Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Enslaved Ghouls

Contrary to popular belief, it is fairly rare for a vampire to pass on the "dark gift" to his victims. Every time a new vampire is born, the vampire lord's hunting ground becomes a little more confined and his ability to remain inconspicuous becomes threatened. More often, victims who are not killed outright are given a small amount of the vampire's blood and are raised to a state somewhere between life and undeath.


These vile creatures sometimes hunt for human meat but more often live as scavengers near burial sites and crypts. They are known by many names - blood servant, vampiric thrall, corpse stealer, grave fiend - but most resort to the vulgar term ghoul.


Every "ghoul" is affected by a vampire's blood differently. Some, although monstrous, retain a shadow of their humanity while others quickly degenerate into slathering beasts. However, regardless of their condition, these creatures are true abominations of god's order and serve no purpose whatsoever in the grand scheme of things.

Painted By: Jason (aka JET)

Thoughts & Commentary:

I had fun selecting the models that I would use for this project. As you can plainly see, I made use of dry-brushing and inking on these miniatures - there''s only so much effort I'm willing to put into a painting a ghoul. The four models used, in order from the top of the post down are:
  1. Westwind, Nosferatu blister pack. The knife hand is a plastic weapon swap.
  2. Mantic, Undead Ghoul boxed set. Built straight from a plastic sprue.
  3. Westwind, The Antagonists Vampire Counts/Slayers 1 blister pack. The head is a plastic Games Workshop zombie head.
  4. Westwind, Vampires From Across Time blister pack. Straight from the pack.
I used the same bland color scheme on all of these because, as a group, I want them to stand out from the vampires they will be fighting alongside of. Using Tom Weiss's amended Nosferatu warband list, I created the maximum number of four ghouls and tried to vary their abilities and weapons using the options available. I look forward to trying them out soon, perhaps in a graveyard near you ;

Thanks for reading,
JET

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

They look amazing. Can´t wait to see them do some evil on the tabletop.

Christopher(aka Axebreaker) said...

I think they will do the trick. I'm looking forward to the next chapter.

Cheers
Christopher

abdul666 said...

Indeed makes sense from an ecological point of view.
Indeed in Japanese Hellsing only *virgin* humans are turned into vampires once bitten (and the full process requires additional steps): other humans are turned to enslaved -cannibalistic and 'contagious', creating a pocket of 'resident evil'- ghouls. Thus vampires wishing to avoid competition make sure their victim is no longer virgin before biting...

JET (aka Jason) said...

Thanks for the comments guys. The next chapter of the Dertflinghan campaign won't be for another couple of weeks.

Is Hellsing a movie? By the sounds of it I should watch it.

C'nor (Outermost_Toe) said...

I believe you mean to remain inconspicuous...

JET (aka Jason) said...

Thank you sir for pointing that out. To think how much I've been judged already. Damnation.

C'nor (Outermost_Toe) said...

You're welcome. It does raise some interesting points about how things would work if the vampires weer trying to avoid falling into obscurity...

Unknown said...

They look great!