Miniature Monday – Vampire Bloodlords
Halloween is near, and the vampires are rising from their crypts! Have a look (if you dare)…!
(Posting by Dirk (mostly) and Antonia)
This week’s miniatures look very classical with enough detail to be interesting. Together with the Mummies and Frankenstein’s creatures they form a nice collection of staple Halloween monsters. I wanted to paint them in traditional colors, perhaps a little bit Ravenloft-ish, but didn’t have the time. I will try to paint them in together with Frankenstein’s monster (which is already half-finished).
Jim was inspired by his latest readings:
He said: “For the most part, my vampires are in a classic red, black and gray/white color scheme. I used mostly the same colors on both for a unified look, though not exactly the same. I went with light colored hair instead of dark and I think it came out better on the male than the female. The detail on the female’s face is a little soft but otherwise the mini’s were pretty good. OK, I may have over done it on the lips! Incidentally, I had just finished G.R.R. Martin’s “Fire and Blood” when I started these two, so there may be a slight Targaryen/Valyrian influence at work here. You be the judge!”
The grey or off-white hair could definitely show a Valyrian touch, but Antonia also sensed a weird “Nazi Vampire” vibe due to the red/white/grey&black combination… Not sure if I get that too, but it’s anyway a great paintjob with smooth gradients, and I like how you pulled off the pale skin in combination with the grey hair and the white clothes on the female vampire, I always find these lower contrast situations hard to paint properly!
Michael was very busy:
He send in a Triumvirate of vampires. “Since the hiatus in our schedule, I have spent some time painting terrain/dungeon dressing pieces, but I’ve also kept up a bit on characters and creatures, and so I’ve included a bonus vampire here.
For the Bones 4 pair, I went with a Bela Lugosi Dracula / Strahd von Zarovich style for the male. For the female, I was inspired by Carmilla from the Netflix Castlevania series. I also finally got around to the Bones 1 model “Judas Bloodspire, Vampire”; for him, I did kind of a cross between Castlevania and Gary Oldman Dracula. Along the way, I developed a pretty good process of layering red shades, which I think came out well.”
Indeed, the deep reds look very convincing, a very important tone especially for vampires!
Timothy chose another skin color as the rest:
He said: “I went with blue for the male just to be different.” You can find a lot of images of vampires with off-human skin, even for baron Strahd. I think this skin color gives the vampire a more sinister, non-human look, and I imagine an old and powerful being. It looks really good!
This week’s gallery:
Coming next:
11/02/20 Bones IV (Core Set) Bedeviled: Devils/Demons (Nos. 72, 73 and/or 74 on graphic)
Want to participate in the next post? Email the pictures of your minis until Friday 10/30/20 to
MondayMiniature@fantasymail.de (It’s a .de domain, in case emails are bouncing)
–> Attention: The submission date for photos is about three days before publishing date, to give us a bit of time to actually write about your pictures
This way you’ll have two weeks/one weekend to paint, and we have one weekend to write (which is the only time of the week where we (might, *sigh*) have some open minutes).
You can of course send in pics later, but to take out a bit of the stress (most pics arrive here rather last minute) please consider the three day deadline. Later pics will still show up in an update
Here is the link to Reaper’s graphic with all the core pieces, but it’s one and veeeery long picture so be prepared for some scrolling. On the other hand it has separate numbers for most of the pieces. I will add individual shop links as soon as they appear!
Here is the underdark Add-on.
11/16/20 Bones IV (Core Set) Movie night Part III: Paint Classic Horror Monsters (Victor’s Creatures, No. 134 and 135)
An updated schedule will follow soon. Any favourite minis you want to see? Let us know in the comments.
Caffeineforge 
Perfect timing for Halloween!
Michael – Nice work! I like the blue and yellow on the male to break up what can otherwise become a monotonous color scheme (looking at myself here!). The female looks very bloody, for lack of a better description. I like her eyes and she has an almost wistful (?) expression on her face. Judas certainly reminds me of Oldman’s Dracula and looks charismatically evil. Thanks for mentioning your inspirations! Gary Oldman happens to be one of my favorite actors and not just for Dracula.
Timothy – Your male looks positively diabolical! The rest of the mini supports the unique and dramatic face. Equally well done on the female, though she could go either way: Is she an accomplice of the Count’s or an unwilling victim?
Overall I’m pretty happy with these two. I tried to get some good painting in without taking forever plus these two were fun with all the potential influences. One more I didn’t mention is Christopher Lee’s Dracula from the Hammer horror movies. I have to agree with Antonia’s comment about Nazis. There is just something about black, white and red that bring them to mind! Actually, they’re scarier than vampires in my book. There happens to be a Kickstarter right now called “Nazi Dracula Must Die!” Seriously, you can look it up.
Looks like red was the color of the day!
I don’t know if I would have instantly said “Nazi Vampires” when seeing Jim’s, but once the idea is introduced, now that’s all I see! I think it’s in part the gray that’s in there. It kind of reminds me of the Imperial uniforms in Star Wars. Hmmm… Nazi Vampires… in Spaaaaaaaaaace!? That being said, the Targaryen influence is also evident. The female has a pretty severe expression on her face. She means business! Great shadows in the male’s cape, too.
Timothy’s male definitely carries a monstrous appearance. I like the color of the coat; it makes me think it’s crushed velvet. The female is interesting in how versatile it is. If you were using this in a tabletop game and put the mini out, the players wouldn’t automatically know if she’s a vampire, or in league with the vampire, or just kind of goth. Also, kudos for the scenery in the background!
Jim mentioned the “wistful” expression in my female. It’s probably the influence of Carmilla, as she is the type who enjoys playing with her food…
One extra little thing I noticed in comparing these pictures was that Jim and Timothy interpreted the male as having a long glove, whereas I thought it was a bare hand and the cuff of his coat. Either way works! That’s one of the nifty things about participating in this blog; there are occasionally bits like that where you say, “I never thought of that!” and it opens you up to looking at your models in a different way.