Unreleased Sorceress 2  - Part 3

Unreleased Dark Elves Sorceress 2

Sorry for the long silence on this blog. The last months were very chaotic for me and my little family. As my wife returns to her job and our little boy changed the child day care, our days have become very exhausting. Additionally, the heat waves here in Germany reduced my remaining energy and things in my beloved hobby slowed down. While I was able to paint from time to time I had neglected this blog and was not able to finish my articles. I started writing this finaly part of painting my unreleased Sorceress two months ago but did not get it finished neither in August nor in September. Now I am sitting here in a train back to Leipzig and will give it a next try. Therefore, welcome to the final part of this article series for painting the Unreleased Sorceress 2. Painting this miniature has developed into a very long journey which stretched for three parts now. In case you missed the history and preparation of the miniature click part 1 or the design of her little Cold One pet and the first painting click part 2. As already announced part 3 will be about painting the cloak with a focus on the freehand work I put on it.

 

Painting the cloak

For painting the cloak I put the cloak on a wooden stick from an ice lolly using Patafix. Then I started painting the surfaces. For the colours I oriented again on Dave Gallaghers artwork and used a bluish colour for the backside and a cold red for the furish inside. The latter was painted  in darker tones as it lies mostly in the shadows. Because the backside would be decorated with a lot of freehands I did not spend to much time and effort to achive perfect blendings. As a lot of correction work on the background would be needed, there would be plenty of time to clean these blendings after the freehand work. Here my result I started the freehand work with.

 

 

Preparing of the cloak, back view (left) and front view (right)

Planning the Freehand

The big surface of the cloak screamed Freehand all over it. Therefore, I spent a lot of time thinking about what I could put onto this cloak and what could fit to this miniature. Thankfully, there were already good examples of painted versions of this miniature trying to achive this. 

Sorceress by Myles David

In this regard I like Myles work the most and going with one of the many versions of a grining skull should fit perfectly into the style of this age. Like Myles I checked the artworks of the armybook and sticked to the Tower artwork from Des Hanley. 

Artwork by Des Henley

The Black Guard helmet in this artwork shows some nice skulls which could still looking good when reduced in size for the freehand. Additionally I wanted to add some line work on the lower border which should show the typical spikes as well as some on the sides. I also wanted to add some gems serving as coloured eyecatchers which could be placed on the skull and in the center and in the corners of the line work. My initial planning also contained the idea to paint the lower jar of the skull as part of the lower line work combined with the gem as well as some runes between the jars. It becomes clear later that not everything could be realized as planned. But here you can see my 1:1 drawing I did as reference to start with.

 

Concept sketch for the planned Freehand

 

I discussed my ideas with some befriended painters, among them the Master of Freehands himself, Stephan Rath multiple Slayer Sword winner and known for his amazing freehands. He liked the design and told me to go with it. Because a freehand mostly developes with every element added I should be open to changes and bear in mind that most of his amazing stuff did not ended as they were planned or painted in the beginning. He should be very right about this. 

 

Painting the central element

For transfering the skull design onto the surface I used my already described masking tape technique shown here. In brief, I photocopied my sketch and fixed it on some layers of masking tape. Then I cut the symbol off and from this I cut off the eyes and noseholes. This mask should provide enough markers to transfer the design. I put it properly in place on the drapery of the cloak. Then I painted softly the outlines as well as the eye and nosehole markers with Screaming Skull. I removed the tape and corrected the lines and spots. Then I painted the the surface with XV-88 and painted the outlines and additional lines in black. Further markings and helping lines for details, teeth and the central gem were added. The final result was my initial sketch I started the detailing work with.

 

 

Transfer of the central freehand using a masking tape technique

I painted the skull in golden NMM with light bluish eyesockets. I quickly realized that the central gem was placed badly on the drapery and replacing won´t really work. Because the drapery added a lot of detail in this central area I dropped the idea of a gem on the skull. Even if I was forced to make some first changes to my concept I was very happy with the final result. 

Finished Skull Freehand

Lessons of Try& Error

For a first sketch of my line work I sticked closely to my initial concept. I quickly realized that I won´t have the same space between Skull and line work as planned on my sketch. Consequently, it was very early clear that I have to drop the idea of the glowing runes. Additionally, I started to dislike the idea of adding the lower jar as part of the line work. To test alternatives I used a actual picture and Photoshop to do some quick rearrangements.

 

Use of Photoshop to test some Freehand design changes

I discussed the ideas again with some other painters, put the cloak beside and spent some days in vacation with my family. With some new energy and motivation I returned to my workbench and decided to skip the jar idea and go with my latest photoshop concept.

 

Painting the line work

I started my next painting session on the line work with erasing and repainting some areas. Then, I added all the details of the gold NMM for the lines and painted the gems in purple. Because the gold tones of the skull with its big areas and the line work with its small areas looked differently, there was need to adapt the gold colours so that line work and skull better fit together.

 

Final Freehand Design

Putting the whole model together

I glued the finished cloak in place and it still fit perfectly on the Sorceress and the little Cold One. Checking the final results showed from the back view that the cloak did not goodly integrate into the miniature as the bluish colours of the cloak and redish ones of the collar contrasted to much resulting in seperation of both elements.

View on the assembled Sorceress miniature

 

Therefore, I added some red and purple colour to the top of the cloak to make a softer transition from the collar to the cloak. This optimization worked fine and the backview looked much more harmonic.  

Finished Unreleased Dark Elves Sorceress 2

Final Pictures

Finally, this journey had come to and end and I had my painted version of this amazing miniature in my hand. This girl really had cost me a lot of time but I enjoyed every minute painted this lovely masterpiece. The painting pulled me away and resulted in a miniature so full of character and different additional details.

 

 

 

 

I hope you enjoyed my journey paying this awesome Design from Aly Morrsion as well as the iconic armybook cover from Dave Gallagher justice. Let me know what you like the most on this evil lady and leave your thoughts in the comments.

Thanks for reading!

Kind Regards,
GeOrc