So it's been probably over a year since I last posted to this blog. Although I haven't been painting as much I would've liked, I have been doing bit now and again. After dabbling with the Dark Eldar for quite some time, I decided it'd be nice to paint with some brighter colours for a change and so bought myself the Warhammer Island of Blood Box set with a whole load of High Elves to paint.
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| High Elf Sword Masters of Hoeth |
So here are my first attempt at painting High Elves - the Sword Masters of Hoeth. I decided to pretty much invert the white & blue 'official' colour scheme, which also allowed me to experiment with Citadel glaze paints. This was used on the models' scale-mail armour. After painting the armour silver, and washing and highlighting as usual, I gave it a couple of coats of blue glaze to make a metallic blue colour. I wanted the Captains sword to really stand out from the others, and although the model had runes embossed on the sword, I used the same glazing technique to create a more enchanted. In all honesty, I used too much glaze in getting the blending gradient correct so it came out a bit darker than I originally intended. But, after standing all the models together I decided that the additional contrast the sword had made it more a focal point, which I quite liked in the end.
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Captain of the Sword Masters
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The banner gave me the most trouble whilst painting these chaps. I originally intended it to be a white banner with blue details but I found it immensely difficult to get a smooth enough blending of whites over such a large area (I also had the same problem painting the hair plumes on the helmets). After five or six attempts at repainting it, I realised I'd used that many layers that I'd started to lose the detail on the banner and so used some paint removal techniques to start fresh. I found plenty of
guides for how to do this online, and managed to get some good results with cleaning products that I already had around my flat. Anyway, after getting most of the paint off (it seemed a lot tougher to get the final layer and undercoat off the model), I went with a blue background, which again was a much darker look than I was going for but it looked pretty cool with all the models together as a unit. I think I'll be avoiding white from now on too...
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| Bannerman & Sword Masters |
Just as a bit of a reference, the next image shows the first Sword Master that I painted with the original design. The only thing I really changed with the colour of the gems. I thought purple was a more regal and slightly more sinister look for the Sword Masters of Hoeth. It's also nice to see how my highlighting and blending improved whilst I was painting these dudes. As usual, the pictures don't show all the best details but you can definitely see some improvement in the blue drapes near the feet and on the leather pouch on their belt. Also I'm a lot happier with the finer detailed eye's I managed to get on the later models - mainly thanks to getting myself some much needed decent brushes.
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| First Attempt (left) & Final Design (right) |
Until next time, which hopefully is not another year away!
- MHB
