Some High Elves. :3

I'm relieved to hear the objectionable PMs were on THOSE other forums. I get a LOT of PMs here & I must admit I REALLY enjoy the correspondence. As a splinter group of a minority avocation, a live & let live attitude is a becoming trait to have.

I've always marched to a different drummer, &, frankly, don't give a Rat's petootey what ANYONE thinks of me. Macho types, besides being the Southern portion of North bound horses, impress moi as being EXTREMELY insecure in their own masculinity. Enjoying the capricious nature of the Faerie Folk speaks well for your own self assurance; painting/modeling your minis to reflect the nature of the subject shows your understanding of the their nature. SO...WELL DONE; keep up the FINE WORK!

Personally, I wouldn't give a s*** about what the people on other forums are saying... So often, they're just smart asses who apparently need to ridicule the work of others to boost their ego without daring to actually show any of their work to the public.

I really like the elves and I think it's great that you have such a different approach than the usual one. Makes for a much more interesting army.

I love how you added the braids! that's one thing i Disliked about my elves... I couldn't do to much about their heads due to the helmets (and my sucky GS skills at the time)

But I also like them frail and showy... (wanted to add long pointy ears to all of them... and if I ever redo them, they will grow longer

But these look brilliant! thanks for sharing!

Thanks for the support guys - I agree with everything you've said. Part of my problem though is that I have trouble sometimes not caring what people say... I suppose I'm 'afraid' of intolerance. I start thinking, if they're intolerant of simple models and fictitious races, I worry how they would treat other human beings... it just makes me angry, things snow ball, and it sends me rummaging through the sock drawer for my warpstone/black materia/nuclear launch keys. But, after going for a nature walk, eating a fish sandwich, and reading your replies, I'm all better now, and humanity is once again safe. :3

The braids are actually really easy to do! I made a snake, then used a modeling tool and craft knife to cut in the alternating lumps of hair. After that, it's just modeling in little cuts to represent hair. If I were to do them over again, I might make them a little less chunky, but overall I'm happy. :3

I took a few pictures after all... I think I'm getting addicted to posting my progress. It makes me want to paint more.

Here are the RBT and Crew... I finished the skin tone on the two crew and started on the metallics. This shows a flat base of boltgun followed by a heavy drybrush of chainmail, followed by a wash of the old blue ink and some chaos black... later I'll drybrush chain mail again, drybrush mythril, do very light blue ink wash, and pick out the edges with mythril. :3






Here's a Yehtee, who will be a 'counts as' Ogre Maneater in my games... I'd use a normal one, but these fit my mountain theme better. Any spare GS I have gets stuck to him before it dries out... I'm trying to bulk him up a little bit, so he looks well fed (orcs and skaven) and his fur is longer than his ratty Ogre Kingdom kin... perhaps because of super esoteric elven grooming methods.


Here's my White Lion Princess... she's kind of a tough little fillie and enjoys whaling on people with her axe. She also raises lions. :3


The girl I mentioned and showed a sketch of earlier - actually, all my heroes are characters from a story I wrote, shoehorned into Warhammer, sometimes haphazardly, so she's part catgirl... but still very elfy looking. I prefer to think of her as something like an Alter Kindred Wood Elf, and she fights in the manner of a swordmaster.


And her equally cat-like twin sister... she's set up sort of like a Shadow Warrior. Radiant Gem with Steed of Shadows, or Shadow Armor goes a long way towards representing her... in Mordheim, I usually try to max her out with speed and movement abilities and use her for things like grabbing warpstone counters.


And both at once... I like the GS hair, and how seamlessly it melded with the existing, shoulder length stuff. :3


And finally, some painted Glade Guard, from my 500 point Wood Elf force. (The bases were never quite finished) :3

Nice! I really like the colours of the wood elves, the contrast is very cool. However, you should must do something about the bases! They don't look good at all and ruin the overall appearance a bit, which is a shame considering the great models.

Definitely. Next time I get my basing box out, they'll get sanded and finished. No worries. :3

I'm kind of building up my Old Wood Elves at the same time as my new High Elf Army, because I'm using so many Wood Elf bits.

Wow I love the Glade Guard , Hope you finish the bases soon.

Cheers from Holland

ALL VERY COOL STUFF! I REALLY like the Yetti/Ogre's feet. You seem to have the same love for your Elves that I have for my Goblins...a Fellow Fanatic.

Thanks for the comments, I'm not dead after all. :3

The Wood Elf basing will occur... sometime in the next week, I suspect, after I've assembled my next piece... I'm still not sure what that's going to be... probably some White Lions or some Shadow Warriors. I've just now finished my RBT, and I have to say that so far its my favorite out of all the stuff I've done so far. Tonight, I'm going to apply snow and flock to the bases, and then try to get some pictures. :3

I like the Yehtee too so far... I'm going to give him bell-bottom fur around his legs... a bit like those work horses with the really long feathering over the fetlocks/ankles, and probably a 'fu-man-chu' (spelling?) mustache, braided into a mustache, to hide his bat-like, butt-ugly face. My hope is that he'll look like a wooly Pai Mei. In any case, he's a good repository for extra green stuff I happen to acquire. :3

I finished the Bolt Thrower, and got some pictures this morning, only to realize that I forgot to highlight the brown leather straps on the crew - I'll have to go back and fix that soon.

Here's the battle line so far, with the RBT in the middle.


Here's a closer angle...


And a close-up. I'm quite proud of the scrolling. :3


Here are the actual colors, after playing around with the white balance.


The Crew Leader


I hope you all like it... I'll post some more pictures later in the week after I assemble some new models to paint... I've got to think about it and work myself up. :3

These are the COOLEST Elves; the black is JUST SO MUCH better than than that blue GW is so fond of; it gives them a sinister aspect that could explain their fear inducing quality with Goblin Folk...ELVES! RUN!
WELL DONE!

That must be the best looking yeti ever! And I would definatly do some more brading! This color skeme is very bold w/o being gaudy and atrocious (like my spelling ).

-Fungo

Thanks for the replies guys. This is really the only forum I'll post my stuff on anymore - most of the others have given me very neutral reactions, or even a little bit negative, and I just don't care to share with people like that. Gosh, I'm such a sensitive soul. X3

Well, here's the reason I haven't been posting much... lots of work to do... :3


Cat in the background doing what he usually does - eating. :3


The Wood Elves. I've applied sand to their bases - they'll be painted similarly to the High Elves later, but with more foliage.


And a close up on the dryads...


A unit of Shadow Warriors led by a Mage


These models have Woodland Scenics Pines attached to their bases, as well as WS's pewter stumps.


Part of the 30 elf regiment of White Lions - they'll be split up of course in games. :3


The Standard Bearer. Also, you can see some of the GS roots I added to the simple tree stands.


As of now, all of these models have been sprayed black, and I'm currently at work at 10 white lions at a time. I've decided to paint them all at once, rather than 3 or 4 at a time, as I end up wasting a lot less paint to drying on my pallet. So far, I've finished their faces, ears, and the first coat of silver on their armor, as well as a blue-black ink wash. :3

I love the colours you used on your high elves, some of the best I have seen. The wood elves are great too. Awesome work all around! Look forward to seeing more.

As always, some VERY COOL ideas...LOVE the inclusion of the trees on the bases. I did something similar with BIG mushrooms for my Night Goblins. You're going to get a LOT of OOHS & AAHS with these Lads & Lasses. FINE WORK!

Nice looking cat.

wow !
what can I possibly add to what's already been said ?
these elves look fabulous. Especially since black isn't the easiest colour to highlight for me.
I have bought my first green stuff this year (after 20 odd years of painting, can you believe it ?!), but I guess I'll never be good at it
or it stucks to everything it should not, or i wet everything too much and it looses from the object it should stick to ...

I can't take really good pictures neither, however I'd like to ask no to shun away from close ups ; I really like to see mini's faces. Those are often the most fantastic parts, considering how tiny they are.
I haven't tried out the editing stuff from picasa ; did you ?

As to your encounters with less sympathetic people, I can only say don't let it get to you. There was a time when I was convinced that 70 % of humankind were ***holes, but then you run into some nice people where you least expected them. So maybe I just bumped into the wrong kind of people for a while ...
As for painters protecting their secrets ... I don't like that very much. I really enjoy learning from people and discussing techniques. If I read a thread somewhere with someone asking something I know, I always love it being able to help someone out. Otherwise, we can just lock ourselves up, paint the hell out of our mini's, and never have contact with fellow hobbiests ...
well ... we are a diverse race ...
but you just keep posting your pictures alright ? They're appreciated !

okay, back to painting ! A unit of 10 white lions huh ?
Just to know if I'm abnormally slow like i think i am ; could you tell me :
how long it takes you to clean up (remove moldlines, scrubbing, brushing,...)
how long it takes you to finish those 10, basing included ?

pascal the rascal wrote:

but I guess I'll never be good at it
or it stucks to everything it should not, or i wet everything too much and it looses from the object it should stick to ...

I think the best advice here is to lower your standards! For the longest time, I just made simple rocks and stuff, all the while experimenting with the consistency of the stuff and trying to strike that balance between too sticky and too wet. I found its more important to wet your tools and your fingers rather than the green stuff itself. Then it sticks to what it should stick to. After that, set yourself small goals - this is the first time I've really done fur, but I had been thinking about it for a year at least and observing other people's work.

Quote :

I haven't tried out the editing stuff from picasa ; did you?

I did install it, but I don't think I'll use it unless on pictures that are very important. After experimenting with my Camera a lot more, I found I could fix a lot of the problems I was having with the options there.

Quote :

There was a time when I was convinced that 70 % of humankind were ***holes...

I'm still convinced its closer to 80% or more, and I don't think that will change, but I get what you're saying anyway. I'm just very selective about who I talk to - I compensate for my general mistrust of people by treating those I do trust twice as well. :3

Quote :

...but you just keep posting your pictures alright ? They're appreciated !

I'll definitely keep posting here, because they seem more than appreciated. The community here is a lot better than most other places I visit, both in creativity and skill as well as generally being more friendly and supportive. :3

Quote :

okay, back to painting ! A unit of 10 white lions huh ?
Just to know if I'm abnormally slow like i think i am ; could you tell me :
how long it takes you to clean up (remove moldlines, scrubbing, brushing,...)
how long it takes you to finish those 10, basing included ?

I'm probably as slow or slower than you mate... but I'm picking up speed the more I work with these colors. The black and white is indeed difficult, but I like what I can do with it. As for times? I'm not really keeping tract too well, but if I had to estimate, it takes me about 2 hours to clean up a bunch of models. Assembling them takes a lot longer, as I have a goal to do at least a minor conversion on every model to keep them special, even if its just a bit of odd basing or something - it took me about 8 hours one day to assemble 20 White Lions and 5 Shadow Warriors.
When it comes to actual painting, it took me about three weeks working everyday for an hour on average to finish those Spearelves there... the White Lions are coming along much quicker since I'm painting them 10 at a time, and the quality is hardly dipping and I'm wasting much less paint to drying out on my pallet. They'll probably be finished sometime between now and the middle of next week unless something comes up. :3

Thanks for the excellent reply. :3

wohohohow !!!
sorry mate, you're not that slow at all
would you still want to talk to me if I'd told you that
- I spend about 1 to 2 hours per human sized mini, just cleaning mold lines
- I don't track time when painting, but i'm pretty sure it takes me 1 to 3 weeks to paint 1 human figure with, lets say an average of 2 to 3 hours a day

Two major mistakes I'm aware of for the past 15 years are a) I spent way too much time on tiny details you hardly notice once the figure is done and b) I don't know when to stop ; I catched myself waisting 4 hours on a mini "nearly" finished, and when I looked at it afterwards, I bloody well wondered where to hours went into !
One example ; I only recently discovered "washing" figures with very diluted paint instead of inks (gives a different effect and colour hue) (thanks to Jeremy Bonamant). So I painted this brown pistol holster on a black primed witch hunter. Piece of cake you say, takes you 10 minutes, right ? It took me more than an hour, I screwed up and didn't like the result, restarted for another hour or so, and in the end, it looks like an "not totally badly painted holster". Sigh .... drove me nearly nuts ! (got a witchhunter tread in the painting section ; you can check it out and have a laugh at your less talented painter buddies)

When I compare myself to others, well, there are those who paint worse than me, and a whole lotta of people are better. I can live with that, not everyone has got the same talent. When browsing coolminiornot, I can get frustrated a bit. But the worst is ; I can be really patient and spent hours on a tiny little thing other people would throw against the wall, I've got the experience (been going on for about 20 years now), I started out with Mike McVey's painting guide in the early days which helped me a lot, think I got the right brushes and some good paints. But the result I'm getting with all this patience and experience isn't as satisfying as it should be.
I think I know my share of techniques, but there's still loads more to be learned. That's why talking to other people and watching vids like Bonamant's is so important to me.
But in the end, I would have expected the result would be better.
Oh well, Deafnala just convinced me I will still be painting when I'm twice as old as now, so maybe there's still some room for improvement.

as for the green stuff ; i never wet it : only tools and occasionaly fingers
Yesterday, I just plopped a blob on a base, pressed it down and then rolled it with a handle with structure (to make a kind of steel plate look) and the damn stuff came off and ripped
I also had dried GS stuff coming of off the base when drilling holes for what was left of the tabs on the feet ; had to glue it to the base (but seems to be holding now)

oh well ...
keep the pics and tips coming !

I wouldn't worry about the speed mate - I'm not at all concerned with it really. 'However long it takes to finish' is my credo, and I certainly don't plan on entering into any speed-painting competitions. I'm more concerned with doing a job I can live with for a good long while before I have to strip it and start over - a good portion of these elves are salvaged models from my first army 15 years ago. If I happen to be faster or slower than someone, I don't really care either way. :3

On the subject of painting in general, I'm also generally unconcerned with how other peoples models look in relation to mine either. I know there are people who are certainly better than me, but when I do compare mine to others I think mine hold up decently enough... unflappable, unfounded confidence is kind of a special trait of mine. What's more, I like my color selection and the many underlying themes infinitely more than everyone else, hands down. I rarely see another army and wish I had it. Always look on the bright side of life, and don't waste your time comparing yourself to others. :3

cool stuff

I definatly like these better than standard games workshop ones. The games workshop ones do look like wussies and pansies (something about the blue) but yours have a more haughty arogant look which suits elves.

I also realy like the fact that your armies look very seasonal. Your high elves have a sort of very early spring look and your wood elves have an early autumn look.

AND they DO scare the bejeezus out of my Night Goblins.

Thanks for the continuing show of support guys. Deafnala, I think you're probably the most positive person on the planet - it's a little scary, but great. X3

I do like to put a lot of thought into what season I'm going for, Turquoise Dwarf. It probably comes from Wood Elves being one of my favorite armies, but no matter what army I choose, I like to come up with a season that fits its predominant outfits, colors and theme. :3

Here's a quick pic to show what I'm working on...


At this stage, those brown pelts are now a warm white color, and the blue sleeves are a cold white. I'm relatively close to finishing now, and I'm incredibly happy with my decision to paint all ten at once. There was hardly a dip in overall quality and the rush of finishing ten models at a whack has me in high spirits. :3

The only critizism I have to give is that this thread should maybe be under fantasy wargames?? Or is it that if you have WIP with your army that it should be in painting and modelling to?? I would really like to know how this should be
No, you are quite right. This thread does belong in the Fantasy Section.
- cianty

I can't wait to see your Yehtee painted

White Lions are looking awesome, and my favourite high elf unit! You're making me want to repaint my high elves, keep up the good work.