Dark Elf Warriors - Swordsmen I

Dark Elf Warriors - Swordsmen

Today I want to write about the simple troppers of the Dark Elves Army. But not about the plastic miniatures most of you will think about now. I want to write about the metal version of this regiment. I first came across these miniatures when noticing that one of the two displayed regiments of the Eavy Metal pages in the Armybook contain more than one monoposer. Several years later I read the story of these two miniatures on the Collecting Citadel Miniatures Wiki pages:

"While the metal Dark Elf Swordsmen look like prototypes for the single-pose plastic Swordsman, they were released and sold blistered by themselves in packs of 2. When originally released, single-pose plastic Swordsmen came in a box of 10 (without shields or waterslide transfers), this was later reduced to a box of 8, with added shields and transfers. Shield transfer 2 was apparently the only transfer sheet sold with the plastic swordsmen. The plastic Swordsman model may have originally been intended for use with the Talisman fantasy boardgame (like the single-pose plastic Beastman & Skaven models), but the Dark Elf character was dropped from the game prior to publication (rules for the Talisman Dark Elf character were published later in White Dwarf magazine)."


 
The History of the Dark Elf Swordsmen
Indeed these Warriors were some kind of prototypes. As their metal tab reveal these two miniatures were sculpted by Aly Morrison in 1993. Therefore, these were some of the first Dark Elfs designed by him while most of the miniature range was designed later in 1995. A few other miniatures also have a tab dated 1993 e.g. some Warriors with Repeating Crossbows, a Witch Elf and two Spearmen. The latter were of special interest here as both are conversions which based on the two Swordsmen. Therefore, Aly used the Swordsmen to design his first Spearmen in 1993. These two Spearmen were converted a second time in 1995.

                                                    Dark Elf Warriors and on their basis converted Spearmen


In contrast, the plastic Warrior was designed in 1994. Consequently, the metal version were produced first. A closer look on the plastic Warrior shows that his design based mainly on Swordman 1 but also shares some design elements from Swordman 2.

                                Dark Elf Warrior - Swordmen plastic version from 1994 in reference to the metal version from 1993


When the Dark Elfs were released in 1995 the metal versions of the Dark Elf Warriors were shown on the Eavy Metal pages painted in a Red/Blue colour scheme. A closer look revealed that the regiment consisted partly of metal and plastic Warriors. Only 5 to 6 metal miniatures can be spotted in the two ranks.

Dark Elves Warrior Regiment painted by the Eavy Metal Team

Additionally, the metal miniatures were listed in the catalogue pages of the first UK Dark Elves Armybooks with product codes DE6 and DE7.

Catalogue page from the Dark Elves Armybook (UK Version)

The cataloge pages seems to disappear in later printings of the UK Armybooks and were replaced by product pictures of an example army. To my knowledge the original catalogue pages were missing in Armybooks released in other languages. With the release of the Dark Elves Army only the plastic miniatures were featured in the White Dwarf and the metal versions were never catalogued in a European catalogue. Quite different in the US, here you can find the metal Swordsmen in the Warhammer catalogues from 1996 and 1997 as well as in the complete catalogues from 1997 and 1998 available under the product code 8510D. The Dark Elf Swordsmen were sold in blisters of two miniatures using this product code but sold less in Europe and the US due to the limited informtion and because of the cheaper plastic miniatures.   

My hunt for building a Swordsmen regiment
Today these metal Warriors were very rare and only appear from time to time on Ebay and the second hand market places. When I started to repaint my 4th Edition Dark Elves army I decieded to close the gaps in my collection. I saw the Dark Elf Swordsmen first in a polish market place, but had no chance to get these miniatures. However, after some time I found an Ebay auction from the US selling six of these guys. Two more Ebay auctions with 2 and 9 Swordsmen, both from Canada filled my ranks with 17 troopers. Finally, I added a command crew and my unit was completed with 20 Dark Elf Warriors in total.

Dark Elf Warrior - Swordmen regiment

I needed half a year to collect this regiment and in my experience, getting these miniatures only on the other side of the atlantic ocean confirmed that these Warriors were sold in Europe only in low numbers.


Painting the Swordsmen - A story of Try and Error
Painting the first Swordsmen was not easy. I wanted to continue with my purple/red colour scheme but had no idea how to distribute the colours on the miniature. With this question I started a journey on the long road of try and error. I know that most painters hide their failures and failed projects. Here you get an idea how it looks like when projects fail and how you learn by try and error.     
   

      
 
I wanted to paint the Warriors in red colours but I feared that painting all details in red makes them look like candy. As all my Dark Elfs of this army contain red and purple in different amounts, I had the idea to bring in more purple. Instead of focusing on one colour I balance both and painted them in equal amounts. It shows that, this does not work as purple and red were used here as saturated colours and therefore the eye does not find a focus. The result does not look harmonic and I knew that I had to change something. From the beginning the red colour was my favorite one. A second try followed in which I skipped the purple and replaced it by unsaturated blue in relation to the studio paint job. For the blue I took the same colour as I used for my bluish Cold Ones. The result looks better but also pale and finally not convincing. I wanted that these Dark Elf Warriors look more aggresively. I assumed that I had to paint the blue parts in red as well. But, this required to repaint the clothes for a third time adding a lot of paint to these parts. One guiding principle of my way of painting is that:

The miniature should look coloured, NOT painted!

This principle required a fine paint job with as less paint layers as possible. Now that I had already parts on this miniature which were repainted for one time makes it necessary to strip the paint of the miniature. Otherwise these parts would look smoother and with thicker colour as parts painted for one time only. Therefore, both miniatures went into the glass with acetone. I needed a new test miniature. I decided to paint the Champion, as he has less clothes which will allow to check how a miniature with red on most details will look like.

Painting the Dark Elf Warriors - Swordmen Champion
I used my already painted purple Dark Elf Champion as reference and swapped the purple to red tones and vice versa. I made one exception, the border of his chain mail which I painted also in red. The rest of the miniature is nearly identical with the other Champion. I added a nice freehand on his cloak for which I used a Dark Elf symbol of a star from the Dark Elves Armybook as reference. Finally, my redish colour scheme looked very good on this one and I get a lot of very positive feedback for this Champion. The result motivated me to transfer the colour scheme on the Warriors.

Painting the Warriors
I started by painting on many areas of both miniatures at the same time to get an idea if the coulour scheme works. My first impression was, that adding more red does not disturb the overall look. Then, I started to add more and more details, lights and shades. With that, I realized two problems on these miniatures. First, the swords get to much gold and second the Warrior with the feather on his helmet misses details to add some purple.

To avoid to much gold on the sword required to paint the triangle on the blade in a different colour. I saw two options, paint it also in red or in metal. Because I wanted to avoid to add more red, I choose the latter and repainted these areas in NMM silver. Consequently, the swords looked much more like the sword form the Champion what I liked very much.

The feather was the next difficult area to find a solution. I started to paint it also with a red ending and then decided to make a transition from black through purple to red. The result was really stunning and is one of the parts of these miniatures I like the most. I was really satisfied with the overall look of these two guys. But there was one thing left... the shields!

Finished Dark Elves Warriors - Swordsmen without shields

For the shields I wanted to show some kind of heraldy. As these Warriors will by the related to the General on Cold One I wanted them to carry a related symbol from him. Therefore, I wanted to add the dragon wings, but instead of a winged skull I wanted to add the winged gem. I had the option to give them black or red shields. Finally, I decieded to try the red ones, as this was much closer to the original one on the General. I started by painting the whole surface in red. The I painted the symbols completly free on the shields. Here I started with the golden gem socket which I put into the middle. Then I added the single fingers of the wings and finally the tail. Then I made the lines marking the skinny part of the wings. Here you can see the finished first sketch.

Freehand works on the shields - Initial sketch

To this sketch I added more and more details, light and shadows to seperate the symbol more and more from the background. Finally, I added a gold edge around the shield and add some scratches. Here I avoided to destroy to much of the symbol and placed them more in the periphery. In a last step I painted the backsides. I did not used glue to put the finished shields on the miniatures. Instead I used Patafix (some kind of Blu Tack). Here you can see the final result.

These two guys were a real challenge. They are wonderful miniatures full of details which makes it really hard to find a colour scheme allowing to show as much detail as possible. Even if it was a hard and long way I enjoyed painting these two miniatures. I like how the red work on the Champion and his two troopers and they share a really Roman look. What´s next?! Two finished means that there are only 15 left to complete the whole regiment. Additionally, I have to paint the standard bearer and the musician. But as the colour scheme is set now, it is only a matter of time to complete a first unit of 10 Warriors which will be extended step by step. I hope you like this guys and as well my research and this article. Let me know what you think and share your thoughts in the comment.

Kind Regards,
GeOrc

Painting my Blood Sisters

No Oldhammer today! Today I will write about painting a contemporary Dark Elf miniature, or Daughters of Khaine, as parts of this ancient race were named today. I started with a small force of Daughters of Khaine miniatures in early 2018. After some progress, I quickly decided to paint some of these for the Golden Demon competition in Germany. The Melusai looked the most promising to win a trophy, but in the end it was to time-consumeing to finish three of them in time. I droped the idea half way done and switched to finish my five Witch Aelves as this seemed more realistic. Finally, I finished these five girls and togehter with my rebased Medusa they joined me to the competition in Düsseldorf. Unfortunately, my entries were not ale to win a trophy, but a recommended mention. After the competition I get a bit tired of the Daughters and shortly afterwards I jump on the Oldhammer bandwagon. Now, one and a half year later theses snake ladys sneaked on my workbench asking for a paintjob and a dust free spot in my cabinet. I can´t resist especially as my wife loves these miniatures and get some painted could reduce the constant complaining of her to finish some stuff :)

Painting a Melusai
I will fokus on the skin tones of Snake and Aleve and the hair, as these parts received the most attention and a lot of people asked for the used colours and some advice.

Snake-Skin
I used Graveyaed Earth (alt. Steel Legion Drab) as basic colour. Then, there are two transitions. The earth tone becomes very light to the belly and very dark to the back. I used Bleached Bone (alt. mix Screaming Skull and Ushabti Bone 1:1 with a tiny bit of Golden Yellow) for the light tones and a shading mix consisting of Abaddon Black with some Incubi Darkness for the dark tones. I painted the rough transitions on the whole snake body. Note, I painted the scales as refelcting surfaces means, that in most cases I painted the dark tones on top and the light tones on the bottom of a scale:

Then I used White to highlight the scales on the front. Additionally I used some mix tones of Graveyard Earth and the Shading Mix to soften the transitions to the back. I used bluish tones for the light reflections on the dark scales. Therefore, I painted the rough lights with russ grey and the reflections with a mix of Russ Grey and White. As the snake body is a stretched cylinder, I added additional geometrical light reflections on the sides. These were painted in the upper half (45°) as well as in all curves on the external sides.

Aelve-Skin

For the skin I used my classic recipe. I added Bleached Bone as basic colour and shaded with two mixtures of Bleached Bone and the Shading Mix (light grey and mid grey). I added the shading mix to very deep shadows. Then I used Warlock Purple and then Liche Purple as glaze to add some colour to the skin. Be careful that you use these colours only as glaze. The pictures above give you a good idea how the result look like.  


Shiny Hair

The decision for the hair was a really hard one. One one hand I thought about some colored hair similar to the studio painting on the other hand I wanted dark hair because the miniature had already a lot of light areas. I decided for the latter and painted it the same way as the scales on her back. The overall look was fine but in detail it looked boring. I showed the result some friends and finally Lukas “Bloodmaster” Wiggering gave the crucial tip adding some purple. I blended the purple between the Black and the Russ Grey. Additionally I lighted the reflections nearly to pure White. The result looked very good and I liked it a lot.

The next steps included a lot of NMM painting. Especially the mask was a difficult task due to the many curves and details. The halberd was also a hard decision. Finally I decided for a very shiny weapon and added a lot of blue, purple and brownish reflections.

Final Pictures

I hope this small guide helps all who want to paint some parts of this miniature the same way. Let me know if this article is helpful and what think about this scaly lady.

Kind Regards,

GeOrc

          

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