dracula and graveyard

[tbroadwater]

Malamute (Nick) sent me over his Dracula figures and I painted them up immediately!!! Great sculpts and fun to work with.

I also worked on my first section of generic scenery for the gothic horror gaming board using some old GW gravestones for many years back.
Next will be some good old scary trees and castle ruins.

[PeteMurray]

I really like the reds on the guy on the left!

And I realize this is cheating, but Lemax supplies are showing up in the craft shops, including some nice dead trees. You might want to take a look. You can probably make something that looks just as nice (or probably nicer) but these aren't too expensive and are good filler.

[tbroadwater]

thanks for the tip Pete. I will take a look over the weekend and see what I can find in the local shop....

is it part of the halloween collection?

[PeteMurray]

Yes, particularly for the big dead tree. The best buy seems to be the skull piles--three decent piles of slightly-bigger-than-28mm skulls for $1.99. Deathwing found some rats that he said will be big, but will work.

[Malamute]

Hi Todd, cool looking figures, where did you get them? ::  ::  ::
Seriously though, great painting and I like the graveyard too.a nice touch with the dead trees.  Looking forward to seeing your castle ruins too

Sooner or later you will have to come across the pond and we will have some fantastic games

I have been thinking about painting up the old Dracula figure wearing the gold robe that Gary Oldman wore in the Coppola movie, a slightly different look. It could be interesting  :

[tbroadwater]

ah, great idea...I thought about that too but was reluctant since I could not find much reference for the robe. I am still thinking how that could be done in the best way, since it is so complex. Non-metallic or metalic paints? I was still hung up on that question LOL

[Malamute]

There are a few shots of it in the book that accompanied the film, including some scetches by the costume designer. But I agree with you, its a difficult one to achieve the right look and I was concerned too about how to get it looking good.
Hey I have an idea, I'll send you another figure and we can both have a go and ask the guys here to see what they think, what do you say? :

[tbroadwater]

great idea... I am all for it. And I thank you in advance!

It will be interesting to see how we both go about solving the robe design.

[Malamute]

Todd,

I had a look at the pictures in the book last night, not as many as I first thought. But there is a great full length colour photo.  
On closer inspection it is not how I remember it. It is more like a patchwork piece with many discs and squares stitched onto the robe. Apart from the gold and silver work there are coloured beads/jewels as well in reds and blues. It is very elaborate and looks quite a challenge...
I will send you a scan of the photo so we are both working off the same point of reference.
Also the robe has flared sleeves, a collar and no buttons, so I will add some greenstuff to both yours and my figure so we have something that is different to the original one.
I'll get started on the sculpting on my day off next week....

[tbroadwater]

that would be fantastic...and I did dig up some images and agree, it will be quite a challenge!!!
So does that mean you will be creating a new mold and casting new models from that negative?

I cannot wait to see...if I may make a suggestion, I would rework the head slightly removing the beard and opening the mouth into a learing or screaming (with fangs beared) expression. It could be very dynamic!

[Malamute]

Hi Todd,

I was just going to add greenstuff to make the sleeves flared and remove the buttons and add a new collar. I was only going to do it to two of the existing castings and then post one of them  to you.

Creating a new mould will take some time as I have to outsource it to a friend of mine(He is not the quickest person either !)  

But now you have got me thinking about doing it, I lilke the idea of the learing fangs bared face...I might even sculpt a whole new figure.....! Now that will take even longer!

[tbroadwater]

sorry to add more work to your schedule but I cannot wait to see what you come up with!!!