Tag Archives: painting

Dark Elves/Twilight Kin – Beginnings

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So as mentioned, the counterpoint to this Ogre army for KoW is a Twilight Kin one. Originally the plan was to use GW High Elves in a KoW “Elf” Army, but through some discussion with JudgeDoug it slowly morphed into a Twilight Kin (Dark Elf) army list via my suggestion of using my few Dark Elves at the time and then Doug finding the most appropriate list for the figures I had at the time. In the last month, however, I found I nice bloke in the UK selling off a shitton of Warhammers, and managed to pick up a whole lot of his Dark Elves (though not as many as I’d liked to! Damn those eBay snipers!). In any case, the “Elves” have had another turn, and now the Twilight Kin going to be a “Proper” Dark Elf force, with a whole new colour scheme I’ve worked out, and the (High) Elves will remain in their previously planned colours – when I get around to painting them. Right after these two armies, hopefully! I’ll also have to ask Doug to rejig the TK army list to reflect the loss of the High and addition of many more Dark Elves.

Citadel Dark Elf Executioner Champion

This first Dark Elf is from the previous/recent metal range. I have to say that while I liked the look of the executioners in pictures, their separate greatswords just looked like an accident waiting to happen. I also didn’t think much of this guy in pictures, as the visual balance always looked right off, with his obscured face, and overly-silly-large-hairdo. Once he was in hand, already assembled and sprayed black, I was somehow compelled to paint him up. So I did. Not sure where he fits exactly into the TK army list, but he’ll go in there somewhere, for sure.

It took me awhile to figure out what colour scheme to give the Dark Elves. While Purple/Black always looks good, it’s also the standard GW go-to colour (like Blue/White for High Elves) so again I wanted to do something at least a little bit different. After close to a day of poking around on the internet and looking at different models, these two images on Google Search helped me decide to go for some deep sea-green armour, based on the look I prefer for Sons of Horus. With sea green chosen for my main armour colour, I gave a local paint store a call to see if they had any sprays in sea green, and it turns out that they can literally make spray cans (or pressure packs, as they call them) in any colour off their extensive colour charts. So I went around, was somewhat overwhelmed with the amount of choice, and chose one from the 6 or so that were in what I felt was the right range. I also decided to go for a metallic tint, since I felt it would work a bit better (and hey, otherwise I may as well just mix up some custom dropper bottles). Later, I found some more images with metallic Sons of Horus, so I may eventually do up a squad of those guys as well.

Citadel Dark Elf Executioner Champion

When I got back and gave him a spray, I then had to figure out what to do with the cloth parts. I originally wanted to avoid any reds, but saw another pic of the Sons of Horus where a very small amount of red was used effectively (sorry, can’t find the pic now) so went with it – on the lower cloak, and also using a reddish-brown for the leather on his topknot-wrap and sword handle. Using a purplish shade to his skin also warms the figure, slightly and provides a contrast to his armour. Again, taken from a good blog article – this one talking about Dark Eldar skin tones. The hair was finished, but it looks like the end of the topknot has had something splash onto it.

I knew I wanted to do some freehand on the cloak, so I was originally going to go with flames on the cloak, Legion of the Damned-style. Then green flames. Then a black cloak with “glowing green” runes – palette inspired by the Cryx boxed set. In the end I went with a faded spiral pattern on the inner cloak, and plain wet-blended turquoise for the outer. I’ll likely varnish the whole model next (after fixing the hair) and then work out what to do on the cloaks – either some freehand or just leaving them as they are. Suggestions welcome. What was particularly nice for me was getting this guy to this point in about 2 1/2 days from the original black sprayed model.

Citadel Dark Elf Assassin

Then there’s his little mate who came with him that I’ve just started – a DE Assassin. Again, not sure where exactly he’ll fit into the army, but not too worried about things like that. I’m basically happy with the cloak being a P3 Coal Base-Trollblood Base, and the metal armour in the same colour as the other model, but not entirely sure about his turquoise thigh-high go-go boots. Perhaps shade them down and see how it looks? I plan to paint his undershorts black and skip the spot of red on his clothing, unless it’s a touch of face paint. But yeah, the main delay on this one is working out what to do with his booties.

D&D Monster Manual 2: Iron Golem and Troll – aka 77168: Bones Battleguard Golem / 77004: Bones Cave Troll

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A couple more painted Bones this time. One from the Kickstarter, the Battleguard (Iron) Golem, and another pre-KS model – the Troll.

When painting the “Iron” Golem (as he’s commonly known), I wanted to play with warm metallics (copper, bronze) and verdigris, so I happily disregarded the “Iron” portion of the model.

77168: Reaper Bones Battleguard Golem, Iron Golem

77168: Reaper Bones Battleguard Golem, Iron Golem

Much of the model was actually fun to work with. I utilised a lot of heavy drybrushing that worked well on the model to bring out all the slight imperfections of the cast, and helped to create a bit of a pitted, cast-metal look, which was perfect for my ends. The rear shot of the left forearm shows it pretty well. While I’m not especially happy with the way the sword blade turned out, being a cheap Bones model, I’m happy to call it good enough. The plastic of the blade was uneven and frankly an unpleasant pain to work with. The face was a bit of a mess. To sort of salvage it, I just painted it gold in the end, and gave it a hit of ink and a small highlight. The gems on the back of the shoulders and sword blade, and also the eyes were done using the usual GW-style gem technique and hit with gloss varnish. For what it’s worth, I think the glowing OSL effect on the Reaper website looks better, and if I’d seen it earlier I probably would have ripped it off, but c’est la vie.

77168: Reaper Bones Battleguard Golem, Iron Golem

77168: Reaper Bones Battleguard Golem, Iron Golem

The bags and chain on the back of his butt were a badly-cast mess, and so they got a very quick “good enough” job. The real highlight of the model to me was playing with some new mixes of paint washes along with the layered drybrushing to create the aged verdigris effect, which will no doubt make a reappearance later down the line on some venerable space marines of some description. I also did some dungeon furniture at the same time, which I’ll have to photograph down the line and show here as well. Base is my usual for this kind of thing – Proxie models 40mm round base with the plastic Bones base glued on top and a bit of acrylic putty to flatten it all out before sand and Army Painter tufts.

Anyway, as a low-stress learning experience and relatively fast model to paint, I consider this guy to be a success. Now he can sit on the shelf until Pathfinder calls him to duty!

77004: Bones Cave Troll

77004: Bones Cave Troll

This guy, like the Purple Worms from the last post, was a Bones figure I picked up before the Kickstarter campaign who spent most of the last year part-painted until I finally finished him properly more recently. The “learning experience” with this guy was to practice blending from unnatural skin tones (ie, the green) to more natural ones (the flesh). I saw some fine work done in this manner on Citadel Dragon Ogres many years ago, and it’s also been used to some extent on the LotR trolls – which is one of the places this guy can do duty, along with Pathfinder and wargames like Warhammer and Kings of War.

77004: Bones Cave Troll

77004: Bones Cave Troll

77004: Bones Cave Troll

The paint was originally a bit nicer, but it got severely messed up (in my opinion) when I hit the finished model with Army Painter’s spray (matt!) varnish. The model got a nasty shine, some sandy “frosting” on his limbs, and it also attracted a bunch of tiny little hairs. I’ve gone over it with paint-on Vallejo, but it’s still not quite right. The base used the same techniques as listed above for the golem, but not as successful, and being a cheap bones model I’d prefer to buy another one and do it again then spend the time to rework the whole base – ie “good enough”. His claws are badly defined, and the facial details are a bit soft and sloppy – picking out the eyes was not easy. Blending the pustulent and infected looking boils into his skin was fun as always, but despite my misgivings about the casting of the figure overall and especially some specific parts of the model (claws, face) – and even the messed up finish thanks to the Spray and my sub-par job on the base, I find it to be another successful practice model. Good enough for Roleplaying and certainly tabletop quality for wargaming.