Painting Vampire / Undead Flesh

Vampire and Undead Flesh Doesn't Have to be Difficult

I was asked, not so long ago, about painting vampire or undead flesh; this was in reference to the Vampire Count Coven Throne that I had previously painted.  I have a few different ways of painting vampire/undead flesh but this is the way that I've chosen to do it recently.

A lot of the time I'm looking to make vampires or undead creatures look recently dead and cold but not necrotic or decaying.  Additionally, I don't want them to be confused with an ice or frozen creatures; yes, that comes across my table often.  So, what to do?

When the Coven Throne came out I liked the purplish hue that their vampiresses took on.  I never did find out how they did it; I admit I didn't look too hard though.  I assumed it was layering with Hormagaunt Purple and perhaps Astronomicon Gray but...I didn't feel like doing all that Dallimore work.

So, I came up with something I could do quickly and with few steps...

It starts very simply, base coat all flesh with Fair Shadow from Reaper.  Fair Shadow is rather creamy colored with a hint of pink, as are the rest of the tones in the triad. 



 You'll notice that, in the base coating process, I'm not neat and tidy; you don't have to be.  After base coating and a thorough drying period wash with a light purple.  Bob and I mix our own.  You'll see in that first picture that the purple is rather bright and light; this helps with the undead appearance and coolness without becoming icy looking.

Next, after the wash dries thoroughly, use the Fair Skin Highlight and apply highlights.  Apply the highlights to brow arch, nose, cheekbones, jaw, chin, breasts, collar bones, shoulders, arm muscles, fingers, knees, fronts of thighs...etc.

If you have trouble thinking of where you should highlight I suggest looking at photographs of models in swimsuits or lingere because the lighting glistens and hits the high points.

If I'm feeling overkill I'll use the middle tone, Fair Skin, and then do the Fair Skin Highlight...but I didn't choose to use that on these figures. If the Fair Skin Highlight doesn't appear dead enough you can alway use white to take it a step lighter and then use that as a final highlight. I do that sometimes.

These lovely ladies are from the Seamus set of Malifaux figures.

I like to give my zombies that milky, undead eye without pupils.

Seamus is actually alive, so his skin is colored differently with Golden Shadow skin and Golden Highlight with a reddish-brown fleshwash.

This is a better view of the colors used.  I suggest purchasing these exact paints if you have a few undead to paint.  The keep on the Reapers is good and they are nice paints - remember to shake them regularly.  The triad sets that Reaper came out with are very handy because it takes the guess work out of choosing or mixing colors.

Happy Painting!

Love, Allison

The Hobbit: Escape From Goblintown

The release of The Hobbit movie and miniatures from Games Workshop saw a surge of orders here of the Hobbit miniatures. Three sets of The Escape From Goblintown came in to do for customers. In addition, there's a bunch of the other miniatures that came in to do as well. To make our lives simpler we started with The Escape from Goblintown sets and did all three together to speed up the process. Here's one of the sets and a bit of other stuff we also did. A later post will cover some of the other items, like the orcs, trolls, etc.

Here's the miniatures out of the set:

The Goblinking

The Goblinking's Throne

The Goblins

More of the 36 Goblins that come in the set

The Heroes out of the set

The Goblin Scribe and a few other pieces

These are the giant eagles. They do not come in the Escape From Goblintown box set:

Here's the platforms you get in the box set. There's two large pieces that make up the main platform and four ramps; only two are shown here:

This is the expansion box of Goblintown platforms. This set has a couple of two level walkways/ ramps:

The models were pretty nice. Few needed assembled but those that did went together no problem. One thing we did notice is that a few of the dwarves and Rhadagast did not exactly match the movie versions. Some liberty was taken with regard to their clothing. Not a big deal unless your are particular in those details.