Category Archives: Warhammer Fantasy – 9th Age

Lucrezzia Belladonna and Farendil, Elf Ranger

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Lucrezzia Belladonna and Farendil, Elf Ranger

Lucrezzia Belladonna and Farendil, Elf Ranger

Just a small update today. Last shown way back in June 2013, I ended up finishing these two some months ago. So I’m taking this opportunity to follow-up and show them off – something I haven’t been too good at with my various WIP figures to date. The Lady of the pair turned out not to be a Brettonian, but an Italian.. erm, Tilean. Lucrezzia Belladonna to be exact – sculpted by Chris Fitzpatrick’s for the WFB Dogs of War range, circa 5th Edition – so 1996+. Lucrezzia is basically a display piece, as she was painted for my wife. While I’m sure I could (and would) do something a bit more interesting with the model today, I’ve learned enough about repainting my old models to know when to go in with gusto for a repaint and when to leave well enough alone. I might just keep an eye out on eBay for a second one instead. She might have a small role as a Wizard or even a mounted Vampiress in a KoW force, she’ll mostly be inhabiting the shelf.

Lucrezzia Belladonna and Farendil, Elf Ranger

I like to add the rear view. You so rarely see the sculpting or any images of the back of the figures we paint, and half of the sculpting and paint is there, after all.

The Ranger definitely qualifies as Oldhammer, either late 2nd edition or early 3rd WHFB. I’m not sure of his origin or name (figures had names back then) I suspect that he’s either from one of the Scenario packs (though I couldn’t find him in this SOL page) or perhaps even a old-school Citadel-era Lord of the Rings model. I certainly remember seeing him in one of my early White Dwarves, circa issue 101-ish, and his paint scheme reflects that – a homage to my memory of the original picture back in my formative years. If anyone knows of his true origin, please let me know. – Update! Eagle-eyed reader Dave Kay found him here. His name is Farendil, Elf Ranger. Even back in the day I would never picked him for an elf, especially with that nose and his great ham fists. I think I’ll continue to use him as a human instead….

Lucrezzia Belladonna

Some of the Oldhammer and modern miniatures crowd alike seem to have their heads disappear up their arses a little bit, with the endless “it was all so much better back then” or “that looks so bad – like a 1990s figure” – and while the mid-90’s really did throw up some dogs in many ranges, and sub-par figures replacing older, better sculpts or figures that have been replaced more recently with better models – figures like Lucrezzia prove that lovely, characterful sculpts have been a feature of all eras.

If anyone out there happens to have a spare of Lucrezzia that they’re willing to part with for a reasonable amount, please feel free to contact me. I promise she’ll be well treated and painted. 🙂

Another Tangent – Chaos Dwarf Colour Schemes

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So as a complete Painting ADHD tangent, I’m trying to work out which way to go with painting my Chaos/Abyssal Dwarfs. I’ve (almost) always loved the look of these stunty little bastards, with the exception of the worst part of the “Byzantine Big Hat” phase (but I think a lot of that was from sub-par sculpting). But the “Oldhammer” WFB 3 (2?)originals, the second wave courtesy of Marauder, the modern re-interpretations by Forge World and even GW (Hellcannon) that tie the look of the originals and the “big hat” look together in a way that actually works. Alt-Manufacturers like Russian Alternative have some absolutely beautiful sculpts at surprisingly competitive prices. Even some of Mantic’s Abyssal Dwarves are decent (though most of those will be relegated out of the front rank of any units).

So this army will be a “Reward Army” – to reward myself for slogging through all the tedious Minas Tirith and Gondor figures that I’ve been working on. Not to mention ranks of Elves and Mantic Ogres that should have been finished long ago. Batch painting fantasy figures really doesn’t seem to agree with me. It’s like the last 20% of painting them is 80% of the work. Well, you know what it’s like when things are 80% finished for months at a time…

Note: None of the figures in this entry were painted by me. They were painted by a collection of other talented individuals. The images are included here as examples of inspirational (or not) colour schemes for my own forces.

There’s the traditional “Brass/Red/Black” type schemes, which look pretty good, but possibly shares a bit too much in common with Khorne (which is an army of mine that will definitely be coming later):

Then there’s the version that brings in a lot of blue as well, but I’m not too fond of this one. It’s a bit too 1990’s over-coloured (which, admittedly, is how my CD Bloodbowl team of those days looked. I just dug them out, I need to finish off those figures as well…) I know that the addition of blue (or green, or red) shading/highlighting is a traditional way to bring interest to black objects – rather than grey, but they just end up looking a bit too cartoony and technicolour to me. (Actually, my BB CDs look even more technicolour, and I’m wanting to avoid revisiting that kind of scheme).

Even when it’s much more copper and less red (and more silver/iron), it’s still got a similar feel to the reddish. Despite the fact that these figures still look good, the scheme is still a bit boring to me. (Reddish metals give a similar feel to Red paint – whod’a thunk it?)

Then there’s green/metallic green armour – probably accented with warm metals like gold/brass/copper etc – and even a bit of red for spot colours as needed – I was always partial to this kind of colour scheme from the early WFB3 days:

My only real concern with the green is that my Dark Elves/Twilight Kin are already using a Metallic Turquoise colour scheme (with gold/brass accents), going both into more blueish and more greenish, depending on the unit. I wanted to avoid the “traditional” purples and blues that DE always seem to be in. The Dwarfs would predominantly be in much more of a true, dark green than the shades approaching turquoise though. Similar to the guys above.

A third option is to use both green and red, and use the gold/brass/copper elements to tie them all together.

Any thoughts?