The next pair of completed models I have to share are this pair of Dark Elf Champions from the 4th Edition WHFB line. While I do like many in this series of models, sculpted by Aly Morrison and Colin Dixon, I still do prefer the previous 3rd edition-era models that were mostly sculpted by Bon Naismith – which were actually my first WHFB force, that I sadly sold backj in my yough, after deciding that I couldn’t afford to collect both Dark Elves and also Orcs & Goblins. I did keep a few of my favourites from that force, but as with my original Imperial Army/Squat force, I’m still a little sad that those models are long gone…
Yep! There’s that flame motif again! There is at least a story behind this one. Back sometime in the 1990’s when I was a gaming regular at a store in town, some guy randomly came in and wanted a miniature painted, and wanted someone to paint it for him. I said I’d do it for whatever amount (I can’t recall, but you know, a decent bit more than the base model), and so he selected a Dark Elf off the shelf and I took it home. That Dark Elf is the below one, with the purple scheme.
So I took the model home, painted it in a week, Marouda told me that she really liked the job I did on it, then I brought it back into the shop to hand it over. The guy never showed. I left it in the shop, and after 2 or three weeks, the guy still hadn’t turned up. So… I’d basically painted it for nothing.
After a full month or so, I told the guy in the store that since the guy had abanoned the model, I was going to take it home myself and give it to Marouda, having put in the work to paint it and because she liked it. He wasn’t so keen, so I bought an identical model off the shelf and told him I’d paint that one for the guy in case he ever came back, and left my number.
So in the end the guy never came back and I never got the second version finished. Years later I acquired the pointing model secondhand, and then started him in the same scheme which I’d decided on for my Kings of War Dark Elf force, which got waylaid for several years. Though this pair of models ended up on The Tray which meant that they finally got completed. The original, purple model remains basically just a display model for Marouda, but as it’s linked to the other two, I thought I’d add it to this post…
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
All of them are great but I think I like the green ones more. More of a sea/ocean theme to them as they are shore raiders. Love the flames on the cape. Top notch. Thanks for sharing.
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Thanks Joe. I do prefer those as well, but I still have a fondness for the purple one 🙂
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Awesome painting on those, and the flame motif is excellent. I can’t believe you put in all that work and the guy didn’t even bother to pick it up…
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Well, I guess he never saw it, but yeah – I wasn’t doing *that* for nothing. (And he never returned at all as far as I could find out, either!)
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Excellent work on all, really like the unusual turquoise colours, not something you see normally with Dark Elves, but I really like it, and your flames are excellent as always
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Thanks Dave – I really wanted to go with “non-traditional” colours for my Dark and High Elves (I’m fine with natural flora and earth tones for the Wood Elves). So the High Elves got gold and red, while the Dark Elves got dark sea green through teal and turquoise into almost-blue.
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All very nice! 🙂 I enjoyed the story behind them as well!
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Cheers, John. Glad you enjoyed it. 🙂
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Lovely stuff – I really like that unusual sea-green! Works really nicely 👍
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Thanks Alex. One day I’ll get some more Dark Elves painted up!
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Nice story, and I’m really enjoying these classic models you’ve been painting!
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Cheers Dave. Rest assured, there’ll always be more of them in the pipeline…
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Lovely work, and you colour choices are excellent.
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Thank you. The first models in the Turquoise-ish schemes were a real experiment to see if I could pull them off, and I’m happy they worked out.
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Very nice paint job – old and new. I’m going to have to try flames at some time – yours always look impressive.
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Thank you. I should do a tutorial post on them sometime actually.
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Very nice- rocking the flames too.
Cheers,
Pete.
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Cheers Pete – I kinda find it amusing to see how many of my models have some variation of them.
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Yep the boys are right mate ,great tale ,great paintwork especially the flames!
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Thanks Pat – very much appreciated!
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Nice work on these, through the ages!
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Thanks Subedai! 🙂
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Wow, very sweet! I imagine everyone is staring at those flames, how could one not?! It almost looks like they are outlined in black?
And I’d have some choice “words” for the guy who never showed up!
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No outline, just the contrast between the deep green and the red, combined with the fact that I don’t highlight the green on the cloaks exactly adjacent to the flames (because I’ll mess them up!)
All good on the guy. We got another nice model out of it in the end. He just left his ten or so bucks for the model.
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I’m with John above, I enjoyed reading about the story behind these as it is more interesting than with your typical mini. The sculpts are great and still hold up well and I like your paint job on them a lot. They’re brighter than your typical dark elves but still have a lot of menace to them, as they should!
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