Painting a necromancer/vampire

Introduction

For the Halloween-themed painting competition I decided on painting this necromancer from Reaper Miniatures who had been sitting in a box for way too long. For extra spookiness, I took inspiration from the vampire lady and painted her skin deathly white.

Note: I mixed up the specifications and the mini got way too tall for the competition. Oh well, next time.

Painting

Prime Grey Seer. The spray did not get into all the nooks and crannies, so I applied a thin layer by brush before continuing. (While that was drying, I also went over the skeleton with Wraithbone - disregard that at this point.)

The original plan was to go with the vampire white skin, so I did highlights with Ghost Grey and Dead White. However, the transitions got too stark (even though I tried to feather them out). I know it's not visible in this picture, you'll have to take my word on it.

So I diluted Dead White with Glaze Medium and layered it all over the skin, then did another round of white highlights.

Here's a close-up of the skin, now with the eyes and lips painted (Blood Angels Red instead of Carroburg Crimson for extra contrast).

Dark red cloth, just like this inquisitor.

Paint the bones, then use the alternate color schemes at the end of the painting tip for the skeletons on the base.

NMM metals

Gold staff (although on second look it might have been actually bone, but it looks nice as gold) and silver armor.

Reddish brown cloth

I wanted the clothes on the skeletons to keep the reddish tones, but also to be decrepit and faded.

Basecoat with Charred Brown.

Layer with 1:1 mix of Charred Brown and Dark Fleshtone.

Add Scarlet Red to the mix for a 3rd layer. Then highlight the tops of the folds with pure Scarlet Red. This is mostly lost.

Sharp highlights with Bloody Red.

Glowing skeleton eyes

Because of course their eyes glow with dark magic. 

Fill the sockets and the lower edges with diluted Hexwraith Flame.

That already looked pretty good, but I wanted to have lighter colors in the center of the eyesockets. So I dotted in Dead White, then applied the green again.

Green gem

Like this, but skipped the wash, going instead to Escorpena Green. Also painted every facet of the large gem.

Other details

Fiery orange hair like this inquisitor, including the sculpted eyebrows. Very nice to see that, they are usually missing.

Guilliman Blue eyeshadow.

Spray varnish, and the miniature is painted.

Base

Sacrifice a cork coaster to cut out these 50mm disks, with a total height slightly less than 2cm (according to the competition specification). Cut out the middle of the plastic base and the lower disks. Carve a pond and a stream in the topmost disk (before mounting and painting the miniature).

Stack them on top of each other and glue with superglue. At this point, the LEDs have been soldered unto their wires and glued into their sockets with superglue. I use the Citadel texture brush to apply some putty all over any flat surfaces, to simulate rough ground.

Paint the ground as rough earth and then trace the stream's bed with two layers of diluted Hexwraith Flame. Note that during the painting process, I covered up the LEDs with some white tac.

Water effects

Reuse the white tac to build a small dam, then pour in Vallejo Still Water. This contracts when it dries, so repeat the process as many times as needed. Also give it plenty of time to dry out the white parts.

The Still Water dried foggy, but I fixed it later. For now, on to the waterfall! I cut out a small strip of transparent plastic from a blister pack, then glued it to the top using Vallejo Heavy Gel. It's important not to use superglue as it may dry white or leave frosting.

Of course I had to break this rule in the next step. I tried to bend the plastic and glue it using Heavy Gel to the bottom as well, but it just would not hold. So I applied a tiny bit of superglue.

Prepare some foam using very small parts of cotton wool and mixing them with Vallejo Heavy Gel.

Leave it to dry overnight. The gel dries transparent (or at least translucent) but it will have white swirls in the center due to the cotton.

Glue the foam splashes to the surface of the stream and the waterfall using Heavy Gel. Cover the rest of the surface as well with a stipling motion, for some transparent foam.

Leave it to dry overnight.

Finishing touches

I stuffed the wires, battery and switch into the inside of the base. It ALMOST fit - you can see here that the base is not 100% flat on the table. 

I then turned on the LEDs. The one in the back looks very cool underneath the foggy cloud and splash, but the front one looked funny behind a transparent sheet of plastic/waterfall. So I painted all the water and the splashes with two thin coats of Waywatcher Green glaze.

Finally paint the rim of the base black.

Finished!