Black Heart's Vlad

Black Heart Models, know for their 1:1 scale busts, have started a "micro" series of figures. Some of them are even historical in nature. I recently picked up Hannibal and Vlad the Impaler. Today, I'm starting Vlad. Besides what you see in the image it also comes with a pedestal type base  -

First thing was to look for an idea of color. Most of the images I'm familiar with are the woodcut or illustrations based on the woodcut.  Also a lot of the newer images had either a blood red vest or cape. To me that was a little too cliche. I settled on this pic -

As always I start by blackening the eyes and then start base coating -

Base painting well under way -

I did use red for the hat but will be darkening it down with some washes. The vest is Cavalry Brown, which has sort of on the red end of brown. The edge of the cap was smartly done. It looks like the sculptor used beads on a thread, and wrapped it around the band. Cool idea!

Thats it for today. Thanks for looking.

On to PART 2