A new year, and some Wraiths...

Wow, it's been a month already?
The annual busy period at work has reduced my time and energy available for hobby stuff. That isn't to say I've been totally idle, but that nothing has progressed enough to take new pictures of. The first Necromunda terrain piece is still PIP, although the airbrush stages are past. I need to get the thing on the painting table for some good old-fashioned brushwork.
The Goliath gang is primered and ready for paint.  The Escher have seen a tentative start at building them.
I've packed away my airbrush kit, partly because I needed a change of pace, partly because my mate's airbrush finally arrived and he reclaimed the set of airbrush paints I was borrowing from him. I need to build up my own stock of airbrush paints.
Also, I needed to clear the workbench because I wanted/needed to do some woodworking again.
I'm making a set of pushsticks for a friend who got a tablesaw for his birthday last fall, as well a cupholder as a (very) belated birthday gift for another friend. My plan for the coming year is to alternate woodworking and wargaming/modelling a bit more because, honestly, between work and hobbies, I'm getting a bit fed up with just sitting on my ass all the time.

With Necromunda having run out of steam a little bit, and me needing to relax after work, I've picked up playing The Witcher 3 again. I find it quite relaxing to just explore and slay (or be slain by) the odd roaming monster.  Which naturally has me thinking about fantasy gaming again. Also I needed a break from all the worn-out tech that has been a main feature of my hobby efforts lately (between Necromunda and Gasland).
So, I've been looking at my tray of primered fantasy figures once more, as a palate cleanser and to get back into a rythm of painting again.
Today, I painted a trio of Wraiths. These Wraiths are converted from GW Empire Flagellants and based on the ones found in, unsurprisingly, the Witcher:
 

And here's my interpretation:

These were painted by drybrushing them up to a light grey and then a final drybrush of pale sand. Afther that the colours were added by thin washes/glazes of the GW washes. This gives them the pale and washed out look I needed for them. The Wraith on the right features a first careful, and probably too subtle, attempt at OSL from the lamp/timeglass. The metal parts of the swords (and the brass bell) were given a very light drybrush of metal.

 " Wraiths are spirits of the unquiet dead. Trapped between true life and true death, they are filled with torment and a burning hatred of the living. They can be found roaming catacombs, near their disturbed or neglected gravesites or sometimes drawn to Places of Power. As such an adventurer must always be alert when visiting such locales and never neglect a sudden chill running down their spines, often a first warning sign that Wraiths are nearby...."

 The personal fantasy/dungeoneering setting I'm placing my fantasy skirmishes and dungeoneering projects in is a mix of various factors that interest me. It's a witches'  brew of "traditional" fantasy and folklore, mixed with a good dollop of historical 14th century for the villages/towns and general architecture, and a healthy helping of Cthulhu Mythos for the deep dark places in forests and dungeons, far from the light of civilisation... Nothing set in stone, or even written down, for now it's just a ghost of a dream in my head. But the last few iterations a lot of the Witcher universe and Slavic folkore in general has been spicing the mix.* The more I look into it, the more it intrigues me. It's all just unfamiliar and dark enough to be interesting (to myself and players) as well as form a nice bridge or gradient between the civilised parts of my setting and the truly dark Cthuluesque parts. As a result I'll be adding a few of the monsters and creatures from these settings into my collection, in addition to the Western European folkore and mythology "classics".  I just need to find  good models to represent them or convert them from. I'm even considering painting all the signage and such in Glagolotic instead of Roman/western letters.

*: In fact the Pavesiers/City Guard I painted more than a year ago take their heraldry from Rivia, a small kingdom in the Witcher world....

See you next time! Don't get bitten by a Domovoi!