Khador Caster Challenge: February, Vladimir, the Dark Prince of Umbrey

After having finished Zerkova, I had started to paint up Irusk as the next caster, but after playing a game of Warmachinea couple of weeks ago, where I fielded my Khador for the first time in a very long time (so long in fact, that many of the players at the store were unaware I had a Khador army, to them I was a Legion/Menoth player), and played and enjoyed my game with eVlad, I decided that Vlad was the way to go. Since my eVlad is not completely assembled, I dusted off pVlad. That is not a metaphorical dusting off either, this guy had been primed way back when he was originally released in 2005, and I literally had to clean the thick layer of dust off of his cloak before painting him!

This is the Variant version of Vladimir, the Dark Prince of Umbrey, after there was much outcry to resculpt the original version, which was a very early sculpt from Privateer Press, and is quite frankly lacking in charm. This version was originally released, with some of the proceeds from the sale going to Hurricane Katrina Relief.

His face is rather hidden, and hard to get to between those massive shoulder pads, but since the shoulders are clearly the focal point of this mini, I decided to spend the time getting them right, rather than the facial features,

Now that I have the paint scheme down for his armour, I can go and assemble the epic version, and get on with painting him, as he is a lot more fun to play with on the table. Afterall, the challenge to paint these guys up is with the intention of playing my Khador more too. I may even try to sign up for the next league at my FLGS with them, as I hear it's going to be a lot of fun!

To have this mini pull a double shift, I went with a winter base, that way he count's for this month's colore ton monde entry too. I went with the traditional PVA glue and baking soda mix, which worked perfectly when dry-brushed on the cloak, but didn't work so well on the base, as I had not base coated white, or blue, so the black of the base showed through. After that, I put a thin layer of white and blue paint, to cover the darkness of the PVA-Baking soda mix, then added some Army Painter snow flock. The result looks messy, and I don't like it, but for this month, it'll do, and I can always re-base him later.