Sunday, April 14, 2019

WIP Dark Elves Cold One Knights - An Update




My unit of Dark Elves Cold One Knights was already growing when I started to paint the General on Cold. The latter gets into focus as my entry for the 20 years competition in the Facebook 'Eavier Metal Community. Unfortunately, the General was not able to decide this competition for him. Anyway, I was able to finish this piece of 4th Edition Dark Elves History and the miniature gets a lot of attention and positive feedback in the social networks. Now it was time to return to his knights he will lead into battle.

My rough plan in the end of last year was to reproduce the studio builds. I had already built and painted the Cold Ones of the Cold One Knights Box, even if the light green runner was mounted by the Champion figure.

WIP on my Cold One Knights unit in the end of 2018



It was clear that this guy has to move on another Cold One sooner or later. The other two Cold Ones turned out nicely. The light green standing one was a pleasure to paint. The only disappointment was that the head didn’t fit that well on the neck and that the dorsal spikes are not in line. However, this is only visible when looking very close and from above on this beast why I just ignored that. The dark runner was painted in a dark green version. I was not brave enough to painted it in bluish tones, something which will revenge later. With these three builds I started in 2019.



My biggest concerns were the builds of the rare knight as well as for the standard bearer. Both required bits which are very rare (take look into my article about the Cold One Knights history). Two months of searching through thousands of eBay auctions finally had an happy end. I was able to get the rare tail bit as part of a badly executed conversion of a Skink Cold One Rider and the head a part of lot of Cold One Knights. Because I needed the tail two times I made a copy and used it on my Cold One for the Standard Bearer. The original parts I used for the build of the rare knight. Now I had everything to complete the Cold Ones of Command Crew and the first four knights.

                                      left Build of the Standard Bearer Cold One and right Cold One of the Rare Knight


Time to move the Champion to his new mount. Therefore, I finished the build of his new Cold One and the base for his old one. I painted his Cold One in the similar colors I used for the Generals Cold One reflecting also the bluish tone of the studio painting. While the Armour of the Generals mount covered most of the Lizard, here you saw nicely how the bluish colors work on skin and scales. Finally I was very happy with the result.

                                       New Cold One for the Champion Knight primed and painted in bluish tones


Swapping the Cold Ones on their final bases was a bad idea. However, it was necessary as I prepared all six bases in advance with an overlapping design and each has its specific position. Consequently, I removed the light green runner and positioned it on his new and already painted base. Positioning the bluish Champions Mount on the Champion base was more difficult. This procedure required to cut some painted parts away allowing to bring this mount in line with all other Cold Ones. With tears in my eyes I look on the ruined base but with happiness on the overall look of this growing unit.


WIP Cold One Knights unit


Instead of repairing the damage I created, I decided to seek comfort in painting the rare Knights Cold One. This mount quickly became my most beloved one as it is so special. The miniature appears to be  the initial design than Trish Carden started to sculpt the Cold Ones. Even if it looks very static it has a unique dinosaur appearance. I decided to go with the light green variant as the studio painting was also one of the green versions. Her my latest progress on this reptile:

WIP of a Cold One featuring the rare cold one bits

I have a lot of WIP pictures taken during the painting process and when finished I will write everything togehter in a more detailes tutorial. So far on my workbench.
The journey will continue. Stay tuned.


As always I am looking forward to your comments and feedback

Kind Regards,
GeOrc