The Talisman Sorceress

Dark Elf Sorceress, painted 08.2019

My Instagram Followers surely have noticed that there is a new girl in town. And yes, a new Hero strengthen my Dark Elf force. I painted this Sorceress already in late August, but spare time was rare the last months so that I was not able to write a proper article about her. Time to change that.
Just like the Talisman Witch Elf, this Sorceress from the same Games Workshop Board Game is a very special miniature for me. Together with some other Dark Elf representives she decorated the first Eavy Metal site in the 4th Edition Armybook. Immediatly, I fell in love with this girl! I started stalking her but no retailer was able to help me to get in touch with her. Desperately, I called the UK Mail Order Trolls and they told me she´s out of town... no chance to date her. It was 1998, long before Ebay and second hand market places where you can meet these kind of girls today. I was very sad. All what I had were some glossy magazine pictures. But, I didn´t give up. I asked friends and other players and then in the year 2000, friends called me to say that they have seen her. The Sorceress was back... and my friends reacted quickly and arranged a blind date. And, yes, a couple of weeks later we both met on my workbench! Finally a Happy End!


The Sorceress Miniature

Dark Elf Armybook Cover

The Sorceress is like her Witch Elf sister a plastic miniature. Both miniatures were designed by Michael Perry in reference to some concept art by David Gallagher. Davids concept later becomes the Dark Elf Armybook cover presenting these early miniatures. David says about his artwork:

 "I can’t actually remember too much about this cover other than it was at the start of a process that refined the imagery, not just the figures either, at this stage I was beginning to look at the whole range of box and book packaging and how random it was, just starting to refine a whole range rather than individual items was surprisingly difficult at the time."

Therefore, the cover figures show the new design direction the new Dark Elf miniature range would develop. However, these plastic miniatures were released as part of the Talisman Board Game Expansions. Read more about the Witch Elf Champion figure here. The Sorceress was part of the Dragons Tower Expansion released in June 1995. Here, she was also available as a free miniature with White Dwarf #186. All Talisman and Warhammer Quest plastics were released a second time in the late 90s or early 2000 in so called Toy Boxes. The release of these boxes allowed me to buy and own these fantastic miniatures. Thank to these boxes, these old plastics are more common these day. Back to the mid 90s! The Sorceress had her first appearance in White Dwarf #186 as part of the Eavy Metal site presenting all plastic Wizards which were available as give away. This version was painted by Stuart Thomas and reflected closely the 4th Edition Armybook Cover. Her next appearance was then in the 4th Edition Dark Elf Armybook released in July 1995. This Version was painted by Paul Muller.

                                    The Talisman Dark Elf Sorceress painted by Stuat Thomas (left) and by Paul Muller (right)


Painting the plastic Sorceress

I bought the Sorceress as a painted second hand miniature on Ebay. The miniature was badly painted without primer. It took a lot of work to strip the old paint using Revell Airbrush Cleaner. Finally I used a toothpick to pick out the old rubber like colour from the depths of the miniature. Luckily, the miniature didn´t get damaged which can happen easily when the plastic miniature is for a to long in contact with your cleaner. Because the Sorceress miniatures appear a bit smaller compared to her metal collegues I put her on a ruined obelisk. This obelisk is a gipsum casting of a high elf terrain plastic bit. The based miniature was primed with two component priming and then was ready for painting. For that, I had in mind that I wanted the Sorceress on Pegasus and this lady here will share much similarities. Therefore, I decieded to go with Paul Mullers reference for painting my own but with some minor changes. I pushed the purple more into my way of painting purple and also I skiped the coloured hair as both Sorcerersses should have white hair.  In the following I will describe some crucial steps in detail. As you can see on the work-in-progress pictures I skipped some steps in the descriptions.

The skin
The skin was painted first using my established light skin colour scheme. In brief, I primed the surface with Bleached Bone (Ushabti Bone, Screaming Skull, tiny bit of Golden Yellow). This base colour was darkend by adding different amounts of Shading mix (Abbadon Black and some Incubi Darkness) resulting in two colours I used for shading. Then I added highlights with white (here Hobby line White). Light and shadows were painted in reference to an imaginary zenital light source. After the colour transistions were finished I Used Warlock Purple (magenta tone) and then liche purple as glaze to add some colour. Improtant to pull the colours from the light areas to the shadow areas
 

Clothes
Here, I used my typical cloth colours described already in detail in my Exectutions posting. What I want to add here is that I painted different textures. While I wanted a fine fabric for her loincloth I wanted a more rough fabric for her cloak. I started for both by adding the basic colours and the shading. Then it started to get in different directions. While I painted the highlights on the loincloth in a classic way I painted the highlights on the cloak with very fine short lines in horizontal direction. These lines give the whole thing the textured look I wanted. I had a lot of fun trying this. Looking at the result I had hoped will look a bit more explicit but it is a good direction. I 
will definitly try out more with textures in future.

The sword
I always like the red-orange sword Paul painted on his version and I definatly wanted to copy this great eyecatcher. In contrast to Paul I painted mine with reflections typical for NMM. I added Mephiston Red as basic colour. For all further red toned I used my classic mix of Red Gore and Dark Flesh. There was need to mix some further colours. First a yellow. Here I wanted a desaturated light Yellow and mixed Golden Yellow with Bleached Bone. Then I needed an Orange which I mixed from the before described Red Tone with that Yellow Tone. For the shading I used Scorched Brown. As always when painting NMM I add some first contrast by lightening the basic colour with that Orange Tone and shading with Scorched Brown. Then I maximized the contrast by using the Yellow Tone and Black (here Vallejo Air Black). For softening the colour transistions to the base colour I used the mixed red tone. Finally I used some Bleached Bone and partly some white for reflections and the edge highlights.

Object source lighning (OSL)
To balance the eyecatching sword I added some OSL to her right hand. T he effect should look like a spell comparable to the one in the artwork from David Gallagher. Therefore, I painted the hand in bluish tones using Lightning Blue and Regal Blue. For that I defined a center on her hand where the origin centers. Then I added shades in different intensities with growing distance. To make this really looking an OSL there is need for some bluish reflections in close distance on the surounding areas. The picture reflects this only as a first sketch. I maximized this effect in the end, therefore you have to check the final pictures to see the effect working. 

The Base
The base was painted in my typical colours for High Elf ruins. In brief, I primed the obelisk with Screaming Skull and the debris in Steel Legion Drab. Then the obelisk was shaded with Steel Legion Drab and highlighted with White. The debris was shaded with Scorched Brown and with the Shading Mix. Then, the debris was drybrushed with Steel Legion Drab, Screaming Skull and white. The gem was painted with the before mentioned Red Mix. I used this Red Mix and made lighter colour mixtures by adding Dwarf Flesh. Using these mixtures and pure Dark Flesh I highlighted the gem to the bottom. Then I used the Shading Mix for shading the gem to the top. If you take a close look you will see, that the transition is positioned in a diagonal way. Finally I add a white reflection spot into the dark top area and a white cuvature at the lightest spot at the bottom. I added some ready to use grass from Mininatur. The ear was made with a brush hair dipped into glue and then in beige pigment. Then the ear was glued into the gras.

Freehands
I added some freehands on the inside and outside of the cloak. For the inside I painted small gold runes on the bottom and added a bottom line. I used the Urial Poisenblade artwork from David Gallagher as reference for the scripture. For the outside I wanted something simple due to the fact that the drapery is very tight. A tight drapery results in a lot of offset and hided areas. This makes it hard to work with bigger symbols. Therefore, I decided to do some linework. I wanted to paint coiled snakes into the corners. I made a sketch and tried to bring this onto the cloak. It is not my best freehand work and I am not that happy with the result. However, I decided to go with the result, as I had not the patience to start again on this difficult surface.
 


The finished Miniature

Here you can see the finished Sorceress:

I am very happy how she turned out. I really enjoyed to paint all the small details, which Michael Perry was able to realize from Davids Artwork, namley the crest with its little skull, the arm decoration, all the small jewelry on her cloth and in her hair. I like how the sword and the competing spell turned out. But, I am not so happy with her backview and the Freehand work on the cloak. However, she is a beautiful miniature and the best I have painted so far.

Talisman Dark Elf Sorceress miniatures I have painted so far, 1999 (left); 2000 (centre) and 2019 (right)

After 20 years we have met again and she is still a beauty and aged very well. I hope you enjoyed reading. Let me know your stories of this awesome miniature or let me know what you think about mine.

Kind Regards,
GeOrc