Unreleased Dark Riders - Part II

 Unreleased Dark Riders - Part II

Today my Dark Rider Story continues with part 2 and a detailed report about my work on the command crew. If you have missed part 1 which deals with the troopers of this unit, click here. As I had already stated in my previous article these Dark Rider models are extremly rare. I know only a couple of collectors owning them and to my knowledge a full regiment has never been seen before. And in particular a command crew for them has never been seen before because none was designed back in the day. To make a long story short the Command Crew you see here on the left based on the ideas of Aly Morrison and was then converted/sculpted by myself. The story of this joint project will be the focus of this article and it will be a long one. Therefore, grab a cup of tea or coffee because a wall of text and dozens of pictures await you!

My first meeting with Aly Morrison

With starting the Dark Rider project a hundred question arises about their design, history and why they did not make the cut into the release schedule. Being a scientist I had quickly half a dozen of hypothesis I discusses with friends and acquaintances. One of these friends one day said, you should ask Aly. I asked how this would become possible and then he gets us in touch. That was the short story how I get in touch with Aly. It was also the start of our discussions, first only by messages and then we met the first time personally in February 2020 at the Tactica Event in Hamburg. Aly quickly liked the project and the painting of his old designs. He was joking that some of these miniatures were older than his colleagues at work. He helped me a lot, tried to answer all my bothering questions and tried to remember details which were 25 years in the past. I tried to puzzle everything together and to reconstruct his professional years in the mid 90s. I learned a lot from him, about his life, his old designs and how he is designing and sculpting miniatures. Needless to say, that he is a friendly, warmheated and handsome guy. You don´t belive me?... Check the picture on the left!

Planning the Command Crew
Aly and I discussed a lot the Dark Elves range he created in the mid 90s. On this time point I already had started to sculpt some replicas of some unreleased and very hard to find bits. Also I had sculpted whole miniatures in the past. Consequently, I took the decision to fill the gaps in the Dark Elves range by myself. I asked Aly if he would help me with this and that I would like to sculpt these miniatures by his ideas so that these miniatures fit seamlessly into his original figure range. I was more than happy when he agreed and the the Dark Rider Command Crew became our first joint project. Beside some sculpting advice how he builds up his miniatures in the past he had some ideas in mind for these two sneaky chaps:

I would make the champion with the hood down and make the circlet and crest more elaborate... or possibly even give them a helmet... a sword might be a nice weapon or possibly a double ended version of the spear.

The standard bearer could have a more elaborate crest ... as for the top of the standard pole... I think I would keep it simple... something more suited to light troops... the grinning skull would look good and maybe also a dismembered enemy head...or three. 

This in mind I started sculpting!

My Sculpting experiments and my curse of perfectionism

A look on how cavalery units were structured in the early and mid 90s revealed that in majority they consist of two leg and two body versions for the troopers. The Command Crew Models always consist of a Champion and a Standard Bearer which were conversion of the bodies from the trooper models. Fortunately, I had two recast of bad quality of the troopers left. These required some repair work but reduced the sculpting effort on sculpting the new bodies only. For reference I used the Ellyrion Reavers and the Cold One knights from Aly which show nicely the way he has choose to update a simple trooper into a Command miniature. 

I started to with cleaning the leg parts and added a wire armature as basis for my sculpting. I checked the armature very often to be in size with the modified troopers. Then I fixed the armature itself and its hold on the leg with some first layer of putty which get some rough proportions for body and head.

 

Armature of the Dark Rider Command bodies

After the putty was cured I bended the arms in position. I cut the wire, but by a hint from Aly I keep the longer as needed. Then I added the details to the body and some first proportions for the arms. I took care that the proportions were always a bit smaller because multiple layers of putty will let them grow quickly. There is only need to have a rough idea at this moment. 

 

Added proportions on the arms and details on the torso

In the next step I added the details to the arms. To clothes on body and arms were sculpted similar to the corresponding trooper miniatures. By copying Alys design I learnt a lot about his way of sculpting and how he was using the tools. 

 

Final details on torso and arms

With the bodies finished there was need to add the cloaks. I rolled out some putty between some plastic wrap and cut out a rough shape of the cloaks. These I fixed this armature for the cloak on the bodies and sculpted the collar of them. With proceeded cure time I bend the putty in shape of the original cloaks and let these cure overnight. 

Armature for the cloaks

In a next step I added the details on the inside and outside of the cloak armature. Until this timepoint my designs looked very very similar to Alys original sculpts and I was very happy. 

Comparison of the sculpted cloak designs with their references

But then the drama started. The next step was to sculpt the heads and faces and I totally failed. Weel, I had sculpted whole miniatures before and also a lot of faces. But, their designs based mainly on the work of Chris Fitzpatrick and were from the mid 2000. Alys faces were much smaller and I had a lot of problems to get their proportions. 

 

Trying to copy Alys face design

After half a dozen trys I lost the motivation and put the project on ice. With some distance I realized that I need more practice and experience to get these faces done. To get that I needed more freedom in my designs. But the the Dark Rider project required copying Alys work. My perfectionism was in my way. Then I discussed with Aly the sculpting processes in the past and he told me that sometimes you get a box with broken greens from the moldmaking back. When checking all these pieces you get new ideas and started conversions based on these parts. I imagined myself getting a box with Dark Rider parts and decided to do conversions of them. These mock ups would also help to propably finish these greens some day.

Converting the Command Crew

With new motivation I returned to the Dark Rider project. I cleaned the body parts of my Dark Rider recasts and started with doing a lot of repair work. Unfortunately, I have not many work in progress pictures of my sculpting work on the riders, because these were done in March 2020 in a very short time. But I remember the rough process still very good. I started by removing the hood from the Trooper which should become the champion and all other elements not needed on both miniautres. The first thing I sculpted were both crests. For these I used brownstuff as it holds better the sharp edges. Then there was time to do the most difficult part, the repair of the face from the Champion. For that I followed the structures the face already had and completed it. Unfortunately, the face has become an asymmetrical look that way.  Looking back, I should have done this more freehand but at this time point I sticked very much to the original. However, I noticed this first while my painting and so it has was to late to correct it on the miniature. 

 

Conversion of the Dark Rider Champion

In contrast, sculpting the hair and hood worked very well. In parallel I added the scarf to the face of the Standard Bearer and treated him some hair extensions. For both I used Gary Morleys Dark Rider miniatures from 1998 as reference. The next step was adding details to the crest. Here I checked the Command Crews on foot for inspiration and added similiar details in greenstuff to their crests. 

 

 Conversion of the Dark Rider Standard Bearer

The most critical things were done now. Again I did some repair work on the some weak details on the clothes and cloaks. In case of the Champion I resculpted large part of the cloak and used the chance to add further details. 

Sculptured hair, hood and revised cloak with new details

Then it was time to add the weapon and standard respectively. For the Champion I wanted to copy the look of the Ellyrian Reaver Champion. Therefore, I looked for a big sword which shared the same characteristics. I found one in the typical Swordmen sword which was finally reused by Aly on the musician. I cut it off and added it to the Champions hand. There was need to correct the arm position a bit to get closer to my High elves reference. Then, I added some gems and a new hilt to complete this chap. The Standard Bearer was a bit more work. I added a 2 mm metal rod, the same size and position of the Ellyrian Reaver reference. Then I sculpted him a new hand and typical banner rod end pieces. The one on the lower end as jewelry and the upper end as connection for a banner top. For the latter I was very much in love with using Gary Morleys Banner top which I already had converted for this purpose. 

Repair work on the clothes and and the cloak

But, it didn´t feel right to use a bit from another sculpter in this unit of Aly Morrison figures. Therefore, I sat down and designed on by myself. I used a Spearmen spear, the Cold One Standard top and Beasdtlord Rakraths crest as reference and drawed a design. I made a putty copy of the spear using a simple stamp mold and for the jewelry part I cut of the design from a piece of plastic sheet. On this I sculpted all the details. With having everything finished I put the whole unit together to check the overall look.

Final design for the Dark Rider Standard Bearer

Looking back, to create my own banner top was a very good decision as thisone really stands out. Aly later told me he liked that design very much and that he can´t wait to see this unit painted. Very pround about his feedback it was time to move on and treat this chaps some colour.

Validation of the Dark Rider Command miniatures between their painted troopers

Painting the Command Crew

Before I started the painting, I put these two guys and their bits in a mold to create a personal copy in case I will ever do a second unit. Then I cleaned and primed the original conversions and one of my castings of the banner top. The following painting was then very straight forward to fit into my other Dark Riders. I started with the Champion and painted his face.

Covering some sculpting errors with my painting

I already saw after the priming that the face could be a bit problematic because of the asymmetric design of the eyes. I tried to minimize this effect by adapting both eyes to each other using shades and highlights. The result wasn´t perfect but I would work as long as you do not look eaxactly for it from a front view. I moved on with painting everything which was necessary to put leg and body part together. Then I finished the Champion step by step.

 Work in Progress on the Dark Rider Champion

In contrast all the new details were a lot of fun and I enjoyed to add much more colours to thisone compared to his troopers. Also, I could not resist to start the sword very early. I spent a bit more time on it and painted it with more attention to make this stand out. Luckily, I had painted his horse in advance so that I was able to put him directly on it after having him finished. With a lot of joy I moved him in his unit increaing its number to 5 and making it the first playable unit in my army.

 

Finished Dark Rider Champion within his regiment

Meanwhile it was end of August / beginning of September when I starte the work on the Standard Bearer. But, we had a lot of heat waves her in Germany which slowed down my painting. I had only a very slow progress and I was painting here and there for an hour without finishing elements completly and making it worth taking picutre. That´s the cause I have not much work in progress pictures of the Standard Bearer. The first ones I took in the end of September already show him finished without the Banner top. 

Work in Progress on the Dark Rider Standard Bearer

I finsihed the latter and his horse until the beginning of October and completed the unit. Proudly I took pictures of the whole unit.

Finished Dark Rider Command Crew within their regiment

The unit was already an impressive sight. I showed the Command Crew to Aly at this time point and he very much enjoyed the look of his ideas. Still his favorite was the Standard Bearer. The last thing missing was the Banner for him and it was time to make that chap even more impressive. 

Painting the Banner

Finally to complete the picture of a evil Elyrion Reaver version I wanted also to turn their banner into a dark counterpart. It was clear that the unicorn from the Banner has to be turned into a Dark Pegasus. That symbol also ties this unit to the sorceress riding the Dark Pegasus and therefore fits perfectly into my army concept. I did some research in the internet to look for inspiration and for ideas how to get the wings into that landscape banner. Unfortunately, all I found works better in a portrait format. Two nice examples are shown below. There was Morathis Banner of the Cult of Pleasure fraction from Total War Warhammer. Also a very nice Banner is the Ellyrion banner from the High Elf heraldry book released a couple of years ago. A shame that Dave Gallagher never did a version for the Dark Elves. 

 

Reference material used for creation of the Banner design

There was need to draw something by myself. For that I need perfect reference material and asked in the Middlehammer FB group for a scan of the WD which includes the Ellyrion Reavers Eavy Metal side. As always the group was very helpful! I get a scan, the right White Dwarf number #165 and a scan of the Banner sheet which inlcudes a 5th Edition version of this Banner. Finally, I bought the WD #165 on Ebay and had everything I needed. I started with copying the outlines of the Banner to get a similar size. Then I printed a 1:1 scan and cut off the horse above a layer of masking tape. With transferation of the the horse on the masking tape I had a template to transfer the horse outlines on the Banner. I changed and adapted the outlines a bit to adapt it a bit to my reference material. Then I added the wings freehand. I also added the clouds and and copied the lightning flashes. Finally, there was only a rune missing and I used one of the Dark Elves repertoire which perverted the original one best. The final design was scanned and mirrored into the left outline using Photoshop.

 

Final drawing of the banner design (top) and the final mirrored and edited version (bottom) using Photoshop

The complete design was then printed on a 100 g Paper and the paper sealed using Tamia Matt Vanish. The Vanish helps to close the paper surface and facilitate the painting with thinned colours. I started the painting by concentrating on the Pegasus first. I used the same colours as used on my Pegasus miniature including black for the horse and flesh colours for the wing membranes. The first sketch showed me that this central symbol will work very good. The dark Pegasus required a lighter background which directs the colour for the outer frame again on a dark colour. Therefore, I painted the frame of the Banner in again in black and repeated the colour of the Pegasus. 

First painting steps included painting the Pegasus and the banner outline

I did a lot of thinking about which background colour I should use. I discussed purple and red as two possible options fitting in the army context. Red would add a better contast but purple would make it fit better to the colour scheme of the unit. After discussion in my local painting forum I decided for the latter. The background was then painted using Liche Purple with a light to dark transition from top to the bottom. For the highlights I added some Bleached Bone and for the shades some Shading Mixture to the Liche Purple, respectively. In parallel,  I painted the clouds and the lightning bolts. The latter were a lot of work and required a lot of correction work between background and foreground. Finally I painted the rune in gold which contrasted nicely from the purple ground.

Roughly finished right side of the Banner

With one side painted completly it was time to start the other side of banner. It is always a bit boring painting something identical within such a short time, but there was no other way to get this finished. I repeated the steps above with some minor changes. This time I painted the lightning bolts before the background which helped a lot to reduce the correction work later.   

Final Banner ready for getting fixed on its banner pole

Finally, there was a lot of correction work. There was need to get a sharper definition of the lighting bolts, smoothening of the purple mcolours in the background transition, and some colour and blending adaptions. I also added soem fine lining to seperate the content of the banner from the outer frame using Russ Grey. With having the Banner finished it was time to fix it on the miniature and adapt it to its final shape.

Attached Banner and finished Standard

 I used PVA glue to fix the banner on the banner pole. This have to be done very carefully and quickly, as the PVA glue in combination with paper works like superglue. Once both sides are linked there is no step back. Therefore, there is need to do some testings without glue to get a feeling for the position. I glued the banner in two steps. first only the connection to the pole and the first cm of the banner area to get the link to the pole and the orientation of both sides perfectly right, second the rest of the banner area. After glueing I bended the banner slightly to give it some dynamic shape. After everything has cured and was really fixed I added the golden outline on the banner frame and adapted some colour transitions to its flow. 

Finished Standard Bearer carrying the Banner of his Mistress

Adding the banner was the most difficult part and I had a lot of trouble doing it right. Finally, I get it done but there was need to correct the cut of it. Some remaining minor errors disappeared with help of the golden outline. First I was very annoyed about the troubles I had but with some distance I was happy with the final result. The problems and errors were quickly forgotten when seeing the final result on my workbench.

  

Result and Outlook

I am very happy how these two miniatures turned finally out. It was a very long progress to get them done with a lot of ups and downs. But it was worth all the work and I was able to create something unique which has not been seen so far. 

Now its time to lean back for a moment and to enjoy the freedom of having finished this unit after more than 1.5 years. Here are some final pictures of the whole unit.

 

 

I tried my best to pay justice to Alys brilliant ideas and I am happy and feel honored to put this long forgotten miniatures from Aly into a worthy spotlight. Even if this unit had made me a lot of headaches and beside all the ups and downs I very much enjoyed working with Aly on this unit to finish what he had started 25 years ago. It has something really satisfactory to have filled this gap in his Dark Elves range. However, there are some more missing miniatures in Alys range which dropped from the schedule as time moves on and other armies get into the focus of Games Workshop. Therefore, stay tuned for further joint projects to complete this lovely miniature range from 1995.

I hope you enjoyed the read of this article. As always I am interested to read your thoughts in the comments!

Kind Regards,
GeOrc

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