Watch the skies!

I have finally found some fell bats to include in the Vampire Counts army. The stock models are far too comical for my taste so I have been looking around for some time for alternatives. A lot of gamers convert ghouls or daemonettes - add a pair of plastic wings and the result is a decent enough model. For me, these conversions are more batman (or batwoman), but I very nearly went down this route. The problem is, I want to use the "batperson" concept for my vargheists, so having two similar looking sets of models for two different units was always going to be confusing. Happily, I have found the solution in the sales section of the Warhammer Forum and am busily assembling my new unit. I will get into the details in a future post, for now I am thinking aloud about colours for my new unit.

As most of you probably know by now, I am a big fan of natural, muted colour schemes, even in my fantasy armies. I have been looking around for inspiration and I think I have settled on something like this little chap. A brown furry body and grey wings with fleshy arms, ears and face, not quite as dull as this picture. Some scenic elements on the base will also add interest. Notice that the wings have blood vessels and veins running through them. Something like that would add interest to the scheme, but it could be hard to pull off in a convincing fashion. Still, there's little else to complicate the painting so I will probably give it a go.

While I was searching I came across a lot of cartoon and anime illustrations, which are not really my cup of tea but can be useful sometimes for palette inspiration. This is a case in point. It just so happens that I am also prepping a vampire character to temporarily lead my army. I have a trio of ladies lined up and had decided a while back to paint them in different schemes - a red, a black and a white. This deep red will do nicely I think.