Reaper 02341: Stefan Von Kruger (Sandra Garrity)

Reaper 02341: Stefan Von Kruger (Sandra Garrity)

Still on the D&D-ish train today, and we have a Vampire model from Reaper that manages to straddle both the “classic gothic” and the “fantasy armoured” vampire tropes amazingly well in my opinion. Stefan Von Kruger here is very nicely and finely detailed, and only took me 10 or 15 years to get finished. He was moved onto a 32mm base a couple of years ago, but still took some time to get to the point where I was able to make myself complete the model, ultimately using the Tray to force the issue.

For the colour scheme, I stuck with pretty bog-standard Vampire tones, whichg also happen to fit in with my Vampire Counts-themed Undead/Kings of War army. I also added some blood spatter, which I don’t do all that often, but I felt like it fit here, as Stefan here has a pretty ferocious pose – so a bit for his clothing and face, a touch on his shield, and some streaking on his blade. It’s a subtle look on his red shield and tabard, but that suits me quite nicely to be quite honest.  …anbd just a few dots to mar his otherwise perfectly regal face.

Reaper 02341: Stefan Von Kruger (Sandra Garrity)

The embossed detail on his shield is a nice touch, with a little Easter Egg there that you may not notice at first. This model also serves as a good example of why something like the poor old weedy Count Strahd model is barely likely to get a look in, even if we’re playing the actual D&D game that Strahd comes from. Why would you use that, when something like this is available?

Reaper 50153: Berkeley, Zombie Survivor

Reaper Miniatures 50153 Berkeley Zombie Survivor

A kind of random model today. This was one that Marouda and I picked up from a gaming store a few years ago because it looked cool on the peg. Then it naturally sat around for a long time, before evventually being opened, started, and Neglected for …I dunno. A couple of years?

Anyhow, I found it recently, and so stuck it amongst the masses of models on the painting desk, and there, it stood. Still neglected as I worked on other models. A couple of weeks ago, I wasn’t feeling much on the models I was working on, so I asked Marouda to pick out a couple of models for me to finish from anything on the table (with the caveat that I can always say “nope, not painting that one right now” if I don’t like the choices). The two that she picked were Berkeley, and one other model that’s still WIP.

Reaper Miniatures 50153 Berkeley Zombie Survivor

Pretty straightforward model, all things considered. I went for a nice triad of main colours with red for the hair, white for the top and blue for her jeans. A couple of shades of brown for her other kit for a more realistic overall look compared to a lot of the Warhammer stuff. In particular, I’m really happy with how her jeans came out (especially in hand). I was in two minds about adding tattoos, since the model’s arms are really fine, and I didn’t want to muddy them up. On the other hand, she looks like she’d have some ink, so I compromised and kept it to a couple of really subtle, part-hidden ones on her person. I wanted the chainsaw to be realistic, and wanted to go for orange for the plastic casing rather than use red or yellow. That’s also where I used some Contrast paint as well with thinned Gryph-Hound Orange over VMC Light Orange. For me, this is how I see the most use of Contrast paints working for me. After I was happy with the orange, I had to figure out something to do with the chain cover, since the plain off-white looked boring, so it was google time to find a brand that fit, since the names I’d most likely use have their own standard colours (Stanley uses Yellow, Bosch uses green.. that sort of thing). I found Echo, and they also use a font that I was able to reasonably replicate at that scale, so that’s where the branding came from.

It wasn’t until the model was completed that I actually noticed that the long strip of torn denim hanging from her leg to the ground that kept annoying me was in fact, a dismembered zombie hand. At that point I wasn’t willing to clip it off and have to repaint the mess it’d make of part of her jeans, so yeah. Long strip of ripped denim. Just unsee it! 😉