I think I’m doing ok now thanks, just a bunch of stuff came together which meant I needed to ease off a little. I find painting to be a great relief when it gets like that 😊
I still have to start the painting side of things… dont know when that is gonna happen.
Easy does it mate – as and when 👍
Wow- that is a very impressive mini… or maxi as I know that model isn’t small.
Cheers,
Pete.
Cheers mate, you’re right, she’s a whopper!
What an awesome paintjob, you made the mini really stand out, I love the textures, particularly the skin. Cool, cool job.
Thanks dude, and awesome job on those grav-sleds too!! Man, you should crank out stuff like that & get that shit on ebay – I’d buy it for sure!!
Very cool looking figure Alex and you’ve done a cracking job on the painting front. Can quite understand why you like this one. Excellent work. 🙂
Cheers mate, she was certainly an interesting think to paint – good fun!
That’s a really cool and absolutely massive model! You’ve done a lovely job on the paint, mate, the orange tones really pop from the white/grey.
Cheers Mikko, she’s pretty cool eh? Perfect Miniaturist fodder 😊👍
Now that is one sinister creepy mini and a very nice paint job as far as I’m concerned! :-)
Cheers dude, great fun to paint & she is certainly sinister!!
Brilliant work mate, your right about it being a mini diorama in itself!!
Cheers mate, there’s definitely a lot going on! 😊
I love your paintwork on this beast, had to look at the miniature a few times to work out quite how she “worked” in an anatomical sense but I got there in the end. 😉
Cheers Roger.
Cheers mate – don’t overthink it, she has 2 loin cloths!! 😳
Oh yes, is that like “a dog with two….” never mind. 😁
I think that is the best overall paint job I’ve seen of this figure. It all ties together really well and has actually made me take a second look at a figure I’d dismissed out of hand (I’m just not a fan of many of the current GW ‘official’ colour schemes that their very talented painters put out)
Aw , cheers mate 😊
Yeah, she’s a funny one to get your head around tbh, but a cracking project – highly recommend it 😊
Very nice work on this rather bestial example of a Vampire!
Cheers mate, I’m rather pleased with this one 😊