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Some have seen the miniature in show off forum, but I finally got around taking some decent pics of the final version tonight. I used a ring light to illuminate the front of the mini and my painting lamp from top. One set of shots on a light blue backdrop and one on a black backdrop. Let me know which one you prefer. Judas Bloodspire has been slightly converted: New custom head, new sword, some of the skulls on the armour removed and more details added to signify that it is a fantasy version of Vlad Tepes. I tried a few new things on this one: Two brush blending on the cloak (kinda worked ok), using a unifying purple wash in all shadows and depicting pearls with microbeads for nail art. Hope you like him C&C very welcome as I want to push myself further with each new mini. If you are interested here is the work in progress thread: https://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/72981-judas-bloodspire-77160-is-turned-into-vlad-tepes-finishing-line/

While I am waiting for some inspiration to finish my necromanceress and hone my painting skills with other stuff to get a grip on OSL to finish my Ghost King, I came across a basecoated Judas Bloodspire in my box of shame. I realised why I did not finish him: I did not like his face and didn't care much for the skulls on his armour. A few minutes later is head was gone and so were the skulls. But what now? While googling I came across a copy of a portrait of Vlad Tepes apparently based on an original made during his lifetime. This picture is in the Public domain, still only a link to be on the safe side: Portrait of Vlad Dracul. By Anonymous [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons He was a Wallachian prince that lived 1428/1431 to 1476/77. Contemporary and later sources describe him as a cruel and ruthless politician, some go so far to paint him as a sadistic monster that reveled in drinking the blood from his impaled enemies. It does not come as a surprise that Bram Stoker got inspired by this historical figure for his Count Dracula novel. I had this idea of a fictional family graveyard of the Draculesci for the base, going even further back to the House of Basarab. This would allow to depict weathered gravestones that are a hundred years old, some tumbled over and overgrown, the walls of the graveyard in disrepair. I imagine the entire family to be cursed by the gods with vampirism based on Vlad's cruelty. Embracing this curse, or "gift" as he likes to refer to it, he may have chosen the graveyard as a resting place. He cares little for its condition and revels in the decay surrounding him. In my case the miniatures original sword was held at such an odd angle that its point was lower than the cast-on base. Instead of cutting off the arm and adjusting the weapon I kept the angle and decided to put the miniature on the edge of some stone steps. This works also very well with his raised knee and outstretched left arm. In the end I decided to replace his long sword with a Hungarian sabre or szabla, which I carved from a two-handed sword that was part of the Northstar plastic gnolls set using a scalpel. The historical Vlad Tepes would most likely have used an european style sword, but his immortal counterpart may have adopted a saber when it became more acceptable among the nobility a hundred years after his "death". To resemble more the portrait of Vlad I added a new head and breast armor. Turns out Vlad's hairdo and mo was pretty metal back in the day. Anyhow, I used a head of the Gripping Beast Late Romans for this conversion. One of the soldiers wears a Pannonian cap which provides a perfect base for the Wallachian headdress depicted in the portrait. I still need to add the pearls and maybe a dragon emblem on the chest piece. There are still some elements missing: As you can see the gap on the base will fit the graveyard wall. I think I will use a magnet to attach it to simplify transport. I also need to add the bat swarm to the background and another gravestone to the front left. This one was the bottom part of the bat swarm. I cut the Bones version in two pieces to be able to mount the swarm on some clear acrylic rod. Given the gravestone had a skull with batwings on it *cough* I decided to add some new design with greenstuff. I had a flying dragon in mind to mirror the headstone behind it. I also want to add another hanging bat to the lower branch of the tree. This will most likely be the bat from the Reaper familiar set. A nice touch could be a tumbled over statuette that was originally placed in the little alcove of the gravestone on the front right. I'll see what my greenstuff skills can produce. Here are some pictures of the base without WIP Vlad. If you are interested in how it was constructed head over to my blog, where I wrote a detailed step-by-step tutorial: Unrested souls - How to make a graveyard themed diorama base

So I have painted the Bones figure 77160: Judas bloodspire (on the right): He's a magnificent sculpt with a cape that's all over the place. And, indeed, his cape hucked up like fallen angel wings is how he appears in all the in-store images, metal or Bones: https://www.reapermini.com/OnlineStore/judas/sku-down/14016 The problem as I see it with this is that it is a very precarious construction. In Bones I felt safe enough to paint away merrily, but I recall stating even in my WIP that I would quake at the challenge of keeping a metal figure of this pinned together. Be careful of what you ask for. Some months ago @malefactus kindly sent me a generous assortment of figures, which included a very nicely based and primed version of 14016: Judas, Necropolis Warlord. Despite his very careful packing, the figure had been jostled enough to loosen the cape (sorry, malefactus!). I set it aside, cleaned off the glue, and reckoned I would paint them separately and rejoin them later. Yesterday I was contemplating how to do so, and whether, where, and how to pin it when I noticed something. I think there is an alternate pose of the cape that may work better. The cape fits on the figure very neatly at three contact points (the sword, the back, and the left hand) if one attaches it at a different angle from all the photos in the store.: While this conformation does not have the amazingly dramatic winglike forms of the standard arrangement, it seems to me it has the potential to be much more stable. Just for fun, here's a close up of his face so far:

I hadn't planned to do a Show Off thread of this figure, the Bones 77160: Judas Bloodspire, Vampire, by Werner Klocke. I just grabbed him from my bin o' Bones because a game needed some vampires and he looked pretty good and melodramatic. I didn't even do a WIP thread. But something happened. The more I painted him the more I realized what a magnificent little piece of sculpture he was. Details kept popping out at me. He has this amazing, proud Miltonian damned soul Satanic presence, with that neoclassical drapery and the broken column and that tremendous, flapping, almost alive cape like a fallen angel's wings. Werner Klocke did a fantastic job with him. The figure exists in metal, but I suspect it would be a nightmare to glue and hold together. I would be quite nervous about painting it and can only express the highest admiration for those who have done so. One further note. About halfway through painting him I glued him to a base, because as he is configured he cannot stand flat. That damned sword keeps getting in the way. Note that even in the store photo he is propped up a little by the point of the sword. This seems to be a problem with the Bones version only.

Just realized I never got around to taking show off pictures of this guy. I had some frosting issues which killed my momentum in my WIP (here) for him, and then he sat around waiting to be fixed. The fix mostly worked, but you'll see a few shots where the light is a little more direct where he ended up shiny. Not a big deal as in most lighting he looks fine. The last few shots will have an alternate rider's top half, I swapped the original Wight out for the top half of Reaper's Judas Bloodspire, sans cape.

This week I began the final 10 countdown of my Bones 1 Kickstarter Painting project, by doing the last of the Grave Danger set I had left to paint: Judas Bloodspire, Vampire. Not a fancy paint job, just getting him table-ready to use in my Frostgrave collection since I've been missing a Vampire figure as listed in the game's random-encounter Bestiary. For his full step-by-step painting entry on my blog, see: Judas Bloodspire

Okay, so normally I start off my photo dump with a few batches/groups in mind, I do those, then by the end I'm left with a grab bag of minis that don't fit together at all. In an attempt to end that cycle, I'm throwing the grab bag group in the middle of the week. Instead of the end. So these three guys all have swords. And they are dudes. Those are the only common themes I could find. First up, another repaint of a classic figure. The Games Workshop Barbarian from the best dungeon crawler in the history of dungeon crawlers, Warhammer Quest. His sword was long gone so I replaced it with a Reaper sword from a weapons kit. It made the mini real top heavy so I am going to have to weight the base eventually... Next up, Judas Bloodspire, Vampire. Super fun to paint... And lastly, Ragnaros, the evil warrior. I get kinda stuck on heavy armored dudes. I played with hue and color variations and various glazes, etc, but they always end up kinda 'samey' to me. There are things I liked about him though, so here he is. Thanks for looking, C+C welcome as always...

Yephima, Female Cloud Giant has a (WIP thread) this took many days of painting. It eventually will get a snow covered base. Mocking beast (mimic) my first unambitious attempt at basing. the base was from a box of good will, put in by Sirithel. Judas Bloodspire, Vampire Ragnaros, Evil Warrior Kord the destroyer Bastic Oliver - this is my friend's dwarf ranger PC in my 13th age game. A throwing axe specialist in leather armor. His "One Unique Thing" is that his excrement is gold. The process is painful and has resulted in several types of trouble and lots of paranoia. I am adding a gold 'nugget' to the base behind him. I may have to add some grass to make it stand out against the brown dirt.

I'm doing some character minis for a friend in exchange for minis from his Bones I Kickstarter and some paints. He wanted for me to paint a Paladin, and he was looking at Judas Bloodspire. I said, "His clothes don't look quite right for a paladin type." He said, "Not necessarily," then he showed me the Andoren sourcebook (a Pathfinder country, btw. They favor Blue, gold, and white and dress very 18th Century rather than Medieval.) And so "Judas the Just" was born. If you are familiar with the Mirror Universe concept (see the Old Trek episode "Mirror Mirror." Spock looks great with a beard,) this is where you have evil versions of normally good characters. Well, what's good for the goose... As far as the paint job goes, it is a bit rough in places, particularly the left side of his face and his hair. I think I learned a few good lessons about washes and thinning my paint, though. All in all, I like it, particularly the shading and the armor. I haven't given him back yet, so if anyone has any last-minute suggestions, I'll definitely listen. I may not do them (I'm not spending many more hours on this guy,) but I'll listen. The pictures are really big, click on them to expand:

No, seriously, this is a thing I'm doing. A friend of mine is commissioning me to paint some of his minis - in exchange he's going to load me down with minis from his Bones KS I. Well, that and some paints. Anyway, we were looking for a Paladin - he's playing an Andoren Paladin in a Pathfinder game, and he handed me Judas Bloodspire. I was truly intrigued by the challenge. So, I've made only a few the actual changes. I sliced off the part of the cloak that is definitely making a bat wing, and I used superglue to fill in the eye- and nose-holes of the skulls on his epaulets and the guard of the sword. The intention is to paint them up as big blue gems. The skull on the back of the sword I think I can get to look like a crown - which is actually a not-uncommon historical pommel. I also used an X-acto knife to "de-fang" him, though unfortunately they didn't show up until I started painting the face. This is my progress so far, I decided to take a break today and get this up on the forum to seek advice - besides a really high res picture can help me see fine mistakes. I think I consider the skirts finished, though I could work on them a bit more. The armor is mostly finished but for touch ups, the sword needs real-touching up 'cause it caught paint from the skirts. The hilt and pommel of the sword are completely undone - I haven't mixed up my gold yet. The cloak is base-coated only, I plan do to more work shading there (though most of that will only show up in the back.) I'd like to call the face and hair done, but I'll definitely take good advice on these things - I've probably spent 3-4 hours painting this guy so far, and easily an hour of it has been doing and redoing the face. I've even hit it with Reaper's matte sealer (thanks Ub3r_n3rd!) to take away a bit of roughness. So without further ado, I present an alternate good version of Judas: