RM's Post Hobby Hiatus High Elves

[Razzy Mac]

Hi there! Thanks for taking the time to have a look at my army blog.

First a little introduction. I've been lurking the site for a few weeks. In my younger days I collected warhammer - fantasy, 40k, lotr - but slipped out of the hobby as I grew older and lost interest, old models collecting dust under the bed. Cue an 8-9 year span away from the hobby.

I've been going through some emotional stuff and some mental health issues in the last few months, and I was really looking for a hobby, something to distract me, put my time into, get me out of my own head. Then a friend at work told me he'd started collecting warhammer, and I was reminded of the fond memories I had of the game, so I decided to join him. Luckily I still had a box of high elf spearmen under the bed from circa 2006, so I got to assembling them, trawled eBay for some more models (buying from GW has gotten a lot more expensive in the last decade.. I didn't think that was possible!), bought some paints, and that brings us to today!

I don't have much time to dedicate to painting and assembling so this might be a bit of a sparse blog at times. In fact I'm not expecting anyone to read it, I'm more doing this for myself, to keep me motivated, but if anyone else is interested any comments and tips will be greatly appreciated!

I was hardly a great painter during my last stint as a warhammer player and I don't think 8 years out of the hobby has done much to improve my skills, but hopefully I'll improve.

tl;dr - spent almost a decade out of the hobby, getting back into it, starting plog.

Thanks again for taking the time to have a look at this thread. Anyway, without further ado, I'll get to blogging!

[Razzy Mac]

Ok, as I said I don't have a great deal of time for painting, and I've only had my paints for 36 hours, so not much progress! I do however have my first test spearman almost complete:





Well, that's the first mini I've put a brush to in almost a decade.. Half decent effort I suppose. I was going for a nice deep red, but khorne red really turned out much darker and more brown/purple than I expected it to, gonna have to swap for something else or at least get some layer on top. The lack of a nice red also prevented me doing the gems (which I'm dreading, always hated them.. Tips please!). I also feel that the spear shaft looks a little plain, but I really don't know what to do about it. I like the colour but it's really hard to get any depth or anything to a long, flat strip of plastic like that.

I've also just barely started the base colours on a couple more spearmen:



And there's a lot more where they came from! Aside from the 35 or so spearmen (plus two mages) sitting on my desk, I just ordered two bolt throwers, six dragon princes, thirty-nine old-style archers with armour (prefer those to the new models), and ten sword masters... That should keep me busy for a while.... Anyway, thanks for taking a look, see you next time.

[Nicanor]

As for red, I used Red Gore on my models and liked the shade. I'm not sure what the new name for that color is (maybe it is khorne red, not sure) but the color worked well in my eyes.

[gruccione]

Nice work! For red the mix i use for tabletop models is khorne red base, agrax earthshade, and wadzaka (the last name should be spelled like that but i'm not totally sure)
For the pole, the quicker method i use is xv-88 base, ushabti bone drybrush and agrax earthshade (if you want a final soft drybrush of ushabti again) leaving it darker near the hands and the eges
For gems on tabletop models i do this: base colour, black wash, base colour again on half gem (the bottom half, because it has to be dark on top and bright on the bottom), a lighter mix on half of the half (so a quarter). Now a little line of black on the top and a white spot on it
Hope to see more of your mini soon!

[Razzy Mac]

Finished a second spear-elf! Except for gems/red trim, I'm picking up that paint tomorrow.



I'm thinking of painting the spear shafts of the unit varying shades, from darker brown all the way up to the pale wood. Thought it might break up the unit and add to the whole "citizen militia" vibe, if every guy is bringing his own spear they're gonna be different right? What do you guys think? If it looks rubbish when I've done a few more of them it'll be easy to do them all the same colour later.

Meanwhile, I've undercoated the front rank of the unit, which I've pledged to finish by the end of the month. I've luckily got the whole night off work tomorrow so hopefully I'll be able to post some pics of them with ACTUAL PAINT on them in the next couple of days!

[Razzy Mac]

So I finished my first three spears! Well, two of them are still waiting for shields, but one is actually done:





The shields take a little time but I really like how they turn out. Now I've just gotta do 30 more!

[Razzy Mac]

Finished the front rank of spears:



And a close up of the musician:



And the champion:



I still need to complete some shields for them and the other half of the standard bearer's flag, but this is close enough

[Portents]

Looking good RM! Nice to see some red high elves, always good to see what people use outside of the traditional blue palette!

[T.D.]

Excellent painting skill, especially for someone out of the hobby for such a long period.

Your spear unit is coming together very nicely

[Razzy Mac]

Working on my BSB for this month's painting challenge.. Just thought I'd take some quick photos while waiting for my wash to dry.





You can clearly see the wash drying on the back of his plume

Liking how he's coming along but really not looking forward to painting the moulded Phoenix banner that he came with.. I don't even know where to begin with a colour scheme for it!

[Rogue Trader]

Your BSB is coming along very well!

[gilterien]

Wow I like the silver you've got going- the chainmail plates really pop in the rear view! The shading behind them really makes them look good

[Davariel]

I've had that head with the massive plume kicking around in my bits box for about five years now, never used since it just looks too insanely huge - and then I see someone else use it like this and can't get over how regal and dynamic it looks...

What I'm trying to say is that I think your BSB is looking great so far.

[Razzy Mac]

Thanks for the kind words guys! Hopefully the rest of the paint job works out

Yeh I was skeptical about the head too, but the heads that come with the noble just really don't work on foot I find.. The massive "ears" look fine on cavalry but kind of weird on an infantry model, at least when I did my blu-tac mock up. Then I noticed that head and it seems to match the dynamic "flapping in the breeze" nature of the moulded banner, so I gave it a go!

[Razzy Mac]

Finished up the BSB! Really pleased with how it turned out, it probably represents my best work when I really dedicate my time and effort to one mini. Spending that extra time really makes a difference, even if you're an average painter like myself. Stuff like painting each scale of the skirt seperately instead of dry brushing really makes a difference.



I think my colour scheme really came into its own with this guy, the more ornate armour and the plume got much more gold and red onto the model compared to the rank and file. The gold in particular really works well with the deep red I chose.



I agonised over the placement of colours on the banner for quite a while before finally settling on what I went for. This is the best close up I could get of the banner, it's slightly out of focus though. I'm actually really happy with how it turned out, getting the white to look decent took a whole lot of patience though - from a black primer, a layer of mechanicus grey, two thin layers of ceramite white, then at least two thin layers of white scar (more in some spots!). Not to mention having to do the odd touch up here and there.



I took my sweet time getting it done, but I'm glad I did. I'm not exactly trying to speed paint this army or anything, I got back into this hobby for the relaxation, plus I'm happy with the results.

However when you have over a hundred unpainted models, just deciding what to paint next becomes a challenge