It's Undead time! 1994 GW Zombie Dragon with Lahmian Rider!

So, time for another commission job I've got finished recently, and I really enjoyed painting and converting this one! 

Loads more photos and info after the cut...

So, this is a bit of an unusual one, the model itself is from the mid 1990s 'Red' period, which I'll be honest, I'm not the biggest fan of, and probably wouldn't have chosen to paint it if it wasn't a commission job.

Here's a photo of the base model with the original rider: 

 That rider, apparently by Gary Morley, is just awful. It's from that terrible time in GW history where they made everything big, brash and just so damn chunky. I had a word with my client about the rider, as they agreed it wasn't the best, even though they collect this era, and after throwing some ideas around I found a Lahmian Vampire model in the leadpile that we thought looked great:

Apparently this one is a Juan Diaz (Everyone's favourite pervy Spaniard) model, and it's just a much nicer model all round. Here's a bit of a close up of her, as I'm particularly pleased with how she came out, even down to the makeup:

The dragon itself, (a Trish Morrison/Carden) sculpt is lovely as it is, all I did was add a bit of saddlery to hold the vampire on a bit better, as the original didn't even have that. I'm not sure how someone with such a large helmet was meant to stay upright! 

I tried to make the dragon look as pallid and sickly as possible, hence the greys and muted greens, although I added some splashes of colour by using GW's technical blood paint (Blood for the Blood God!) on all the muscle tissue that was showing through tears in the skin. Having said that, most of the colour comes from the rider, which I think works quite well and gives a nice contrast between the two. 

Anyway, here's a few more photos: 

I think the smaller rider makes the model just look larger and more imposing overall. Finally, here's Shorty, still recovering from his incident with the Giant, having to now go up against this new monstrosity! He's definitely not getting paid enough. 

I promise I'll get back to some of my own stuff soon! As you can see from the walls, I've been working on them, having finalised a limestone with a sand mortar as the finish, I've just got quite a lot more to do before it's worth putting up a post about them!

Anyway, as this is probably my last post before xmas, I hope you all have a great holiday season within the constraints of this very trying year. I'll try to post again before the new year, but if I don't, here's hoping 2021 is better than 2020, although it'd be hard to be any worse!