Unreleased Sorceress 2 - Part 2

Unreleased Sorceress 2 - Part 2

Unreleased Dark Elf Sorceress (without cloak)

June 2020 was marked by painting my unreleased Sorceress. A miniature which keeps me busy since many weeks now. in May I already showed the preparation of this miniature. There was a lot of work in cleaning, repairing and basing her. In case that you missed the first part, see here. This second part will show the final preparations, guide you through the first part of the painting progress and will show my thoughts while painting her.



Motivation and Inspiration
Unreleased miniatures are rare and their painted counterparts are even more rare. Some collectors prefer their miniatures unpainted, others are just bad painters, others fear painting rare miniatures will reduce their value and others just have to much respect of trying to paint them. Therefore, these beeautiful miniatures were often locked away in dark boxes, never seeing the light of a cabinet. But, there also exists a small league of extraordinary collectors who beautifully paint their precious or pay a hugh amount of money to professional painters to let these miniatures become masterpieces. I want to show you some examples of this miniature I cames across through the years. They all did a fantastic job, enjoy!

 Unreleased Dark Elf Sorceress painted by Myles David aka Lil'Legend Miniatures

 Unreleased Dark Elf Sorceress from the collection of Remí Oliveras, painted by a befriended french painter

   Unreleased Dark Elf Sorceress from the collection of Bruce Faketron, painted by SkitsMix Commissions

  Unreleased Dark Elf Sorceress from the collection of Richard "Orclord" Hale, painted by Adam Skinner

Unreleased Dark Elf Sorceress painted by Iain Aitken aka Darkblade´s Workshop

   
My own version

Due to the fact that this lady never appeard in any official Games Workshop publication no Eavy Metal reference material exists of her. Therefore, I am bit more free in the decision for a colour scheme than this projects normally allows me. As allready announced earlier my goal was to paint this Sorceress in reference to the Sorceress from Dave Gallaghers famous Dark Elves Armybook cover. This artwork comprised some true challenges when trying to be transfered on a miniature. There is a highly complex loincloth consisting of a highly embroidered part and a lucent part, a collar consisting of delicate lace, a magic effect from her spell weaving hand and a cloak which is screaming for a freehand. I have to say I like nearly everything on this artwork with some small exception and this is the pink sword. I know that coloured swords were a thing in this era, but it doesnt work that good with a modern paint job. But, to get a bit close to this I will try to paint a miorror effect into the swordblade reflecting the reds from her collar in the swordblade. But first, there are some more preparations to be done. There is need to cast the little Cold One, base the miniature and prime her. Lets get started.



Casting the little Cold One

Centricast Casting and Mold making machine

This is not my first moldmaking and metal casting. Back in 2003 after I had sculpted my first bunch of greens I considered to do miniature design as a professional. My grandfather supported me and bought me a moldmaking and spin casting machine. Make a long story short, I decided against it and became a scientist. However, my moldmaking and spin casting machine has accompanied me until today and after years unneeded it is spinning again.

The mold is made using heat-stable RTV silicone. I started to fill one half of the mold with play dough. Then the greens were put into the dough. The mold was closed and the RTV silicone was put into the the empty space above the miniatures creating the first half of the mold. After the silicon has vulcanized, the mold was seperated and the play dough discarded. The silicone of the first half of the mold was treated with a seperation wax to avoid that the silicon for the second half of the mold reacts with the first one. Everything was closed again and the second half was filled with RTV silicon. A couple of hours later the mold can be seperated and the greens were removed. Then there was need to carve and cut the sprues into the mold. Also I carved and drilled the air release channels into the mold. The mold was then ready for some first test casting. I use a white metal alloy with a melting point of 260°C and a casting temperature around 300°C. For the casting the mold is powdered with Talkum. Then I cast the the metal ito the spinning mold. The mold was then optimized by improving the sprues and air channels. This is only a short summery of the process. If you like to get a more detailed article about mold making and miniature casting let me know in the comments.

Here the results! Even if some of my greens were very difficult to cast, the little Cold One made less problems. I was able to get some proper castings of this complex little Cold One.

                                                                                         Casted bits of the little Cold One

But three scales located on the snout and on the legs were missing or misplaced. Probably, damaged by the mold making. I am not an expert and I still have a lot to learn. I prepared one of the castings, glued the miniature together and repaired the scales.

The result looks fantastic and I am very happy to have this little critter as a metal miniature. Having this little critter casted I had everything at hand to put togehter the final arrangement of the figures.

Basing

Consequently I arrange everything on a base and start the priming. The miniature with cloak is very large as you can see on the examples above. It is hard to place her on a 20 mm base without enlargement of the base surface. Therefore, I extended the base by two layers of cork. I took care to have enough space for centering the sorceress and putting the right lower cloak tip on the ground. Additionally, there was need to have enough space for placing the little Cold One on the left side. I minimized the cork layers to show the base corners and sides were it was possible. Also I took care that I get two steps on the front view allowing me to reflect the little rise in the ground from the artwork. Building three bases and trying different top layers until I was pleased with the result shows how difficult this steps was. In reference to the artwork I will also try to use a good amount of grass the dark lady stands on. Before that I covered all surfaces with sand and small stones to have a nice underground. After everything was built, I fixed the little Cold One and primed the whole scene making it ready for painting

Primed base with the Cold One critter, Sorceress and cloak

Painting the Base and the little Cold One

WIP of painting the Cold One critter and its base

In the cover art the little cold one appeared bluish on the lower left corner of the sorceress cloak. For sure it was painted this way to fade into the background while the sorceress dominates the scene. Therefore, I decided to go with my bluish colour scheme I already used on the General on Cold One. In brief, I started with a basic colour mixed of Regal Blue and Incubi Darkness. The mixture was highlighted with Bleached Bone and used to prime the skin of the cold one. I used the basic colour for shading and added deeper shadows with my shading mixture consisting of Abbadon Black containing a little bit of Incubi Darkness. Then I painted the scales in Incubi Darkness. Each scale was painted as a reflecting material. Therefore, I highlighted the scales with Bleached Bone to the bottom and shaded them with the shading mixture to the top. Finally, the lower scale edges were highlighted with pure white. I added orange coloured eyes and brownish horns to give the little critter its final look. The base was painted exactly like my other High Elves ruin bases with a mixture of grayish stones combined with bone coloured debris. I used a lot of grass to cover the base because I wanted to get it close to the cover art. Consequently, I avoided to much eye catching basing elements to draw the attention on the sorceress and her little pet.

 Here some pictures of the finished Cold One critter on the base:

I am really happy how the Cold One turned out and the blue colours had worked very well again. For sure I will also paint a further one using my green colour scheme. I really enjoyed the process of designing, casting and painting a miniature. For sure this won´t be the last miniature design you have seen on this Blog. But, now it is time to get back to the focus of this article, the sorceress herself.



Painting the Sorceress

As usual I started with painting the skin. Here I make one of the less exceptions to the original cover art because I used my typical skin tones to make the sorceress fit into my army. I used my typical receipt based on Bleached Bone tones glazed with Warlock Purple. If you need a more detailed discription for painting light elven skin, just check the labels. In the following painting sessions I wanted to see her head area done and painted her hair, the jewelry and her bra. The latter was done using a red which based on pure Red Gore. Red Gore is a saturated red tone containg some blue making it more cold. Normaly, I reduced the cold temperature of this colour by adding Dark Flesh which is a warmed and desaturated red. The result is a neutral Red. With this miniature I wanted to play with different red tones from different colour temperatures as done in the cover art. This will be a break with the rest of the army colour scheme but in this case I decided for going with the reference. The next element I wanted to paint was the loincloth. In preparation for that I painted the boots with a warmer reds using my typical red tones but adding the highlights with Blood Red and a Blood Red and Golden Yellow mixture.

Painting the loincloth
Retrospectively, the loincloth was the most difficult part on this miniature. On the cover art it looked like consisting of two different materials, a golden one with delicate embroideries and a transparent one covering her left leg. In contrast the miniature only has a skirt which is one sided open. Therefore, there was need to combine both materials from the reference and transfer that on the miniature. For the golden tones I used my typical NMM gold colours. I started with the very light yellow mix as a base colour. Then I added the embroideries using Snakebite Leather. Looking at the cover art, it is not possible to get an idea of the original pattern because of the drapery. Therefore, I decided to use the typical flame motiv which was used several time as an element of the 4th Edition Dark Elves by Aly Morrsion. The transparent effect I get by glazing the warm red tones from the boots on these parts were the boot displayed under the skirt.The skull from the boot was painted freehand into the right position using Shadow Gray which contrasted perfectly to the warm tones.

After the rough idea was realized on the miniature the detail work started. I used finelining techniques to give the embroideries a much more delicate look. Additionally, I highlighted the skirt a lot to make it softer. The transparent effect was intensified by adding the skin tones to the leg and adding shadows with thinned Shadow Gray to deepen areas with no background which could shine through. I also added some Dwarf Flesh here and there to add some warmth from diffuse reflection from the red boots. The edges I painted Snakebite Leather and added freehand painted rivets on the lower edge. Here a some final pictures of this step:

I was very happy with the result at this stage. That transparent effect was a fantastic eyecatcher and it was already clear that it will dominate the result in the end.

Painting the gloves
One of the main differences between the cover art and the miniature are the gloves. I assume Dave Gallagher did not like them and indeed beside all the filigree details the clumsy gloves look a bit misplaced. From my talks with Aly I know that the bigger hands of the past were often used to ensure a completee casting of the weapons. Putting the hands in gloves reduced a bit their disproportional size. However, even with gloves this part did not fit very good with the rest of this elfs slender shape. That´s propably why Dave decided to go with a very reduced version of a glove, more jewelry than something covering the hands. This brought me the idea to paint the gloves in a lace or net style with open fingers. For that I started to paint the gloves in my skin colours. Then I used a finelining technique to add very thin lines wiht the brush on the surface. I placed them in a curved way to avoid a boring look. Finally I shaded the lower parts of the glove highlightening her arms which helps to reduce the bulky look of the shape. I tried to add some lace details, but this got to busy and I dropped the idea and stayed with the net look only.   

I am very happy with the result. It is a fine example how a painting can be used to change the expression of a detail on a miniature. That´s why I still think that this detail is one of the best on this miniature.


Painting the collar
Here the idea was to create something similiar as the lace collar from the cover art. I decided to use the red background colour from Daves cover art as a underground for my freehand pattern. I started painting the collar already a few steps earlier. I added the basic colour which is similiar to the bra. Then, I thought how I could add a black lace pattern to this detail. Because the front view is dominated by her black hair I dropped the idea to paint that pattern also on the front side. Additionally, I needed some contrast between hair and collar and was happy to have that with the red colour. I painted the sculpted details on the backside in black and added differen lenghts of black lines which I decorated with arrow heads. I used grey tones to add some reflections of the material. The small pearls on the sculpted details I painted in light bluish colours.

In comparison with the other details thisone get a bit lost. However, I am very happy to have added it because I dislikd the free space of the collar in comparison to the fantastic decorations Aly sculpted on its top. This way the whole collar gets a very filigree look helping to reduce a further limitation of the figure.

Painting the amulet and sword
Next on my to do list were the amulet and the sword. Both elements shared some special translation in Dave’s cover art. The amulet was replaced by a lightning effect and the sword was decorated with a lot of ornaments and coloured pink. Again I tried to get somehow close to the artwork. Therefore, I painted a object source lightning (OSL) effect to the amulet. The amulet itself was painted golden with a blue shining rune on it. I used a lot of blue glazes of Lightning Blue and Regal Blue to colour the reflections on the surrounding. Unfortunately, there aren’t much surfaces which can support the effect. Therefore, the effect isn’t very eye catching and a bit disappointing.

I have allready admitted that I am not a great fan of the pink sword. It is one of the few elements of Dave’s breathtaking artwork which I really dislike. That’s why I decided against a completely pink coloured one but thought it could pay the pink justice by painting the red reflections from the collar into the sword. For that I started to paint the sword my usual greyish way and then quickly added glazes of Red Gore. I also give the ornaments a try but terribly failed because these completly destroyed the NMM effect. The latter was more important for me and consequently I painted that sword NMM a second time.

Finally, there were some details left like the bag and some jewelry. After the miniature was declared to be finished it was time to put her on her base. I was very excited and after weeks of painting the moment had come to join the sorceress and her pet. It was a joy to see them combined. Now the only thing missing was the cloak!

But, before I will start to paint the cloak I will make a cut here. Because the cloak will finally cover a lot of the miniature I want to show her first without it. Therefore, here some final pictures of part 2

 

 

 

I hope you like my progress so far. Maybe you have already spotted the finished version showing up in my instagram preview on the top of this site. If so, you eill slready know what part 3 of this miniature will be about. Stay tuned for the cloak and the finished miniature!

As always I would be happy to read you thoughts in the comments.

Kind Regards,
GeOrc

Unreleased Sorceress 2 - Part 1

To the general knowledge three unreleased mage miniatures exist for the 4th Edition Dark Elves Army. There is the male Sorcerer riding Warhydra and two Sorceresses on foot. All three miniatures were designed by Aly Morrison. Aly told me that initially a box of mages was planned including these miniatures. But most of them never saw an official release. By definition from the Collecting Citadel Miniature Wiki the unreleased Sorceresses were named Sorceress 1 and 2. Sorceress 1 is very rare and through the years I only now from three copies out there. Sorceress 2 is also rare. But here I know at least of six copies. One you can see in my hand on the picture to the left. While the male Sorcerer appears frequently in Ebay, but through all the years I never saw one of these Sorceresses. With time goes by they become my holy grail. In January I put up this request in the Oldhammer Trading Company FB group:


Hello,
I am looking for some hard to find and unreleased Dark Elf and Chaos miniatures to complete my armies and collections. I know that most of these will be a long shot but perhaps some of you honorable collectors are willing to sell and look for a new home for one of these fantastic miniatures. Be sure that your offered miniatures do not end as piece of lead in a dark box. Each miniatures gets a first class paint job (19 Golden Demon Trophies) and a special place in my cabinet and in my heart!

... and I was very lucky when Emiel S. answered me, thinking about selling his copy to me. Emiel get this miniature a long time ago. Even if Emiel is a good painter himself he never felt comfortable painting her. We had a lot of conversation and negotiations, but finally Emiel decided that she will move to a new home, where she will get the painting she deserves. I am very thankful for this awesome miniature! I won´t disappoint Emiel and keep my promise. Here is the first part of the story of this fantastic miniature.


Some Sorceress miniature history

Aly looking at his work from 1993

When visiting Aly in Hamburg I showed him this miniature and we chatted about her history and her design. Here I will sum up his thoughts as well as some more information I was able to collect through the years. Back in 1993 Aly sculpted some early prototypes of the Dark Elves. These miniatures followed closely to his 4th Edition High Elves. In cooperation with Jes Godwin he finished the High Elves range sculpting the Elyrion Reavers, Shadow Warriors, White Lions and some Command Crews. The new Dark Elves were planned as a dark and sinister mirror of the High Elves sharing the same grace. To my knowledge his first set of prototypes include 2 Warriors, 2 Spearmen, a Witch Elf and a Sorceress. You can recognize these miniatures by their higher degree of detail compared to their later counterparts. This is especially true for the Witch Elf and the Sorceress.

Dark Elves Armybook Cover

Michael Perrys Talisman Sorceress

Aly remembered that he was carried away when sculpting them, trying to catch all the little details the concept artists put in their concept sketches and artworks. On the other hand, miniatures often were used as basis for further artworks by the atists. Alys early Dark Elves then became the basis for Dave Gallagher famous Cover Artwork of the 4th Edition Dark Elves Armybook we all know. Several months before I asked in another article the question if the Talisman figures were first or was it the Cover Artwork. The truth is, Alys unreleased prototypes were first, then came the Cover Artwork which was then used by Michael Perry as basis for the Talisman plastic Dark Elves miniatures. 

Comaprison of Artwork and reference

But, back to our unreleased Sorceress. It is amazing how many similarities you can recognize when comparing the miniature and the artwork. Here I want to mention the loincloth, the crown, the pearls and jewels in her hair, the sword, the mask (which switched sides) as well as the dominant high collar. Aly really did a Masterpiece in her. But, most of these details became even more filigree in Daves Artwork. And there are also a lot of differences, where Dave improved Alys work. In particular Dave was not a fan of the gloves which he dropped on the Sorceress as well as on the Witch Elf. Dave also replaced the medallion by a spell effect and added a small Cold One to her feet which looks like serving as a familiar. It is awesome to see how the Games Workshop design develop by different artists through different iterations of a design. A shame that we know so less about the fantastic work the designers do in the studio.

My version of  the Sorceress
It was clear that such a piece of Dark Elves history has to become a very special display miniature. Additionally, I had promised Emiel that this girl will get a paintjob she deserves. I really want her to become special and to do my part in the footprints of Aly and Dave. Therefore, I decided to pay respect to both artists by bringing togehter both designs. The idea is to paint her by the Cover Artwork from Dave and to catch his vision of her I had to sculpt the little Cold One in reference to Aly.       

Sculpting the Small Cold One
I used Trish Cardens Cold Ones for the 4th Edition for reference. For the pose I tried to get the spirit from Daves Cover art. I started with a wire construction which I covered with a layer brown stuff to give the armature more stability:

Next I added the rough proportions using greenstuff. I was very carefully to do the whole design a bit smaller because the scales will add the final volume later.  

Then I added the spikes on the spine and covered the whole lizard with scales. I used the original Cold One as reference and repeated the original scale pattern from Trish. Here it is important to use always fresh putty when it is the most sticky. I formed small balls and pressed them on the surface. then I pushed the sides of each scale in shape. I used a small needle to do this between two scales. Here you can see the progress after my first session using two times fresh putty. 

Cold One sculpt after the first session of adding scales

Next there was need to finish all proportions by sculpting the arms and the head. I didn´t care to much about the detail work as most of it will be covered later with scales. The head was a bit tricky and I had to iterate the eyesockets and eys several times before I was happy with the result. Also there was need to sculpt a new lower jar because my first one disappeared after adding the teeth. In this way several parts were removed and resculpted or improved during the sculpting process. Finally, there was need to add much more scales which took a lot of small sessions and a lot of patience.

Done! I now have an idea of the ordeal of Trish with the myriad of scales sculptured in her life or Chris Fitzpatrick sculpting these very filigree scales of the cloaks of his Dark Elves Corsairs! Kudos to both! Here you can see the small Cold One in reference to his bigger brother. You can see that I tried to get identical proportions and scale patterns.

Comparison of the sculpt with the original Cold One from Trish

And here you can see the Sorceress with her little familiar. My goal was to catch the atmosphere of Dave Gallaghers artwork with a small Cold One sneaking around his mistress gnarling and hissing ready to attack each enemy coming to close. In the artwork the Cold One sneaks around her cloak which fits very good as the cloak has a movement to the right. The cloak from Alys miniature is different and very special. Aly sculpted a big cloak as seperate piece which stick out much from the miniature. Consequently, there is a big gap between cloak and miniature which is in my eyes the only weakness this beautiful miniature has. By putting the small Cold One into this gap I was able to reduce this weakness and give the whole miniature a much more compact shape.

Finally, some pictures of this fantastic team on their base. Because the miniature is very large and the Cold One also needs some space I enlarged the 20 mm Base by some cork. The base is still work in progress. I think I will add a second layer of cork to get a bit more complexity.

However, I think you get an idea in which direction this miniature is developing. I am looking forward to do the next steps including finish the base and add some paint to the Cold One and the Sorceress. The painting will become a good challenge because I want to reproduce the transparent loincloth from Daves Artwork and there is also need for an imressive Freehand on the back of her cloak. As promised to Emiel, I will let her shine and will give her a special place in my heart and in my cabinet!! In this regard a short message in my own interest:

I am still after some unreleased and rare Dark Elves miniatures of that era. If you have such a miniature in a dark box, rarely seeing the light of the day and far away to see some paint, think about seeling it to me to become part of this collection. Drop me a message to: georgdamm @ web . de Thanks in advance!

I hope you like that first part. Stay tuned for the second part when this miniature will get painted. As always I am happy to read your thoughts in the comments.
Kind Regards,
GeOrc

 

Dark Elf Warriors - Swordsmen II

My Swordsmen regiment got into the next round of extension.   In order to close the first rank I painted the command crew for this regiment. In case you missed the first part creating this regiment, read here. Here, the Champion was already done and the Musician and Standard Bearer followed their leader on their heels. Or let us say they tried. There is a lot of competition on my workbench to get into my focus and to get some colour. Therefore, painting them was interrupted several times to work on different projects. Despite some serious time half finished on the pile of shame... these two guys were able to motivate me finishing them. Here the story of their odysee on my Workbench.

The Miniatures

Full regiment of Warriors - Swordsmen

Two sets of Command Crew miniatures exist. For the Swordsmen unit I choose a selection which reflected best the look and equipment of the troopers. The Champion with raised sword was the best choice. Additionally,  I took the Musician with sword and the Standard Bearer holding his sword still in sheath. I placed the Command Crew around the centered Champion. What I did not recognize at this moment was, that the banner was placed far left due to the fact that the Bearer hold it in his right hand. It would have been better to place this guy in the middle or on the right side so that the banner has a more centered position. Unfortunately, the musician does not work on his position because of its diagonal orientation. Put him on the left would mean to present his backside to the frontline. Switching with the Champion is still an option I have to think about. But, I always loved the idea that a regiment is arranged around its leader in the center. I will play with different options in some upcoming units. Perhaps I get this problem solved later.

Painting the Command Crew

Commmand Crew with basic colours

First detail work on these guys

How mentioned in the beginning, those two guys were not alwaysPart I of this regiment. I started on these miniatures with less time on an evening in early January. Just for relaxing I added some basic colours, the red, black, grey and gold (see WIP pic). I had a lot of further short session focusing rather on finishing specific elements than finishing a colour completly. What I also did was painting the faces very early. This normaly helps me a lot to keep my motivation high to finish these dudes. Not this time. I made a break here to paint the Sorceress riding Dark Pegasus and continued my work on them in March. Then, I painted both in parallel for a long time as you can see in the second WIP picture. I focused later on finishing the musician first as this was the easier miniature. In contrast, the banner of the Standard Bearer promised already very early to become a difficult task. And it would get a lot more difficult than I thought at the beginning. When testing the banner I noticed that most of the upper half of the miniature and the miniature to his right was covered by the banner. One option to solve this was with a lot of drapery in the banner, but this would complicate the freehand work a lot. I looked for other options and I get inspiration in the 8th Edition miniatures which shared a lot of similarities with this old range. Here the Standard poles were higher putting the banner over the heads of the regiment. Therefore, the second option was to extend the standard pole. I decided for the latter even if this meant to change the original miniature in this case.... and to change it on a already painted miniature! I did it and in the end I extend the banner pole by 1.5 cm which was already enough.
in my favor. Consequently, my time was very limited for them. When ever I paint miniatures only in very small sessions I miss to take pictures. This has happend here as well.... shame on me! Therefore, I can only tell the rough story of the process. If you are interested in a detailed painting description take a look on

The Banner

My technical experience in creating paper banners was nearly that old like this miniature range. In consequence I made a lot of mistakes here but learned a lot how to do better. Therefore, do not take this article here as a tutorial. I will write a detailed tutorial as soon as I will have optimized the technique. However, I took some pictures and can guide you through my learning curve.

I started with a pencil sketch of the banner. For the central symbol I wanted the winged skull. This symbol is carried by the unreleased master sorcerer on top of his staff. I had used this motif already by the shild from the General on Cold One. In terms of heraldry I wanted to link the regiment to these characters. The Swordsmen already carried the winged gem designed by Wayne England on their shields. I decided to replace the gem by the skull and fit the tail to the Banner shape. I added a rune looking similiar to the symbol in a smaller version on the front and on a bigger version on the back. The final design looked this way:

Banner design based on Wayne Englands artworks

Then I started with the painting process by putting the banner with Patafix on a wooden stick. Then I painted the basic colours. I noticed here that it would have been useful to seal the paper somehow. Due to the missing sealing the paper became rough and partly fibrous. Definiatly something to do better the next time.  

Banner with some first basic colours

After all basic colours were painted to front and back I added some drapery by bending the banner carefully. Two times my banner get some slight fractures. Not much but definiatly a warning to be more careful next time! Then I started the detail work aligning to the drapery. I played a lot with the contrast to make sure the symbol stand out from the background and the single elements had a good visibility. From time to time I checked the banner on the Standard Bearer to get a feeling for the final composition:

Testing the look of the banner on its Bearer

Here you can see the final Banner from the front and back. I am happy with the result and I like the simplicity creating that old school feeling a lot. However a bit more texturing and details could have been an advantage as well. I will have to think about what can be improved for further designs. Finally I fixed than banner with PVA glue to the horizontal bar.  

The finished command Crew

Here you can see final pictures of the Command Crew. These two chaps were nice additions to this regiment and I am happy to have the first rank done. The red colour scheme works great on these miniatures. However, I am looking forward to paint these guys in purple too as part of my Spearmen unit. I am curious what looks finally better when beeing able to have both in a direct comparison.

The first rank

Here you see the finished first rank of my Dark Elf Warriors - Swordsmen. Five miniatures done, 15 further troopers to do. For the moment I need a break from these guys. I am a slow painter needing a lot of variety. Therefore, I am only able to paint 2-3 miniatures of the same type. But, I would be happy have a playable regiment of ten men. Therefore I am looking forward to break down this large unit in smaller pieces. My next goal is to paint first two and then three further troopers to have ten troopers ready for battle. 

I hope you like the final result. As always I am happy to read your thoughts in the comments.

Kind Regards,
GeOrc

2020 Review and Preview

The Dark Elves Sorceress riding Dark Pegasus dominated
dominated the Workbench in January and February 2020

Unbelivable that this is my first post in 2020. Meanwhile it is already late in March and the world is running through a pandemic crisis. The lock down has also hit Germany and for the first time this year I feel that I came to a rest. So where I am now and what happened.
So far it was a busy year. I started 2020 going into parental leave. We had a nice and relaxed vacation in the first week of January before I started to introduce our little boy to his new day care. Unfortunately, work followed me on my heels. There was much to do and I had to care though I was officially absent for the whole month. This collapsed completly when our day care taker becomes ill and I had to take care for the boy and the job. Things did not get better in the following weeks. The February was dominated by a high work load in my research job and March was dominated by illness of one or more family members. The first day I felt healthy again was when writing these lines. But not everything was bad. We had also a lot of fun and good times and here and there was also some spare time for the hobby. As always when I am terrible busy I concentrate on painting miniatures to get my energy back rather than writing blog articles. Correction... Painting and... buying miniatures.

That´s what this blog article will be about what happened on my workbench and what awaits you later this year.


Tactica 2020

Meeting Aly Morrison at Tactica 2020 in Hamburg

On February 15th to 16th the Tactica Event in Hamburg, Germany took place. This yearly event is all about SciFi/ Fantasy and historical wargaming for hobby people all around europe. Knowing that Aly Morrison and the Perry Twins are regular guests of this events made it a must visit in my time schedule. As I am writing with Aly Morrison since a while about my Dark Elves project, meet him in person, talk about his design work and show him my painted Dark Elves was something I dreamed for a long time now. Additionally, there was a chance to meet a lot of my painting people and other people I know from my tabletop forums. I started my trip on saturday morning with a box full of grim and sinister Dark Elves and get on my way to Hamburg. And what should I say... It was brilliant and mind blowing!

After a first chat with forum people I met at the entrance and some purchases I met Aly in person. This meeting was truely my highlight of the weekend. Aly is a very nice, funny and communictive guy and we enjoyed a lot talking about the design of his Dark Elves range in the early 90s, all about Marauder miniatures and design and sculpting topics. Occasionally, I showed him and the Perry twins my painted miniatures. All three enjoyed my painting and I was happy to get a lot of positive feedback for it. We continued our conversation and all togehter we had a three hours talk through the whole afternoon partly accompanied by some other friends visiting us. Needless to say that now I have tons of information to support my Dark Elves project with interesting stories, design notes and insider information. Be sure to read some of it in my upcoming articles.


The lead pile
The lead pile has grown massively in the last months and thanks to some extraordinary gentlemen my collection has extended by some very special and rare miniatures. Impossible to go through all new stuff but I want to point out some miniatures and the people I have to thank! Due to privacy I shorten the names. You fantastic guys know yourself when reading. If you want to see your full name, let me know. 

Marauder Miniatures - Chaos Army

Marauder Miniatures Chaos Army

Inspired by Ernst W. and his awesome Chaos Army my heart was already weakend for this fantastic range of miniatures designed by Aly Morrison and Trish Carden. Thanks to Ernst I get in contact with Christian V. who sold my a small chaos force consisting of a Knight, a Warrior, a full regiment of Beastmen and Thugs and a Beastmaster with Hounds. Dozens Ebay Auctions later I had a full army consisting nearly of all miniatures made of this range. So far only 5 CD90 Chaos Dwarfs were missing. The picture shows most of the stuff but some of the miniatures are still in their acetone bath for stripping the old paint. Unfortunately, also some recasts sneaked into this beautiful collection. I have to check if I can use them or if I have to replace them by the original ones. There is still a lot of work to do the preparations. But, my mind is already working for a paint scheme and basing ideas. I am really looking forward in excitement to this future project.

Realm of Chaos

Unreleased penis-headed Beastmen

There was need to get the original Realm of Chaos Books for diving deeper into Warhammer 3rd Edition. These books were really two masterpieces Games Workshop built an empire on. There is so much creativity and inspiration in it influencing the path of this company until today. Thanks to Steve C. and his continous support I was able to create a small Chaos Warband consisting of mostly Slaanesh miniatures and some outstanding pieces of this old genius minature range. In this regard I am very proud to get the two unreleased Bob Olleys Penisheaded Beastmen from Jason L. It is never to late start collection the famous lead of the 80s.


Great Spined Dragon

The Great Spined Dragon

There is no collection complete without one of the most beautiful dragons Games Workshop ever created. Since I noticed this dragon the first time in the famous Dark Elves Army from Scott Goldstein aka Lion of Flanders I wanted this beast. For a long time it was on my list and I searched Ebay auctions and the market places to get one for a reasonable priece. End of last year I was successful and get this beautiful beast from a collector in Denmark. It is in a very good condition but need some love and some paint. I am still unsure in which army I will place it but I think it will be a pointy eared one.

4t Edition Dark Elves

Unreleased Dark Elves Sorceress II

Even if my 4th Edition Dark Elves range is nearly complete it sill misses some of the rare and unreleased miniatures. Two cruel and deadly ladys I am looking since ages are the two unreleased Sorceresses. In January around my birthday I put up a wanted list in the Oldhammer Trading Group on Facebook asking for these girls and promissing to paint them best I can and offering a special place in my heart and in my cabinet. And what to say, I was more than happy when Emiel S. offered me one of my holy grails. Even if Emiel is a good painter himself he never felt comfortable painting her. He is happy now that she is out of her dark box and in a new home by her unreleased friends where she will get the painting she deserves. I am very thankful for this awesome miniature and won´t dissapoint Emiel. She is already in preparation and in my schedule to get painted. Stay tuned.


The Workbench

In preparation

Beastlord Rakarth riding Black Dragon while preparation

A lot of miniatures have seen the workbench for getting their preparation in 2020. There were some Spearmen, the unreleased Sorceress and some others. But, after the Sorceress rode her Pegasus directly in my cabinet some space on my workbench was free for the next big monster. Therefore, I started to clean and build the Beastlord Rakarth and his Black Dragon. These old monster kits need a lot of love in terms of pinning and gap filling. Consequently, this kit still needs a lot of work to become ready for painting, Additionally, there is need for a proper base, which still makes me some headaches. It was planned to put him on a stairway with some broken obelisks. Unfortunately, the dragon pose does not work with my inital plan. We will see how I can solve these problems. With time comes a solution. Until then I clean more Spearmen and Crossbowmen and build bases for them. There are still tons of miniatures left which need my knife and sanding paper.


In painting

Pegasus work in progress

Even if there was no much progress on the blog, there was a lot of painting going on the last weeks and months. January and February were dominated by the Sorceress riding Dark Pegasus. She took a lot of time and luckily I was still in my parental leave in January. I wanted to finish her in time to be part of my showcase I showed to Aly in Hamburg. I finished her just in time but was not able to finish her banner pole and her banner. Both are still work in progress. Especially the banner is a really difficult one, as I am dislike the original one and wanted to optimize its design. It took a lot of drawings to get a proper result and now there is need to bring this a freehand on paper. I am still looking for the perfect motivation to get this banner done.

While shirking away from painting the banner I procrastinate in painting everything else which lies around unfinished on my workbench. In this regard three unfinished command crews crossed my way which was a good possibility to get some more banner and freehand excercise. I was able to finish the Command Crew for the Warriors in March. The article for them is following in the next weeks. Additionally, I started my work on the Command Crew for the Executioners... and one more trooper, needed to finish the first rank.    

There is also a third Command Crew, but these guys are from a really fast and sneaky regiment which makes it currently impossible to take pictures. But I stay tuned to get these guys in front of the camera.

So, that´s it for the moment. I hope you enjoyed the summary of the last weeks and months. I hope to finish some more articles in the next weeks. I am looking forward to show you the Warriors with their new Command Crew and also I have tons of pictures of the Sorceress and her Pegasus waiting to be shown. Stay tuned and stay healthy!!

As always I am happy to read your thoughts in the comments.

Kind Regards,
GeOrc