What colour to paint spearelf shield 'bosses'

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Ferny
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What colour to paint spearelf shield 'bosses'

#1 Post by Ferny »

This week I've been painting up a batch of badly-painted spear elves I got cheap. They started life with me primed black, with some silver on their skirts and chestplates, red helmets and...that's about it. So I've painted in the faces, given them red robes (with a white tunic seperating the chainmail skirt from the red undertunic), tidied up the spear points, hafts, etc. I've also given them bronze breastplates to tie them in with my army a bit better, and everything that can be washed (face, chainmail, breastplate), has been. They're starting to look 'OK'. But now I've got the shields to deal with.

Currently they're painted red, the same as the helmets and the robes, and this looks OK. But a lot of them have bosses glued on. Now, I'm not too keen on these bosses - they're too bulky for my taste and IMO detract from the quality of the model (compare htem to the much finer detail on the IoB Seaguard, or any of the character's shields, or dragon princes - or even, at a pinch, the lancer shields). They've also chosen to use the biggest one, which is perhaps the worst offender for this.

But I'm now left with these big impossing bosses and I'm not sure how to tackle them. Black doesn't look finished. Red looks wierd with the red background. White might be an option, and would be quite striking, but doesn't particularly tie in with the rest of the models or my army. Blue would perhaps tie in with the army best, and looks well enough with red - but it's the only big splash of blue on these models and I feel it looks a little out of place. If/when I ever get round to painting any gems I might find on these models I might do them blue which could help, but that's low priority. Gold might work well, but I'm not sure how the metalic paint would cover on these big areas. Ideally I want to avoid any 'technical' painting and doing different coloured 'stripes' as it's more time consuming and easy to mess up.

Any ideas or inspiration? How have you guys done yours? I do think that while I'm not sold on these bosses, and this biggest one in general, they do look a lot better painted!
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Mireadur
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Re: What colour to paint spearelf shield 'bosses'

#2 Post by Mireadur »

i also dislike completely those plastic symbols supplied with the shields. I would just hack them off and do a free hand on the shield. Even if very simple in design it will look miles better than those silly embossed symbols.
Shannar, Sealord
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Re: What colour to paint spearelf shield 'bosses'

#3 Post by Shannar, Sealord »

Mireadur wrote:i also dislike completely those plastic symbols supplied with the shields. I would just hack them off and do a free hand on the shield. Even if very simple in design it will look miles better than those silly embossed symbols.
Agreed. The 5e ones were ok, but these newer ones are way to thick to look good.
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Re: What colour to paint spearelf shield 'bosses'

#4 Post by SpellArcher »

I'm a big fan of embossed shields but obviously these vary greatly.

Any chance of a WIP shot Ferny?
Ferny
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Re: What colour to paint spearelf shield 'bosses'

#5 Post by Ferny »

I'll see if I can sort out getting something onto photobucket SA.

I would hack them off, but there's a few where they've come off and cos they've been polycemented they leave the shield melted and it's hard to shave it off, and given the prominence of the shields, it's hard to cover up also. Even putting on a coat of greenstuff would still show when compared to the cleanness of teh shield otherwise.

So I think I'm stuck with them, short of aquiring myself some 'unblemished' shields...so in the meantime, what to do...??
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Ferny
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Re: What colour to paint spearelf shield 'bosses'

#6 Post by Ferny »

At some point I'd like to get wood elf ones, I think tehy're gorgeous and with the right paint job would look just right as highbornes, but as I say, got these cheap and they're what i'm working on right now. they're not terrible, htey're just not the best.

(they're also really small in scale - try using IoB swordmasters for command models - yikes).
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Re: What colour to paint spearelf shield 'bosses'

#7 Post by Prince of Spires »

Warhammer Shield?

;)

You could go for either darker or lighter red (depending on what red is on the shields now). Or some sand color like the GW Ushabti Bone / Bleached Bone. That's probably what I would do. A bit more contrast then red, but not as striking as white. And you could highlight it fairly simple if you want.

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Re: What colour to paint spearelf shield 'bosses'

#8 Post by Vermis »

Ferny wrote:Now, I'm not too keen on these bosses - they're too bulky for my taste and IMO detract from the quality of the model (compare htem to the much finer detail on the IoB Seaguard, or any of the character's shields, or dragon princes - or even, at a pinch, the lancer shields).
I know exactly what you mean.
Any ideas or inspiration? How have you guys done yours?
It might not be the answer you want, but I'm with those who say 'hack them off'. I've tried the same with IoB seaguard, taking off the sea-dragon motif with a knife, GW mould line remover, and a coat of solvent. (liquid poly cement or d-limonene) I won't say it was a very quick process, but it was simple and left me with a pretty smooth shield. (Citadel mould line remover: best thing GW's released in years.) I should have pics for my own project log here, soon.

Failing that, I'll echo SpellArcher: got any pics? I think I need one to properly visualise the colour scheme. :oops:
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