Emperors Champion

Knight of Shrouds

Finished painting a Knight of Shrouds to Ally with 

my Vampire Bloodline collection, House Ravenstein.

Vampire Lord On Zombie Dragon

My Vampire Lord 'Count Rutger Von Ravenstein' riding
on his faithful Zombie Dragon steed 'Thraugnaurhexis'.

His Path to Glory awaits!

Vargheist Vampires

Resurrected some second hand Vargheists, stripped, rebuilt, painted and added to my Death Alliance Path to Glory force. My Vampire Lord Theresa Von Ravenstein's power grows ever stronger as she scours the land thirsting for vengeance.

Varghulf Vampire

'Great Uncle Siegfried' Varghulf, painted and based, ready to guard his nefarious niece as she battles across the realms with her growing undead hoard.

Vampire Lord and Spirit Host Army of Malignants

The Countess Theresa Ravenstein. Betrayed, exiled and thirsting for vengeance. She seeks to resurrect her murdered household and claim her rightful throne once more. Her path to glory awaits...

Black Templars

Imperator Vult



More infantry added and a nice photo of some of the army now.
In the front row are (L-R)
Lord Marshal Mercadius,
 Master of Sanctity Ravenstein,
Brother Eisenfalken the Emperors Champion

Lord Jagi, Exalted Deathbringer

Making some progress on this 'hero' for Age of Sigmar



Head swapped the demon head for this splendid resin helm.
Worthy of a Lord of the Wastelands.

Chaplain Dreadnought WIP

Time to add something else to the Crusade.

 This chap is a great sculpt to paint. It's the chaplain dreadnought I purchased many moons ago and I finally finished off all the conversions I wanted. He has longer legs so he looks like he can walk faster than a snail now, longer melta barrels, finer banded hosing, torso/waist relocation forward under the ribcage as it should be! - and a plethora of filling jobs required, plus added iconography and magnetising the torso and limbs.
He stands about 11-12mm higher than a originally/regular dread and hopefully will look more in scale with the FW Contemptor Talon 3-pack I plan on one day owning.
The original iron halo in this kit was used on the gunship, it fitted on top of the air intake scoop perfectly --but only because I have a much nicer once that suits this model.
I will add that chunk of brutal blades above the carapace towards the final painting stages.
He also has a banner/relic blade to go on top behind the halo.

So here's a WIP shot of the fella.

More stuff soon!

Necrarch Vampire WIP

Here's the next member of the Ravenstein household, well under way now and hopefully finished some time this week (aside from the mountain of other projects on the go, I need this mini for a local campaign..)

A few conversions here and there and he has a magic sword (won a free treasure: Initiative 10 item in last months campaign..not really useful for a vamp but hey ho, beggars can't be choosers!)

Black Knights to follow soon!

Black Widow

Here is a few snaps of a mini I had fun painting up. Manufactured by Statuesque Miniatures. She has the coolest pose!

I chose the colour scheme of course to suit the figurine - I think she looks very similar to Natasha Romanoff from the Avengers! So.. I hope to use her in some games, perhaps shooting zombies in the head or fighting gangers in the Underhive, or maybe as a bounty hunter/merc for Infinity.

Thanks for looking! =)

Undead Battle Standard WIP 3

Undead Battle Standard WIP 3

I wanted something different for my standard bearer icon in the skeleton warrior core unit, something that would be unique, eyecatching but also narrative for my army.

 I decided to go for a carrion bird skull, after all, Ravenstein is my Vampire Bloodline name. 

There's a connection there - plus I really like the skull shapes. A good friend of mine also painted a fantastic picture a while ago with a character having an oversize crow/raven skull for a head (wearing a top hat) and I think the imagery has stuck in my mind. Well, maybe not the top hat.. but the skull is something I wanted to have a go at one day. 

So after a deliberation over bits to use I decided to just go ahead and sculpt my own. I wanted something sturdy and I really prefer carving solid resin than making greenstuff bits all the time for minis. Resin carving is very easy to do and (thanks to forgeworlds generosity) I have plenty of chunks of useless resin laying around to experiment with. 

It's very fast, I only need 3 tools: A scalpel blade, a pinvice hobby drill and a small emery board for sanding (although most smoothing can be done with the edge of a scalpel scraping gently.) I decided to go a little oversize so as I carved it down I still had plenty to play with. I also wanted the skull to stand out visually so I decided on measurements and then using a pair of chunky snips I tore off a chunk of resin to begin the process.

Next I just roughly chopped it to bird skully shape.. No need for precision just yet.

Next step was to drill out some guide holes for eye socket carving. 

I went right through the side of the skull so I can better judge either side and socket positions were equal.. in theory!

I used the scalpel to start to define the main skull structure lines and contours.

Having a picture for reference here helps, so I borwsed many different photos of carrion bird skulls for inspiration and direction whilst carving away gently at the resin.

Next step was to work on the nasal cavity. Using a pinvice drill I again went through the skull at the rear/back of the beak on the top either side.

These little guide holes were then widened lengthwise along the ridge of the beak.

More scraping, shaping and definition added at this stage.

Starting to polish the shapes and tidy up.

Working on the symmetry..getting there almost..

Very fine polishing work and final definitions.

As this is a fiddly little piece I decided to magnetise it so it can be easily removed from the banner if required.. Totally unnecessary but I know some clumsy gamers and would rather it didn't need gluing on every time it gets sent across the battlefield by errant sleeves etc.

So this is the beaky icon..

And magnetised to the banner bearer..

It's simple and I hope effective.. just need to give it some paint..and perhaps that tophat ...

More creepy things soon!

Raising the Dead WIP 2

Tonight I was spending more time on each skeleton now with adding details, and using various soft pastel shades to bring the shadows up and down on them, and on weaponry and armour details. Still lots to do but here is a photo update. Some of the soft blues and oranges are starting to lift each other now I hope.

More creepy things soon..

Black Templar Marshal Mercadius

Marshal Mercadius, standing on the shattered pulpit of the reclaimed monastery (his display base)

I used a lot of pieces in this conversion.

All sorts of modelling techniques were used.

The basic model I started with was the Helbrecht kit.

The display base has a lot of little details. Fun to do.

King of the castle!

There's a fair amount of freehand patterning on his livery.

For gaming, he pops out of his display base.

The display base can then double in game as a mission objective.

Hope you like him!

Black Templar Chaplain

Master of Sanctity Ravenstein 
in Terminator Armour.

I picked this guy up for 50p on ebay a few years ago.
It's the old metal casting. He was unpainted but pretty
battered and needed a lot of attention to get him
battle ready once more!

There's heaps of fantastic details on this miniature to work on.

 Again, the crusade chevrons are repeated: black and red stripes.

One of those sculpts that is a joy to paint!

I added a few little extras but nothing crazy.

 He's all about function. 

Find heretic.

Purge heretic.

Rinse crozius.

Repeat.

More heroes of the Mercadian Crusade to follow soon!

Invasion @ Games Workshop!

Back from a recent crusade in the display cabinets at one of my local Games Workshop stores.
After a fairly lengthy stint in the store, my Black Templars are returning home. A few new squads and vehicles are being prepped to join the eternal crusade.
How did the army return home to their monastery though?
We flew Air-Templar!

The Eisen-Falken pattern gunship 'Angel of Antioch'.

This is my baby, spent a lot of time and money embellishing

the original kit. Etched brass, weapon additions, resin turrets/doors,

servo skulls, iron halo, campaign shields, whopping big templar icons..

Yes, that's an old metal gunner as a pilot.

Love those old TIE pilot style respirators.

Death from above! 

She is weathered extensively but the camera glares not

picking it out much. More pics are required sometime soon!

DEUS VULT!!!!

'Place could do with a tidy up, it's like a bombs hit it!'

Need more drop pods! And vehicles!

Just dropping in to say 'HERETIC!'

'Not much cover out here, sarge!'
'Use the guy in front as cover'

Always at the front, leading the charge..
There could be chocolate in that bunker!

Some of my original battle brothers. It all starts with good
old plastic kits..but then there is resin..and the wallet screams!

The Zweihander II Pattern Predator, designed for long range armour sniping.

A few little conversions and tweaks to the original kit.
Barrels were extended with brass pipe, forgeworld
resin dozer blade, servo skull targetters and
 extra scopes and sensors on the turret. 

Etched brass was used to embellish the hull and
dozerblade with Templar iconography.

More pics to come soon...