SpellArcher wrote:The footage of an orange San Francisco was really strange.
Yeah, it's been a pretty awful situation. Luckily the air has cleared up for now. Unfortunately, my attempts at casting some SilverHelm steeds' tails in green stuff have been pretty big failures so I didn't get around to painting them this weekend. May have to just keep trying to find spare horse tails for sale somewhere.
Life has gotten pretty hectic, so I haven't had the time to keep up with my initial paint cadence, but here's a small update. 10 Archers just about done, just need to commit to the eyes, but I'm waiting for a nice sable brush to arrive, my synthetics have all curled up at the tips. Hopefully things will settle down here enough that I can get back to my weekend painting plans. I really want to get to those Dragon Princes and the Loremaster.
They are great. That white is very clean and striking. How did you get that? Mine is always a bit dirtier somehow.
Getting the eyes would really finish off the unit. The other improvement I can think of is to add a highlight to the gems (like an orange). It would make them pop out a bit more. Though I guess it's also something you only really notice up close.
Rod
For Nagarythe: Come to the dark side.
PS: Bring cookies!
Check out my plog
Painting progress, done/in progress/in box: 167/33/91
Check my writing blog for stories on the Prince of Spires and other pieces of fiction.
For the white, I'm using Corax white. It's far more heavily pigmented, it's really thick out of the pot and it doesn't streak or get as chalky/crumbly as other Citadel whites. I can't recommend it enough for a base. You do have to be aware that it is a cool white as opposed to a warm white, so if you're going for a color scheme that skews a little more monochromatic with your blues in a High Elf army, it helps. But I've seen plenty of High Elf armies go slightly more complimentary and warmer with their whites and it looks great!
I'll hopefully have time this weekend to get those eyes, and as far as the gems, this may sound foolish, but I think I'm going to do those once my army is fully basecoated/washed. The goal is to have my entire army table-ready by the time COVID restrictions are safely lifted, and then really start getting into highlights. But with me being in the USA, I may have enough time before COVID is actually handled to finish my entire army to a really nice standard.
Back to painting after a very busy end of 2020. I've got four new Silverhelms to add to my current count of five. One more to finish to get to ten. Then I have a box of eight I've yet to assemble. One thing I've definitely learned from this lot of preassembled eBay Silverhelms is that you need to attach the damn tails at an angle so they rank up properly. Something I didn't really consider until after painting way too many. I'm going to have to carefully cut off the tails and reattach them, then probably repaint a bit.
They're an impressive unit. Very clean and composed. They definitely look like elven nobility eager for war.
Ranking up is always a pain, especially with horses. I once heard from a guy who had numbered the bottom of the bases of his units so he knew which model went where. His unit ranked up, but only in that specific configuration
Rod
For Nagarythe: Come to the dark side.
PS: Bring cookies!
Check out my plog
Painting progress, done/in progress/in box: 167/33/91
Check my writing blog for stories on the Prince of Spires and other pieces of fiction.
Yeah, good call! That's an idea I've been tossing around. The White Lions I painted need to be numbered too, they only rank up properly in a certain order hahaha and now that I think about it... it's the same with my Phoenix Guard. I also want to give the models a little heft, do you know of any solutions for weighting the bases? Don't think I want to magnetize them, at least not yet, but I'd like for them to not just get knocked over with a stiff breeze.
Very clean work, as usual TyrrenAzureblade !
I like the subtle differences on all of them. It really gives some unity without having a copy and paste feeling.
Also I like the spears pointing forward, it gives some dynamism that WFB models lack sometimes but on a more practical level I always wondered if it wasn't a disturbance during game when facing another unit.
Very nice!
I think this unit will look very proud on the battlefield.
Prince of Spires wrote:Ranking up is always a pain, especially with horses. I once heard from a guy who had numbered the bottom of the bases of his units so he knew which model went where. His unit ranked up, but only in that specific configuration
Ranking up with elves is nowhere as bad as ranking up with savage orcs or even worse black orcs. I think I will have to resort to spend a lot of time playing tetris with the models and then numbering them.
SpellArcher wrote:I found pennies worked really well for round 25 mil bases. Not sure about rectangular.
Oh, that's a great idea! Maybe I can cut down some pennies to make 'em fit? Would take a while to do every model, but it could well be worth it.
Azaam wrote:Also I like the spears pointing forward, it gives some dynamism that WFB models lack sometimes but on a more practical level I always wondered if it wasn't a disturbance during game when facing another unit.
Definitely something I've thought about. Unfortunately I purchased these from an online seller, and so quite a few were already assembled that way. I do love how they look when displayed but it could very well be an issue against other cavalry or larger infantry. When I put them up against my other elf infantry units, the spears seem to fit between or over the models. It would be easier if they just weren't pointing that way though. I also have five Dragon Princes that have their lances pointing forward that I assembled way back when I was young and not entirely thinking out the practicality of my model poses. Oh well, I just hope my opponents bear with me and don't mind some slight adjustment woes when we play. The plan is to play against my friend who's currently building and painting a Skaven army, and we're not diehard competitive types (unless we are) so it should be fine.
MasterOfNone wrote:
Ranking up with elves is nowhere as bad as ranking up with savage orcs or even worse black orcs. I think I will have to resort to spend a lot of time playing tetris with the models and then numbering them.
The question then becomes, if you manage to complete a line, does it then disappear?
TyrrenAzureblade wrote:Oh well, I just hope my opponents bear with me and don't mind some slight adjustment woes when we play. The plan is to play against my friend who's currently building and painting a Skaven army, and we're not diehard competitive types (unless we are) so it should be fine.
I think you'll be fine. As long as you keep in mind that it's just a game we play for fun with little plastic toys it usually works out. It doesn't take that much imagination to say two units are in base to base contact while they're one or two inches apart because the spears get in the way. It happens all the time. Same with charging a dragon and a phoenix into the same unit next to each other. No way those wings fit. Just accept that's the case and work around it
Rod
For Nagarythe: Come to the dark side.
PS: Bring cookies!
Check out my plog
Painting progress, done/in progress/in box: 167/33/91
Check my writing blog for stories on the Prince of Spires and other pieces of fiction.
Small update: finished seven more of my all time favorite unit, the Swordmasters. Closing in on having a 2500 point army painted to tabletop standard. After that's good to go, I plan on painting up to a 3000 point army I've got brewing. After that, I think I'm going to go through my army and start edge highlighting, doing eyes, and adding layers to all the gems. Sooo much to go still, but it's getting there! And now that there are Swordmaster-like units coming to the Lumineth Realm Lords, I've got a Lumineth starter box on the way. Probably won't touch that until my entire High Elf army is painted.
Good job and really clean as usual ! They look really nice even without highlights.
Can't wait to see a picture of these 2500 points painted at this standard !
Thanks guys, I appreciate it! It really is the washes doing all the heavy lifting though, lol. I will for sure post pictures of the 2500 once I've got it good and ready.
The Dragon Princes are pretty close to finished, I'm always so indecisive about banners. I think for these I'm going to glue some Saphery emblems from the Spearmen kit onto the banner, and I might try to freehand a dragon encircling it, that all depends on how brave I feel about that. Ten more to go to finish all of my collected princes, but boy, cavalry feel like a chore to paint sometimes. I've also finished those Silverhelms I started earlier this year, so here they are with the other five, for a unit of ten. I've still got eight more to assemble and paint, I think I'll put together the standard bearer from those.
The effort you put into them was worth it. They look very much like arrogant elvish nobility Great look. Even the banner like that is nice already. Good luck with figuring out what to put on it. For something simple you could always try a rune. I've also seen people print off an image and glue that on. It often looks great. Or get some transferable decals of course.
For Nagarythe: Come to the dark side.
PS: Bring cookies!
Check out my plog
Painting progress, done/in progress/in box: 167/33/91
Check my writing blog for stories on the Prince of Spires and other pieces of fiction.
Olthannon wrote:Lovely work on those dragon princes! That blue looks great, what's your recipe?
Thanks everyone, appreciate it! The blue is just plain ol' Caledor Sky, from Citadel. Then I wash in Drakenhof Nightshade. I'm planning on highlighting with either Teclis Blue, or Lothern Blue, but I want to get my entire army to tabletop standard before I dig into all the detailing. I'm currently painting a Loremaster which I plan on really doing up nicely, so that'll be the testbed for the highlight colors to see if I can figure out how to do the rest of my army.
So I've hit a milestone and wanted to post some pictures of it. I've finally hit ~2500 points that I can legally field. I can't say it's optimized at all, or even a decent army in its current state, but I'm proud of it all. The actual 2500 point army I want to field is pretty different from this, and I'm currently working towards painting that, so maybe I'll post pictures of that army once it's done. Also, the Loremaster in this army isn't actually done, I'm waiting on a few paints and some green stuff to get delivered.