Warhammer underwolds Shadespire - The Sepulchral guard

I'm back on Shadespire just as Nightvault is announced ! That's a good timing, especially since I still have one band left to paint for it ! (more about that later)

Now this month, I had a painting challenge for which I had decided I'd paint a band themed on a season, my pick obviously went straight to undead and autumn, because that's a theme I love and my favourite season and both are an obvious match. 

That meant I wanted faded colours but obviously I couldn't help getting some vibrant reds in (I really must try to get rid of that habit before it becomes a cheap gimmick though).

I made a few mistakes with those, the first being to build them fully before painting, making it tricky to paint some areas of course, the second being undercoating with 41°C outside, no exactly the best conditions to get a nice undercoat with sprays... baaaad JB.

The Sepulchral Warden

Now the main reason I had to get some reds in there was because I couldn't get past the influence of Spawn, my favourite undead superhero and his iconic red cape ! I tried to replicate that effect in the warden's cape as best as I could, blending colours more than I usually do to achieve a smooth effect (I then stained with weathering like always).

I also wanted those skeletons to match with my other undeads :

It's only a bit late in the process I realised they were going to look a bit like my friend Mr Saturday's excellent sepulchral guard :

Go check Mr Saturday's mumblings

I haven't painted many undead or skeletons before I must say, maybe just a dozen for a DnD campaign years ago because the GM was nice (and gave me free lead for it). I have to say it was fun working on those. I tried to achieve a convincing bone colour with washes mixing sepia, brown, black to avoid something too white. The red elements were kept clean and tidy like they're magical and the rest was weathered to show age and decay.

The prince of dust and the champion

 I think the sculpting on these is absolutely stellar, I mean we're talking about skeletons here and each of them is packed with character. They're all unique. splendid work really.

A petitioner and the Harvester

You don't get that many skeletons that each have their own personality but these do, they're just the missing link between Harryhausen and the tales from the crypt. The petitioner on the right below is one of my favourite and I had fun working on his shield.

Two petitioners

All in all that's 4 bands done for this wonderful game. I haven't played enough of it to be perfectly honest with you but I've enjoyed it every time despite not being the competitive kind. I suspect the sepulchral guard might not be the best band for me and my poor tactic skills and rather blunt way of playing wargames but I don't mind losing much so you know...

Severin Steelheart is surrounded by the undead

The future on Leadplague is going to be full of very exciting stuff and I'm almost shivering from thinking about it so let's keep these good vibes and channel that into painted models and played games !