Today we have a miniature I've been slowly ticking over in between other projects. It's taken months of five minutes here and ten minutes there to complete him. But finally, Stephane Dreux, vampire knight, is finished.
This fellow is a mounted vampire knight by Reaper Miniatures. I picked up the model many years ago. I originally started him to use as my champion in games of Full Tilt (and I still may) but life got in the way and he never got finished. Rather than have him linger in the half-done box, I resolved to just pick away at him when I had a minute.
He's a metal model, and required a fair bit of clean-up and some lance repair. Colour-wise I used Juan Hidalgo Miniatures' 'Eavy Contrast - Blood Dragon Vampire Lord tutorial (mostly) for the knight's armour. The horses armour I got from the Citadel Colour App for Blood Dragon horse armour. I wanted a darker, more sombre red for the horse armour.
The black horse was a bit tough, as I wanted it to have some reflection to simulate the sheen from a horse's body. The lance I painted as a kind of semi-fossilised bone. The shield is black, but has a few gradiated coats of red glazes. All the tackle, straps and belts etc. are worn brown leather.
Purple cloth, some aged brass and a vibrant orange jewel for contrast finishes him off.
Stephane Dreux is another long-serving character in my armies. A former knight of Bretonnia cut down and turned into a Blood Dragon vampire, he amps up the self-pitying anti-hero schtick to eleven. You can read more about Stephane in my old page on the Horde of Dreux. Here's a snippet:
When Stephane grasped the grail it burned him terribly, but he would not release it. His body smoked and blackened as the new-born vampire clung onto the holy object. He wanted to die rather than exist as a perversion of the man he had been only scant hours before. As he burst into flame the lady moved to save him. Aregisel was built over a spring sacred to the Bretonnian deity, and she had sensed the host of men battle valiantly against their enemies. Stephane had defended her shrine until he had been transfixed by his enemies blades, and she resolved that his fate was not to die in agony and failure.
Oh yeah, feel that angst. I bet he broods a lot on cliff edges.
Anyhow, there you go, that's another Mumble in the bag for now!