Elven archer

[Will Vale]

Hi all,

 

Spent the last three evenings painting this little archer from Games Workshop's Direchasm box. She's a member of the Lumineth Realm Lords who are a re-invention of the Warhammer High Elves and have some really nice flowing sculpts with quite a bit of Japanese inspiration.

 

 

I tried to be neat and tidy but also not go too far as I have a couple of units of figures to paint. The face has suffered as a result (plus I find painting into the open helmet really difficult anyway) but I'm pretty happy with the rest. 

 

The colours are all warm for the figure to reflect the sunlight in the Realm of Hysh, and the base is mostly cool as a contrast. Although I let some yellow creep in there for sun again.

Recipes, imperfectly remembered and mainly for my future reference, applied over white primer:

* Skin: Big mess! Try something else.
* White cloth: 1:2 Skeleton Horde & Contrast Medium, highlighted with Wraithbone & Medium, trimmed with white ink. Glazed with ~1:4 Skeleton Horde & Medium.
* Red cords: Blood Angels Red, highlighted with Fire Dragon Bright, 1:1 Fire Dragon Bright & Dorn Yellow, Dorn Yellow. Glazed with ~1:4 Blood Angels Red & Medium. Knots glazed with ~1:2.
* Green cloth: Militarum Green, highlighted with Elysian Green, 1:1 Elysian Green & Dorn Yellow. Glazed with ~1:6 Warpstone Glow & Medium (I think!)
* Green tassels and fletchings: Creed Camo, highlighted as above, glazed with ~1:4 Warpstone Glow and knots glazed with Creed Camo.
* Soft leather: 1:1 Aggaros Dunes & Medium, highlighted with Dorn Yellow, recesses shaded with Snakebite Leather, glazed with ~1:4 Iyanden Yellow & Medium.
* Dark leather: Cygor Brown, highlight (streak/stipple) with Skrag Brown and Dorn Yellow. Glaze (streak) with Snakebite Leather, Cygor Brown.
* Bowstrings: 1:1:3 Iyanden Yellow, Skeleton Horde & Medium. Glaze knots and ends with Skeleton Horde.
* Wood: Snakebite Leather, edge highlight with Dorn Yellow, Wraithbone, White Ink. Glaze with ~1:3 Iyanden Yellow and Medium, Glaze base with ~1:2 Gryph Hound Orange & Medium.
* Bronzey metal: Base with Wyldwood before varnishing. Base with Runelord Brass. Shade with Cryptek Armourshade Gloss. Layer Runelord Brass and then Canoptek Alloy. Run Agrax Earthshade around the edges to kill the gloss there. Paint/highlight trim with Canoptek Alloy, then 1:1 Moonstone Alchemy & Citrine Alchemy (Scale75). Add top highlights with White Alchemy.
* Gold metal: Base with Wyldwood as above. Base with Viking Gold (Scale75) avoiding recesses. Highlight with Citrine Alchemy and blend with Elven Gold.
* Gems: Base with Gore-Grunta Fur, build up base with Skrag Brown and Dorn Yellow. Darken top with Cygor Brown, dot with white ink.
* Rocks: Base with Apothecary White, blend Gryph-Charger Grey into shadows. Glaze areas with ~1:4 Volupus Pink & Medium. Glaze areas with ~1:4 Iyanden Yellow & Medium. Spot glazes with stronger tones. Drybrush Celestra Grey, Drybrush White Ink. Run Gryph Charger Grey into cracks. Highlight Cracks with white ink.
* Earth: Base with Zandri Dust. Wash Gryphonne Sepia, taking this up the rocks a bit. Drybrush Zandri Dust and Flayed One Flesh.

Interestingly Posh Spice Elf was a lot quicker to paint than the simple-seeming Scary Elf. Although Scary Elf's face is actually decent, I'm sure I spent more time there.

Cheers,

Will

[Valkyrie]

Nicely done, good work with the colours 

[Will Vale]

Thanks, it was fun trying to figure out a pale scheme.

[Ted]

Looks great, especially the base, and the texture on the brown cloth.

[dnl42]

Outstanding result! 

[Big Dave S]

Nice work. And your painting style suits the subject matter perfectly.

[Homer]

Congratulations on some very fine art work ,looks fantastic 👏

[Will Vale]

Thanks all, I've got ten spearmen primed up now and I'm just making a cautious start on one of them. Ages since I've painted a squad.

 

Will

[Escaflowne]

Hi,

Not a great fan of GW but in this case your paint is very clean, "light" no great contast between the differents parts, a fine work.

Thanks for the "How to" with the scheme of colors.

Cheers

[Will Vale]

I seem to be, if not on a roll then at least making some progress on these elves:

 

I have a unit of ten of these wardens, the unit leader of which is the model which sold me on the range. I've made the bases in a batch, now I need to batch paint the remaining nine models. (Actually 11 models as my daughter and I both got a free one as mini-of-the-month for March.)

 

 

I did the bases to semi-match the moulded base from the archer as I like all the rounded rocks. So I had to make up a batch from Sculpey, rolling ovoids and texturing them with crumpled foil and a knife. Then cutting them carefully in half and baking so they can be glued on.

I feel like I've departed from the "warm minis, cool bases" idea a bit but I still quite like them. The grass stems are stretched sprue, which started a bit ropey but eventually I sort of got the hang of it. It's different to the norm when you want a length with constant diameter, for these the taper is the goal and I found it helped to soften the end of the piece then grab it with pliers/tweezers and stretch it like that.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Will Vale]

Batch painting is sloow, and work has been busy leading to not very many hours of painting spread over several weeks. Got 6 pikemen to the metallics stage, and the unit leader has some paint on him too.

 

Maybe I should start a proper thread for these rather than sticking naughty WIPs in here?

 

Will

[Will Vale]

Have finished some more elves, batch painting six but I painted the wrong head so need to do another one to fit the neck on the last body. I've made quite a bit of progress on the remaining bits necessary for the unit so will try and get it finished before too long.

 

I changed a couple of things from the test so I need to go back and update that one slightly - the spheres in the plume are the bronzey colour rather than gold, and I didn't get the armour recesses as dark this time.



I quite like them en bloc like this. They feel like a lot of work but it's probably not that bad really, you just need to be neat.

Cheers,

Will

[Andy Moore]

I really love the colour palette you've used here. I'll have to try your recipe for the bronze armour as it looks very effective.

 

Andy

[Mjoo]

I think these are really beautiful, love the colours. Very harmonious as one would expect from elves.

 

Watching with interest,

-M

[Will Vale]

2 hours ago, Andy Moore said:

I really love the colour palette you've used here. I'll have to try your recipe for the bronze armour as it looks very effective.

Thanks, I think it's a bit warmer than the traditional high elf blue and white without being too earthy?

I realised looking back at the above that I simplified the bronze armour a bit - these were mostly:

* Base Wyldwood before varnishing, then base with Runelord Brass, wash with Cryptek Armourshade Gloss. Drybrush with Runelord Brass and Canoptek Alloy (or layer if there's no room to drybrush), then sponge or edge-highlight as appropriate with Stormhost Silver. Finish by running thinned Contrast Medium along the trim edges (i.e. in the concavities) to kill the shine there.

So not as many highlight colours (with a brighter silver highlight) and no darkening of the recesses after the glossy shade, just matting them. I think I probably prefer it and it's a bit less work too.

Cheers,

 

Will