Dark Elves Sorceress riding Dark Pegasus - Part 2

Darl Elves sorceress riding Dark Pegasus

A further victim of a busy year. I had hoped to finish the final article about painting my Dark Elves Sorceress riding Dark Pegasus earlier. But as mentioned before, my real life required to reduce my spare time in 2021 and my hobby activities and this blog was the first thing I had to silence down. Consequently, I was not able to finish many articles in the last six months. However, things have become better and since a couple of weeks I am back. Time to finish some negelted articles and update some series. The first will be creating my banner for my Dark Elves Sorceress riding Dark Pegasus which I did around one year ago. If you missed the first part of this article, please check this Link here.

The Sorceress riding Dark Pegasus was already painted in January/February 2020. The only parts missing were her banner pole and the banner itself. I took a smal break from the miniature and finished my Dark Elves Warrior Command Crew. With its Standard Bearer I get some additional experience creating the paper banner and thought I was ready for the one of the sorceress. I started designing and painting her banner in the end of March 2020. But my firsdt approach failed and lost the motivation. I concentrated on my unreleased Dar Elves sorceress and Dark Elves Dark Riders instead. With finishing the Dark riders banner I got new motivation and returned to the Sorceress banner end of October 2020. After revision and optimaization of the sketch I painted and finished the Banner. The result was already visible in the picture of my Army Shot in the beginning of 2021. Read here now the detailed story of designing and creating the Banner and see the final pictures of the Sorceress riding Dark Pegasus.

Preliminary Considerations  

From White Dwarf #190

The original Sorceress riding Dark Pegasus came in a box released in White Dwarf #190 in September 1995. Beside the miniature the box also contained a self-adhesive banner which was probably designed by Alan Merrett and painted by Neil Hodgson as most of the Dark Elves shield and banner icons. While I like the majority of these banners a lot, the one from this Sorceress is the weakest in my opinion. I assume the old looking hairy skull should show a stylised hag before blood night. However, I think the icon did not fit for a sorceress and hair and stylised snake ending horns somehow look weird. On the other side the general idea of the skull looking at the brogen heart is nice. But, the banner miss the clarity of the rest of the banner range. Having in mind the parts I like on them I decided to adapt the parts I disliked and design a new version of it, fitting to the banner range. 

Dark Elves Battle Standard

For that I used the Medusa showing Battle Standard. This design became the banner of Ghrond and therefore the banner of the home of the Dark Elves Sorceresses later in Games Workshops Dark Elves history. This made it the perfect icon for a Sorceress. I took the idea of the skulled Medusa head and the original banner design from the Sorceress riding Dark Pegasus and sketched a new banner icon containing the ideas and designs I liked. I started with some simple pen sketches I did during my lunch breaks. After I got a feeling for the otiginal skull design from the Sorceress banner I added the snake hair and the horns from the medusa design. After I had a rough idea of the arrangement I painted one version into the original banner frame.

       

First sketches of the banner design ideas

 

I scanned that version and used photoshop to mirror the icon into the other side of the banner frame.

 

Using of Photoshop to mirror the design

 

This version was printed in a very light grey tones.

Very light print of the banner and its design used for painting

I cut out the banner design carefully and used it for a first try to paint it.

Banner ready for painting

 

 

First Approach

For the painting I cut out the banner as I did with my latest one for the Dark Elves Warriors and started adding colour. Unfortunately, I quickly ran into problems. The paper starts twisting and the colour application became very speckled. What was wrong? It was a different kind of paper I used here. In my previous version I used thicker very qualitative paper with a weight of 100 g because the banner was a one sided hanging banner with straps. The banner here was a double sided one. For that I used thinner standard paper as the banner will get thicker when glueing both sides together. That was the reason it was less stable against twisting. In addition the surface quickly absorbed the water from the colour leading to speckles.

First try and first fail to paint this version of the banner

Probably, with some patience I would be able to save the banner as adding more an more colour would seal the surface and stop further twisting. Moistering the backside and puting it between a thick book for a couple of days would bend it even. But when posting the work in progress banner into my painting group I got some serious critic for the design itself which makes me start thinking to start from scratch. This critic said the snakes of the Medusa head should look into the direction of the heart. It was quickly clear that this would change the whole quality of the banner, as this would increase the interaction between the elements and tell a more comprehensive story.
 

Revision of the Sketch and Final Version

After a couple of days thinking about the needed modifications I gave them a try and used photoshop to rearrange the head position. The new view direction worked fine but the empty space between head and fram further increased. Further modifications were necesarry to make this look good. Therefore, I filled the space with more snake hair and covered that neck part.  

Revised banner design with rearranged head and additional snake hair

 The final design worked well. However, the latest bad experience in banner painting were still in my head. Therefore, I lost my motivation to continue working on this version and put it asaide. It needed a couple of months and some more experience on creating and painting banners to start from scratch. That point was reached after I sucessfully painted my Dark Elves Black Riders Banner. Highly motivated and armed with some new techniques I started that banner anew. 

The Banner was a joy to paint and I had a very fast progress on it. In just one Session I painted a first rough version of the right side. The result looked good but it became clear that the empty space where the shoulder and neck would be situated still looked confusing. Again I used the Battle Standard as reference an added the red shoulder armour from the original design.

The additional element worked fine and served its purpose. However, because the black backgound was already painted on the right side, it became slightly darker on this side of the banner. Having everything together and working now I finsihed the whole banner by doing a lot of detail work in the final steps.

Finally, I compared my final version with my first try and was very happy how my skills developed during that year. That Banner was really a great design and I can´t wait to add it to the Sorceress banner pole.

Comparison of my final banner with the first approach

Final Pictures

As always I cut ou the banner and used PVA glue to add it to the banner pole. Still wet from the glue I bent it in waves to add some dynamic. After the banner had dryed for a day I added the golden edge and some additonal shading to the banner to adapt it to the light situation. Finally, I added some damage in the rear lower corner to give it a bit used look.

Then it was time to add the banner pole to the Sorceress. Carefully, I glued the pole to the backrest. For that I did not used the original knob because this does not fit without bending the banner pole. Instead I glued it on top allowing me to put the banner straight on the backrest without damaging the pole. After everything was done I sat a long time in front of this iconic miniature and starred at what I had created. The result impressed me very much and the miniature was the centerpoint of my Dark Elves Army. She look like a true Herohammer representative of her age, but judge yourself.  

 

This miniature really had a long journey. I still remember that the first one I painted back in 1998 became a victim of black undercoat instead of vanish. A fatal failure and thorn in my side leading to a bath of aceton a couple of years later. But instead of a new painting she was abandoned in a black box of 5th Edition miniatures. The try to make her a center piece of my 6th Edition army failed and she never was finished. I am more than happy that this shame is deleted in my long list of fails. Now she is having her deserved place in my cabinet leading an army of respectable Dark Elves.

I hope you like the final result as well. As always let me know what you think in the comments.

All the Best,
GeOrc

My first 6th Edition Army

The gang from the new Millenium

This year the 6th Edition Dark Elves Army release celebrates its 20th anniversary. The Armybook written by Gav Thorpe and illustrated by Dave Gallagher was mind blowing. Dave designed the Dark Elves from scratch and gave them a much darker more delicate appearance fitting perfectly into the new 6th Edition character. The new miniature range designed in majority by Chris Fitzpatrick and Juan Diaz herald a new era of miniature design. I was already a great fan of Chris Dark Elves Sorceress and his Dark Eldar miniatures. Therefore, he was a worthy successor to Aly Morrisons heir and the best what could happened to my beloved Dark Elves. During the years I painted two appreciable 6th Edition Dark Elves armies. My first try on these miniatures was a very dark and gothic like version. It brought me the nickname "Mr. 50 shades of Grey" long before this became the name of an awful novel and translation into much more awful movies. Actually, this chapter of my painting career would be long forgotten and unknown if not one unit of this army won Silver at the Golden Demon competiton 2004 in Germany. Oh wait... there is this Golden Demon series on this blog. Yes... and in preparation for the corresponding article for this unit it is useful to light this dark chapter of my miniature painting. Luckily it was a short phase with a doubtful results but also with teachings preparing me to become one of the best painters of the upcoming years.   

 

The Dark Elves of this millenium

The Army Dark Elves Armydeal of the 6th Edition

It was the year 2001 and the new Dark Elves army was already announced. Official and unofficial teasers were shared in the young internet and I could not wait to get my hands on all these new fantastic miniatures. I still remember when picking up my Dark Elves Army box containing most of the new stuff and also a limited Battle Standard Bearer. At home I dived deep into the new book. The dark illustrations from Dave Gallagher completly overwhelmed me. I was lost in a dark atmosphere, a world in black and white which worked completly without colours. At then end of this sinister path I found light at the last page of the book showing some example miniatures painted by the Eavy Metal team members. There was a Dark Elves Hag Queen painted by Neil Green showing that a Black and White painting scheme could work. Retrospectively, I think it was this combination of Daves atmosphere and Neils fantastic paint job trying to paint miniatures close to Black and White illustrations. I gave it a first try and painted a Witch Elf designed from Chris Fitzpatrick in Neils colour scheme. 

Dark Elves Pristess painted by Neil Green (left) and Witch Elves test miniature painted in 2001 (right)

The result convinced me and I moved on painting my new army this way. The next miniature I painted was the Dark Paladin riding a Cold One. This miniature also won a price at a local painting competition and encouraged me to be on a good way. However, the more I moved on in this project the more critic I got and the community quickly got bored of the monotonous miniatures. However, I was very stubborn at that time and it need a couple of failed painting competitions and long nights looking enviously at the new style from the colourful Rackham miniatures which arrived in the painting scene to change my mind. After two years this phase ended with painting my Dark Elves Princes rinding a Cold One which get me my first Golden Demon Trophy. However, I was able to finish a couple of miniatures in these two dark years and taken together this was enough for a small Army. Lets take a closer look at these really, really Dark Elves.  

 

The dark side of the Force

I painted this Army from mid 2001 to mid 2003. After the Witch Elf I painted further test miniatures incluing a Corsair, a Cold One Knight and a Harpy. These helped me to adjust the colour scheme. I can´t remember exactly in which sequence I painted the remaining troopers of these units. I suggest I did the Cold One Knights first followed by the corsairs. Then I painted Harpies and Dark Riders. The Malus Darkblade on Cold One as well as further Malus miniature riding a winged beast were created and painted rather late 2002 and early 2003. The last miniature I painted in that style was definatly the mounted Sorceress, as she was already going into a new more colourful direction. You see an overview of the army below.

 

My 6th Edition Dark Elves Army from the early 2000+ years

    

In the following paragraphs will find more detailed information about the single regiments (the small bits I can rememeber and reconstruct from my old website) as well as more detailed pictures. 

 

Cold One Knights

Dark Paladin on his Cold One

The Cold One Knights were one of the first units I started for this army. I remember that the Cold Ones were a matter of a great discussion and they polarized the community in fans and haters. I stand a bit in between. I liked their Godzilla like heads and the fact that they get back to move more on four legs. Unfortunately, they got a bulky shape and the constraints for plastic miniatures did not allow to create them more delicate. However, the Knights from the talented hands of Chris Fitzpatrick made these some of the best miniature of the range. Especially, their helmets are great designs. A shame that my lousy colour sheme did not allow to get more out of these beauties. Having repeated that I want to point you to some highlights of my painting. My Finelineing was already very good as you can spot on the various runes I added to the shields and pennants. I also showed some good freehand skills that can be seen at the coiled snakes of the banner, the small dragon on one of the the shields and at the pattern on the trumpet.

I am also very proud of my faces and eye paintings on these miniatures. Beside fifty shades of grey you can also spot some rare colours like the dark green of the Cold Ones, the light green Cold One eyes, purple saddles and a bluish pet dragon. And you can also see some faults like the wrong transition on the gem and the matt vanish I used on my first Cold One knight I painted as a test miniature. I am sure you can spot him ;)

I still love these fantastic Knight miniatures. One day I will paint a further unit of these probably with some optimized Cold Ones working a bit more like the Baby-Godzillas from the Emmerich movie.     

 

Corsairs

Dark Elves Corsair Champion

I remember painting the Corsairs as the next regiment. I finished the Command Group and the the Malus Darkblade on Foot which I put together into the Golden Demon Competition in the Warhammer Fantasy Command entry in Germany 2002. Beside my Dark Elves Demonrider shown below this was my second entry. Unfortunately, I failed with both and drove home without a trophy. I was able to finish further miniatures of this regiment in the months after. Two years later I gave the unit a second chance in the Golden Demon competition and was successful... partly by some sneaky gambling. Read the full story about this event in one of upcoming articles in the Golden Demon section. 

Looking at the regiment now I have to admit that it work much better as the rest of the army. The advantage here is that the unit comes with much more coloured areas and the proportion of light/dark areas is much more balanced. The Standard Bearer and his banner is still today a respectable work and the light blue colours are a very nice eyecatcher. Today it would add more global light and would get more out of the scaled cloaks and weapons. These three points are some major drawbacks looking at them now. However, the unit is still the strongest part of this army seen from the painting perspective. 

Harpies

 I started this regiment already in mid 2001 and my plan was to play a unit at the big DUZI Tournament in October 2001. Unfortunately, the painting was to time-consuming and I was not able to finish it in time. The painting scheme of them is not so special and is very close to the one of the Studio Army. Major differences are my paler skin tone and the missing purple eye shadow. I also added the bluish colour on the wing endings visible in the pictures from the Studio Army in the Armybook. I noticed later that the colour is missing in other pictures of these miniatues making it probably a (nice) artefact from taking the pictures. Back in the days I had planned painting a second unit. But thanks to the Dark Gods this will never happen. 

Dark Riders

The Dark Riders were the last unit I completed for this Army. As you can see in the pictures below I took these words DARK RIDER very, very serious. Some first miniatures of this unit were painted in October 2002. Further members of this dark gang followed in spring 2003 before this army project came to an end. There is not much to say about the painting. As you can see I maximized the possibility to paint 50 shades of black and grey. I remember not much about painting these but what I still have in mind is that it was terrible and frustrating painting these miniatures The final result surely has helped to distance from the idea of an Army in Black and White.

Characters

There is no Warhammer Army without their Leaders. The first Charakter I had finished for this Army was Malus Darkblade riding his Cold One Spite. This miniature fitted so nicely into my growing regiment of Cold One Knigths so that Malus was a must have to be painted. I added him already in October 2001 to my Cold One Knights long before the entire unit was finished. 

Malus Darkblade on his mount Spite painted in 2001

 

Malus is a nice mixture of elements from the Cold One Knights and the Corsairs. I really like his green sword, but I have no idea which demon bite me to paint it this way. If you can here me demon... thanks a lot! A major Drawback is the cut off head which just looks strange and unfinished. Definitely, something I would do better today... and a lot of other things too. 

 

Limited Malus on Foot painted in 2001

Malus twin brother on foot was introduced into my army in April 2002. This Limited Edition miniature was a Give Away during the Albion Roadshow and at this time point very rare. I remember paying 80 Euro for this guy which is still today a lot of money for such a rare miniature. 3 year later I got the same miniature for free as an event miniature at the Gaming Day in Vienna in 2005... and with me hundreds of other people. Definitely, one of my worser investments into rare miniatures. However, at the timepoint of purchasing this little bastard I was more than proud to have one and wanted to decorate him with a worthy paintjob. This meant during that time spending him some extra greys. Therefore, he get a loincloth and a sash full of skulls. The idea was from a Undead Necromancer who had the skulls sculpted into the clothes. Here I added them by freehand. I put one bigger skull into the center which was my favorite Dark Elves skull design released as an icon coming with the Tears of Isha campaign. Various smaller skulls I painted around thisone. The sword als got some special effect. It was inspired by a further Undead miniature I found in the widths of the internet, a vampire conversion which based on Aenur. His green sword remembered me on the greens of emeralds. A gem which fascinated me and which I often looked at in an geological exhibition in our institute where I studied chemistry at that time point. Today I am still very happy with this miniature and the challenges I mastered when painting him. The only thing which drives me totally crazy are his squinting eyes. The next time I will sit on the workbench I have to correct this or I go mad.  

In October 2002 I painted a further Character, the Sorceress miniature on foot from Chris Firtzpatrick also known as Morathi in reference to the famous Mark Gibbons Artwork. The miniature was already created in 1998 and beside the Dark Riders on of the few old miniatures which were transfered into the new miniature range. This Sorceress was my third version of this miniature I painted. Again I decided to spent a few extra greys on her. Because the girls of ther 00-years loved animal prints I went with the trend and painted her a snow leopard cloak.

She get some further decoration my adding finelings to the staff and on the inside of her cloak. The only drawback on her is that the pure white needed a bit more shading to make it a bit interesting but these times were far away from painting light sources into miniatures. I am still very happy with her and I have seen several copies of my painting floating around in the internet. What more you can expect as a painter than serving as inspiration for others.

The last character I added was the Sorceress riding a Cold One. This miniature was already a step into a more colourful direction and therefore she had already its appearance. Here full story can be read in my Articel about my first successful Golden Demon entry dealing with my Dark Elves Princess / Druchii Anointed on Cold One from 2003. 

   

Sorceress riding a Cold One painted in spring 2002

The Outcast

There was a third brother of my Malus Darkblade family... and if every family has this strange psychopathic member who ruins your family party. Here is mine. Make a long story short he disappointed me and was planned to get a complete rework. Finally, he ended as an outcast on my pile of shame and that is why you did not find him in the Army overview at the beginning. However, he has his a story to tell.

 

 His story started with release of the Melchior riding a winged nighmare. I liked that mount a lot and my idea was to use him in my army as a count as Dark Pegasus. I still like the idea and some mounted creatures in this direction were part of the Malus Darkblade comics, therefore not totally absurd. I spent a lot of work into his conversion. The nightmare get a head swap and with Spites head he looked muc more like a daemonic mount. On his back I added spikes and a chainmail armor. Malus himself get a self sculptured seadragon cloak with a hood as well as a halberd and reins. So far this conversion looked pretty nice but the problems started with paiting. At the beginning the miniature was painted the classic way of this army. But with the idea of a daemonic mount in my head and in discussions with others the idea of a mist/shadow daemon was born. I tried to add an effect which should look like the demon materializes out of a fog. Therefore, I painted swirls of fog onto the lower part of the mount and blended skin and fog into each other. Unfortunately, the effect was not self explaining. In my distress I sculpted some swirls of greenstuff and as these also not work I added a lot of cotton wool.

Detail pictures of highlights of this Character Conversion

Back in the day I thought all this was a good idea. I thought this idea was so brilliant to make this miniature an entry at the Golden Demon Competititon in the monster category in Germany 2004.As you might imagine, I totally failed. I never tried it a second time and the miniature was shelved. But with further development in my skills this miniature become more and more a thorn in my side. One day I ripped him in pieces with the goal to rework him completly and make him part of my second 6th Edition Army. The mount was resculpted and I started painting but the project was never finished and ended on my pile of shame. But there is hope! From time to time I grap miniatures from my pile of shame and finish them. Possibly, he will get a second chance one day.

 

Closing the cabinet

Time to put back this army into the cabinet. It really enjoyed to blow the dust from these miniatures, to take new pictures of them and dig through all the picture folders and my old website to gather a few information about what happend here 20 years ago. It was a busy time in which I started my studies, changed girlfriends and made a lot of Hobby. Beside painting I also learned sculpturing during that time and sculptured my first own miniatures. That all beside painting this army. Looking back I ask myself how I was able to paint so many miniatures during that busy time.

Sure, the colour scheme looks simple on first sight but is much more difficult when taking a closer look. All these black areas were highlighted towards dark or light grey and sometimes towards pure white. That is the maximum contrast you can paint and this contrast does not forgive you any mistakes. Taking togehter, painting all these Black and White transitions for two years trained me to paint very very accurate blendings. Therefore, this time was probably boring but not lost at all. All this helped me to become one of the most accurate technical painters in that time. And that outcast Malus on his winged Nightmare would become the last miniature which failed me in a Golden Demon contest for a long time. One other thing which remained was the pale Dark Elves skin tone which I became very famous for and which I use (slightly modified) until today for my Dark Elves.

I hope you enjoyed this trip down the Memory Lane. As always I would be happy to read your thoughts in the comments. So long, train your blendings and happy painting,

GeOrc