Wood Elf Waywatcher (Gary Morley, 2007) #Fembruary 2022

Citadel Wood Elf Waywatcher (Gary Morley, 2007)

My last Fembruary model today (though not quite my last February model to share) – a Wood Elf Waywatcher, released alongside the Warhammer Armies: Wood Elf sourcebook in 2007. A Gary Morley sculpt, the technique is competent, but the sculpt itself is a bit of an overdetailed but indistinct mess – full of “wait.. what is THAT supposed to be?”-type details, which frankly make the model notsomuch fun to paint. As you can see, it’s a complete mess of “visual noise” up close, but given the four-foot test, it looks fine. So I’ll call that a “good enough” win.

Citadel Wood Elf Waywatcher (Gary Morley, 2007)

Just one Waywatcher, you ask? Yep. This one was a model selected to represent Marouda’s Elven archer in a long-gone, lightweight but decent fun but, low-effort, kill-and-loot pathfinder “campaign”. We didn’t get all that far, and the “long-gone part is probably the biggest reason why the model never got completed – and Fembruary is the reason that it now finally did get completed. I’ve got a few more of these somewhere, but they’re not likely to see the painting desk until we get back into the swing of something like Kings of War or AoS again. I’d like to do so this year, but there’s a lot of cleaning and clearing and culling to do first…

From the Painting Desk #3 – Wardancing the night away! Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd Edition “Oldhammer” Wood Elf Wardancers (Jes Goodwin)

WHFB Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd Edition Oldhammer Jes Goodwin Wood Elf Wardancers, Warhammer The Old World, Age of Sigmar

Unusually for my posts, as it happens – is an actual followup on some of the WIP stuff I’ve shown. Well, first time for everything and all that. Here’s what I’ve made progress on in the last few weeks. I’m still battling a nasty winter cold bug, so I haven’t felt like I’ve had the level of concentration to work on the Brettonian Noblewoman or the old Citadel ranger, so I’ve mostly been concentrating on Project: Update.

Which is to say going through my old cases of figures and doing some rebasing and touchups on them. So none of these figures are newly painted, strictly speaking. They’ve been rebased, and had some of the weakest elements of the original work touched up as well as chipped paint, etc, but the vast majority of the work is original.

WHFB Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd Edition Oldhammer Jes Goodwin Wood Elf Wardancers, Warhammer The Old World, Age of Sigmar

I’ve finished several of the Wardancers. You probably can’t see a lot of difference between these pics and the original paint shown in the previous post. That’s because I’ve really just wanted to touch them up, but keep the integrity or essence of the original paint, since they were painted in my youth a good 20+ years ago. (now I feel old!) Mostly simple stuff like brightening the metals, a little bit of shading or highlighting here and there, but not going all out.

WHFB Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd Edition Oldhammer Jes Goodwin Wood Elf Wardancers, Warhammer The Old World, Age of Sigmar

For anyone wondering why these Wood Elf Wardancers are painted in an almost Clownish style, rather than like traditional Wood Elves or like Celts – it’s because shortly after these old models were originally released, the paint scheme in White Dwarf/’eavy Metal showed them in a distinctly Harlequin-esque manner. Since at this stage I was still a teenager, I did what teenagers are supposed to do, and used the WD pictures as a guide on how to paint my models. Except for the chequerboard guy – He was a direct copy (to the best of my ability at the time) of a particularly striking model in the issue. On reflection, I wonder if those gaily-painted Wardancers might have been a specific inspiration for the eventual look and feel of the 40k Harlequins?

WHFB Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd Edition Oldhammer Jes Goodwin Wood Elf Beastmaster, Warhammer The Old World, Age of Sigmar

This figure has been bundled in with my Wardancers since the beginning, though he’s not actually one of them. He’s a Wood Elf Beastmaster, and originally came partnered with a large model of a Bear. I somehow ended up with two of said bear, and converted one (with my skills of the day) into a Bear-Centaur using the torso of a Chaos Warrior. The other, I’ve seen floating around in my bits boxes, but probably not for a couple of years, and certainly not since moving at the end of last year. Should I be lucky enough to have it turn up again, I’ll be giving him a trip to the front of the painting queue, mounting him on a 40mm round base, and reuniting him with his master. Should that happen, I’m sure I’ll update the blog with a pic or two.

WHFB Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd Edition Oldhammer Jes Goodwin Wood Elf Wardancers, Warhammer The Old World, Age of Sigmar

This guy, I’m not sure how to finish. Originally, I darkened the metal in preparation for the usual highlighting of plate and chain, and found the “blackened iron” look to be a nice surprise – so I left it as is. Now that I’m touching the figures up, I’m not sure whether I should leave it dark, or brighten it up to match his brethren. Thoughts?

WHFB Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd Edition Oldhammer Jes Goodwin Wood Elf Wardancers, Warhammer The Old World, Age of Sigmar

Since managing to finish the first wave of these models, I’ve pulled out the  remaining 4 wardancers that I have really not been as happy with in years, so for these four I’m in two minds on whether to overpaint certain sections or strip and repaint. At this stage I’m thinking overpaint on the Native American-themed model, partial repaint on the guy with green boots (new pants or new boots? Suggestions?) A significant re/overpaint for the  musician, and I’m really not sure at all what to do with the guy in camo. Obviously, it was kind of a humorous paint scheme, but I’m not sure if the joke really holds up these days. Anyone have any opinions on it?

WHFB Warhammer Fantasy Battle Midhammer Gary Morley Wood Elf Wardancers, Warhammer The Old World, Age of Sigmar

I also came across a few of the more modern Wardancer figures in bare metal that I’d picked up randomly, which I was happy to leave aside for an indeterminate amount of time but now kind of feel like I should paint up, since I’m almost done with their OldHammer brethren. On the one hand, I don’t really want to have these figures queue jump the stuff I’m actually trying to finish – but on the other, obviously the best time to paint these Wardancers is at the same time I’m repainting the other Wardancers.

Next time: Squigs!