My final entry for May in the painting challenge. Not to be confused with the “update” – the 2015 End Times/Age of Sigmar model: Neferata, Mortarch of Blood. This is the original model, circa 1999-2000. Sculpted by either Colin Grayson or perhaps Trish Carden (Morrison) or Aly Morrison, it was released to compliment the first edition of Warhammer Armies: Vampire Counts, for 5th Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle.
Neferata, Queen of Mysteries and Leonard the Cat
I bought this figure sometime around then to paint as a gift for Marouda. The fact that she came with a cat familiar was a significant factor in doing so. As readers of the blog would know – I like cats. Anyway, fast forward more than a decade, and the figure still had nothing but a base coat of a green dress, and so recently I got off my fat arse and decided to paint and actually finish the pair of them.
Neferata’s side view. Leonard is ready to defend his liege.
I didn’t really worry at all about painting Neferata “correctly”. My only concern was painting her as a good looking vampire model. Due to her size, she got transferred to a 32mm base. I went for a deep red dress. I considered adding some fancy swirls or the like with silver as embroidery, but I preferred to concentrate on the transition from deep shadow at her feet to a highlight at the hips and breasts. My challenge was highlighting red into “light red” without going into either orange, yellow or pink. I think it actually worked pretty well, actually. Her pale almost-white skin was shaded very slightly with red and purple, though I’m having some contrast issues with these photos as I get to grips with my new camera.
Neferata and Leonard’s rear view.
The cat, Bastet, originally had a tiny skull on his forehead which got carved off, to make it a little more cat-like and leave space for Leonard’s forehead “star”. Bastet has now been taken over and renamed Leonard. The slight satin sheen of the varnish has had a nice (intended) effect on the fur where I’d only highlighted very subtly. Because it’s black fur, not grey or white.
Have one more photo.
Clearly, Neferata will make a perfectly good Vampire Lord for Kings of War, perhaps even using Lady Ilona’s profile.
Don’t mess with Leonard!
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
Lovely job mate – the red is gorgeous, as is the skin tone, and Leonard rocks!
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Thank you, Alex. I’ll do some reshoots down the line when I figure out how to photograph her skin tone more effectively. It looks much nicer “in the flesh”…
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Love this mate. Your style is so crisp and smooth.
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Thanks mate – I’m quite happy with how she came out – especially after so long in the wilderness.
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Last picture (Leonard) is terrifying, I liked as the post was ace but also out of fear you’d realise the feline!
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Thanks mate – he’s an endless source of both delight and annoyance. Very much a cat’s cat.
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Excellent job. I think you achieved your goal with the red. Doesn’t look orange to me. I think for the deepest shadows you can mix a bit of green in the red, which seems to be a trick the old masters used to give red some depth. Her face is quite interesting. It looks very cat-like, so a cool idea to have her familiar to be one. Did you consider using some Tamiya Red Clear on the blade? Just a drop on the tip.
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I added a touch of both black and purple to the depths of the robe, though I’m not sure how well it can be seen in the photo. Her face has come out quite badly in these photos – I’ll have to retake some shots soon when I’ve better worked out my camera. I can’t take credit for the familiar choice, though – it came with her.
I’m not sure about adding clear red to the blade. If I can figure out how to add an effective dried blood look to something this small, I could see that working for me, though it’d have to be super subtle.
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If you add a bit of brown wash and maybe a drop of matt varnish you should be able to get a dry blood effect with the Tamiya Clear.
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I’ll give that a test run in a few forms on some Bones Skeletons that I have in the pipeline and see how it comes up.
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