Halloween Painting Contest WIP

After playing around with a few ides ideas for my local GW's Halloween themed painting contest, I came up with a plan for my entry.  I didn't want to spend any money on it, so I was restricted to what I could dig up from my cache of old figures and bits in the garage.  I had some old Mordheim mercenaries lying around and I've been wanting to paint something Empire related for awhile so I decided to put together a little diorama.

Update: be sure to check out Part 2 and Part 3 to see the competed diorama

I put together the model you see above and I was originally going to use a top-knot off an Ork head for the flame on the torch, but then I decided splurge just a little and hit up eBay to pick up some bits for this and another project.  I bought some flagellant arms including the one with the touch, which looks better than the Ork hair, and an owl from the Wood Elf Dryad kit.  The plan is to combine these with a stick I found while walking my dogs to use as some creepy looking trees (it has a nice shape that reminds me of a clawed hand) to make a scene where our old, haggard night watchman (he looks pretty strung out and perturbed) stumbles upon the dead rising from the grave.  A bit cliche, but it'll be fun to put together.  Next, I need to make a grave stone and come up with something to use for a base.  I have until the 30th to finish it, but it should be done well before then.

Bonus Content: my best Warhammer buddy Justin sent me a Popular Science article from a few years back about a concept for deploying Marines from Space, quite literally space Marines, but not hokey like in Moonraker.  Enjoy.