“Too Sweet!”
This model is one I started painting several years ago. A High Elf Mage from that Warhammer Fantasy range’s refresh back in 1997, I needed a High Elf Wizard model to represent Immeril, the Eladrin Wizard character in the Ravenloft D&D boardgame that we’d started playing the first time around way back then. Eladrin, it turns out means “Elf” and “Elf-kin”. So a High Elf mini was roped into play. This particular model is one I liked, as it’s a little more subdued for a Warhammer model (ie: no gigantic hat)
As I noted some time ago, I don’t want my High Elves to look like everyone else’s High Elves. Silver armour with blue trim. It’s a good looking scheme, no doubt, but everyone’s models look like that! Instead, I took inspiration from World of Warcraft (which I was still playing at the time) and their High Elf offshoot, the Blood Elves. I’m not going to go into their convoluted background here, suffice it is to say that they look aesthetically pleasing and also different enough to the standard.
So I did that.
The main drawback was the fact that when we stopped playing these board games, all those years ago, I also stopped working on the related models, and so this guy sat in a tub, with a bit of red on him for years. When we started playing again, painting/completing this character wasn’t a big priority until it started getting used, when we were into the second campaign and did a character shuffle. At that point, this model was being used on the table and then it wasn’t until after my Sigmarite Warrior Priest (as a D&D Cleric) got completed that I plucked this one out of the active game to finish off. Bjorn the Stormborn also announced a Painting Challenge for High Elves and Skaven around this time, and I hoped to also get this guy done as part of that as well. Unfortunately, as well as all of those stars aligned, personal circumstances also intervened, and I wasn’t able to complete this model until Early September, and I’m obviously only getting to posting it up now, at the start of October.
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
Love that color scheme. I just did the generic sky blue clothing but you did a sweet job. Yours truly, Joe
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Thanks Joe. I tried doing some slightly different to the usual schemes with my High and Dark Elves. Pretty traditional with the woodies, though! 🙂
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He looks great – love the eyes! 🙂
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Thanks John – I almost did them normally but went instead with my easy-win “glowy eyes” that I’ve started using for casters-in-action. 🙂
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Excellent work mate, the colour choices work really well. Shame you didn’t get it finished for the challenge, but it’s a wonderful finish none the less
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Cheers Dave. I would have liked to, but there were some pretty nasty bumps over the past couple of months – especially when the challenge was running, so all I could really focus on well were larger terrain pieces!
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Lovely colour scheme; I like how you’ve done his sword 😃
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Thanks mate – it didn’t turn out quite as well as I’d hoped, but I’ll put it down as a learning experience.
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Very nice- love the colour blending you have done.
Cheers,
Pete.
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Thank you, Pete! 🙂
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This is a classic sculpt! I might have owned one of these at one point and if not, I remember seeing it in stores as I looked for high elves for my army that never got close to being finished. I like the blood elves color scheme as well. That seems creative to me but also a scheme that would fit those sculpts pretty well. Great work and thanks for the nostalgia trip too 🙂
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Cheers mate – well it’s about as creative as a lot of what GW do – seeing something that looks good somewhere else and applying it to their models. Ironic that it came from Blizzard, who took a lot of their visuals from GW back in the day!
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Nicely done mate – elves look awesome in red, I’m surprised we don’t see it more often!
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Cheers Alex. I do think it’s a bit odd, but I guess people just tend to automatically gravitate to the standard White + blue/teal on one side and Black + dark blue/purple/green on the other…
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I never know what colors to paint up the Wizards. You did a real nice job on this one. The red goes nicely with the inner yellow cloth. Normally I would immediately leap to “Fire Wizard”, but the additional colors mixed in there makes him look quite versatile for any sort of Magic-User.
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Thanks Faust – yeah if I was using him in a game with very distinct spell classes, he’d fit the Fire Mage slot easily, but in other settings he’ll do well enough for whatever’s needed. 🙂
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Excellent color choices – his fingers do say a la Twisted Sister, “I wanna rock”…
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Hahha 🙂
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