Category Archives: Oldhammer

Neferata, Queen of Mysteries and Bastet (2000) – (6-Month Tale of Gamers Challenge)

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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 Bastet (2000)

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, Queen of Mysteries and Bastet (2000)

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, Queen of Mysteries and Bastet (2000)

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.

Neferata, Queen of Mysteries and Bastet (2000)

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!

Realm of Chaos: Warrior-Champion of Khorne

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Here’s the next of the Mark Copplestone series of Chaos Warrior-Champions from The Lost and the Damned-era.

Realm of Chaos Oldhammer Chaos Warrior Champion of Khorne, Mark Copplestone.

Mark Copplestone’s Chaos Warrior / Champion of Khorne.

Once again, this guy was painted back in the 1990’s but needed a little bit of touching up. He’d gathered some dust and such over the years, so he needed a cleaning scrub with a toothbrush and soap(!) to get the stuff off. I highlighted the brass of his armour, and also added a tint of green to it. I also touched up the bone on his horns and skull-pommel which were originally painted with the “base coat-and-ink glaze: done!” method.

Realm of Chaos Oldhammer Chaos Warrior Champion of Khorne, Mark Copplestone.

A view of the Skull Rune of Khorne.

All of the finer details around the slightly unknown release dates and such of the figures in this series are in the previous post that showed the Slaanesh Champion. Like the Slaanesh model, I rebased this guy to a 32mm round, which he actually fits on as he had some pretty bad overhang on the 25mm square that he used to reside on. I added the simple freehand Skull Rune of Khorne to his right shoulder. While I do like the newer models and  even like the AoS models, but there’s something to be said for models that leave a nice amount of flat space that allow some freehand work.

Realm of Chaos Oldhammer Chaos Warrior Champion of Khorne, Mark Copplestone.

Rear View. Nothing dodgy here!

While fixing this guy up and handling him, I started to notice just how much his armour reminded me of the “feel” of samurai armour. Not an exact copy by any means, but the pose and overall shape. I’m sure the mask appearance helps as well. It’s a subtler influence, but I think it works well for this figure from the days before Khorne was only about bloodlusting berserkers – the “warrior code” was also a big thing for Khorne back then. As much about blood and marital honour as blood and berserk rage.

Realm of Chaos Oldhammer Chaos Warrior Champion of Khorne, Mark Copplestone.

Axe-side!

Generally speaking, I’m not a huge fan of adding blood and gore to models. Used sparingly, they can be quite effective, but too often a model just ends up spattered with the stuff, or way too many models are covered in it. As can be seen here, I’ve added some to his axe, and also to the pair of skulls at his feet. Hopefully it looks effective without being over the top.

Realm of Chaos Oldhammer Chaos Warrior Champion of Khorne, Mark Copplestone.

A view from a higher angle.

A slightly better view of his offerings to Khorne – a pair of blood-spattered skulls. The BFTBG paint looks a little flat in these photos, but in real life it looks suitably shiny and glistening.

It turns out I never started painting the Tzeentch or Nurgle models in this series of Warrior-Champions, or the other Khorne guy I found while looking through my figure boxes. I’ll hopefully get those painted up as palette cleansers in the next couple of months and then finally be able to show them all off together. Wish me luck!